Tag: Laurel

The Christmas Story

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Our whole family participated in the children’s Christmas program at our church last Sunday. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun, but we are all glad it is over! Whew!

Linnea played the part of the youngest daughter in the family. She had seven lines, and she was quite a convincing little actress! I played the part of the mom. A real stretch, I know. I was glad I only had three lines!

Laurel performed several songs as part of the children’s choir.

And Michael performed three songs as a caroler and as part of a trio.

You can check out more photos of the dress rehearsal simply by hopping over to our church’s blog. Enjoy!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

Diana B.Leave a comment

We’ve been getting in the Christmas spirit around here. Since returning from our action-packed trip south in November (which I promise to post about later), we have:

played outside in the lightly falling snow,

rode a tractor-drawn wagon to hunt for a tree,

found the perfect tree,

smiled about finding the perfect tree,

lighted the perfect tree,

trimmed the perfect tree,

posed for a photo in front of the tree despite questionable nap hair,

hunted for candy canes,

sipped hot chocolate,

guzzled hot chocolate,

served hot chocolate,

taken a horse-drawn wagon ride, which would have been a sleigh ride if it had been AFTER the blizzard,

gotten all dressed up  to go see Cinderella live at the Children’s Theatre in Minneapolis,

endured our first blizzard of the season (sorry, it was way too cold to document with a photograph)

performed “Away in a Manger” on piano at the local nursing home,

and sung “Away in a Manger” for the local nursing home residents.

Whew! It’s no wonder we’re tired!

Ariel and Alice

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Once upon a time there were two young sisters. One was called Ariel, and the other was called Alice. Both were invited to a Very Important Date on Saturday evening.

Ariel was a beautiful, healthy little mermaid, swimming around and combing her curly locks of hair with a Dinglehopper. She had quite a lively imagination and quite an appetite for candy!

Dear little Alice also had quite a lively imagination. She was known for her lovely, long blond hair and for daydreaming about talking white rabbits with pocket watches. But sadly, Alice was not as healthy as her sister. And despite getting a seasonal flu shot on Monday, Alice came down with a terrible fever on Friday afternoon. Fortunately, Nurse chased down a tiny bottle of Tamiflu medicine, labeled “Drink Me.” So Alice tasted it. It tasted nice, so she drank it up. You’ll never guess what happened next, so I shall have to tell you. The flu bug began to shrink!

Then Nurse chased down lots of little pink and purple tablets labeled “Eat me.” Alice ate them. They tasted good. And then what do you think happened to her? No, you’ll never guess, so I shall tell you. Her fever shrank! But then it grew back to an abnormal size. So Nurse kept giving Alice more and more tablets to eat. Pretty soon, Alice was feeling rather curious.

By Saturday morning, Alice was still feeling curious but slightly less sick. She got dressed and watched Pirate carve up her giant pumpkin with two missing front teeth. Ariel also watched Pirate carve up her pumpkin with one lonely tooth. Afterwards, Pirate, Ariel and Alice all posed for pictures and then took a long afternoon nap. Meanwhile, Nurse cried and cried and wrote regretfully to her friends hosting the Very Important Date.

Dearest Friends,

Oh, dear! Oh, dear!

We shall be too late!

For your Very Important Date.

We’re all trapped here

In the Pool of Tears.

The key won’t unlock any door;

We’re missing you ever more.

We all have cried and cried,

See you on the other side! 

Sadly,

Alice, Ariel, Nurse and Pirate

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Pumpkin Patch Fun

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You might have noticed the snow in the background of one of Linnea’s toothless portraits. It didn’t snow here in our part of the state, but last Friday it did snow in Rochester. We made a day trip there Saturday to visit some dear friends of ours who recently relocated to that area. And we all enjoyed visiting Tweite’s Pumpkin Patch together. The girls picked out these enormous pumpkins!

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Exploring this kid-sized town was great fun!

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And the corn maze was fun, even if it was very mucky from the snowy slush. Linnea is our maze expert, and she helped us find our way out!

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Peeking through the window…

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Our little friend J- joined us. He’s pretty proud of his jeans and boots; and he totally stole our hearts with his dimples and that hat. He is such a sweet little farmer boy!

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This giant double-slide looked like a lot of fun, and it would have been if the girls hadn’t kept bumping into each other and their dad!

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Overall, it was a fun trip. Now we just have to find time to carve those big ole’ pumpkins!

A Dragon Tea Party

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Yesterday we finally had a Dragon Tea Party, which Laurel has been requesting for several months now. We sipped cinnamon plum tea while we nibbled heart-shaped cucumber sandwiches and cheese sandwiches. We ate fiery rings of dragon’s breath (dried cinammon apples) as well as dragon teeth (shortbread cookies) and pink M&Ms leftover from Laurel’s birthday.

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With so much help from Laurel and Linnea, the party required very little no actual planning on my part, and it covered both lunch and storytime. We might have to do a second one with actual, living, breathing guests, but this time around, we were content to have only stuffed dragons present.

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Once we were as stuffed as our guests, we read three dragon books:

  1. No Dragons for Tea by Jean Pendzowil
  2. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
  3. and, only because Linnea insisted, Peek-A-Boo Bard by Julie Aigner-Clark

And, after all the dragons awoke from their naps, I let the girls watch Pete’s Dragon. Just because. I loved that movie when I was little.

