Nativity Book #16 - Twelve Who Followed Jesus

This is the sixteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Happy Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle and of St. Troyen of Saintes! Both are important namedays in our family, so this is a big feast! Since St. Andrew was the First-Called, today's book is about him and the other Apostles. We read Twelve Who Followed Jesus from the Arch Books collection. I posted about these books in this previous post. This is one of the newer Arch Books, and as I've mentioned before, I often think that the older ones are better. This is the story of the calling of the Apostles, including Andrew and Peter as the first. I think the cartoonish illustrations are a little bothersome, but the text is mostly OK. Another Arch Book on the same topic, is Jesus Calls His Disciples. Unfortunately it is now out of print. I was glad to have something about the Apostles for today, but unfortunatley I don't have a good children's book specifically about the Apostle Andrew. I really think a need in English language Orthodox Education is children's books about the lives of the Apostles. We now have some good Bible story books available, especially including the very good Children's Bible Reader, which we read from almost everyday. And there are good adult-level works on the lives of the Apostles, such as red hardbound book The Lives of the Holy Apostles from Dormition Skete. But we really need something about these saints written for children. So, any writers out there, this is my call for your work. If I wait until I have time to do it, we'll all be waiting 10 or 15 years!

Nativity Book #15 - Tomie dePaola's Book of Bible Stories

This is the fifteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

This morning we opened and read the Christmas stories from Tomie de Paola's Book of Bible Stories. I really love this book of Bible stories. The text is pretty much taken straight from the New International Version of the Bible. While, I don't really like the NIV translation for adult reading, I do like that this children's book uses text straight from the Bible. My oldest son, who has been reading from the Gospel of Luke at night, immediately recognized that the text was straight from the Gospel. I love Tomie dePaola's illustrations. They are gentle and lovely: not realistic, not iconographic, but respectful with a stylized sort of primitive look. We were able to use three sections from this book this morning with lots of pretty illustrations: An Angel Comes to Mary, Jesus is Born, and The Visit of the Magi.

Thanksgiving lessons

Each year I have grand ideas about how we can learn about Thanksgiving in our homeschooling. And each year, the week leading up to the holiday ends up being crazy and I get very little of what I hoped to do done. When I was growing up, Thanksgiving meant a huge dinner with LOTS of uncles, aunts, cousins, and other relatives and friends. Thanksgiving meant too many people, too much food, too much noise, too much football, and lots of good memories. 20-30 people for dinner was normal. These days, sadly, we haven't been able to travel on Thanksgiving and so our holiday keeps getting smaller and smaller. Last year we had only 7 people for dinner at my house. This year, only five. So, I've really been trying to think of ways to make the holiday special for my boys since they are having such a different experience from my childhood experience.


Last year, we started the tradition of writing what we are thankful for on colored paper leaves (which I cut out the night before). We put them all over the table as a reminder of why we are celebrating. I mentioned that in this previous post. And we also have a habit of dressing up like the Pilgrims and Indians, if I can manage to make that happen. Last year, I forgot, but luckily my oldest went to work and made the costumes himself on Thanksgiving morning. This year, my mom came to visit the week before Thanksgiving and made great costumes with my boys one morning while I was teaching at the university.


But I'd really like to find some good books to use for our Thanksgiving celebration and for learning about the holiday and history. Last year, we read this very good book: The First Thanksgiving. It was included as part of our K12 First Grade Language Arts curriculum. It's a pretty thorough retelling of the history of the Pilgrims and their relationship with Samoset, Squanto and Massasoit. It also ended with a mention of Abraham Lincoln's proclamation of the holiday in 1863. My kids enjoyed it and the oldest remembered some of the details from when we read it last year. But I know there have to be some other great books out there. Does anyone else have any suggestions for good books for Thanksgiving studies?

On the spiritual side, at church on the eve of the holiday, we prayed the Akathist Glory to God for All Things, which is absolutely beautiful. The poetry of this Akathist is wonderful, and you can't pray it without feeling joyously grateful for all of God's world and blessings. The full text is available here. We also really like to read Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, which really puts the celebration of this holiday in perspective. The full text for it is here.


Glory and Thanks to God for Everything!!

