Feb 4th, 2012 or 2 Whole Years Since I Abandoned This Blog

Well, I finally feel like blogging again! It's only been 2 years. What can I say, I was in a kind of writing slump! And so, I have started again, slowly, to write at my other blog (which, without showing any favouritism, I also abandoned two years ago!).

The way I see it now, I was really trying to accomplish too much in attempting to manage two separate blogs. See, this blog was to be my mommy, family, cooking, recipe, book sharing type blog and the other one was more my own personal, seeking, chasing and manifesting my dreams type blog. Well, I now see no reason why the two cannot peacfully co-exist in one shared space. In fact I may actually end up posting more frequently!

It was hard to decide which one to officially terminate. However, my "And a Bowl of Oranges Too" blog was my first and I have a bit more of "me" invested in it. So, this blog will officially cease to be and all future posts for the former "Om~Mama~Shanti" can now be found over at And a Bowl of Oranges Too.

So, If you happen to find yourself here, by all means, please feel free to head on over there!

The Lion, the Book and the Bathrobe

Here is C showcasing her three favourite Christmas gifts.

The Lion. From Grandma A. It is furry and has a motion or light sensor which sets it to roll around on the floor and roar with laughter----until you turn it OFF. She loves it.

The Book. From Grandma L. The Last Olympian, of the Percy Jackson Series. She's read it twice now. She loves it.

The Bathrobe. From Grandma S. It's soft, it's warm, it's red. She wants to wear it ALL the time. She loves it.

A big Three Cheers and Thank-you to all Three Grandmas for their A+ gifts!!!

What better way to start off the new year, than with a large stack of newly acquired books to read? Yay!

Here is the list of books gifted to C (the Elf) this Christmas:

1. The Battle of the Labyrinth, Rick Riordon (Percy Jackson series)
2. The Last Olympian , Rick Riordaon (Percy Jackson Series)
3. 10 Best Greek Legends Ever, Terry Deary
4. Just Grace Walks the Dog, Charise Mericle Harper
5. Star Girl,
6. Shiloh, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
7. Rules, Cynthia Lord
8. Sarah Plain and Tall, Patricia MacLachlan
9. Holes, Louis Sachar
10. Bud, Not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis
11. Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech
12. A Year Down Yonder
13. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg
14. The Giver, Lois Lowry
15. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
16. A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L’Engle
17. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Madeleine L’Engle
18. Many Waters, Madeleine L’Engle
19. An Acceptable Time, Madeleine L’Engle
20. The Green Gables Collections 100th Anniversary Edition, L.M. Montgomery
21. The Draw 50 Way, Lee J. Ames
22. Sound and Light, Ontario Science and Technology
23. The Stroogle Sails the Seven Seas, Dr Cameron Stelzer
24. Animaze, by Wendy Madgwick and Lorna Hussey

After all the gifting and visiting and feasting of Christmas Day, C began to read The Battle of The Labyrinth (which she insists on pronouncing LAY-bee-rinth).
Boxing Day was spent reading.
Well, HER day was spent reading.
M and I were preparing dinner and the house for my family who came for dinner and overnight.

On the 27th, she moved on to The Last Olympian.
In the car on the way to St. Catherines on the 30th, she read Just Grace Walks the Dog and 10 Best greek Legends Ever.
Somewhere in between we read Star Girl together, until she lost interest and I finished it by myself.
I’ve also read Holes and Rules.
I am looking forward to starting the Madeleine L’Engle series together.
Right now however, C is already re-reading her new Percy Jackson’s (after re-reading books 1-3) and is naming all her new stuffies after Greek Gods!! We have Artemis the Elephant, Aphrodite the Kitten and Zeus, the Hedgehog!

What We're Reading Dec. 17

Today I am hosting “What We are Reading This Week” for the Well Read Child; so please comment or include a link in the comments to your blog post about what you are reading this week.

At the beginning of 2009, I decided to help the Elf to keep a record of all the books she would read this year. This was due largely to the fact that she had received twenty-plus books for Christmas and had read most of them by the end of January!

We started recording the details of what she was reading in an Excel doc.; the title, author, illustrator, whether it was fiction, non-fiction, picture book, and the month in which she read it.

Now, looking over that Excel doc. as we close in on the end of 2009, I see that she has read 121 books. Most of them have been fiction chapter books, from the Rainbow Fairies and Puppy Place to the Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series. Picture books were down in consumption from last year, numbering only 13. She has read some of her favourite books twice; Kenneth Oppel’s Silverwing series, for instance. Those books were the first three on her list in January 2009 and now, they are being revisited this month, this week.

