Little Thrills

I'm not a homeschooler mom but I can't help wanting to teach my kids. I love to teach them to read and all the other stuff moms teach like hygiene and manners but sometimes I find myself crossing into other territories like (gasp) history and geography. One of my favorite stores in town is the parent/teacher school supply store here. I LOVE IT. I'm wierd. This has been proven. Which, I guess, explains why I am getting a little thrill from this recent purchase from little passports. Each month the kids will receive a package from their "pen pals" Sam and Sofia. (What a coincidence!) Every month "Sam and Sofia" are in a different country and send the kids a package with souveniers, pictures, maps, passport stickers and information about that country.





First of all: what kid doesn't love getting mail! Second of all: I plan on expanding on the idea by hanging up a map of the country we are learning about that month in the kitchen, making some of the foods from that country and maybe, possibly, really only if I feel like it, checking out books from the library about that country and checking it out in the Atlas.

I justify this wierdness by remembering one of my all time favorite parenting tips from James MacArthur. He said that the home should be a place of learning (of course) --but that it doesn't really matter that much WHAT you teach, just that you teach something. Apparantly,(aside from the basic religion, morality, hygiene thing) the thing that is good for kids isn't information as much as it is having parents who take the time to teach something. Which means you can teach your kids silly dances in the kitchen or how to make balloon animals or what the capital of brazil is.

P.S. Ponder this irony. The very day that I made a resolution to be better about documenting my children's childhood through photos on this blog -- I lost the charger for my camera battery and my camera battery went dead. Grrr.

Swingers

My girls love to swing

and they love for me to push them on the swing.

Which I think is less fun than reading stories on the trampoline

But alot more fun than playing polly pockets.

If you have never played polly pockets - let me warn you that it is a soul destroying hour of your life that you will never get back.

Whenever Ava wants to play polly pockets, one of her friends magically comes over to play--

Either that or I will say

Let's Swing!!

Sharing Secrets

How cute...

How cute is this necklace by Figs & Ginger. Perfect for February.

People are weird.

People have all kinds of crazy things that they adore from soda pop to brands of shoes. So it is with no shame at all, that I confess here that I am absolutely crazy about tableware. Yes, it's true- I love plates. So what? I also love bowls and glasses but tea cups and soup tureens make me swoon. Not just any old plates mind you - there are rules to the attraction and they are these: tableware must be simple, classic and CREAM. Sure, the dishes from my wedding were cream with bands of color around the edges but I was young, so young and now I know -- cream, only cream. These are the beauties that we eat off of almost every day. (the other days we are eating off of chinet!)

We even have the coffee pot-- but at our house it is the hot chocolate pot.

And this is what currently sends my heart pitter pattering. Allow me to introduce you to Wedgewood's Queen's plain.

Hello Lovely! Isn't she beautiful!! I know it's crazy, I know it's weird, but what can you do? People are weird.

Another reason you should move to Boise and be my neighbor...

...this ranch is 2 1/2 minutes from my front door.

Won't you please, please won't you be, Please won't you be ... my neighbor?

Another wonderful thing about Boise ...

...is the trees. Do you know how Boise got it's name? Well, the story goes that some of the first explorers to this part of the Oregon trail were french and when they finally made it to the point overlooking the Valley (and the large river) they shouted "Les Bois, Les Bois" meaning "The trees, the trees". And I must tell you that I had a similar reaction the first time I saw downtown Boise. The trees are impressive-- thanks to the large river which came to be known as "La rivière boisée", "The wooded river". The name shrunk - as things will over time and now it is just Boise. But it gets even better than that. The people of Boise wanted to preserve the beautiful trees so they created several very large parks strung throughout downtown Boise like pearls on a river string. And the cherry on top is that each of these parks is named after a woman in the community (or in the case of Anne Frank memorial, an honorable woman in history). Thus we have Julia Davis Park:

Ann Morrison Park:

Kathryn Albertson Park:

Alta Harris park:

Anne Frank Memorial:

Anne Frank Memorial has these cool stone walls with quotes about peace and human rights carved into them. If you are ever visiting Anne Frank Memorial Park look next to the quote by Mahatma Ghandi for a lovely quote from Gordon B. Hinckley.

These are just a few of the beautiful Boise parks but they are my favorites.

By the way - I took absolutely none of these photos - rather, I spent 2 seconds looking them up on google images. BUT... if you will show me pictures of what fall looks like where you are, I will show you mine.

Don't you just love trees?