Oh, and by the way, if you read about our Teddy Bear Stay-Cation this summer, I should mention that we have two more additions to our list of teddy bear books. They are:

  1. Where’s My Teddy by Jez Alborough
  2. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen (Laurel’s new favorite)

Happy reading!

Exclusive Interview with 4-year-old Laurel

Diana B.1 Comment

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Laurel turned 4 last week. Here’s a little profile on her, similar to this one we did when she was only 2.

What verses are you reciting? Genesis 1:1, Matthew 6:24, Proverbs 3:5, Psalm 1:6

What else have you recently learned to recite? the days of the week and the months

What are your favorite books? Sleeping Beauty and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

What is your favorite Bible story? Adam and Eve

What is your favorite movie? Pete’s Dragon

What is your favorite food? cucumber sandwiches

What is your favorite part of mealtime? when we pray

 What is your favorite animal? zebra

What is your favorite thing to say? Can I play dress-up?

What are your hobbies? I like to play dress-up. And I like to do stuff with my mom without Linnea.

What do you do in your spare time? I play in my room alone, and I read books. Some books I read in my head; some books I read with my mouth.

What songs do you sing? “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “God of Wonders” and Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me”

How high can you count? up to 31…

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? to Frost & Steam for ice cream or Kwik Trip for an Icee

Besides being tickled, what makes you laugh? When people do jokes, make silly faces, when they do stuff silly to me…

What are your favorite colors? orange and light pink and black

What is your favorite game? Cariboo

What are your favorite subjects in school? science experiments and writing on pieces of paper

What is your favorite extra-curricular activity? dance class

What is your favorite new thing in preschool? my pink book

Who are your best friends? Grace, Samantha, Kelsey, the blue ballerina (Sophia), Julia, Annika, and Will

What do you like the most about homeschooling? paint dots and weather watcher

What do you like the least about homeschooling? not getting to do math with Linnea and Mommy

If you could live anywhere besides Minnesota, where would you live? Oklahoma

What characters do you like to dress up as? Cinderella and the Little Mermaid

3 Quick Weekend Highlights

Diana B.2 Comments

Here’s a quick roundup of our weekend:

A Moment of Bloggy Fame

Friday my good friend Jonda and I went to Mudd Lake Furniture in nearby Watertown for dinner and a special social gathering with blogging superstar MckMama. It was fun to meet Jennifer Mckinney in person and talk about homeschooling, potty training, blogging and the like. I also met a really nice fellow homeschooler, Christy, who is quite an inspiring person as well. She is mother to seven children (two are hers and five are children of her husband’s late first wife.) MckMama even posted two pictures of my friend Jonda and one picture of me on this blog post of hers. Can you find me? I guess we are famous now! Unfortunately, I managed to pick up a MckCold that evening, which put a damper on the rest of our weekend plans. Sigh. At least Linnea seems to be on the mend…

A Premature Snowfall

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Saturday morning Laurel woke us all up by exclaiming loudly: “It snowed! It snowed!” Sure enough, we had a thin blanket of white stuff covering the entire yard. By mid-day, it was windy and still only about 25 degrees, but eventually it warmed up enough (to an impressive 38 degrees, I think) to melt away the snow. The girls were sure to play in snow while it was here, of course! Since I wasn’t feeling well, Michael dressed them in their snowgear

A Jack-O-Lantern Smile

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Sunday evening during supper Linnea surprised us all when her top front tooth literally fell out onto her tongue. She is stumbling over words with “s” in them, and it is certainly adorable! We keep teasing that she looks like a Jack-O-Lantern when she smiles. My bet is the other front tooth will be gone before the end of the month!

Fancy #4

Diana B.Leave a comment

 

Our youngest daughter, Laurel, turned 4 this week, and celebrated with a dress-up party. Here are photo highlights from Fancy Nancy’s Fancy Laurel’s dress-up party!

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How Sweet She Is

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My baby is growing up. Here’s Laurel in the spotlight at 9 months old.

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And now here’s Laurel in the spotlight at just shy of 4 years old.

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I don’t need to tell you how much she fell in love with her dance class yesterday.

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She was all smiles, all day almost all day. Well, truth be told, we did have one teensy, tiny, slightly dramatic, emotional meltdown. Or two.

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Such is life with girls.

Back to School

Diana B.Leave a comment

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It’s back to school for our family this week! Our first day went as well as we could expect. We actually chose to start on Labor Day because the girls couldn’t stand to wait another day. They really look forward to school!

Much of what we are studying this year centers on U.S. history, a few presidents and a little about each of the 50 states. One of  today’s highlights was learning about the Pledge of Allegiance, why it was written and what it means. Linnea drew and colored this picture of the flag.

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Laurel did her own version of the flag below.

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One little-known perk of homeschooling is that students can wear hats to class! This was especially convenient for the first day because during our lesson about the Pledge we discussed removing your hat to show respect for the flag. It’s helpful to actually have a hat on when you learn that.

This year both girls have desks, and they are arranged side by side beneath one of our bulletin boards. Personally, I’m pretty thrilled about the bulletin boards. They are like giant scrapbook pages. Well, almost.  Another perk is that everyone gets a handy-dandy organizer tote (black with white polka-dot accents) to keep scissors, pencils, crayons, rulers, and the like right at your fingertips. Very useful and cute, too! 

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This one is my favorite picture from the first day of school.

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