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As I have mentioned previously, we have been reading the Little House series. Autumn is a great time for a reread of this classic series because there are typically pioneer activities at fall festivals. Even if you don't have a pioneer-friendly festival nearby, there are so many activities that can easily be done at home. 

Many years ago I bought the Little House on the Prairie Cookbook. I bought this cookbook long before I had children. I had fond memories of checking it out of the library as a child and trying to make mashed potatoes the same way Laura would have made mashed potatoes. I hoped that one day I would be able to share this experience with my own daughters. Happily, I have indeed had that experience. 

One afternoon after we finished our school work, we decided to make butter. I put heavy whipping cream in tightly sealed containers and gave each girl their own container. They quickly learned that it is far from easy to shake cream into butter. We happened to have the bouncy house up, so Meg and Anne decided they would try bouncing their cream in the bouncy house. Once they made butter, Meg added some herbs to add some elegance. We bought French bread for dinner and served it with our butter.

Shortly after this butter-making experience, we went to the Fall Heritage Festival at Gulf Branch Nature Center in Arlington, Virginia. To our delight, they offered two additional ways to make butter that the girls were able to try. They had a hand butter churner that attaches to a jar. They also had a ceramic churn. While challenging, the girls quickly decided these options were superior to shaking a jar. 

Making butter was not the only way the girls were able to relate to the Little House books. The festival offered dress up opportunities, a tour of a log cabin and pioneer-type games. The girls enjoyed making candles as well as corn husk dolls. We also had the chance to make a scarecrow. I can't remember a specific scarecrow reference in the Little House books, but it did seem very pioneer-like. 

I have a few more Little House crafts I hope to do with the girls and I will try to share them with you as they happen. In the meantime, I encourage you to pick up your favorite Little House book. 

As I have mentioned several times, the girls and I have been reading books from the Little House series at bedtime over the past few months. However, as we read On the Banks of Plum Creek, I could see their interest waning. This was not a surprise for me. I heard from other families with children of similar ages that their kids also began losing interest at this point in the series. Some families chose to push ahead. Others chose to put the Little House books away for awhile. I chose the latter course because I wanted the girls to know that chapter books are more than just books about pioneers. Chapter books can be about fairies, gardens, sisters having adventures and so many things.

I began to make suggestions to the girls about other books we could read, but Meg had already made up her mind. "I want to read the Lion book," she said. The Lion book is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In addition to having individual copies of each book in the Narnia series, we have the Narnia books collected into one large volume with a lion on the spine of the book. Meg has been intrigued by that book since she was two years old. We have told her bits and pieces of the story, but she very much wants to know that Lion's whole story.

I hesitated to introduce The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe so early. They are not going to understand the allegorical elements of the story. But then I realized that was just one layer. C.S. Lewis intended the Narnia series to be a fantasy story for children, not just Christian allegory for college students to return to after they've read Mere Christianity. I didn't read the Narnia series until I was in college. I never had the experience that I've heard from others of sitting in my closet hoping desperately that it would open into Narnia. I've never enjoyed the Narnia series on the fantasy level. And if my kids are good at anything, it is fantasy. Not only do they have over-the-top imaginations, they have a great understanding of the fairy and elf world. If anyone can appreciate a faun, it is Meg and Clare.

So, I decided to start reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the girls. They've enjoyed it so far. If it becomes apparent they aren't ready for it, we'll stop. The day after we began reading it, we coincidentally had a nature class about beavers, which nicely prepared the girls for the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver in the book. The nature teacher brought a beaver skin to allow the students to feel the beaver's fur (see picture below). Meg asked how the beaver had died. The teacher replied she didn't know. Meg responded, "He looks very flat now. I think a tree fell on him." See, quite the imagination.

From the moment we were expecting our first child, I knew one day we would have a trundle bed. I love trundle beds. I have always loved trundle beds. This great love affair must have started when my mother would read us the Little House books. I could picture Mary and Laura snuggled up in their trundle bed while the winter weather beat against the little cabin in the woods of Wisconsin. With that cozy picture nestled happily in my brain, I was quite susceptible to the Pottery Barn Kids catalogue pictures of a little white wooden bed with a matching trundle bed peeking out from beneath it.

When our first two children turned out to both be girls, I envisioned them sharing a room with a twin bed and a trundle bed. However, when it came time to replace their toddler beds with "real" beds, those two girls had their hearts set on bunk beds. That didn't stop me. I bought bunk beds with a trundle bed. After all, baby number three was on the way and it turned out she was going to be a girl too. Why not three girls in one room. And even if we decided against that, wouldn't we need an extra bed for sleepovers and the occasional visit from Grandma. I also thought that while the top bunk would be Meg's, she might opt to sleep on the trundle bed for awhile. That turned out not to be the case. The top bunk of our bunk beds is so enclosed she has always been completely safe there (the two-year-old brother of one of her friends refers to it as Meg's cribby because it looks more like a crib than a bed). It also helps that Meg is a sound sleeper and never wakes up at night (in other words, no middle of the night ladder climbing).

For months, the trundle bed went unused. Right up until Meg broke her finger. Once the doctor determined she needed a full cast over her hand and top part of her arm, ladder climbing any time of day became just about impossible. Oh, how grateful we've been for that trundle bed over the last few weeks. Each night I pull it out. Each morning I push it back under the bed. And in between Meg has a safe, cozy place on which to sleep. An added benefit is that the girls must keep their floor free of toys and dress up clothes so that I can pull the bed out.

Last night as we were reading from a Little House book, Meg became so excited by the mention of a trundle bed. "Hey," she said, "They have a trundle bed just like me." I don't know how much use the trundle bed will get after Meg gets her cast off in a few weeks. Meg and Clare do have plans for Baby Anne to move into their room when she is bigger so they can have a "sleeping room" and they can turn her room into the "play room." Perhaps we'll do that for awhile. But then a few years later, I suspect one of them will make the play room into their own bedroom. Then the other two will separate the bunk beds into two twin beds and move them to opposite sides of the big "sleeping room." Then everyone will have as much personal space as they can get. But with any luck, there will be nights when they all pile into one room again for late night talks and that trundle bed will be pulled out once again so they can all be together.

I love trundle beds. And I do so hope this trundle bed will be a happy memory in my daughters' childhood.