Currently

(With apologies for not always being as current as it should be)

Hey, an update! Well, an update in progress. As of June 2009:

What We’re Reading, Watching, Listening to, and Playing with:

Reading

Stuffed: Growing Up in a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk (Becky)

Speaking of being stuffed — The Foie Gras Wars: How a 5,000-Year-Old Delicacy Inspired the World’s Fiercest Food Fight by Mark Caro (Becky), a birthday gift from my father.  By the way, I returned the favor and sent him for his recent birthday Nicolas Freeling’s The Kitchen Book/The Cook Book (David Godine reprint, 1991).

Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw (Becky)

The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology by Bernd Heinrich (Becky), which I got at BookCloseouts; I’m hoping I can finish this shortly and get to Heinrich’s newest, Summer World: A Season of Bounty

An Unlikely Friendship: A Novel of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley by Ann Rinaldi (Laura), which I also got at BookCloseouts

Quilling for Scrapbooks and Cards by Susan Lowman (Laura)

Songbird Journeys: Four Seasons In the Lives of Migratory Birds by Miyoko Chu (Laura)

Fire, Bed & Bone by Henrietta Branford (Daniel); the story of Wat Tyler and the Peasants’ Uprising, as narrated by a dog.  No kidding.

Watching

“Due South” with Paul Gross; the kids adore Benton Fraser.  Thank you kindly.

“The Belle of Amherst” with Julie Harris

“The Arrow” with Dan Aykroyd

Listening to

Birding podcasts (Laura)

“Key Principles” from the duo Nathan (Laura)

Kingfisher Days by Susan Coyne (Laura and Becky); I’ve long loved the book but this is the perfect thing to listen to while working in the garden on a Canadian summer day, and Laura is being taken by the magic, too.

“Appalachian Journey” with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor, Alison Krauss and others

“Appalachia Waltz” with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O’Connor

“Vinyl Cafe” story CDs written and performed by Stuart McLean; the preferred bedtime listening for all three kids.

Playing with

Kittens

The new inflatable dinghy

The new-to-him telescope-without-tripod which Davy received for free at a garage sale

The tent, where the boys have started camping out overnight

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New York, Autumn 2008: Planning for our trip

This year’s readalouds:

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden (a re-readaloud)

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (a re-readaloud)

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George; the link is for a modern paperback, though we have a grand old 1959 library hardbound with lovely pen and ink drawings, which stays open nicely for reading and picture perusing.

The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith; I linked to the older library edition, with the illustration of two boys and the water horse. I’m not keen on movie tie-ins, so I avoided linking to the new movie tie-in paperback.

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What We’re Reading, Watching, Listening to, and Playing with:

Reading

Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery

The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty by Wilfrid Sheed

Watching

“Waitress” (2007) with Keri Russell, Adrienne Shelly, Nathan Fillion, and Andy Griffith; directed by Adrienne Shelly

“The Steve McQueen Collection”: The Great Escape, Junior Bonner, The Magnificent Seven, The Thomas Crown Affair

Listening to

“That’s Entertainment” six CD box set, fortunately bought before Amazon hiked the price by $30

Playing with

Sploids