This week, we did look at a picture book together; Nutcracker Noel by Kate McMullen and illustrated by Jim McMullen. A charming story of a young girl who dreams of dancing in the Nutcracker ballet and how she deals with disappointment by becoming the best tree ever!

At work this week, the theme is Red. To the children in my care, I read, Red Is Best. It has long been one of my best loved books for toddlers and preschoolers. Below is a short review I had previously written for it.

Red Is Best
by Kathy Stinson
Art by Robin Baird Lewis
Annick Press Ltd. Copywrite 1982
ISBN 0-920236-24-3 (bound)
ISBN 0-920236-26-X 9pbk)

Kelly’s mom just “doesn’t understand about red”.
Stinson gets it though. She thoroughly captures a young child’s affinity for all things “favourite”, and in this case, obviously, red! Any one who has ever known a preschooler will definitely relate.

And Kelly, well, she possesses the wisdom that all small children do… she instinctively knows that “juice tastes better in the red cup” and that she can “jump higher in (her) red stockings”. We could all learn from following these types of instincts. Some things just make us feel better and it is good to acknowledge this and surround ourselves in these comforts, whatever they may be.

I’m off now to slip into my deep purple chenille bath robe.
I relax best in my deep purple chenille bathrobe.

What We're Reading Dec 10

Books about Snow.

That’s what we’re reading.

At least that’s what the preschoolers have been having me read to them.
I have a few favourite snow books. I can hardly wait for the first snowflake to fall before bringing them out each year, however the magic of the books is so deeply enhanced when reading them against a backdrop of softly falling snow. Lucky for me we had our first real substantial snowfall on Monday, my teaching day. So, I was able to bring out the books in order to celebrate.

• The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
• Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
• The Jacket I Wear in the Snow by Shirley Neitzel and Nancy Winslow Parker
• Thomas’ Snowsuit, by Robert Munsch.

My little Elf is still on her exploration of mythology and is now reading How to Speak Dragonese by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III translated from the Old Norse by Cressida Cowell. I’m not sure what I think about this book as I have not yet read it but there appears to be a “Captain Underpants” appeal to the story ie: references to bums, farts and poo.

Together,the Elf and I? Well we are reading Wind in the Willows, of course.

Advent Calendar Day 9…. Snow Day!!!

You just had to know it was coming! I think we had already had about 5 or 6 snow days by this time last year, so I’m not complaining. I’m just glad that it happened on a day when I was not scheduled to work so that I am able to stay home with my little Elf and enjoy the snow day too. This day of tri-county bus cancellations gives us a great opportunity to pull out all the Christmas decorations and start decorating our home for the holidays! (We are NOT pull the decorations out the day after Halloween people)

We are playfully making our way through the advent calendar which we started a bit late after I found the idea for the 25 days of Christmas challenge over at a peek inside the fishbowl. We have made some small cards using old holiday cards, added numbers 1-25 and I added the strips of paper with the activity for that day inside (along with an individually wrapped Riesen candy!).

Here are some of the activities we have enjoyed thus far (I just haven't got around to blogging about them yet):

• Looking at and reading last year’s Christmas Cards
• Santa Claus Parade
• Writing Our Christmas Cards
• Drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows
• Listening to Christmas music

Stay tuned for 16 more days of twinkling-crinkling-glittery-sugar-plums-dancing-round-our-heads, holiday fun!!

What We're Reading November 26

Well, we’ve pretty much wrapped up our reading from our large haul from the library a couple of weeks back. It’s a good thing too as the books are due back on Saturday. Normally this would be a good opportunity to get more books while returning the old ones, however, I am singing in the Westben Theatre’s concert of The Wind In the Willows on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, so the library trip will have to wait until next weekend.

Last weekend I was so very fortunate and excited to have performed two wonderful concerts and a dress rehearsal as part of the Westben Festival Chorus along with the Youth and Teen Choruses. Of course, the highlight of the performances has been the narration of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In the Willows by Canadian Stage and movie actor, Tom McCamus. We are truly honoured to share the stage with him and the creative, expressive talent he delivers through his resonant, baritone voice.

Since my little Book Elf has been through all her library books, she has begun to reread the Chronicles of Narnia. I think she is currently in the middle of Voyage of The Dawn Treader.

I’ve also read all the library picture books to my preschoolers, so have gone back to my personal collection. This week our theme has been winter birds. One of my choices for a circle time book was Without You by Sarah Weeks (one of my preferred children’s storybook authors) which is a story about fatherly love and Emperor Penguins. This story also appears in song format on one of my much loved children’s cd’s put out by Ms. Weeks called I'm An Animal.

I'm thinking that we will be looking for the Wind In the Willows on our library trip next weekend.