What My Child is Reading

One of J's favorite activities is reading books and I absolutely love cuddling him on my lap and reading. I like to link up to What My Child Is Reading blog link-up. Not only is it a great way to record the wonderful books we've read, but I've found so many new good book ideas by visiting each week. Click on the button below to see what others have been reading!

Corduroy Lost and Found by B.G. Hennessy
We found a new Corduroy book and like this one just as well as the others. In the story, it's Lisa's birthday and Corduroy is beside himself that he doesn't have a gift for her. He goes on a journey early in the morning while still dark and ends up getting lost. He's found by a kind man running the neighborhood newstand and have a happy birthday reunion. Very sweet story.


The Dinosaur Who Lost His Roar by Russell Punter
My son is really into dinosaurs and this one was fun for him. Sid is a dinosaur that likes to have fun. One of the things he most likes is scaring his other dinosaur friends (Spike, Ross and Ollie) with his loud roar. He ends up losing his roar with a soar throat and once recovered, wants to apologize to his friends only to find them missing. He then saves them from being eaten by a giant T-Rex by using his giant roar to scare him away.


Mama Panya's Pancakes, a Village Tale from Kenya by Mary Chamberlin
This is a book that J liked and I fell in love with. I love sharing books with J that expand his knowledge of other cultures. The pictures are wonderful illustrations showing village life in Kenya. Another part I like is the end of the book which has several pages of detail about Kenya. For example, one section describes life in Kenya and another section has descriptions of the insect, animals and plants with their swahili names. In the story, Mama takes her son Adika to market and he guesses that she's going to make pancakes. Adika is so excited that he invites everyone they run into that they know. Mama is concerned about how she'll feed everyone, yet Adika isn't worried. In the end, each guest shows up bringing something wonderful to add to the meal and they eat and enjoy the time together.


Mary Manatee, A Tale of Sea Cows by Suzanne Tate
J has been interested in manatees lately and I found a couple good books like this one. This book tells the story of Mary and her baby Mikey. She is a 1000-pound manatee teaching her baby how to eat water plants and avoid dangers like boats. One day, the calf got closed behind a gate in the water and separated from his mom. It ends with the humans helping set him free and he happily returns to his mom having learned a big lesson.


Oliver's Vegetables by Vivian French
This was a fun book to encourage J to eat more vegetables. (He sometimes needs a little help to eat enough of them.) In this story, Oliver spends a week at his grandparents house who have
a wonderful garden. At home, Oliver will only eat french fries, but his grandfather challenges him to identify the potatoes in the garden and he can eat them. But he has to eat what he finds. He ends up finding carrots, spinach, rhubarb (yum), cabbage, beets, peas until he finally finds the potatoes. On his last night there, he finally enjoys some french fries.


Otter Play by Nancy Luenn
J liked to read this one a lot. He loved the otter story. As the story unfolds about a little otter family, it mirrors a little boy and his family. The boy wakes up and streches, and the otters wake up and stretch. The otters slide down into the water, and the little boy slides into the water in a boat with his parents. As his parents fish, he watches the little otters fishing. He eats his apple as the otters eat the fish they caught. When the day is over, the otters crawl back into their burrow and the boy crawls into his tent with his parents. I love otters.


A Pony Named Peanut by Sindy McKay
J picked this book out by himself, and although it looks like a grade school book he really liked the story. The story is written in the format of a young girl's journal. She spends the summer with her Aunt Molly out in the country instead of with her Aunt Rachel in the city. She has a very pouty attitude in the beginning which slowly turns around when her Uncle gets a new pony from the shelter. He has her care for the pony and she grows to love him. I love this part of the book, since I love horses myself and she learns everything from hoof cleaning to lunging to mucking stalls. The best part is when she finally gets over her fear and learns to ride him. She ends up having a lovely summer.



Thanks for visiting!


Here are links to a couple other fun book reading link ups:




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Vacation Down Time (A Blogging Intermission)

This is a picture of my sister's living room, a place where I'll be hanging out a lot in the coming week. I got an unexpected invitation when my sister called letting me know they are going to be out of town for the next week. She had this great idea that we come down on a mini-vacation and spend time at their place, a few hours away, while they're gone. After a little finagling, I am now starting to pack and prepare for a wonderful low-key vacation. We will all drive down together this weekend with my husband staying overnight, then he'll head back home for the work week and J and I will stay on at my sister's. The great thing is that my other two sisters and their kids live close by so we'll be able to get together during the week.

L will come back to join us the following weekend and we'll have some couple-only time. We've arranged for J to stay over with a sister so we can do our year-in-review. We haven't taken a time of annual reflection together since before J was born. Before that, we would enjoy a New Year get-away to have time to go through our journals and reflect on what the Lord was at work at in our lives that year. Then we would write down what things were working well, what the Lord may want to change and finally we would pray for the coming year together. I'm so excited that we'll be restarting this tradition in our life.

