Sweet Summer Reading

     Yesterday, my husband and I had an Auntie/Uncle date with our three beautiful nieces (9, 11 & 13 - these are of course, their ages, we don't refer to them as numbers - lol). And we decided to take them to a very cool bookstore near us called Kidsbooks. The ladies are so knowledgeable and we were excited to take the girls in for an end-of-the-school-year-beginning-of-summer gift/book. So the girls were able to say what they liked, the staff picked out a few options and then they sat down and perused each copy and made a decision! Of course, you know, I just sent the store a handwritten thank you note because they are awesome!

To round out the afternoon we headed over to Menchies for a sweet treat (their first time!) and fully indulged our sweet tooths (teeth?). Just noticed they do fundraisers too - always looking for new fundraising venues (yum, frozen yogurt) - making a mental note about that.

    Summer and reading go hand in hand! I know I'm compiling my summer reading list right now and starting the stack to pull from.  I think we are going to head to the library in a couple of days to see what their summer reading program looks like and get our sweet five year old excited about that - brings back so many memories! Of course, libraries are great places for recommendations as well and love that you can also rent movies and take out magazines and more. Reading on the beach, on the deck, in a hammock, in a tent (with a flashlight) tucked in a sleeping bag, in a book nook, at Grandma and Papa's house, at a sidewalk cafe...reading has always been a big part of our summer and I hope that continues. All of those places are great places to read and write mail as well.

     Connecting with characters in a book is not so different than connecting with people via the written word (aka letters & postcards). In fact, one of my favourite sayings is, "We read to know that we are not alone." Some of the world's greatest people and mentors are characters in books - share that with your kids and give that to yourself as well! Some books even have letters and postcards inside them (The Jolly Postman & Meerkat Mail for the younger set and Griffin & Sabine for adults - full of beautiful mail and an intriguing story/series).

778/1000 Sent a couple of great packages to Norway, one to Piper's pen pal, and a couple of cards - making it 5 that I get to add to my count.

Books and Silliness

     My oldest niece just turned 13 this spring and she's just lovely! As an English teacher (on hiatus), professed book lover, and avid reader I always feel sad when kids in my class don't like reading. Not necessarily class novels - as much as I love Lord of the Flies it probably isn't exciting for everyone (I even like the black and white movie - seriously?). But I am a strong believer that non-readers just haven't found the right book yet (to get them started). And this is the case with my niece. She liked reading for a while I think but then suddenly wasn't interested...until now! It just took a certain series of books to flick the switch for her.

     It's really cool because my husband and I have been able to 'feed' her books, so to speak, from our book shelves. Sharing books and talking about them is a special gift. And I definitely advocate sharing your favourite books with friends and family because they really are a little piece of who we are - we often find ourselves in books and that is part of their beauty. Easy to pop in the mail or even an excerpt that really means something to you.

No shortage of books to lend here.
Two of our five bookshelves that we purge often.

     In addition to lending out books this week I received another silly letter back from my niece J and had a great time writing her back - maybe, I'm enjoying it more than she is? Either way it's a lot of fun to be creative with it to see what silliness I can come up with - pancake fights, bacon jewellery, and skunk jerky - oh it's on!

     And pleased to report that on my way out to run errands I mailed her letter and when I came back to my car my two year old pointed to the mailbox and said, "mail." Now he has new words everyday lately but have to say this is one of my favourites this week! Yep, he knows what his Mama is up to - love that kid!

     Then on my way back from running errands I stopped to check our mail and lo and behold my 11 year old niece S (J's sister) sent me a silly letter - Oh we've started something here! So looking forward to sitting down and writing back! So S tells me she's travelling the world...and other crazy hijinks. Both nieces only live a block and a half away actually (with sister K too) but there is something magical about mail and what we are doing here. Keep that in mind. Mail is not always about distance, it is often just about relationships.

770/1000 1, 2 & 3 to the count this week! Slowly but surely.

P.S. One of those fab letter is going to Stephanie with something special inside for guessing the movie from my last post! And it was Finding Forrester. Way to go Steph!

A Little Reading Material...

Back in November I posted Snow Mail where I mentioned that I was "hand" making Christmas presents for my nieces (aged 12, 11 and 9) but it was top secret because it was before Christmas (clearly). So I thought I would take today's post to share what I made for them. My nieces like to read before bed and I wanted to "make" books for them to read before bed that was personalized for them. And then I thought they could trade after they had read their own.

I started with three journals. I first thought of the idea in January but didn't get started until September. My goal was to fill the whole book but I probably ended up doing about 50 pages (next time I will start earlier - which is why I am posting this now in case anyone else wants to give it a go).

Three Awesome Journals for Three Awesome Nieces!

I filled them with magazine articles, jokes, craft instructions, inspiring quotations, favourite photos, interesting facts, How to's, poems, comics, top 10 lists...all things I could have potentially sent them in the mail too. And all short, bite-sized bits so they could pick up and put down at their leisure. I did a lot of reusing and recycling - going through old magazines and catalogues & picking up more at my local thrift shop.