Nativity Book #14 - The First Christmas Candy Canes

This is the fourteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book is a new one to us. My mom brought it when she visited last week so that I could wrap it up and add it to the basket. It is The First Christmas Candy Canes, a legend told by Berniece Rabe. It's a sweet little legend about a shepherd girl who makes little red striped candy canes which are then involved with the birth of Christ. I've heard different stories about the Christian symbolism of the candy cane, and seen a couple different books, but never this one. This is just a nice little story and the kids enjoyed it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day from my dramatic little Pilgrim and Indian! I was sort of sad today not to be with lots of family, but we had a nice day anyway. The great costumes were thanks to my mom who shared her creative skills and supplies during her visit last weekend.

A few other memories:

Writing down what we are thankful for on paper leaves to decorate the dinner table. 7yo is thankful for his family, trees, the sky, the earth, friends and Looney Tunes!

Starting to set the table for dinner.

Nativity Book # 13 - The Miracle of St. Nicholas

This is the thirteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

This morning we opened and read a wonderful book called The Miracle of St. Nicholas by Gloria Whelan. It is a beautiful story about the reopening of a church dedicated to St. Nicholas on Christmas in a Russian village in the late 20th century. I can only ever get about halfway through the book before I start crying. The story is so beautiful, because it is so true. Since I lived in Russia in the 1990's I saw many such examples of abandoned churches being reopened after 60 or 70 years. The empty, dirty churches were slowly refilled with icons which had been hidden in homes for years and slowly also refilled with faithful believers. My boys really like this book. This year, even the 3yo loved it. And he told me at the end, "I don't like those soldiers! They were mean." (He was speaking of revolutionary soldiers during the Civil War or a bit later in the Soviet Union.) Good book to read as we celebrate today the freedoms and gifts we have as Americans!

Nativity Book #12 - A Child's First Bible

This is the twelfth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

The book we opened this morning is A Child's First Bible, a simple bible story book written for very young children. We read the Nativity story from this book, beginning with the Annunciation and ending with the Presentation in the Temple and the Flight to Egypt. All of those stories spanned about 10 or 12 pages. I have mixed emotions about this bible story book. The illustrations are OK, though not great. It's certainly not enough text for older children (and in fact, my 7yo didn't really even want to sit and read this with us this morning). Most stories are told in just two or three sentences (about 3 sentences for Jonah and the whale). But, it's been good at times for a very quick intro to bible stories for my boys at ages 1 and 2. And actually the 3yo really enjoyed it this morning, though he's already ready for more text and was sure I hadn't read all of the story when we were finished. Still, it was a quick way to tell the whole Nativity story as we continue to remind ourselves of the details of this story throughout the fast.

Feast of the Great Martyr Katherine! . . . and a Saints' book review

Happy Nameday to all Katherines today (or yesterday) . . . and this includes my sister! This is a funny feast because it is November 24 on some calendars and November 25 on others. We have Tsaritsa Catherine the Great to thank for that craziness, but that's a story for another day. What a wonderful story St. Katherine's life is! We read it this morning and my boys loved hearing how St. Katherine showed the philosophers to be fools and even converted the Emperor's wife (who was then herself martyred).

I wanted to take a moment to use this feast to plug another book I really like. It is Saints: Lives and Illuminations published by Eerdman's. It's not specifically an Orthodox book, but it is a collection of brief lives of many pre-schism saints, so all are saints of our Orthodox tradition. The lives are quite short: just a paragraph or so. And each is illustrated with a lovely colorful depiction of the saint. They are not iconographic. They are much more Western and realistic, but are still respectful and quite lovely. I was pleasantly surprised to find this book in a children's bookstore about six years ago. We've been enjoying (and giving it as gifts and buying it for our church bookstore) ever since. I really like that these stories are quick and easy to read, but beautifully tell the lives of our major saints. This morning instead of reading the life of the saint from the Prologue, we used this instead. Anytime we can read a life with an illustration, my kids are even happier. Some of the other saints included in this book are John Chrysostom, Nicholas of Myra, Great Martyr Barbara, Scholastica and Benedict, Columba, Mary of Egypt, Moses the Ethiopian, Brigid, Nina, Constantine and Helen, Patrick of Ireland, Monica and Augustine, Great Martyr George, Spyridon, Ephraim the Syrian and many others.

