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Valentines 2020

So we started out the Valentine's season with a bug. Rebekah stayed home from school and we made valentines on the iPad.

I made her one on my phone. Apparently the way I make hearts leave a little space inside that the computer picks up. Good thing life isn't all computer generated.

Eventually she was feeling better. Good enough to go to activity days and make a cute little Love Bug.

A few days later we made the cookies as I had promised.

We made them on a week night and had to let them bake and cook before we dipped them so I forced a change of attire so one could go to bed right after we dipped them. Then she proceeded to dip each cookie.

We made six that night. Four would go to her special school teachers. That left two. One for her and one for dad. I told her I wanted a quick picture of our creation so instead of putting the cookie to the side she quickly shoves the cookie in her mouth.

...and smiles...

...then swallows and smiles again.

The next day Rebekah informs me she needs a valentines box. This is so traumatic for me that I must block this out because each year it is an unwelcome surprise. I'm just so bad at this. So this year I took a box and cover it with pink paper.

I was going to try to make a pair of lips and stick the top lip on the opening of the box so it looks like a mouth, but Rebekah saved the day and told me she had it from there.

It looks space-tastic!

That night, after I get Rebe to bed, I put together her valentine surprise. She needed new markers which was great because I wasn't into buying a lot of candy this year.

The poem I wrote.

Then I put Don's together. I couldn't figure out where to put it to surprise him so I ended up putting it in his car.

The next morning. I have a cute video of her reading said poem but it's longer that a minute and apparently that's the cut off for video posting.

Then she went to school and came home with this:

And this, which came off the brownies I had to buy for their class party. If every parent brought in some treat - oh the sugar. But she's pretty cute. 

We did Papa Murphies for dinner thanks to an awesome coupon. Rebekah got a free mini murph. She loved putting it together.

Another successful valentine season. 

February, the First Half

Around Christmas Rebekah, as a class field trip, went to 5 Below to practice money in action. She took her own $5 to buy herself a toy. One of the mom helpers there happened to be her friend's mom, who informed Rebekah that she should be buying someone else a gift. So, Rebekah bought her toy and with the help of her friend's mom, she bought a sleep mask for me. Fortunately I'm somewhat of a good sport, and to prove it:

One evening Rebekah wanted to write books. So, I wrote this one and had her read it to dad. 

A while back Don talked me into buying Tilapia from Costco. To that end I learned how to make some pretty amazing fish tacos. 

Lately Rebekah's getting pretty professional at eye rolling. 

And then there was the time I crashed and burned. At the elementary school pick up line. God decided I needed to be humbled and down I went. One minute I was racing Rebekah - she was winning of course - so I slowed down and pretended I saw something I wanted her to look at, she fell for it, I sprinted off and bam. 

Of course I was shaken, but I also knew if I didn't start moving like nothing was wrong Rebekah would freak out. So up I went without really assessing the damage. Once in the car though.... 

At home I gave myself the once over and made myself a make shift bandaid of which MacGyver  would have been proud. I also found out I had a bruise indentation of the keys on my upper thigh, and in the fall I bent the key ring. So I've officially hit super hero status: I can bend metal!

The other hand was pretty messed up too, so for the next few nights I looked like this. However, finally they scared over and I was able to loose the gauze.

The Rebekah got sick, so we had a nice day of playing legos. Seriously legos are so awesome. Look at this mini lego blender.

Rebekah finally decided she wanted to purchase an Elsa doll with her Christmas money. Don and I weren't totally on board. When does one grow out of dolls? Is she going to regret it in a month? However Rebekah made this list of all the reasons she needed an Elsa doll. My favorite: You can never have too many dolls.

And of course, there was Rebekah's Space School.

A cuter teacher I've never seen.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering - after two weeks of healing:

But my pride may never truly heal.

January Books

Well written junior fiction about a girl in foster care. Realistic, but some sci-fi included. Sometimes it's the junior fiction books that touch my heart. This was good and well worth while.

A short novel by Jane Austen written in the form of letters to and from the main characters. I was amazed at the level of disdain I had for the main character only on the information I gleaned from letters. On a side note I learned from the book I read on Jane Austen by Lucy Worsley this form of novel was highly popular when Jane Austen was coming into her own style. 

A fragment of Jane Austen's book survives as The Watsons, which the author later abandoned. Many of the reviews complain against Jane Austen saying, "...this is why you finish your works," but I think some things are abandoned for good reason and it's okay. Not sure where the plot was going and there was not much development with the characters. Highly forgettable. I think Jane Austen herself would be horrified that people were trying to read it, but we do because we love Jane Austen. 

This was incredible. It's amazing how the simple books can get to your heart. There were several quotes I loved as well as one whole page on fear that I took a picture of so I could save it. Someday Rebekah will be ready for this but not for a while. Highly recommendable. 

After Jane Austen died her sister burned most of her letters. I wonder if possibly one reason why she did this was her worry that everything Jane wrote would one day be published whether Jane would have wanted it or not. Whether or not she wanted Sanditon and The Watsons published and read, one can tell they were not up to her usual standards. Jane Austen wrote and rewrote and edited throughout the writing process and thus she came up with perfection. These last two books are in no way perfect: fragmented ideas, non developed characters... but she didn't let either of them get close to publication. They were ideas in embryonic stage. We read them because we crave more of Austen's fascinating works of art and therefore find it takes a lot of work to her ideas to get to that point.