A Bit Unplugged
I'll be taking a break from Facebook, blogging and will only allow myself computer time to check my email. I am preparing to do a lot of reading with the extra time, fun time with J while also getting some time with my sisters too. Since I'm a list maker, I put together a list of books and movies I'm bringing along. I have already dabbled with reading 5 of the books as I'm a nut who loves to have several books going at once. It'll be fun to see which ones will grab my attention during this down time.


Books to bring along:
(Finish) In My Hands, Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke
(Continue) The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai
Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington
(Finish) As We Forgive by Catherine Claire Larson
The Shack by William Paul Young
Washed by Blood by Brian "Head" Welch

Books for spiritual enrichment:
Crazy Love by Francis Chan
The Gospel of Mark study by Max Lucado
These Strange Ashes by Elisabeth Elliot
Creative Correction by Lisa Whelchel

Other:
The Everything Guide to Potty Training by Kim Bookout, DNP, RN, CPNP

Movies:
Living Proof
Penelope
The Pianist
John & Abigail Adams

So I'll be signing off for now .... and hope to return ready to share during the week of January 17th. I'll miss this place!

What My Child is Reading & Other Blog Hops

I found a great blog hop that highlights the current books we are reading with our kids. J and I don't usually focus on a theme. We go to the library often and I just pick books that he would be interested in that also have a good message or lesson.

Click the link below to see what others are reading!

Countdown to Thanksgiving
This was a good counting book in addition to being about Thanksgiving. It was a cute story about one family's Thanksgiving celebration and what goes into it.






















Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks
I liked this Thanksgiving book in that it does a good job of teaching different things we can be thankful for. It is a short and simple little book.






















Humpty Dumpty and Other Rhymes
We got this book from a friend, a beginning Mother Goose book. J really seems to like the rhyming in it and asks for it a lot. It has a couple I knew like Humpty Dumpty, Little Jack Horner and then some new ones like Little Jumping Joan a jumping rabbit and Little Davy Dumpling. We really liked reading one called Horsie, Horsie where the animals are dancing. I would read this rhyme over and over and J would laugh.

















The Berenstain Bears' Bedtime Book
These books continue to be a favorite and I like finding different versions of them. This one took nursery rhymes and made them bear rhymes like The Three Little Pigs and the Bad Cub or Goldibear and the Three People. We would pick one or two a night to read.
















YUCK! That's Not a Monster
J is in a stage where he's having fun with monsters. This one is a cute little story about a monster baby that hatches from an egg but he is not at all like his brother and sister. His siblings are spiny and prickly while the baby is soft and fluffy. The story is a little bit backwards as it comes from the perspective of the monsters and they see cute and fluffy as not desired monster qualities. It changes at the end when they fall in love with him.


Want more book reading fun? Click below to visit the other book blog carnivals where I enjoy linking up:

What My Child is Reading & Other Blog Hops

I found a great blog hop that highlights the current books we are reading with our kids. J and I don't usually focus on a theme. We go to the library often and I just pick books that he would be interested in that also have a good message or lesson.

Click the link below to see what others are reading!

The Berenstain Bears say Please and Thank You
Needless to say, we really like the Berenstain Bears. I like the messages that they teach. Our family embraces good manners so we regularly work on using them and teaching them. My son is very good about saying thank you, but we continue to work with him on please. He will say please, but it's usually after I have to say "How do you ask when you want something?" The book takes an interesting look at what happens within the family when they forget the simple niceties like please and thank you. It's Grandma Bear (Gran) who helps them all remember. She brings them what they call a framed sampler to remind them. In many of our books, I like to improvise the words by adding the Lord to it. So the sampler says "Matters Manner" and I added "Matters Manner to God" when I read it. I add little things like that to plant seeds in J's heart.


The Day of the Dinosaur, Stan Berenstain
Dinosaurs remain one of J's favorites and we liked this simple book. J is starting to explore more about how dinosaurs came to be and what happened to them. This was a good introduction for him and a real easy read. I think his favorite part was where they show a dinosaur dig with a big dinosaur skeleton being unearthed. I took the opportunity to explain to him what a paleontologist is and what they do. He loved just trying to say the word "paleontologist". One of the next times we read it, we got to that part and I almost turned the page until I realized he was asking me to point again to the paleontologist.