Nativity Book #11 - Grandpa Bear's Christmas

This is the eleventh of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book proves why it's good for us to do this tradition. It's a Christmas book which has been on our shelf for years . . . and we've never read until today. I honestly can't remember where or how we got it. Maybe one of my reader's gave it to us a while back?

Grandpa Bear's Christmas is a set of four Christmas stories about a bear family. It's not really my favorite book and a little too wordy, but as is usually the case with such books, my kids were transfixed. Why do they often love the books which I find to be a tedious? Anyway, not a bad book, just not my favorite. Two of the stories are about Santa Claus, so if you like to avoid such stories, avoid this book. It's not really at all about the Nativity, but is a nice look at a family and a good relationship between a Grandfather and his grandchildren.

When little brother learns from big brother . . .

. . . sometimes it's disastrous (like light saber fights and mean language), but other times its delightful and funny. Today, is one such example of the latter. I've realized that 3yo has been learning Ancient Roman History. Seems he's pretty clear on the date of the fall of the Roman Empire. All day he's been walking around reciting:

"476, Rome was in a fix, Little Romulus bid farewell, and powerful Rome fell."

Nativity Book # 10 - The Shepherd's Christmas

This is the tenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Wow! It's already day 10 of the Nativity Fast! We're already one quarter of the way to the Feast of the Nativity (at least for those of us on the New Calendar)! This fast always passes too quickly.

Today's book is a nice Christmas book from the Archbooks collection available from Concordia Press. I wrote about this collection here. The Shepherd's Christmas is one of the better books in this series. The illustrations are a little too cartoonish for my taste, but the story is nice. It's short (good for wiggly three year olds) and is a retelling of the Christmas story from the perspective of the shepherds. It is specifically about a little boy shepherd who witnesses the Birth of Christ (and the coming of the angels) on his first night to watch over the sheep with the other shepherds. The message in the end is that though the boy is afraid, he finds comfort in Christ. Today it provided a nice opportunity to stop and talk to the kids about this idea when we're already otherwise distracted by preparations for Thanksgiving!

Nativity Book #9 - The First Christmas, A pop-up Nativity book

This is the ninth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Our book for yesterday was The First Christmas, A pop-up Nativity book from DK Publishers. My boys got this as an Advent gift from my parents several years ago. It was really fun that year because it comes with a little pop-up Nativity set made from card stock. It was quite fun to play with these that first year. After that, the clutter got the better of me and the little paper figures went to the trash. But the book is still fun because it has some great pop-up scenes on the pages.

Nativity Book #8 - The Little Boy's Christmas Gift

This is the eighth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book was one of my favorite books by John Speirs: The Little Boy's Christmas Gift. It is a lovely tale about the journey of the Magi which is akin to the story of The Little Drummer Boy. It is illustrated with gorgeous illustrations inspired by the work of the Brueghels and old illuminated manuscripts. My boys love to find the little boy following at the back of the caravan in each illustration.

Nativity Book #7 - The Story of Mary the Mother of God

This is the seventh of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Yesterday's book was The Story of Mary the Mother of God written and illustrated by Dorrie Papademetriou. Since Nov. 21 is the Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, we opened and read this book. I love this book mostly because I really love the bright illustrations. It tells the story of the life of the Mother of God in simple words for all ages, including her birth, her entrance into the temple, her and the Annunciation.

Nativity Book #6 - The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

This is the sixth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Today's book we opened and read as a preparation for tomorrow's feast: The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple. It is part of the Feasts of the Church series by Sister Elayne which I described here. It is available from Archangel Books here. (By the way, Archangel books has a very nice online store, but their storefront is even better. If you are ever in the St. Louis area, it is really worth the trip. It's a lovely store with lots of Orthodox books, icons, unique gifts and many neat "finds" which I haven't seen in other Orthodox book stores.)

I love the story of the Entrance of the Mother of God: how she entered the Temple at the age of three led by virgins carrying lamps. This morning my boys were really surprised to realize that she went to live in the Temple at the age of three and was fed by the angels. What a beautiful history we have as Christians!

