Books, and other things

Last summer Anna and I were invited to participate in a "mom and me" book club with some other 4th graders and their moms.  Some of the families we have known for years while others were new to us.  Every month or two, we all get together at someone's house, discuss the most recent book (as much as a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds can) and then disperse to play and/or chat.

The experience has been very good for Anna and me, for a whole host of reasons.  One of the things I have enjoyed most is having an excuse to read some good books with the girls (or family, if we happened to read the books on a car ride).  Once both Kate and Anna became independent readers, we kind of stopped reading with them before bed.  Now this gives us an extra reason to read some great children's literature together and talk through it with family and friends.

The following is a list of books we've read in the last year or so.  The starred ones are those for book club.  (This list is mostly for me to remember, but I'd recommend almost any of them.)

*Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
*The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
*Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
*Eight Keys by Suzanne LaFleur
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
*James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims by Rush Limbaugh
Rush Revere and the First Patriots by Rush Limbaugh
*Magic Marks the Spot (Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates) by Caroline Carlson
*Fish in a Tree by Linda Mullaly Hunt

On to some different topics ...

This past week we had a few of our trees cut down.  The pines behind the garage were languishing after years of being shaded by the large elms which used to live in the back yard.  Then a few years back one of the pine trees was struck by lightning and it just hasn't been the same since.

Unfortunately, the large sugar maple in the front yard had also been dying for years and there wasn't anything we could do to help it.  This last summer we were finally ready to have it taken down since it kept dropping limbs on the driveway, regardless of the weather conditions.

The crew we hired was amazingly fast, in and out in right around two hours.  We asked them to leave the wood so we could use it in our fireplace, but they were still remarkably efficient.

Ethan and I had a great time watching the process from start to finish.  This weekend Matt worked to chunk up the wood and stack it in a more convenient place.  Then Ethan helped clean up all of the sawdust.

We start them young in our house :)

The favored toy of the weekend in our house was the tub of train supplies.  This crew made a few pretty epic train set-ups in the course of two days.

And last but not least is Kate, sporting one of Anna's eye patches that she uses for her exercises.  Everything turns into a toy with this child.

 Now it's on to another week!