Booklist 2024-2025

 July 1, 2024 until June 30, 2025 family read alouds.  So thankful we have such a wonderful lifestyle of books. 

Adrian's Favorites were Crispin and Tales of North Berwick

Audra's Favorites were Moon Over Manifest, Big Red and Elijah of Buxton 

Anna-Kate's Favorites were Alice in Wonderland, Freddy the Detective and Dominic 

I loved Lantern in My Hand, A Day No Pigs Would Die and The Book of Virtues is on my top 5 list for reading through with kids for Homeschooling. 

Family books

 My husband surprised us all by taking over a night of reading aloud.   I can't think of a more delightful surprise, for all of us.  

Childhood of Books 2023-2024

For the last 5 years, I've been keeping track of our annual family chapter book read alouds.  Here are the last four years: 



2022-2023

 2021-22

2020-21

2019-20

2023-2024:

Adrian's Favorites were Moonshiner's Son, Grandpa's Mountain, The Haymeadow and The Home Ranch.

Audra's Favorites were: Incident at Hawk's Hill, Henry Reed series, Lad: A Dog and Our Own May Amelia. 

Anna-Kate loved Mr. Popper's Penguins, Blue Willow, Tumtum and Nutmeg and Andre.  She also had remorse that she didn't include Trumpet of the Swan, so we'll add that for honorable mention. 

My favorites were The Fastest Hound Dog in the State of Maine, Onion John, Fields of Home and Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children. 

Read to them even though they can read on their own, you won't regret it. I promise. 

Good Reads

 We swung by a local used book shop, the one place my husband would prefer to avoid.  He said, "Here, Anna-Kate, come here and let's pretend to read. Your mom will think it's heart warming and take our picture."  And I did.  That's why she's laughing, because they are just posing.  Anyway, we left with a stack of books, obviously.  He didn't find one book in that whole store he wanted to take home. Pft.  I don't get it either.

Christmas books

 

Pulling the Christmas books back out is like being reunited with long lost friends.  We always have a mound of picture books, a hymn we're memorizing and a couple of Christmas chapter books we read during the month.  (This year we re-read Tree for Peter by Kate Seredy and we're going to do This Way to Christmas by Ruth Sawyer next week).  We also are reading about Christmas traditions around the world. What a joyous time to gather fireside to savor the richness of the season. 

My reader

This one will just plop down wherever she is and read, which is basically my fave thing ever. 

She loves to read to me, which is also my fave thing.  

 

2022-23 Childhood of Books

 These are the books from the 2022-23 school year. Morning books, evening books and some audio books. Picture books aren't here and some of the library and audio books aren't here.  

This is year 4 of keeping track of books with a visual, not just a booklist. 

2021-22
2020-21

2019-20

This year's book pic: 

Anna-Kate's Faves: Kerplunk (which is an adult book, but hilarious. I censored some), Uncle Wiggly's Friends and Mercy Watson series.

Audra's Faves: Rifles for Watie, Lyddie, Watsons go to Birmingham and  Book of Virtues.

Adrian's faves: Wonder, Henry Reed Inc (we've read books 1 and 2 of the 4 part series), Little Britches (we've read books 1 and 2 out of the 7 part series) and Zane and the Hurricane (hurricane Katrina) .

For the first time, they got me to tell my favorites.  Then Sings My Soul (hymn stories), Sing Down the Moon, Listening for Lions and Anne of the Island.  All the chapter books are re-reads for me, I like them that much. I'd agree with all my kids' choices too. 

It's a hard choice because there were SO MANY good ones.

Pooh

 I think this is the fourth time I've read Winnie the Pooh aloud and we've listened on audio countless times.  This season of parenthood has been thick and muddy as of late.  This little one sometimes needs to do her own thing so I can tend where needed.  I figured an extra reading of Winnie the Pooh would do both of our hearts good. 

Libraries

I've always been and always will be a library junkie.  I just love libraries.  We have a really neat  library system in Maine that our library card provides us borrowing privileges to oodles of libraries throughout the state. We can walk in and borrow from a whole list of libraries, returning whatever we borrow at our home library.  We love to try out different libraries and borrow from different libraries.  Did I mention that when we travel to our camp, I absolutely have a library card there, too?  I also love library programming and we bounce around to those programs too.

One of my faves is the yarn and fabric swap. I try never to miss this event.  I love this old library.  The right two shelves have many vintage Maine authored books. 