Nativity Book #5 - The Miraculous Child

This is the fifth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Today's book is The Miraculous Child which is a Christmas folktale from Russia, told by Aleksi Currier and illustrated by Nadezda Glazunova. This is a beautiful story about almsgiving and the miracle of the Christ's love for us. It is told in verse, which is a little long for smaller children, but my 7yo really enjoys it now. And in fact, my 3yo listened attentively to it this afternoon, when offered a snack to eat while listening. In some past years I have just paraphrased it because just enjoying the lovely illustrations was enough

Boys will be boys . . .

Why, oh why, do boys insist on beating each other up? I remember my brother and cousin doing it. I've heard stories about my uncles, my dad and my uncle, and my husband and his brothers, but it still continues to baffle me. Why does playing necessarily involve beating on each other? The fact is, it does. And it especially does around here now as the weather gets cooler and we're inside more and more. I had been intervening whenever I heard one of those bloodcurdling screams coming from another room. But now, I've resolved to take a more laissez-faire approach. They can come to me when they need me to work it out. Otherwise, I will intervene when there are serious injuries (and then with harsh punishment in most cases). We start out the day with a reminder to "go easy" on each other, and then often refresh that at lunch time when Daddy is home. But, if they are both doing it maybe they need to fight it out? I don't know.

Yesterday was one of those days. I told my husband that I think throughout the afternoon there was rarely a period of more than 10 minutes which was scream-free. Sure we had a nice poetry tea time and got some reading and other schoolwork done, but much of the afternoon was just hitting, pushing and screaming. At one point near the end of the day, I was in the kitchen making dinner. Both boys were in the living room playing. I heard an awful scream coming from 3yo. I started to run to the rescue, but then checked myself and decided to wait and listen. 3yo screamed for a few seconds, then I heard 7yo's voice:

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Really I am. OK, now you can beat me. Beat me now. Do it! As hard as you can!"

I didn't hear any more noise, so I guess 3yo agreed and the problem was solved.

Five minutes later, more screaming. Then 7yo's voice again:

"Sorry. But you do it now. You toss me down, OK? Do it hard."

Whatever. I guess if it works and they still love each other . . . Boys!

Nativity Book #4 - The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

This is the fourth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book is my husband's absolute favorite: The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski. The illustrations by P.J. Lynch are really beautiful and the story brings tears every time we read, well every time HE reads it because he is usually the one to read this story aloud. I think he likes it because it is about a woodcarver and he loves to carve wood. But, really this is a lovely story about love, death, family, children and a special set of Nativity figures. The text is beautifully written, but is a bit long for children under 4 or 5. I sometimes paraphrase it for my younger son, because the illustrations are beautiful and can still captivate him with my paraphrased text. My oldest son loves all of the text, and in fact, a few of the quotes from grumpy Mr. Toomey have become regular sayings around our house.

This book was made into a full-length movie last year, but we haven't see it yet.

Nativity Book #3 - Treasury of Christmas Tales

This is the third of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here. This morning we unwrapped a big collection of Christmas Tales.

For many years, we've enjoyed this collection of Christmas stories called Treasury of Christmas
Tales compiled by Susan Quattrocki and Susan Spellman. It includes some abbreviated classics like "A Christmas Carol" and "The Little Match Girl" as well as some other original stories. This afternoon we read "The Magic Toy Shop," "The Littlest Angel" and then sang along with "The Twelve Days of Christmas" with some fun illustrations. Just some light Christmas fun to help us start thinking about the feast we are already beginning to anticipate.

Nativity Book #2 - Elizabeth's Christmas Story

This is the second of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here. Today's book is Elizabeth's Christmas Story from the Arch Books series from Concordia Publishing House.

I love this book because it is about my patron saint, and there are not many children's books about the Righteous Elizabeth. It tells the story of the Conception of John the Baptist, the Meeting of Elizabeth and the Mother of God, the Nativity of John the Baptist and the Nativity of Christ. It is part of the Arch Books series, published by a Lutheran publishing house, Concordia. I read Arch Books with my parents as a child and loved them. Of course, they aren't Orthodox, but they are Bible stories and are (usually) pretty true to the Scripture, though sometimes with a little bit of story embellishment. They are all told in rhyming verse which is sometimes a little cutsey, but not all bad. New ones have been published every year since the 1960s. So, there is now a huge set of them and they vary in their quality (especially in the quality of illustrations: some are really cartoonish, others are nicer), but some are quite good. I think the older ones are better than the recently published ones. We have a whole set of around 200 that had been published as of 2004 (I told you we have a lot of books). My oldest son received them as a gift from his great grandmother and uncle a few years ago. I really like having them around because they are great for times when I want a quick rendition of a certain Bible story. There are LOTS of Christmas ones, so you'll see them reappearing as I post about our Christmas books. The other thing that is really nice about them is that they are very inexpensive. If you just want to buy one, it's only about $2.50 and can be purchased directly from Concordia.

