she gave me an old box filled with dirty words and farm animals. now that's friendship.

so katyefriend (click here to read more about her, see item ten) texted me a few days ago telling me that she had a surprise for me.  she had been cleaning out her mother-in-law's storage room (that just happens to be filled with vintage goodies) and apparently found something that suited me.  i told her that i love surprises.  and then i asked her what it was.  that's how i do.  she wouldn't tell me.  so obvi, i imagined her taking a chainsaw to the house and bringing back that entire room on a trailer strapped down with pretty pink ribbons.

not the case.   

but still.  a case.  a 1932 case, in fact.  today, katyefriend dropped off my surprise:  "the classroom printer".  it's a case filled with stamps - words and pictures.  it has a printer's block with level to keep all your words straight.  

the classroom printer, 1932.  the classroom mother, younger.

look at all those dirty words!

look at all those dirty animal words!

the streetcar and the bird.  this is a mostly pg rated blog.  so i left the farm animals out.

and it has a clamp that holds multiple stamps for making words out of individual letters or if you want to get a little crazy, compound words.  take for instance the word i made.  buffaloegg.  those poor buffalo.  we gave them wings.  and now we're giving them eggs. 

can you make a compound word?  try it!  i believe in you!

seriously.  this is one of the best gifts i've ever received (nothing ranks quite as high as this one, though) and li'l tot thought so, too.  the minute i opened it, she started playing.  she made words and sentences.  she grabbed the pictures and verified that they were what they were labeled.  when she got to lincoln's picture, li'l tot ran and got her lincoln book and compared the pictures.  approved!  also.  like any decent homeschooling mom, i took that opportunity to remind her that she should remember lincoln as our past president and not as a vampire hunter.

i see lincon & washington.  li'l tot made this sentence.  it's creepy.  like 6th sense creepy.

no one in their right mind would believe a man with wavy hair could hunt vampires.

 

i'm so grateful for katyefriend.  and i hope she knows how much this gift means to me.  i mean.  after all.  i didn't germ-x immediately after opening the box.  instead.  i hugged her.  and maybe wiped my hands on her back.