Showing posts with label good books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label good books. Show all posts

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Artsy-Fartsy

King Tut has been at the Dallas Museum of Art since last fall. Jesse and I have talked about taking at least Julie and David to see it. We had planned to go during spring break, but our plans changed two or three times before we finally settled on the week's activities. After hearing that one of our children's favorite author / illustrators was going to speak at the Museum Friday night, we jumped on the chance to attend the lecture. All things considered, we opted to buy a membership (discounted 10% because Jesse works for corporate sponsor Lockheed Martin - yippee!) which gives us two free tickets to the King Tut exhibit and a year-long pass to other general admission exhibits and activities. We've joined the enlightened ranks of the art intelligentsia!

Ahem, back to earth . . . While I purchased our membership, Jesse, my mom and the kids got our name on the "will call" list to see the lecture. Luckily, we were second on the list, so we made it in. We were privileged to listen to Mrs. Judy Schachner speak about Skippyjon Jones and her pets that inspired the stories. She was a delight to listen to and had a great slideshow of her pets' antics. After her narrated slideshow, Mrs. Schachner read Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble, in which El Skippito goes in search of peas in the tomb of King Rootin-Tootin-Kitten-Kabootin. We have been fans of the Skippyjon series since Julie was in kindergarten, and we were very pleased with the lecture.

After the lecture we stood in a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very (you get the idea) long line to have our edition of the book signed. The kids did quite well until the last twenty minutes of the wait. We were down to ten people ahead of us; we could see the table where Mrs. Schachner was signing the books; but the kids were at the end of their rope. We toughed it out with a lot of whining, but we finally made it to the end. Mrs. Schachner was very kind, patiently took pictures with us (they're on my mom's cell phone and won't be available until she figures out how to download them), and signed our book (and the book my mom bought while we were waiting).

TAH DAH!



The inscription reads "I am not a human bean!" To understand this little inside joke, bounce to your local library, Scholastic book fair, or Barnes and Noble and check out or buy any one of the four Skippyjon Jones books. We are excitedly awaiting the new book Mrs. Schachner announced will arrive this fall. We won't tell you what it is about - that will be our leetle esecret. ;-)

(We still haven't seen King Tut; we will go in April.)

Friday, October 31, 2008

Book Review

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama


My review


rating: 4 of 5 stars
Senator Obama is an excellent writer. He shares his thorough knowledge of the issues ranging from family to foreign affairs. I really enjoyed reading his views, even if I don't agree with all of them.


View all my reviews.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Exhiliration

Okay. So most of the time I am fine with the daily routines of life as a stay-at-home mom, but there are times, triggered by who-knows-what, that my brain feels starved. Need more input! (Please tell me you saw the movie Short Circuit when you were younger and that you get that reference!) Lately, my brain has been feeding on intro to economics books and political commentaries. I listen to NPR often enough that I hear information but don't have enough knowledge to make an informed opinion on it. Now I can listen to Congress' deliberation over plans to help people overcome the sub-prime mortgage mess and know that I would prefer that lenders take care of it by voluntarily restructuring mortgages over Congress getting involved. Businesses are more likely to apply a better solution than Congress! (I understood what I wrote; I hope you understood what you read:).

Anyway, long story short since I need to get lunch ready: I have discovered two great websites to help me feed my brain with limited interaction from others (politics doesn't go over well as a discussion topic at playgroup) http://www.politicalds.com/ and http://www.goodreads.com/ The first is a blog by members of the LDS church who discuss politics. Both Democrats and Republicans are represented, and I can comment on the posts (limited, but desired, interaction).

I am super-excited about the second website!!! I have wanted to start a book club enrichment group at church, but never have for various reasons. I also, just recently, thought about starting a periodic book review post on this blog, but goodreads is what I have been looking for:):):). I add books to a "read," "currently reading," and "to-read" list. goodreads.com uses books on the amazon.com site, so a picture of the book cover appears on your list (LDS books are available, too; I saw a review on a book by Elder Holland and reviewed the biography of Elder Maxwell myself). You can rate and review the books on your list. You can also post your own original works; (This is where you have to be careful: the two poems I read were great, but one of the short stories I tried to read had four-letter words in it, so I quit reading.) maybe I will be brave enough to publish something someday:). Caveat: you do have to subscribe to the goodreads site to view your friends' books and reviews.

Okay, I need to stop gushing. I am so excited to have an intellectual outlet, that I am babbling (it's embarrassing). But I have to admit: I am the biggest nerd you will ever meet:).

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Storybook Character Parade

On Friday Julie dressed up as Fancy Nancy for the school's storybook character parade. She put her costume together by herself; Mommy only added a curly ribbon for fun at the last minute. She was so excited about this event that she led the family in a parade on Saturday. Daddy was Santa Claus from Polar Express. Mommy was the purple cat from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Julie was Snow White from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. David was t-rex from his dinosaur book, Prehistoric Park. And Josh was Little Toot (no costume required) from Little Toot. James was asleep, so he didn't partipate. Why not try having your own storybook parade? Julie highly recommends it!

Sunday, October 14, 2007

The Perfect Big Brother




Joshua loves his baby brother! He was reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear to James until James took the book to eat it.