Skipping Through the Stacks

We are a family that LOVES books. Well, except for a certain adult, but he will remain nameless and actually, he loves that his family loves books. He just has this problem where a book in his hands puts him to sleep. Thankfully all of our children have loved looking at books since their chubby little baby hands first learned how to turn the pages of a board book. We look forward to our weekly trips to the library where we load up. The kids stand at the counter ready to snatch their pile as soon as the books have been scanned. So you can imagine my dismay the first time I took Teshome to the library after he had been home about 3 weeks and he HATED it. We have had some of our worst pouting moments at the library. So, with my work cut out for me, I happily brought home any Curious George or "Buzzy Woody" book I could find. At first he pretended he wasn't interested even though those are his favorite characters. Yup, it didn't take much time being an American and he's already got his favorite animated heroes. A few times I caught him paging through the books I brought home to lure him into "reading" and I wanted to jump for joy, but I pretended I didn't notice. That was all part of my plan. Keep it cool. Don't try to force him to love books. Limit TV time. Have books all over the place (that one is easy around here). He continues to moan and whine when I read for too long- like more than five minutes- as the other kids all sit and listen and ask questions. I realize part of his lack of love here definitely has to do with the fact that he doesn't speak English fluently or understand everything. And it also has to do with the fact that all of the books at the orphanage where ripped and broken and scribbled in and just plain no fun. It's not like he had story time everyday there. So I'll keep working on it. Today, though, I had a beautiful victory in my endeavor to create a bibliophile. We went to the library and he was HAPPY. He searched the stacks, SKIPPING along looking for things that he found interesting. He brought home a book about Australia, a book about hang gliding, a book about New Jersey, and Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats. I was not even bothered by his choices because HE chose books! Yippee!

Sharing A Good Read

"The simple and obvious fact for the Christian is this: adoption and orphan care aren't new ideas; they're biblical ideas. The reason we must stress them is the same reason we stress evangelism, prayer, stewardship, and other practices Scripture teaches us. Caring for all of the fatherless is enforced in God's Word, flows from God's heart, and such care embodies convictions that have marked God's people for centuries."

Challenged by Radical

I expected that this book would challenge and inspire and it has not let me down. Read it, but be prepared to be rocked.

"We are, by nature, receivers. Even if we have a desire to learn God's Word, we still listen from a default self-centered mind-set that is always asking, What can I get out of this? But as we have seen, this is unbiblical Christianity. What if we changed the question whenever we gathered to learn God's Word? What if we began to think, How can I listen to his Word so that I am equipped to teach this Word to others?.....When we realize we have the responsibility to teach the Word, it changes everything about how we hear the Word."

Not So Short Stack

I have an ever growing pile of books read. Where do I begin? is the question!
I just finished The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent. It was a fascinating book based on stories from the author's own family about an ancestor who was imprisoned as a witch during the Salem witch trials. Now I am reading The Wolves of Andover by the same author. Fiction sits on my nightstand and takes awhile to get through because I read anywhere from a page to a few chapters right before I go to sleep and usually I don't last very long.

I am saving this book for my flight and can't wait to open it!




Here are the other books that I am eager to dive into-








What are you reading?

January Read Alouds

We STILL haven't finished listening to
Hans Brinker on cd, but we will by the end of the month!
I had to take a break from it though so we just read

The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis
Willy's Trunk (Lamplighter)

and tomorrow we'll start our second time through
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis

November and December Read Alouds

I have to admit, Hans Brinker has taken us FOREVER. It moves pretty slow so I often can't handle reading it for long. We coninued to plug away at it.

October read alouds

I really was planning on posting our books each month and here I am way behind! In October we had several weeks of fighting a nasty cold with a lingering cough so we did very little reading. We read a

biography on Martin Luther and started

Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates.

