cheer

Ah, it's been good! I'm not sure what is different, but I really feel like we have had ample time to have a blast over this holiday vacation. There was loads of time to make our prezzies, cold cold temperatures to provide a daily dose of skating on the pond, and, well, a very large ham to ensure that no one went hungry- for many many meals and between 2 households we ate and ate fresh roasted ham in many ways (I think the tacos were my favorite, but no surprise there).

We were pleased with how our gifts turned out for sweet young friends, so take a look.

For Birdy, we made a story starter kit- inspired by all the excellent work that my friend over at Red Bird Crafts has been doing with her story stones and discs. It looks like this:


How does it work? Easy. Roll a handful of dice that have a different image on each side. We made 6- a character die, 3 object dice, a weather die, and a place die.
Then we made cardstock discs that had all of those images on the dice (I traced a ton of 1" circles on a piece of paper and Ava drew all the pictures. Then we used that as a master to photocopy as many sheets as we wanted. I have a craft punch that cut the circles out easy-peasy).

After you roll the dice, you find the images rolled and glue them to the top of your story page. the idea is that the storyteller will incorporate the pictures into the story she is spinning.


I wish I could share some of the things she has written since getting the kit. There is nothing better than giving someone a gift and watching them love it. Nothing!

Jonny and Ava created some excellent personalized mad libs for Ben- about their school, the various places we have gone on vacations together, and even a bonus mad lib on beavers. And now here is another example of my gal's supremely thoughtful and gorgeous artwork (and now we will rename this blog "One Kvelling Apple").