Giggles

Last night Katie woke up screaming "I don't want to" at 3:00 AM and did that for a solid hour.

So today this made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

And this was a good thing to watch.

That time I saw Dwight Yoakam

I never told you about my super awesome bonus gift!

My sister-in-law Margaret came and brought her whole family to spend the weekend working hard because this family loves each other AND she took me with her to the Dwight Yoakam concert in Dodge City.

This is what front row center looks like.  If you've ever wondered if it's worth it, I'm sorry to say that it is.  It's like having your very own concert.  I made eye contact with everyone in the band.  It's so fun.  As if you couldn't tell from my goofy smile.  My face hurt from smiling.  

Before the concert, a lady came and said "Are you the VIP seats?  Here's your information about your Meet and Greet with Dwight".  That was a fun surprise!  

It's always nice to see Reeses just because I love them all, but sharing this treat with Margaret and Linda and Spencer and Joanna was cake with extra frosting, ice cream, and sprinkles.  

This was my favorite song of the night:

Alan Katz

We're having an author visit today!

(I'm nervous-I've never done anything like this as a librarian)



Alan Katz writes the Silly Dilly song books.

  

Our kids have been having a fantastic time with them.  We all learned one of the songs to sing to him as a welcome, we've been reading the poems all month in the library, and I sold a bunch of books at cost to kids so they could get them autographed.




We're looking forward to a fantastic day!

So much stuff...

The basement is a disaster.  

But MJL is healthy this winter, and we have grand plans.  Hopefully by Spring all this mess will be turned into another bedroom, a storage room, and a bathroom.  

The first step is that I need to get it empty so that he can start work. *sigh*  It will be awesome once I get started, but I've been having trouble with that lately.  

No more!  

Time to take a deep breath, straighten my shoulders, and get to work!  

(wish me luck)

11-12-13!

It's a great day!

11-12-13!

Apparently lots of people are going to be getting married.

And these people are promoting acts of kindness.

We have stuff going on in the evening, so I'll only have a couple of hours with the kiddos, but we're going to

• build towers with 11, 12, and 13 blocks
• eat 11, 12, 13 snacks (probably fishy crackers, raisins, and M&M's)
• try to think of words that start with 11, 12, 13 letters
• see if we can teach Katie to count to 13
• run for 11 seconds, hop for 12, and skip for 13
• and whatever else we can think of.  Hopefully homework won't take more than 11 minutes.  ;)

Let me know what fun you have!

Book Cover Folders

When we get books from Bound to Stay Bound (that's where you get the "library" books that are all nice and don't fall apart - I always wondered) they send us the book jackets, but the books already have the picture printed on the cover.  So we have lots of extra book jackets.  You know I couldn't throw those away.   I looked around on Pinterest to find some ideas of things to do with them, but didn't find anything!

I decided to just wait until I had an idea.  Finally it occurred to me that I could glue them to the outside of pocket folders (get a bunch for a penny each at the beginning of the year) and then laminate them.    

The kids get to choose one as a prize when they finish a reading challenge.  THEN-they use their cool folder to keep track of future reading challenges, which is a huge bonus, AND they'r walking around advertising all of our new books all the time, so other kids come in asking for the book on so and so's folder.    

I have tons of kids completing challenges-every single first grader finished the first one!  

The folders are a huge hit and they didn't cost the library a thing.  That is my favorite kind of victory.  

Could you be an elementary librarian?

Pop Quiz:

A Kindergartener walks into the library and says to you*:

"Our teacher is gone and a new teacher is coming and she wants to know how far the sidewalk goes?" while pointing outside at the playground.  *Ummmms and 30 second pauses omitted.

What do you do?

I'll give you the answer in the comments at the end of the day.  :)

(I got it right)

Best of the B's

There were a lot more books with B authors than A's!  I read all the Cliffords, all the Arthurs, all the Berenstain Bears, and they were all good.  Here are some I didn't know about that I loved.  

Lorna Balian wrote 5 books that we have in the library and I loved them all.   Strange and sweet stories.

Actually this is one of the first books I purchased for the library, and then it won some awards last year!  It's about a little girl who makes things out of yarn.  I still love it.  

This one I immediately checked out to Anna as soon as I finished it.  Just a really lovely little story.  

We have bunches of Eve Bunting books and they are all tear jerkers!  I loved this Christmasy one the most, but I liked them all.  

I actually discarded a couple of books from the B's because they depicted such meanness between siblings, without ever redeeming anything.  This one was just the opposite.  Brothers being brothers, but also being kind.  

I love everything by Virginia Lee Burton.  This is the only one we have.  I may have to remedy that.  

Hand Wash Only

In my quest to figure out what kinds of clothes I really love and actually wear, I have made some pretty strict requirements about care.  I generally never ever iron anything, and I don't take things to the dry cleaners.  Even remembering not to dry things can make me cranky.  

But I have some sweaters that I love love love and I wear them all the time and they are wool and hand wash only.  So....I've never washed them.  I just wear them to school and come straight home and change and call it good.  But I'm trying to be a grown up and some of them are a couple of years old and (are you really disgusted?  They're cardigans, worn over something else...I know.  It's bad)

So one Saturday MJL had Katie on the tractor and Anna was reading and I just had Jimmy and I ran out of excuses.  I put water and a little soap in this big bowl because I didn't want to wash the sink.  (Normal level of laziness or excessive laziness?  I couldn't decide)

I swished the sweaters around in the water for a while, and then rinsed them out.  When I dumped the bowl, there was a very surprising amount of brown in the bottom.  Huh.  Clothes do actually get dirty!

I just washed two of them.  Baby steps.  

I laid them out to dry on towels on the bed just like I remember my Mom doing.  

It really wasn't bad.  Maybe I'm growing up or something.  

Daddy!

Two more weeks until Daddy's home?

What Does The Farmer Say?

Have you seen this yet?

What Does The Farmer Say?




I miss my farmer.  Two more weeks?

Halloween 2013

 Ooh-I like how that rhymes.  Halloween 2013.  That's fun to say.

Anna was Cosette from Les Mis.  She wore balletish slippers under her tights to look barefoot and actually fooled someone in the dark!  She put ashes on her face and looked sad and cold.  :)

Katie bug the ladybug.  She did not like the hood, but had a lot of fun.  

Jimmy the Garden Gnome.  He wore his hat all night long, and was a little unsure about the whole business until we got back to Poppa's house and he started eating candy.  

I cannot believe I got all three looking at the camera in one picture.  We had a great night.