A few sample pages.

I even wrote each of these sweet girls a poem.

I had my husband draw a comic - his go to is always a skeleton (he says it is the one thing he can draw). He picked a sport each girl is involved in.

Soccer.

Gymnastics.

Swimming.

I also "spelled out" their names. Here is an example of one. 

J-A-Y-L-E-N

And while I wish I could have filled every single page (I just ran out of time), I'm not sure the journals would have been able to close if I had.

I'm happy to report that they loved them. The next day after Christmas they flew to India for 2.5 weeks so this turned into something they could read on the plane or during a layover. I know they liked them because when I went over to see them the other day my oldest niece asked if I could fill in the rest (aw that felt so good!). 

I'm thinking I'll do something similar (but start now) for next Christmas but this time I will do more of an interactive book with areas for them to fill out and things for them to do and so on. Right now I'm brainstorming and thinking word puzzles, journal entry type questions, scavenger hunts... I did something like this for my husband when he decided to go on a trip to Europe for the summer after we'd been dating for a short 4 months. He still has it.

He used the second half
as a journal for his trip.

A Sampling...

Lots of ideas if you want to start your own or if you want to just send a few things in the mail to friends. You could even start a journal and send it back and forth to each other - each filling in a few pages at a time (of writing, photos, or bits like I put in the books for my nieces). What fun!

707/1000 25 pieces of "heart" mail this week...and just like that I broke 700!

Snow Mail!

December is almost here...so I'm sure you all have your advent calendars ready to go (tee hee). Hopefully, my Advent Calendar Mondays got you a little excited or inspired to get in a festive mood. I know December can be a stressful month so do your best to stop and appreciate the little things. I know the joy the advent calendar brings in my house (so much excitement in the morning!) what will it be for you? I know we will also make jam from summer apricots, make birdseed ornaments for the tree in our yard, drive around and look at all the houses with lights (and yell, "Christmas House" every time we see one - under direct orders from my daughter), and decorate a gingerbread house (actually, a carousel...new in stores this year I think - Piper's pick).

Family Gingerbread Party 2012

Actually today we made snow! It's been a beautiful sunny, but cold, day here in the Pacific Northwest. We don't get a lot of snow but we got something very cool in the mail last week.

Thank you Auntie Jenna!

And not only was it so fun to receive, it was sent in a paper-lunch-bag-made-envelope with washi tape to pretty it up and seal it up (I wish I'd taken a picture of it before we opened it but I let Piper have it as soon as I checked the mail). Add "snow" to your list of cool things to send in the mail (with just a regular stamp too).

It's always an exciting month at the mailbox for cards and notes and packages. I need to get going on my own stack so I can send them out next week. I love picking out gifts for my friends and family,  and making them too. In fact, my nieces' gifts this Christmas are all handmade (I may post about this later...but top secret stuff right now).  I also love to wrap (crazy right). Seriously I should hire out my services (but I do make a big mess).  

In the quiet moments (usually after children have gone to bed) I love curling up on my couch, with a steaming cup of tea, taking in the beauty of the Christmas tree & the Nativity, the sense of calm and if there were gentle snowflakes falling from the sky it might just be perfect.

Find your perfect moment and make it happen - it is a season of joy, let yourself be joyful.

564/1000 one penpal letter going out but look out for Christmas cards adding to the count next week!

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!

Walking, Scavenging, Neighbouring...

I've been doing some walking lately (one of my fav forms of exercise) and I've been following the same route for the most part and really checking out the houses along the way. There are some really beautifully kept homes in my neighbourhood. And I was reminded of this house in Washington on the rural roads of Blaine/Birch Bay, that I used to drive by regularly, that was always decorated for the seasons/holidays (even the little ones...back to school for example).

One day (around Christmas time) I decided to write them a card and tell them how my friends and family and I would drive by their house with the excitement of anticipation...what would it look like? How would it be decorated? And it didn't ever disappoint. I stealthily left a card on their door step, after stopping my car just past their house and running like a madwoman (not wanting to get caught in the act - wanting it to be an anonymous kindness). Such a simple thing to decorate their house and I bet they had no idea the happiness it caused (and then they did). I'm feeling like I might have to get into this again and drop off a few cards along my walking route. Good Neighbouring (new verb?) - worth a try.

In other news, I received one of my scavenger hunts back on July 25th! In that particular one (to some writing students) I asked for 4 things (a book spine poem, a 6 word story, something that starts with G that makes them happy, and their best knock knock joke). Thank you Miss H for being first and for full documentation - you rock!

And then later that day, my nieces sent me a picture of one of their scavenger hunt tasks (write on a banana with a ball point pen).

 



And I did hear some complaints from them too, "My Mom keeps throwing out the striped rocks" and "Seriously there are no pennies from 2002" (the year my middle niece was born - she's looked everywhere). I love it! And now I may have to be on the hunt for a 2002 penny (which will be a bit harder now that we have outlawed the penny so to speak). I also received this very cool postcard (I believe all hand drawn) - thanks Sage!

4 pieces heading out!

407/1000