Unforgettable Childhood

Do you celebrate Dr. Seuss’ Birthday on March 2nd?

Books are a big deal in our house, and an opportunity to celebrate reading, well that is a given.

March 2nd is on Tuesday this year so we are going to celebrate the entire week.

I am headed to Barnes & Noble on Saturday to find some books to add to our library on this special week. I am still making all the plans but here are a few of the ideas so far. . .

Canvas Book Bags – I am always worried about getting our Library books mixed up with our regular books (I just found one of stuffed into one of the bookshelves this week). Summer is right around the corner, we hope, so we will be making a lot of trips to the library. We are going to design some Book Bags that we can use on our trips to the library.

Birthday Party for Dr. Seuss - Tuesday will be our day to party. We will celebrate all things Seuss.

Wordy Wednesday – We will be celebrating words on Wednesday. Instead of reading, we will be writing. My oldest daughter loves to write. She is the only kid I know that gets super excited about a blank notebook or loose leaf paper. I am going to purchase journals and supplies to pretty them up.

Poetry Party – I love all things that rhyme: Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, Dr. Seuss. We are going to read some poetry, write some poetry and have a little poetry party. I will share more when I find all my poetry books and I finalize the details.

Illustration Stations – You can’t celebrate reading without taking some time to celebrate the pictures that help you jump into the story. We will be celebrate with some awesome picture books. One of my favorite Illustrators is Mark Ludy. I love his book The Flower Man. I hope to find my girls When I Was A Girl. . .I Dreamed. I am going to set up art stations with Watercolors, charcoal, pencils and color. We will be making our own picture books on Friday.

I would love to know how you are going to celebrate Read Across America. I can’t wait to share our pictures, stories and parties with you.

I spend a lot of time playing games with my 4 year-old. She really likes to win. When it is just her and myself, I give her a little slack and most of the time I let her win. I am realizing that maybe that isn’t the greatest strategy.

Tonight the three girls and I had some family game time. The first game we played was Guess What I Am.

We all love this game. It is fun to stick our faces through the holes and make guesses like, “Am I an animal? Do I have feathers? Am I a girl or boy?”

This game went pretty well. No tears. Little one kind of did her own thing.

Then we played the new Connect 4X4. Nadia did not want to be blocked. She did not want to wait her turn, She wanted to win. Her sisters are not quite so easy on her as I am. They wanted to win, too.

This almost turned into a game of war. This is usually when the tears come. Luckily tonight we all laughed.

I will never forget when we had some friends over for a night of games. Their then 4 year old lost a game and said, “I hate myself”. We laughed back then and couldn’t believe that our kids would ever act like that when they lost. . . Fast forward 5 years and I am the one that isn’t laughing at my 4 year olds behavior.

So how do you do it? How do you get a 4 year old to participate and not always think they have to win?

We didn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day until Saturday night. Last week we were crazy busy preparing for a Dinner Theatre at church. I was in charge of the decorating. Try decorating a dinner for 124 on a very limited budget. This is what I came up with.

It really was beautiful with all the lights off and all of the candles lighting up the room. The cookies on the table. . .they are the sugar cookies that I posted last week on The Girl Creative site.

So, we decided on Saturday night to go out for supper and then come home for dessert. I wasn’t sure what I was going to make that everyone would enjoy so I made two things.

For my hubby I made miniature cheesecakes. Nothing fancy here, just out of the box with a little caramel and chocolate drizzled on top.

For the girls, a giant chocolate chip cookie. It was really yummy, despite the fact that I almost caused a fire in my oven. The recipe said to put it in a 14″ Pizza pan. I put mine in a 12″ pizza pan which resulted in it overflowing onto the bottom of my oven. Oh well, I added a little frosting to make it pretty and everyone loved it.

I have been looking for something that I could do with my middle daughter that would be something that just her and I could do together. One of the things that she loves to do is read and be read to. One of my friends with four girls told me that they are on their third round of reading the Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder to their daughters.

Living in South Dakota, one of the locations of the books, I thought that this series would be perfect for us. I picked up a box set of the first five books.

She was excited when I showed them to her. She said they are actually reading the first book in school. She didn’t care and couldn’t wait to start the first book at home, too.

We try to read one chapter a night. Sometimes her dad puts her to bed and they read a different book. The Little House books are a special time for her and me.

This summer we will try to get to DeSmet, South Dakota and visit the Ingalls Homestead. I am excited about this journey we can take together through the books and in real life.

I may have to find the TV show and DVR it so we can watch a few episodes together. I remember watching them when I was a little girl.

Are there any books that are really special to you and your kids?

My oldest daughter had to make a homemade Valentine’s box for her school party this year. I remember the days that I made my boxes. I always had grand ideas, but I never quite pulled them off. This girl, doesn’t settle for anything less than the best.

I gave her some ideas and she decided that she wanted to do a treasure chest. . .well that lasted until she saw some of the other boxes come to school. Then she decided that she needed to go a little more elaborate. My suggestion to her was the Love Boat.

I sent her to the garage to find four boxes. I went to the store for a lot of tin foil. Luckily I have a lot of paper around here for one of these days when I am going to find time to scrapbook. . .

We shaped the bottom box to form a ship shape. she figured out a way to reinforce the inside of the box with cardboard pieces and duct tape. We wrapped all of the boxes in tin foil.

We added some windows and waves. The back of the box even opens up for her unloading zone. There is a opening at the top for her valentines.

This was a super fun project that her and I were able to work on together. Her sisters were jealous, but they will have to wait until they are in third grade to tackle this project.

Mission accomplished, I think it was a success.

Back of the Boat:

Front of the Boat:

The S.S. Taylor:

Resourceful Mommy is kicking off a new campaign titled 30 Days of Change. Her first challenge is all about Parenting. I decided that this is a perfect campaign topic for this blog.

Each day she will post a challenge for the next day. In her words, “The purpose is to create a happier, less stressful relationship with our children, so to participate simply choose a person in your life with whom you would like an easier repoire.”

Her first challenge is this:

Throughout the entire day tomorrow, say the word “no” to your children as infrequently as possible.

My little one is home with me all day tomorrow so this will be an interesting challenge for me. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

I am taking the time this morning to get back to my meal planning. I bought a new cookbook yesterday that I planned a majority of my week by. The Cooking Light – the essential dinner tonight cookbook. There are amazing recipes in this book and every recipe has a picture. That is my kind of cookbook. The rest of the week is from The Sneaky Chef  to the rescue cookbook. This will be the first time I try a few recipes from this book, too.

Monday: Spaghetti Carbonara

Tuesday: Pork Medallions with Olive Caper Sauce

Wednesday: Honey Battered Popcorn Shrimp &

Pasta with Better Butter Sauce

Thursday: Oven Fried Chicken

Friday: Roast Chicken with Balsamic Bell Peppers

(I have posted this recipe before. It is so good. I even got my husband to eat the peppers!)

Click on any of the recipes for a link to the recipe online. Enjoy!

I am linking up with OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday