The Word and Question Game

Dear Friends,

A merry day to you! Evangeline thanks all of you for your kind birthday wishes :) . Right now she and Frankie are happily playing with paper dolls that their sisters made for them. No one would guess that minutes earlier they were sworn enemies! :) And here is Audrey with one of the paper families that she has made :


We wanted to share with you a fun game (at least we think it's fun!) that we learned from "What Katy Did at School": It is a game for those old enough to write and make rhymes, and you need at least a few people. It is called "Word and Question", and is simple to play. Everyone playing must have a piece of paper and a pen or pencil. Each player picks a random word, and writes it at the top of the paper, like this:



Then the paper is folded down, hiding the word. The papers are then passed to the person on the left, who writes a random question, like this:


The paper is folded down again, so as to hide the question, and papers are put into a hat. Now everyone draws a paper and writes a rhyme, at least two lines long, that answers the question and contains the word written on the top, such as this (The question does not have to be contained in the rhyme):


The papers are again passed into a hat, from whence a designated reader pulls out and reads all the papers, without divulging the identity of the author. Everyone then tries to guess who has written what, and there are always some interesting results!

Our friend Eli from Flutterby Patch was nice enough to give us a Sunshine Award for our "Why Do You Wear Dresses?" poem~Won't you stop by her place for a bit of sun? Now if only there were some REAL sunshine to go along with it!

May you have a blessed day,

Love,

Marqueta

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The Morning Comes Before The Sun

Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose
From out night's gray and cloudy sheath;
Softly and still it grows and grows,
Petal by petal, leaf by leaf;
Each sleep-imprisoned creature breaks
Its dreamy fetters, one by one,
And love awakes, and labor wakes,--
The morning comes before the sun.

What is this message from the light
So fairer far than light can be?
Youth stands a-tiptoe, eager, bright,
In haste the risen sun to see;
Ah! check thy lunging, restless heart,
Count the charmed moments as they run,
It is life's best and fairest part,
This morning hour before the sun.

When once thy day shall burst to flower,
When once the sun shall climb the sky,
And busy hour by busy hour,
The urgent noontide draws anigh;
When the long shadows creep abreast,
To dim the happy task half done,
Thou wilt recall this pause of rest,
This morning hush before the sun.

To each, one dawning and one dew,
One fresh young hour is given by fate,
One rose flush on the early blue.
Be not impatient then, but wait!
Clasp the sweet peace on earth and sky,
By midnight angels woven and spun;
Better than day its prophecy,--
The morning comes before the sun.

~Susan Coolidge