We had learned some things about the Netherlands for History so I thought Hans would be a good read. And it is a neat story and really teaches a lot about the culture and life of Holland, but it is SLOW going! I was thrilled to find that the library has it on cd.

This is already changing my life! And we've only just begun. Why oh why, in spite of several friend seeing the success of using it, was I so slow to dive in??




You can find it here

Inspired by Life in a Shoe and a good book

My friend Brooke recently directed me to this blog. Check out her post entitled "10 milestones that make Mom's life easier." If you, like myself, get overwhelmed by the amount of people needing you to do EVERYTHING for them, you will be encouraged by this!

Yesterday I was very frustrated by my girls' inability/unwillingness to just pick up the toys!! It was a miserable afternoon for the three of us as I worked to train them. Later I remembered that I used to go through the same process with Peter and Kate. They would just end up playing and fighting and making bigger messes. Well, now (for the most part) if I tell the 3 oldest it's time to pick up, Peter gets right to work. As I notice that he is doing most of the picking up, I usually excuse him and tell Kate and Maddie to finish up. So there's hope! Perhaps in the next year Kate will make more of an effort as well!

I have been reading the book Raising Godly Tomatoes. It is a wonderful book about training for obedience the first time. It's a little scary to read because it requires a huge amount of time and CONSISTENCY on the part of the parents. However, I am definitely seeing where I have failed in the past and I want to change things! It is so exasperating to have to repeat myself over and over again when there is no reason that my children shouldn't listen right away. It would have been so much easier if I had started this with Peter when he was a baby! You don't realize what a big deal it is until you have a few children. With one it's easy to overlook a seemingly small issue- like a toddler not coming when you say, "Ella, come to mommy." The easiest thing to do when she ignores me or even says "no" because she's busy looking at a book is to just pick her up and take her where I want her to go. But unless I want to be picking her up when she's 6, I need to keep working on TRAINING her to come the first time! I HIGHLY recommend this book- as with most parenting books, I don't agree with every single tiny detail, BUT it is so full of valuable insight and ideas. The author is a mother who seeks to train her children for obedience so that they can glorify God- not just so that her life will be easier! That should be our goal- building and training our children to glorify and serve the Lord! When I slack off and let them get away with IGNORING me, I am not doing them any favors, nor am I being faithful to my calling as their mother.

Goodreads

I love books and I love to hear about what other people are reading so I was very excited to find out about Goodreads.com. Check it out! And if you decide to use it, please invite me to see your books. I'm not going to tell you anymore about it- you'll have to look for yourself. My eyes are having trouble staying open so I need to get off this computer and get to bed.

Quality Books

I am always on the lookout for quality reading material for my children. A couple of days ago my mom directed me to Reformation Heritage Books. I was trilled when I visited their website and found so many wonderful books. They should be sending my mom a thank you note for the money they will be making off me!! I can't wait to get the books I ordered including
When I'm a Mommy (a little girls book on Proverbs 31)
When I'm a Daddy (a little boys book about Biblical Fatherhood)
Boys and Girls Playing and other addresses to young children by JC Ryle
Ten Boys Who Made History
Ten Girls Who Made History
Lessons From Nature (poems for boys and girls) by John Bunyan
and more that I can't remember right now.

Check out their website, http://heritagebooks.org/ and I'm sure that if you are a book lover, you will be delighted with this discovery!! I did keyword searches using the words "children" "boys" and "girls" to find the books I ordered.

Here are some other websites that I order books from
http://titus2.com/
http://visionforum.com/
http://triviumpursuit.com/
http://veritaspress.com/

Happy Reading!!

What goes around comes around?