At our home library, my kids got to participate in the Drum and Fife historical program. 

And here they each submitted a poem they wrote on the "PoeTree"

If you've not been to your library lately, make a point to visit soon!

Read

A good book together, wearing mama made PJs. 

Book nook...err Book box

 When the sun warms up the 3 season porch just enough to make it the perfect place for a book nook, I get a little jealous and want one for myself. Can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon.

Plus, I made the dress and our neighbor made one of the blankets and a different friend made the other.  

Busy, and thankful

 

Relishing in the warmth of kindness and thoughtful gifts (thank you!) and thick in a busy season of serving this week.  Yesterday I hosted a large crew and we made evergreen arrangements as a service project. I'm half way through the art series I'm leading and prepping projects for that. I am leading a double header holiday sewing workshop this weekend, kids in the morning and adults in the afternoon.  I just got five sewing machines threaded and ready to go. Five sewing machines makes me far from a minimalist.  Toss in medical appointments, work, a church service night, an outdoor fire club we are a part of and a church program we're leading this weekend, it's the rest of the week and the weekend jam packed with a whole lot of good stuff.  I'm behind in my assignments for the Master Gardener Volunteer program, my kitchen could definitely use some attention, there are errands to run and things to do, we still need to eat and we're still homeschooling.  I'll be going through these days one step at a time, squelching out the inner talk of the things I'm not doing and amplifying the good that's happening each and everyday. 

It's raining, it's pouring.

It was raining. It was pouring. So we did our favorite thing to do on stormy days.  Brought our lunch to the ocean and the kids watched the waves while I read aloud.  We are LOVING Henry Reed, Inc.  You know it's a good one when I hear "More!  More!"

Daddy 'reads'

 I had a week with many meetings.  My husband was very 'helpful' for bedtime readings, lol.  As a fun bonus, you can see the kids almost always wear their mama mades for pjs. 

Story time

 Laying on mama made pillows, warm in mama made pajamas and snuggled up under woolen blankets for storytime.  I hope these memories of her childhood will put a smile on her face years from now like it does mine.  

Afternoon reading

 I often give my kids a homemade Popsicle and send them off to find a reading spot in the afternoon.  Real life today, I followed them and snapped a pic.

Adrian chose his room with all his collections.  He's so not a minimalist, but knows where everything is. Usually things are pretty tidy, although uncharacteristic of him, his dresser isn't all shut today.

And Audra chose her room.  Her room that was completely clean two days prior (sigh). Such a free spirit. She knows where nothing is, doesn't have a worry in the world. Plop her in the middle of wherever, she could care less about the surroundings.

And Anna-Kate chose her throne, naturally.

My predictable one, my free spirit and my queen all reading the afternoon away.  Guess who also found a spot to sneak a chapter in too? 10 blissful minutes before someone needed me. I'll take what I can get!.

Movie vs. Read Alouds

 Me: "Kids, your dad isn't going to be home and I have to zoom a meeting.  You can watch a movie." 

:::Mom zooms. Kids watch movie.:::

Me: "Sorry, my meeting went later than expected. You can just finish the movie and go up to bed when it's done."

Kids: "WHAT? And skip read alouds?"  "No. That's a bad idea. Let's shut it off now." "If we shut if off now, can we still read?"

(I've already read to them this morning for a solid hour and then some). 

If you know our family, you are certain of what happened next.

Bookworms through and through. 

Books -n- Snuggles

 

We went years with daddy working during bedtime. We've had since last January of daddy here for bedtime.  Now we're back to having daddy working literally for all their awake time as of late, (which is thankfully temporary).  Makes weekends extra special, when we all can be back together. Brief bits of sweetness, but he brings out the craziness in all of them! (I also spy four things stitched by mama in this shot). 

Afternoon Rest

 This sweet little girl knows how to take her afternoon rest. She hasn't napped since she was 19 months, but  she does find a way to have her afternoon rest, all on her own.  It's either snuggling Holly or curling up with a pile of books. I have set up various reading nooks for her (this is her fave) and she loves to make a mess like this. 

Or Holly is always up for a rest.

Lately she has been setting me up with 'Reading NEEKS" (which she says instead of nooks, as she invites me to take a pause with a book. She likes to spread blankets out and adding pillows and extra blankets. 

I am trying to take her up on her offer.

Even if she does talk the whole time.

Sweet, sweet moments with my littlest.

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