The look of the blog

If you've made your way over here lately, you'll see that my blog looks a little different. A few days ago everything that was pretty {all that color! the hydrangea photo! the cute fonts!} disappeared, and I have not been able to recover it, so I've now got a pretty simple look going on.

A new blog design is in the works, and I'm really excited about it, but in the meantime, sorry for all that whiteness you're seeing. :(

Ella's "rag doll"

Ever since we read the Little House books, Ella has wanted to make a "rag doll" like Laura's Charlotte. She has talked about it from time to time, saying things like, "Mommy! I want to make a rag doll just like Charlotte!" or "Mommy! For Audra's birthday, I'm going to make her a rag doll!" But then the idea kind of fizzles.

On Sunday, Ella came with me to the fabric store to find the fabrics for this quilt, and apparently she must have received some fresh inspiration, because she came home full of enthusiasm about making a rag doll.

And then she set about to doing it!

She got white paper and a pencil and started drawing a pattern. Then we cut out the pattern and pinned it to some white fabric. Then we cut out two pieces of that. Then she embroidered a smile and sewed on two carefully selected button eyes. I showed her how to put the pieces right sides together and then I gave her a needle and thread and had her sew her doll together. By Monday night she was stuffing her Charlotte.

I helped her a little bit with each step, but she did most of the work herself. (ie- ALL the sewing, save for some sloppy stitches we discovered when it came time to stuff the doll)and today she did the finishing work. We added hair and Ella made a dress {which is pretty unfinished, but Ella doesn't mind!} For the dress, I let her use the sewing machine because she had already done so much hand stitching.

There were some tears on Ella's part: Her timeline was a little unrealistic and she was hoping for a finished, dressed doll in one day, and she was disappointed in herself for the rushed stitching that made for stuffing coming out of the seams, but I am so pleased that she began with an idea and followed it through all the way to completed {and cute!} product!

Our Copywork jar

This is something new we're trying this year: a Copywork jar.

Here is how it works. Each day for her scheduled Copywork time, Ella will go to the jar and pull out a slip of paper. I've organized it to give her some variety, so that each day of the week she'll be copying from different "genres", for lack of a better word. Here's the schedule I came up with:

Monday (pink paper)= Poetry
Tuesday (yellow paper)= Quotes
Wednesday (blue paper)= Bible verses
Thursday (purple paper)= Look Up...*
Friday (green paper)= Literature and History selections

*On Thursdays I have given her something to physically go and look up. Here are a couple of examples:
-Go to page 23 of the book you are reading and choose a sentence to copy.
-Go to the library basket, choose a book from it, and copy all the words from one page of that book.



Mark and I had a lot of fun choosing the passages for Fridays. We pulled our favorite read-alouds off the shelves and searched for the passages we knew Ella would love to revisit. Here is one of those:

Not until the light began to fade could she move away from the place. Then she ran so fast up the mountain that it was not long before she saw the boughs of the fir trees above the roof, and then the roof itself, and then the whole hut. On the seat beside it sat her grandfather smoking his pipe, and over the hut the old fir trees were rocking and roaring in the evening wind. Heidi ran all the faster, and before the Alm-Uncle could really see who was coming she threw her basket on the ground and hugged him. In her excitement of seeing him again she was unable to say anything, except to keep exclaiming, "Grandfather! Grandfather!"

~Heidi, by Johanna Spyri

Or how about this one?

"Ohh!" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-- quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and no mistake" said Mrs Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

~The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis

I love it that Ella will be able to recall particular scenes and the characters she has loved in the good books we've read, as well as the memory of all of us curled up on the couch, reading these books aloud together as a family, and discussing them afterward.

My view this afternoon

{Audra's quilt}


This quilt has been well over a year in the making.
(I guess it's been a busy year?! :))

I've had the quilt top made for several months, but have had such troubles finding the backing and binding fabrics. Granted, I haven't taken too many trips out to look, but... still. Today, though, I scored at the fabric store and found both fabrics, and just like that I'm highly motivated to finish.

Open House: Thursday, September 23

I am wearing... Black knit capris + a plum-colored t-shirt.

I am listening to... Ella, practicing piano. Isaac and Isaias, running through the house hollering and pretending that Audra is chasing them. (Which she's not.)

I am reading... Hm. I'm not really engrossed in a book right now. [Which means everyone should give me a book recommendation, stat.] Reading through the book of John for my quiet times, though.

I am looking forward to... The hot bubble bath I'm going to take later, after I run on the treadmill. (See? One more reason I need a good book. ~sigh~)

Outside my window... Well, the shades are drawn now because it's dark, but I happen to know there's a spider and her web outside the window I'm sitting in front of. We've been watching the spider build her web and Ella catches and tosses a crane fly at it occasionally so we can watch Miss Spider capture it.

I am creating... Nothing whatsoever in the crafting department.

I am praying for... a greater sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

Thankful for... "Nuggles" (snuggles) from my littlest...

From the kitchen... Tonight's menu: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, peas, homemade applesauce, and pumpkin-chocolate-chip muffins for dessert (to celebrate the first day of FALL!)

{Updated to add:} Here's what we did a few minutes later. Usually my girls are a little more active, but for some reason tonight they wanted to both be planted on my lap! Oh. And my apologies for the poor-quality (and dim) video!

Why do Copywork?

In the process of planning and preparing for this coming school year, I re-examined those things that I want to be doing, and remembered all over again why we're doing them to begin with.

Copywork is one of those things.

Here are the reasons we are doing Copywork in our home:

*Copywork allows our children to see proper sentence structure, grammar, and spelling.
*Copywork introduces them to new vocabulary.
*Copywork improves their handwriting.
*Carefully selected copywork gives our children the opportunity to reflect on worthy passages/quotes.

* * *

Here is one of our Copywork selections:

Be the living expression of God's kindness;
kindness in your face,
kindness in your eyes,
kindness in your smile,
kindness in your warm greeting.

~Mother Teresa

I love this. What a wonderful quote for my daughter to meditate on as she copies these words!



Next up: How we're doing it.

Mama Monday

I regularly read Andrea's blog The Flourishing Mother, and am so often encouraged by her posts. She has a wonderful series of Mama Monday posts, where she has thoughtfully interviewed other mothers. It is a great group of women, and I am honored that this week I get to join that group!

If you would like to head over to The Flourishing Mother, you can read my responses to her questions in her Mama Monday post.

{Thank you, sweet Andrea!}