Today ...

Today has been a perfectly lovely day and I don't want to forget it, so I thought I'd share it here.

The day began with the lighting of our Yankee Candle "Holiday Berry" and some Celtic Christmas music on Pandora. The girls also got to dig into the first round of picture books I got from the library last night. We've got at least 20 more requested, not to mention all of the ones we own that we'll be breaking out tomorrow. We've got plenty to read over the next month!

We are two chapters from finishing the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia series and I would like to go ahead and finish this today or tomorrow so that we can focus solely on all of these Christmas books (we love reading our Christmas picture books) until after the holidays. So, while the girls ate breakfast, I read a chapter of Narnia to them.

As I prepared and ate something myself, the Hippie read aloud to the Princess from the Little House Christmas Treasury. She read "Christmas in the Big Woods" to her.

And then I joined them on the couch. We sang together "Deck the Hall" while reading this lovely book by Sylvia Long.

We followed our lovely singing by my reading aloud of The Baker's Dozen: A Colonial American Tale by Heather Forest.

And then the fun really began. The Princess and I spent three solid hours in the kitchen cooking together. She and I made the pumpkin cheese cake, the stuffing and the squash casserole, all from scratch. It was such a joy to share all of this with her. And, she now has an appreciation for how hard Momma works every year to provide the feast! It was hard work and we are both worn out!

At some point we switched over to Classical Christmas music on Pandora and on more than one occasion, all three of us had to stop what we were doing to head into the living room an dance about together.

The Hippie spent some time reading Pilgrim Stories and playing Legos. She was also a huge help by making lunch while the Princess and I finished up our work.

To round it all out, the Princess read aloud to me the story, Little One, We Knew You'd Come.

 
 And finally, I read aloud to her The Christmas Story from the Gospel According to St. Luke from the King James Bible.
 

And, here we are. The Princess is playing quietly with Legos (and the dogs), the Hippie is working on some mysterious craft she's been doing for Thanksgiving tomorrow and I am about to fix myself a nice big cup of hot tea.

Heaven.

Now, if only I could find a way to summon that cleaning fairy! I believe every single dish I own is dirty. Ah well. They can wait just long enough for me to have my tea.

How is your Thanksgiving-Eve going?
 
I'll leave you with a few snap shots of the morning.
Until next time, 
~ Irie Momma

Still half asleep. :)

Ready to make Momma's home made pumpkin cheesecake ~ YUMMY

The Hippie reading to the Princess

My little helper ... she loves to cook with me!

Moving on to the stuffing ...

Making a glorious mess while her sister and I cook. :)

Last, but not least (for today anyway) ... squash casserole.

Making lunch for the girls

Thoroughly exhausted ... moving on to her other joy ... Sweet Pea!

Wishing you a blessed day!

Tuesday's Poetry Tea Time ... with a twist

One of our favorite things about our home education lifestyle is our Poetry Tea Time on Tuesdays.

We usually do this in the afternoon. At around 4:00 I set a nice table with a table cloth and special dishes that only come out for Tea Time. I put the cream into the little ceramic dish and break out tiny spoons and everything. It is also an opportunity for the girls to get a special sweet treat. We either bake muffins earlier in the day or I will break out some cookies that are not eaten on any other day.

Today I decided to surprise the girls with something a little different.

When the girls came out this morning, we first curled up on the couch and I read a couple of Thanksgiving books to them. Then, I sent them off to get ready for the day while I made breakfast.

But, instead of just making breakfast, I went ahead and set us up for a morning tea time. I set the table cloth out. I set out our tea cups and the cream and the sugar. I baked some yummy biscuits and fried us each an egg. I fixed up a quick fruit salad and set out the jams and knives. I brewed up some Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea for the girls and some green tea for me. And, I lit a candle for the final touch.

Once I had everything just so, I grabbed these two great books from our Thanksgiving book basket (you can click on the picture and it will take you to the book on Amazon) and called the girls to the kitchen.

Giving Thanks: Poems, Prayers and Praise Songs of Thanksgiving

The Book of Giving: Poems of Thanks, Praise and Celebration

*****

They were so thankful for the lovely surprise. I said, "Who says we can't have a Poetry Tea Time with breakfast?".

We each spread jam on our biscuits and fixed up our teas. We enjoyed our breakfast and then we set to reading aloud all sorts of poems and blessings, giving thanks to God for His many gifts.

It's really amazing how loved this simple gesture makes the girls feel!

What a beautiful way to start our day!

Until next time,

~ Irie Momma

Nature Day with Friends

I've recently been writing a lot about how we learn things in a more organic fashion around here. Well, in case you were wondering, nature and science are just as easy to learn in a natural way.

Our favorite way to learn about the world around us is to get out in it. We love to take nature walks and really observe what we see. I love to study the squirrels and the birds and the trees in our yard. And, my enthusiasm is contagious.

I'm not going to get into a long post about learning science naturally. I really don't have the time today. But, I wanted to share some pictures from a recent Nature Day we had with our Home School Group at the local Arboretum. It was really an amazing day!

The trees were so fantastic ... not possible to capture that on my little camera.

Gopher tortoise home

 

 

Until next time, 
~ Irie Momma