Bonny and Owl

Bobby Shafto's gone to sea,

Silver buckles at his knee;

He'll come back and marry me,

Bonny Bobby Shafto!

Our little one loves this traditional English nursery rhyme! She delights in playing the part of Bonny Shafto, so we couldn't pass up on these matching sailor outfits! She regularly pretends to be Bonny, and she happily carries "Owl Shafto" along with her at times. She has such a fondness for this nursery rhyme that Mommy couldn't help but provide her with a homemade wedding veil to complete her dream!

What a joy it is to share in the delights of our little ones!

This post is a part of Make-Believe Mondays at My Three Rivers Home

Apple Picking 2011

We have a lovely fall tradition of visiting an apple orchard with our very dear friends. This year we visited a new orchard, which turned out to be so wonderful! The weather was perfect, the orchard was quaint and charming,

the apples were delicious, and the company was even better!

What special memories we made this year!

Autumn Anew

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

~Albert Camus

Shared by The Quote Garden

With thankfulness for a delightful summer, we enter into this most glorious season of autumn! The leaves have begun to change here, with beautiful hues of yellow and orange appearing. The air is starting to cool, and our fall traditions of apple picking and pumpkin gathering have already begun.

One of the joys of having children is that everything seems so much more beautiful. The seasons themselves become more apparent, the activities become more vivid, and the anticipation of a new day awaits with eagerness. With thankfulness for the dawning of autumn, I cannot help but pass into a new season without remembering the delightful days of summer.

For both my enjoyment now, and, Lord Willing, for our little ones to recount with

fondness in the years ahead, here's a look at Summer 2011...

Toddling with Fractions

Our 3-year-old loves her bathtub crayons! Not only are they great for making bathtime masterpieces and for painting fingernails (and yes, she really has done that!), but they are also wonderful for helping her to learn fractions! Our little one sometimes has trouble remembering how much of her milk she is allowed to drink while she is waiting for Mommy to finish preparing a meal, so I use one of the bathtub crayons to incrementally mark the side of her cup. I then let her know which marking she is to drink to. She is not only learning fractions along the way, but she's leaving a little room in her tummy for dinner!

Imagination

There are those special moments during the course of motherhood that cause you to pause for an instant and, with thankfulness in your heart, delight in the joys that are beheld. The warmth that ensues upon being allowed to enter into the imaginary realm of bumblebees and ladybugs, princesses and horseback riders can hardly be explained, but what a joy it is to catch a glimpse of the thoughts that travel through the mind of a little one...

Perhaps to the passerby the sight of a bubblegum pink stethoscope draped over a doorknob may simply indicate a landing place, a place where a child's toy was left as its owner scurried to the next activity.

But as I look upon the memory of this stethoscope draped casually over a doorknob, I consider that this was completed with the fullest of intentions. Perhaps our little girl who delights in playing with her medical kit, who becomes giddy at the first sight of an "injury," who places countless Band-Aids upon her imaginary scrapes and bruises, hung this stethoscope carefully in her medical office for use later, when an emergency required its services. Perhaps it is just one of the greatest joys of motherhood, to enter into this realm of whimsy and sweetness, of imagination and delight...

This is part of Make Believe Monday Link Up at My Three Rivers Home.

Thank you for visiting!

The Sweetness of Little Minds

There is hardly anything so precious as a newborn baby. How sweet it is when these delightful souls grow and grow and grow a little more, even to be able to communicate their thoughts and intentions with us. We no longer have to wonder what they might need. A verbal exchange is shared, and a lovely conversation is sparked... farm animals, princesses, ladybugs, and bumblebees. How beautiful is the mind of a little one.

And how sweet they are, how especially precious, so undeniably innocent even before they reach that stage of verbal proficiency. Sometimes, though I must admit, not enough, I try to think about what our little ones might be thinking. This evening, as I was so thankful to be sharing a few moments with our 7-month-old as I tended to things in the kitchen, I was imagining what might be passing through her mind. We have delighted in the moments when she has begun to use a new word, but her smiles and outstretched arms and cries for Mommy are still her primary mode of communication. She is so wonderfully, so beautifully, so extraordinarily precious.

So tonight, I wondered, as I continued to talk with her, what was she thinking about? As she examined the toy turtle in her sweet little hands, I began to share the story of the tortoise and the hare. Initially, I was thinking of her budding language skills, but then I was reminded of her. Just her. Without the hopes and dreams surrounding language and grammar, math and literacy. Instead, I imagined what she was thinking as she listened to her mommy talk with her. I'm quite certain that her thoughts were not really on whether the tortoise or the hare won the race. Instead, she might have been thinking of how happy she was to just be near Mommy, to hear her voice, to know that she was explaining something to her.

What a blessing it is that God has entrusted us with these little ones. I hope that in this journey of home education, and perhaps even greater, in this journey of motherhood, that I will remember that the academics are secondary. The time spent together pursuing these educational goals is far more important than the education itself. And in the end, we want to train these little souls to serve their Father in heaven and their Lord Jesus Christ. May I always consider the hearts of these little ones and the thoughts that travel through their minds.

All Things Scissors

The number one crafting item at our house these days (and many days before that!) is scissors. Our three-year-old, who is wonderfully responsible with these, will cut just about anything! And fortunately, she is quite good at asking for permission prior to cutting something new, so I am thankful to report that, to date, we have avoided any serious mishaps. With a snip here and a snip there, she will add her special touch on anything from paper and plastic to cardboard and thread. And as she has been quite diligent about her habit these days, I have observed how her fine motor abilities have really increased in this area.

If you have any young children who are ready for some fun with scissors,

you might consider a few things that we have learned along the way:

Provide a pair of child's scissors that are appropriate for her hand size and are a comfortable fit when considering her hand preference.

Make the scissors readily available if you think your child is ready for this step. Right now, we have her scissors in a decorative pail that we keep either at her easel or in her play area in the kitchen. This would also be a good time to lay some ground rules for the use of scissors.

Provide a variety of scissors. I purchased a number of Fiskars scissors years ago, but I noticed that a number of sets are available on Amazon, such as these Kraft Edger scissors sold by Wayfair. Our little one has such fun trimming the edges of her crafts with a variety of decorative edges!

Provide plenty of material for cutting. Try to think outside the box on this one. A stack of white paper is not terribly exciting, but a small assortment of colored sheets is much more interesting! Also, try writing things on some of the papers for your little one, or draw interesting lines and shapes for them to cut out. And, of course, you can prepare a craft ahead of time that would allow for more structured cutting.

Offer some instruction on cutting, but try to allow for a little room to get comfortable with these new crafting tools in their hands. They may not do it perfectly at first, but they'll get better with lots of fun practice!

Enlist the help of your little one as soon as you think they can safely cut things for you. For instance, tonight I left a new puzzle for our little ones to discover in the morning. Instead of removing the packaging, as I would normally have done, I left it on there and will let her open it for us!

Encourage your little one to clean up after herself. This is a tricky one. I definitely think that little ones need to learn to clean up after themselves, but if you have had any experience with a budding scissor user, then you know that tiny little scraps will end up all over your kitchen floor! I encourage her to clean as it's appropriate, but I definitely help out with this one. I want to make sure to encourage her craftiness, not to discourage it by making her do more than she's able. We have also started keeping a scrap box nearby to aid in clean-up. 

And needless to say, make sure to supervise your little one . Safety (and the avoidance of a hair styling mishap) comes first!