What's In My Teapot?

This season of Advent is moving right along! Today we opened the box with the number 16 adhered to the side. December may be passing in it's usual flurry, but our family has found our Advent time to be very special, just as I hoped it would be! It only took one box for the children to understand what was going on, and now Parker starts talking about it as soon as we sit down to read the Bible-story! Of all the little treasures found inside, his favorite is by far the candy ! You already know that I have a special fondness for children's books, but the three books I am reviewing today are proof that this love began long before I had children of my own: they all have Joanna Wadel written inside as the mark of ownership! One is dated 2001 and two are from 2005! It's a bit strange that I haven't added to the repertoire now that I do have children, but we're trying to remedy that with plans to give each of the children a Christmas storybook as their Advent surpris...

I have a hot cup of  tea beside me, two boys in bed above me, the majority of supper preparations behind me and a ladies night out with some friends before me. What more do I need to chase away the gloom of a chilly day when the very fingers of winter are scratching at my window panes? A good book to review, perhaps? Elasa has been listening to More All-Of-A-Kind Family on CD and since the book is about a Jewish family (and one I would highly recommend!!!) it talks about the Jewish holidays. When it talks about Hanukkah, also called Festival of Lights , it says that it is " the happy holiday right in the midst of December's bleakness." Well, that's how I feel about Christmas. It is a time of cheer and festivity in the midst of some pretty depressing weather and days in which we see the least amount of daylight. A little digital weather monitor that we have says that today we only have 9 hours and 34 minutes of daylight. I am no mathematician, and yet even I ca...