Five Things for Friday–Christmas, New Stages, Writing, and more!

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Christmas planning has commenced.  We’re partway done with Christmas shopping for the kids - easy when we only buy a few gifts each.  We’re deciding what special books will be read in December.  Christmas with the Prophets has made our list so far for sure.  We’re picking the Christmas hymns we’ll be practicing – here is last year’s list.  Most likely we’ll stick with some of those, but I do want to see which ones Makayla is working on in piano as well, she can get extra practice accompanying us.   

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It’s time to start moving little guys into new stages.  Caleb is 11 months old so we’re hoping to say goodbye to bottles and his pacifier in the next 4 weeks.  Oliver is 2 years 8 months old and he’ll be potty training in the next 4 weeks as well.  I’m going to re-read my favorite potty book first – The No-Cry Potty Training Solution by Elizabeth Pantley.  I really love all her books.  As a matter of fact it is probably time to re-read her sleep books because Caleb is running out of time sleeping in the crib in mommy and daddy’s bedroom.  Mason will need it.  Caleb will join his 3 big brothers in the boy’s room and sleeping through the night would make that easier. 

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I’m grateful for a dry day today.  It’s not sunny, but it finally stopped raining.  All we’ve seen for two and a half days is rain, rain, rain.  I had hoped to leave all that behind in Washington at my sister’s house, but she tells me they’ve gotten our sunshine instead.  It figures.

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I’ve been reading through the WriteShop blog the last few days.  Their blog has been active for several years and contains lots of fun ideas.  Remember how I mentioned here that God gives me directions unexpectedly?  Joseph and Emma have been asking to do “writing lessons” like Makayla does with her IEW materials.  I don’t think little ones need writing lessons – they need books read aloud, narration, and copywork for now – so I kept putting them off.  God finally gave me the nudge to look at WriteShop Primary A.  Lo and behold it uses narration, copywork, reading books, games, crafts for publishing the children’s writing, and is very gentle and fun.  I bought it this week (less than $30.00 for the ebook version) and hope to have our writing center all ready to roll out Monday morning.  It’s so easy that I may even let Makayla take a turn ‘teaching’ once a week.  She enjoys that and so do her siblings.

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I think nesting is setting in early.  Everywhere I look I see things I want to rearrange, donate to Goodwill, or throw in the trash.  I think I need to set time aside on Tuesdays to work on it because trash day is Wednesdays.  I could keep a box on the porch for items to donate too.  Hmm.  I wonder if I can convince the kids it’s time to go through their toys again?  Now would also be a great time to work on organizing the attic storage because it’s no longer 100 degrees up there. 

Well, those are my Five Things for Friday.  I’m linking up with Heather over at Women in the Scriptures, why don’t you come on over and join me?