An Original Story By Grace

Inspired by the pumpkin she felted, and her love of Sparkle Stories, Grace spun her first ever story! It's a wonderful tale of two mice, a wedding and a new home! We hope you enjoy! Happy November, friends! xo

Stick Puppets

Stick puppets made by Grace and inspired by the Hadid family from Sparkle Stories "The Welcoming Feast". 

All of the cold, grey, rainy weather we've had the last several days has equaled lots of indoor time for us. It honestly feels more like early April rather than early May with how cold it is out there. The girls have taken full advantage of all the inside time, and have spent countless hours creating and playing with stick puppets. It seems as if a few new ones are added each day, which has made for quite a collection already! With all the stick puppets they've made I've been treated to many stick puppet performances this week (complete with homemade tickets)! It's been an absolutely lovely way to spend some time each day. xo

Morning, Noon And Night

Morning, noon and night...three little peeks into our day today. 

Morning, 10:30am

Afternoon, 3:00pm

Night, 5:00pm.

If you would like to play along leave your link in the comments section so I may stop by for a visit. xo

For The Love Of Sparkle Stories

If you are a Sparkle family like we are chances are that you know that the characters in the picture above are Martin and Sylvia. If you're not a Sparkle family (yet) we hope that you will take a moment to listen to a free story via their podcast and then see how quickly you fall in love with these sweet characters (and this wonderful company), too!

We've been a Sparkle family since the first podcast we ever listened to. We became a Sparkle (subscription) family in January 2014 thanks to a wonderful Christmas gift certificate from Dave's Aunt Lucia and Uncle Joe. And when our gift subscription ended we made sure that we renewed it so that we didn't miss out on any of the stories that we had come to know and love. The girls love all Sparkle Stories but the ones they love most star Martin and Sylvia (especially At Home With Martin and Sylvia). The children are just about their ages, they homeschool very much like we do (which we all think is pretty cool), and they call their parents "mama" and "daddy" just like the girls call us. There's not a day that goes by without a reference to Martin and Sylvia, what they are doing and how similar it is to what we are doing. "Mama, Martin is learning to read big books with small letters just like me!" exclaimed a very excited Grace one day. 

We are so super excited that the Sparkle Stories team has decided to create an app! A Sparkle app will be such a wonderful addition to the magical world created by David and Lisabeth. Those of us who know and love Martin and Sylvia and Mama and Daddy, The Browns, Ben Thompson, the animals in Sparkle Sleepytime and the fairies in So Many Fairies (just to name a few) have been wishing for an app for years. To have it not far off from becoming a reality is truly a dream come true!

In order to make this app happen they have launched a crowd funding campaign through Kickstarter. We hope you'll check out their Kickstarter, watch the video and then support this incredible company who works so very hard to make childhood and family life a little sweeter, a little more magical and a little more connected through their beautiful stories. xo

At The End Of The Day

Each and every night as the girls are getting ready for bed Gretchen wanders into their room. She has always loved this time of day and she has always joined us for stories and snuggles. Ever since we returned from our Florida trip this summer she has spent each and every night sleeping on Grace's bed. She has a favorite spot, generally the left corner, but recently has started snuggling right up against Grace. Each night as I kiss the girls good-night, I can hear Miss Gretchen purring contentedly while that night's Sparkle Story begins and the stars from the girls Twilight Turtle cast their soft glow around the room. It's the perfect ending to our days and I am so very glad that this sweet kitty is a part of our world. xo

(Not) Back to School

This morning at the lake. 

Just another beautiful school day for us!

The arrival of this week brought with it the start of a new school year for the school kids in town. We haven't shifted into our new rhythm just yet as we are taking this week to "just be" after our very busy week in Florida last week (we hope you've enjoyed all of our stories and pictures so far. There's still much more to come). Instead, we are using this week to bask in the glory of our world -and our usual haunts- no longer being crowded. We're preparing and planning for all the fun we'll have in the days, weeks and months that lie ahead. We're replenishing things like glitter and googily eyes and stickers, and sharing our hopes and dreams for all that we'll learn together. But mostly we're just rolling as we usually do, seeing where each day takes us and the teachable moments that we'll encounter along the way.

This morning, while the girls were still sleeping and the house was it's most peaceful, I came across this blogpost that a friend of mine had shared on Facebook. It resonated deeply with me, and so many of Rachel's words could have been my own. And gosh, isn't every day fairy day (or gnome day) in everyone's homes?!

For a wee bit of humor during this not-back-to-school week I share with you this post. I've been giggling about it ever since (and I also love how much my mom loved this one too)!

And finally, it's always exciting when we come across homeschoolers in the things we love most. Case in point the character of Hazel in Dolphin Tale ("I'm homeschooled that's why I'm such a chatterbox!") and Martin and Sylvia from Sparkle Stories. We were thrilled that one of the current free back to school stories (scroll down to "Butterfly Gifts") is about Martin and Sylvia making gifts for their teachers- their mama and papa! Listening to the description of what homeschooling looks like in their family is like listening to what homeschooling looks like in ours, and for this reason the girls were even more enchanted with these sweet stories and characters than they already were. It really is such a treat for them to hear that others live like we do, especially at this time of year when it's all about back to school.

I've got some ideas bouncing around in my head about how we can celebrate the beginning of our new school year next week (here's to hoping that the items I ordered arrive on time). Regardless of whether they arrive on time or not we'll continue as we always have- living, learning, laughing and loving together each and every day. xo

Be sure to scroll down to see our post from this morning about another part of our Disney adventure last week.