Nativity Book #1 - The Annunciation

This is the first of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here. The Nativity book we opened on November 15 was The Annunciation by Sister Elayne, with beautiful illustrations by Bonnie Gillis, published by Conciliar Press. It's available from Archangel Books here. I really like this series of books about the feasts of our church. The watercolor illustrations are beautiful and combine icongraphic and folk elements. The text is lovely poetic verse which is filled with profound statements about the mystery of our faith. Sometimes the text is a little too much for little ones, but the illustrations provide good fuel for conversation about the feasts and I'm finding that my 7yo is starting to really enjoy the verses as he gets older. Of course, we started out with this story as it is the beginning of the Nativity story and also the beginning of our salvation as this is the Annunciation is the moment of the Incarnation!

Forty Books of Nativity

We're starting a new Advent tradition this year and I'm very excited about it. The fact is, we are book addicts at our house. Really, we have a problem. Books are everywhere, in every room, packed into every bookshelf and also stacked when there isn't enough shelf space. We have three full bookshelves of kids books alone. University teaching, dissertation writing, choir directing and homeschooling doesn't help the problem. Our collection just keeps growing.

But one of the things I always regret at the end of the Christmas season is that we never manage to read all of our wonderful Christmas books. Last year I posted about some of our favorite books here. This year, I found a great idea for reading our Christmas books on this blog (thanks Ashley!). In their house, they put up the Christmas tree by November 15 and they wrap up all their Christmas books and place them under the tree. Then the kids can unwrap and enjoy them throughout the Christmas season. Wonderful idea! And a great way to make sure we enjoy all of our Nativity books and prepare ourselves spiritually for the feast.

We put up our tree on St. Herman Day (December 13), but I thought we could still use this tradition. So, this past weekend, I gathered up all of our children's Christmas books. I had about 25. Then, with a little creativity (pulling in books about various saints and feasts during the fast period and also some Bible story books from which we can read the Nativity story) I managed to pull together 40 books! I wrapped them all (yes, I'm that excited and crazy) and put enough for the first two weeks in a basket by the fireplace. We'll be opening one book each day and reading it. Once it's opened, it goes in another basket to be enjoyed again through the Nativity season. The kids are so excited about this! And frankly, so am I. I'll be posting information about each book we read on a daily (or almost daily) basis here.

Happy Nativity Reading to all!

Here we go!

The Nativity Fast has begun and Mary, Joseph and the Donkey are on their way to the cave in Bethlehem. Last year I posted about our Nativity path here. We're moving along with the Fast already, and I'll post about some of our activities throughout the Fast. Check for posts of recipes and menus on my fasting blog. Good Fast to all!

No Mirrors in My Nana's House: Book/Music Review

We try to go to the library about twice a month to replenish our stash of books. These days we really like to check out a few books with accompanying CDs. These are great for my 3yo, because he likes to settle in with some books on CD and flip through while listening to the story. I can occupy him for some time with this so I can do some work with the 7yo on math or spelling or something else. Last week I was flipping through the CD books when I discovered this book: No Mirrors in My Nana's House by Ysaye M. Barnwell with illustrations by Synthia Saint James.

The illustrations looked lovely, but I really picked it up because the front cover of the book said that the CD included a song version of the book sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock, a women's a cappella group which I've loved for years. I knew if they had done a song, it would be worth checking out.


Well, it certainly did not disappoint. The story is lovely, the illustrations perfect in their bright simplicity and the music with lyrics to match the book text is just right. This is wonderful story about a girl who says there are no mirrors in her nana's house. Instead "the beauty in everything was in her [nana's] eyes." The little girl never noticed that her clothes didn't fit, that the hallway was dirty, that her skin was too dark, or anything, because there were no mirrors and instead she found beauty looking into her nana's eyes. You can find the full text/lyrics here. Wonderful!