I saw this as a documentary on PBS many years ago. While a fascinating documentary and quite an  interesting thesis, it's a difficult read. Also, the last chapter - I believe without him fully understanding what he was doing - highly denotes the existence of a God. However, Mosiah did it better.

This was pretty much fluff, but it had its moments. It introduced me to the term "Melungeon" which is fascinating in itself. Of course I looked it up and turns out Elvis Presley and even Abraham Lincoln are assumed to come from Melungeon decent. It also creates a visual of the back woods of Appalachia. The story in itself was absorbing and kept me reading. So, while fluff, it was a pretty nice read.

Very early on this book went in a direction I was not excited about following. I pressed through just to find more of the same and so I ended up not finishing. It was suppose to be Civil War era historical fiction which I was excited about but the author's language and content was distracting enough that to me wading through didn't seem worth while. 

A novel told through the perspective of a dog. Honestly if I had realized that before I put this on my audio hold (sometimes I simply get on waiting lists for high rated books without doing too much research) I probably wouldn't have, but it wasn't as eye-rolling as I assumed it would be. It had its moments but not life altering material, that is unless you love dogs and believe if only God had made them with a more useful tongue and thumbs of course. 

Not a whole lot of new or useful information here but it did give insight into the Five Presidents' personalities and understanding of the history of the secret service.

Another of my English history books. Although I like the author, this one read a little slower than some of his others. His premise: Henry IV was basically an elected monarch like unto Oliver Cromwell. It was interesting to read about him and life during his time period. At one point the author explains because of the lack of records from back then we don't really know where Henry was at such and such time period, but we can track him because of his "royal bathroom habits" (fancy toilet coverings, cloth used for toilet paper, where it was purchased, etc and so on). Crazy what one does for the sake of history.

I read Lilac Girls, but had to look it up to remind myself what it was about. Turns out I was remembering the wrong book. It was still WWII but not the book I thought it was and chances are I wouldn't have read this book based on the first one. Having said that, this book was interesting because it dealt with WWI rather than II and while I found the Russian aristocracy / peasant, White vs Red army interaction interesting, however, I found the audio recording somewhat annoying and couldn't relate to the American character (nor did I have the desire too) and notwithstanding my incredible desire to learn about Russian history, I found the Russian characters only flat at best. The history was interesting but it was lost with all the character development.

This was incredibly informative. I started out not liking Geisel, then I liked him, then I didn't like him... such a roller coaster. Basically he was a human making lots of mistakes but doing some incredible things. Well written and I learned a lot so I highly recommend it, but only if you want to learn more about Dr. Suess the man and won't let it ruin his literature for you. 

I'm loving these junior fiction finds. This one is written in poetry form, in fact at the end of the book the author defines the ten forms of poems she uses and sites page numbers of the poem for examples. Seriously, I loved it! Quick easy read and I learned something too.

I wanted to like this but the author made it hard. I felt he spent more time telling horrific stories than he did discussing "talking to strangers." Do not recommend. 

Where'd January Go?

Hard to believe it's the 8th of February already. January is pretty much a blur so here's the entire month at once.

We started the month out right by meeting good friends in Greenwood. Miss Sarah is an amazing mom. I love that she made her lunch quick to play basketball with her little guy.

When it was time to go, Rebekah was not happy. Grayson and Hannah were....

I started laughing and Rebekah noticed what I was laughing at...

So she joined in.

We also met good friends at the library. Love these little sneaky pictures. Trying to give her space... trying...

Rebekah's coloring as of late:

Rebekah also wrote a thank you card for Santa. My favorite sentence: "It feels good to give doesn't it?"

Of course there was ice skating lessons:

In honor of Rebekah's baptism, my aunt Diane sent Rebekah a beautiful beehive temple door necklace with a beautifully heart felt note.

Love the following attitude:

Her cousin introduced her to Monopoly. When she saw there was a Frozen II Monopoly set she spent her Christmas money to partake of the fun. 

One day I found this cleaning out her back pack after school. A space purse.  

Complete with space money. 

Rebekah loved grandma's bread so I attempted to recreate it. It's a work in progress. 

Of course there was swimming:

And more ice skating:

This drawing. The art class talked about the Australia fires. 

Coach Brinegar gave the kids a fish hat in club Olympia colors. 

Rebekah wasn't at this meet - we're still working on her feeling comfortable with meets - but I had to put this in to show the great lengths that Coach goes for her kids. Yep, that's her on the diving board. The caption was, "Our coach is braver than your's." 

I love walking into the play room and seeing what Rebekah is doing in lego land. 

Space picture:

More library play time. 

An award from school.

First standing dive attempt. 

Mitten from art class. 

More swim. 

Ice skating.

Cookies for Don and Rebekah

How can she still do this? 

Swim

Dad and Rebekah jam session:

Ice skating:

And with that, it's February.