A Friday with my little boys

Sorry for the lack of posts, after our trip to Edinburgh last week

the days got a bit hazy. We recouped from our trip to Edinburgh on Wednesday, got locked out of the house from 9 to 4 on Thursday (it would happen to be a day that Jim forgot to take his phone and the fire alarm went off in the roundel...), and Jim was gone for 12 hours on Friday trying to catch up on work and attending a whisky tasting.

All three boys had a cold over the weekend and that made for one very sleepless night (baby screaming from 3am on...) But, I think we are back to normal (whatever that means) now after a busy weekend.

I did manage to snap some photos on Friday when I had both boys all day through bedtimes.

Here is the baby visiting Africa. Grandma sent this huge floor map and we've been having a great time with it - sorting animals, naming continents and finding countries. Jonah loves listening to Jack Grunsky's "Walk around the World" and going north and south, finding islands and oceans... when the song mentions them.

Jonah was so excited that Rowan was kissing him. I'm thinking Rowan had other things in mind, but we'll go with kisses.

We've been so grateful for new stories these last few weeks. Jim's Aunt and the grandmothers sent several new stories in the past couple weeks and I have them all about memorized. We almost always read while I'm nursing Rowan and I'm forever grateful for fresh reading material.

So most of my Friday was spent reading "The Wishing Chair" by Enid Blyton (a famous UK author). Jonah loves Pooh and Paddington stories, but we've never read straight through a chapter book (we did start Peter Pan, but he lost interest). I had made bowls for us with slips of paper filled with things to do. His bowl had things like "wash potatoes", "do a workbook in the schoolroom", "make a new train track", "tidy your kitchen", "dance to new CD" and "read the first chapter of a book". Mine were a little less exciting; "do the dishes", "wipe out fridge", "clean counters", "start laundry", but it seemed to help Jonah give me space to get done what I needed and made sure I spent good time with him. It was early in the day when he drew the slip about reading a chapter of a new book and we didn't get to many other slips in the day as Jonah was hooked by the book. We read all 160 pages by bedtime. It is a fun book with simple stories with a humor that Jonah loved. Now I need to track down the sequels as Jonah is almost through the book for a second time with Daddy and keeps asking when we are getting the next book.

And here are the boys starting in to "The Wishing Chair" with Daddy early Saturday morning. Jonah was so excited to share the story with Daddy too! Rowan's yawn suggests that maybe he wasn't as excited about reading the book a second time.

I'd love any suggestions of early chapter books! My mom did just send a magic treehouse book to try, but if he'll read a whole book in a day I'm going to need some options!