The kids loved the music which my 3yo would tell you is "jukin'." It's good dancing music which is a must around here. We did some great dancing this morning and then put it on after dinner so Daddy could hear it and we all could get in a little more dancing.


And the text of the book was great for conversation. I had 7yo think about what it meant and then we had a good discussion about finding beauty in others instead of just looking in the mirror and thinking "me, me, me." We also talked about how this book relates to the book From I-ville to You-ville which we read last year. Certainly it's about leaving our ego behind and focusing on the other. Then this evening, we talked about it again and how we find true beauty in being loved by another (and in loving others).


So, a bunch of thumbs up for this book - and for the music by Sweet Honey in the Rock. We just might have to add it to our permanent collection around here.

Veteran's Day

7yo and I have a regular Tuesday morning date to our favorite coffee shop. Each Tuesday, we have a schoolwork marathon over coffee and muffins while 3yo plays at Mother's Day Out. This morning CNN was playing on mute in the coffee shop. There was some coverage of Veteran's Day events at Arlington Cemetery. 7yo looked up, read the captions and said,

"Mom, what is Veteran's Day? Is it when we honor animal doctors?"

Discovering Rachel Field

Since we've been loving our poetry tea time each week, I'm now always on the lookout for great poetry to share with my kids. Today during our Language Arts lesson, 7yo and I discovered this wonderful poem by Rachel Field. It was in our 2nd grade poetry anthology from K12. We both loved the poem. So, I've decided to add Rachel Field to our list of poets for tea time (after we finish up Robert Louis Stevenson and A.A. Milne). I think we'll start with Rachel Field's Prayer for a Child, though I haven't been able to read through it myself yet. Here's the beloved poem from today.

Something Told the Wild Geese
by Rachel Field

Something told the wild geese
It was time to go.
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered - "Snow."
Leaves were green and stirring,
Berries, luster-glossed,
But beneath warm feathers
Something cautioned - "Frost."
All the sagging orchards
Steamed with amber spice,
But each wild breast stiffened
At remembered ice.
Something told the wild geese
It was time to fly -
Summer sun was on their wings,
Winter in their cry.

As I read this poem the first time, I had my son close his eyes and listen. Afterwards it was beautiful how he retold the scene, complete with the colors and images of summer/fall that he had heard. He talked of the golden fields and the bright berries, and then talked about how the geese knew that they had to leave so they wouldn't stay too long.

Thank God for poets who so beautifully depict His creation!

Election Day Fun!

It's election day in America! Though the presidential campaign this year has completely exhausted and disturbed me, I'm still happy that we have the chance to vote for our leaders. We've been having fun with the election today. I took my 7yo to vote with me this morning while th 3yo was as Mother's Day Out. What a delightful experience to vote in a small town! I didn't wait in line at all and the church had homemade cookies and pastries out to offer free to all voters and kids! So different from what I remember in my childhood: waiting in long, long lines in a dingy old school with my mom. I may never live in a big city again . . .

This afternoon, my kids have been playing election. Around here we vote on paper "scantron" type ballots. They just give you a paper and you bubble in your choices with a pen and then you insert it in the machine to be read - just like taking the SAT. While I prefer computerized voting, this method has actually been nice for the kids today. We were able to go to our county election commission website and print off sample ballots for our precinct. They look just like the ballots at the voting location. So we printed them off, and the kids are "voting" and then inserting their ballots into a box they created to "read" the ballot. Wonder how the results will turn out at our house?

One thing is for sure, around here the voters have chosen some non-traditional candidates. In several of our county races the incumbent is running unopposed. So, my 7yo chose to do some write-ins. He wrote in himself for County Commissioner, his dad for County Treasurer, his best friend for Sheriff and the Libertarian Presidential candidate (Barr) for District Attorney. Interesting . . .

The 3yo voted for the Reform candidate (Baldwin) for President. . . . He also wrote in Obama District Attorney. I think we're going to be hardpressed to get majority votes in this house.

Today's Poetry

Tigers

Among the tall grass a hunting tiger creeps.
Its fur stays soft like sheets,
Although if I go out there alone
I am sure to forever be alone.
For if the tiger creeps too close.
I will be to him like toast.

-AM, age 7, 3rd November 2008

Autumn Colors