A blog a day . . .

Hello! Happy April! In order to attempt to redeem myself for those of you who are still reading my blog I am going to post every day in the month of April! No this is not an April Fool's joke! I'm not sure what I'll post about. Maybe one or two of the hundred or so posts I've mentally penned over the last year or so, maybe a picture or story or just tell you what we did that day. Who knows! So to celebrate I'm going to start with one of my favorite kind of posts: A Few of My Favorite things. I will not be giving away free stuff like Oprah but it will be fun anyway.



1. Pattern Blocks




I am not a math person (just ask my Algebra teacher Mrs. Brightwell). However I'm trying to help my children overcome my disdain of all things math and make it really fun for them! So I bought these pattern blocks here as part of our home school stuff and they are awesome! HOURS of play and entertainment for my kids. My 3 year old is especially enamored by them as was the whole group of 4K kids that I have taught at my house the last two months. Highly recommend. They are great for fine motor skills and build their little math brains!



2. Pop Corn Air Popper

Man I love this thing. I bought it at Walmart when we were in the States and brought it back with us. You can also buy it here but it was cheaper at Walmart. We use this every day. I can buy a big ole bag of popcorn kernels and pop up a very healthy and cheap snack in no time - no oil, no hydrogenated fats or suspicious yellow powder. Yum!

3. MOVIE NIGHT!

When we moved to Africa we were anxious to find ways to keep our family connected with our family 9,000 miles away. One of the things we came up with was Movie Night which we have on our family members' birthdays! For example, even though it is Uncle Bobby's birthday far away in America we have a bit of a party here in his honor! This is the only time we have movie night so it makes it really special. We roast marshmellows in our fire place, eat popcorn (see above), let the kids make pallets on the living room floor where we eat, watch a movie and let the kids sleep in the living room all night. It has been a great way to celebrate each member of our family throughout the year. I think it is a tradition we will keep no matter how many miles are between us!



(This is an old picture of Ford from last summer - he does NOT have his paci anymore!)

4. Treasury of Story Book Classics DVDs

What is this book and DVD? Oh yes. I stumbled upon this neat set of dvds that is actually a book being read aloud. Of course it is not even close to a replacement for actually sitting down to read a good book but if you are going to watch a dvd why not slip some bookage in there too? Some of these are slightly animated, some are just still photos of the illustrations but they are engaging. Claire has mentioned plots or characters to many of the books on these dvds and I've thought "when did I read that?" then realized it was on the dvd. They are short enough to be healthy for the kids and long enough for me to take a shower. Obviously you buy them on sale only.


So there you have it my first of 30 posts this month. We hope you enjoy some of our favorite things too!