When I was a little girl my parents could hardly pry books out of my hands. I can remember trying to get away with reading at the dinner table. I actually thought if I held the book in my lap they wouldn't notice! And at night I would read with a flashlight under the covers. Or I would put something like a rolled up blanket at the bottom of my door to block the light as I read in bed. I still love to read and find myself reading a cereal box or grocery flyer for the tenth time if there is nothing else near me. I have to work at not allowing myself to read when I am eating lunch or breakfast with the kids. I don't want them to think that my reading is more important than they are. Just as my husband needs a few minutes of Discovery channel to unwind, I HAVE to read before I fall asleep. It doesn't matter how tired I am, I have to atleast read a page! And while as a child I couldn't stand to read more than one book at a time, I now usually have several going at once and pick up whatever I'm in the mood for. My night stand is always covered by two or three stacks of books. In the past year or so I've hardly read any fiction. I was into one of the Karen Kingsbury series for awhile until I decided that they are just a little too much like a "Christian soap opera"- if there could possibly be such a thing. I don't mean to sound overly critical here. If you can read books like that and still tend faithfully to your work and not let your mind get carried away too much, good for you. I decided there's just too much I want to learn about and I just don't have time to waste on the sort of addictive drama that even Christian authors are turning out. However, I did just read a book by Elizabeth Berg called Dream When You're Feeling Blue. It was light, quick, and very tame for a secular author. It was a story about an Irish Catholic family specifically 3 sisters, in Chicago during WWII. So I got my fiction fix for awhile.

Here are the other books I'm reading right now:



Keeping Your Children's Hearts by Steve and Teri Maxwell- this is the one I read a chapter of while I'm on the treadmill in the wee hours. I told Pete that the other day I almost threw it across the room. I think there are a lot of really good ideas in it like setting spiritual goals for your children, sheltering your children from the negative influences of the world, etc. BUT that particular morning some of the seemingly extreme ways that the Maxwell's have chosen to shelter their children kind of got on my nerves and I almost had to stop reading. But it's really good, really.



A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola- this has opened my eyes to the Charlotte Mason method of education and I WANT TO KNOW MORE. I want to figure out if I can combine the two methods of education that really appeal to me- Charlotte Mason and Classical- and what would that even look like?



Classical Education and the Homeschool by Douglas Wilson, Wesley Callahan, and Douglas Jones



Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons- this one is going to take a while.



Teaching the Trivium by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn- this will be on my night stand for while as well.



The Everything Homeschooling Book by Sherri Linsenbach



with the kids I am reading-



book 2 in the Moody's series by Sarah Maxwell. These are wholesome books about a homeschooling family and all of their adventures



We read a story from our Catherine Vos Bible story book each day after lunch. I got a book called the Bible picture timeline from Veritas Press and I am working on putting a plan together to read the story from the Vos book and the scripture that corresponds with each page in the timeline. The timeline book is coloring pictures. So Peter and Kate will color the picture that goes with the weeks story and then they'll each make a notebook including some thoughts of their own with the pictures. I'm really excited about starting that soon as we are almost ready to begin the Vos book again.



Today we read Sarah Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan



Recently we read the first 3 Narnia books. Peter isn't happy that I wanted a break from Narnia!



then there's the usual pile of library books. Peter and Kate each check out one on geography (they each pick a state or country they want to read about), a biography, a science related book, and then several for fun.



Wow- I really didn't mean to go on forever about books. The whole reason I started to write tonight is because I got the kids in bed and decided to head to bed myself and do some reading. Peter always likes his door cracked open and through the crack I thought I heard the sound of a page turning. So I crept into his room and what did I find? Peter Ryan, head lamp on, with a pile of books on his bed. I could barely get out the words, "turn off the light and go to sleep" because I was trying not to laugh. I am so happy that he has such a passion for reading! He checked the Children's Illustrated Classics version of White Fang out of the library on Saturday. That's a book I read aloud to the kids last fall and he loved it. He asked me to read it again and I said "No, if you want you can read it yourself, but I'd like to read things to you that we haven't already read." So what did the boy do? Read 14 of 17 chapters already!!! As a gift from my parents he got this handy dandy head lamp that goes off by itself after a certain time period. We have found him asleep with it on more than a few times!