If Animals Kissed Goodnight, Ann Whitford Paul
We have had this book since J was born. Lately, he's been wanting to read it more at nap or bedtime, sometimes both. I love the illustrations in this book, there's something soft and inviting about them. The variety of animals is nice too. On one page, there is a seal daddy and his baby and a couple of fish swimming with them in the water. J was super excited to tell me there were "goldfish" (like the kind you eat) in the picture! They do look just like goldfish. Even more funny was when we were driving home later in the week and he was eating goldfish and says, "These are just like the goldfish in the book mommy! In the page with the seal!" Amazing how his memory is sometimes exceeding mine.


Going to the Zoo, Tom Paxton
This book actually has a song that goes with it and the words are repeated in a sing-songy way. The illustrations are really neat in that the main theme is a sort of picture frame and the zoo animals can be seen surrounding the edges. My son loved naming the animals by looking at their feet! (You'll have to check out the book to see what I mean.) In the story, the kids are really excited to be going to the zoo with their daddy. This was really fun for us with the rhythm to the words. J thought it was hilarious that the lion ate a lot of steak and then was out cold sleeping.



Rumble in the Jungle, Giles Andreae
J is really into animals, especially animals like this that we can see in our zoo. This was another fun one for us from the library that I think we'll keep around for a bit. As the reader, I really enjoy the books I get to read that have some rhyming and rhythm fun like this one does. A fun thing about some books are the "hidden" things you find in the pictures. This book has tiny little ants that show up throughout the book. I would have fun asking J where the little ants were and once he found them we would count them. They hid them so well sometimes that I had to help.


A Turkey for Thanksgiving, Eve Bunting
We brought out a Thanksgiving favorite this week. We got this last year from a friend of the family and J wanted us to read it nonstop. He still does! He loves it. It is a very sweet story about Mr. and Mrs. Moose who are having their friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. For Mrs. Moose, dinner is not complete until they have a turkey. Mr. Moose goes out "hunting" for a turkey who does join them, and you find out at the end to Mr. Turkey's surprise, he is AT the table, not ON the table.


Two Blue Jays, Anne Rockwell
If you have been following my blog, you know that I love to engage my son in feeding and watching the birds with me. This is something that my mom did with me when I was a child, and I'm so grateful that she spurred that interest and appreciation in me. We live in a pretty suburban area, so we get the usual sparrows and only a few other types of birds including chickadees, junkos and yes now a resident blue jay. Recently he (or she) started bringing a friend so sometimes we have two blue jays also! Even though I learned as a child that the blue jay can be a nasty bird, I have grown fond of them again. As J has grown excited waiting and watching for the jays to come, I was really happy to stumble upon this book in our library. It takes place in a classroom, where the teacher is introducing her students to two blue jays who are building a nest outside their window. She takes the class from watching the mother sit on the eggs all the way to the jays taking their first flight. I really enjoyed reading this story with J. The first page has a great illustration of several different types of bird eggs too so this was new learning for my little one.


Want more book reading fun? Click below to visit the other book blog carnivals where I enjoy linking up:


















As an affiliate of Amazon, I will receive a small commission for any books purchased from the links in the widget above!

What My Child is Reading & Other Blog Hops

I found a great blog hop that highlights the current books we are reading with our kids. J and I don't usually focus on a theme. We go to the library often and I just pick books that he would be interested in that also have a good message or lesson.

Click the link below to see what others are reading!

God Sees Me All the Time
I found this book for J at the local thrift store. I had no idea that J would like it so much. We had it sitting around for a few weeks, but once he asked me to read it to him he wanted it again and again. The story is about a little girl tempted by chocolate chip cookies and learning that God can see her all the time. There's a neat part of the story when she gets scared and the teaching from her dad that God is always watching over us comforts her. Towards the end she's learning about little things we can do to serve the Lord that pleases Him. I really like that there are several lessons about God in the book.



The Nose Book
This book is just adorable. It's a Dr. Suess book and has an elephant on the cover, an instant draw for my son. He loves Dr. Suess and elephants are his favorite right now. It was fun watching his reactions to the story line, especially a part that has you imagine life without a nose. I like reading that part while holding my nose and J can't stop laughing and tries to imitate me. We also enjoyed naming all the animals in the book, with a couple that were hard even for me to identify! This is from the library, but I think we'll have to add this to our permanent collection.



One Drowsy Dragon
I was drawn to this book at first because of the dragon. J likes anything dragon or dinosaur related, but what was really cool is that this is actually a counting book. There are dragons marching, dragons dancing, dragons laughing and playing and more. It was a fun read.



Please say Please! Penguin's Guide to Manners
I'm always looking for good books on manners as we are regularly encouraging J's use of please, thank you, excuse me, etc. This book has lots of different animals in it and that made it extra fun. The illustrations are so cute. It has a little different spin in that it starts by saying the wrong way to do something, asking if this is right (NO) and then giving the right way to do it. Good lessons on manners.



A Polar Bear Can Swim, What Animals Can and Can't Do
A Polar Bear Can Swim has lots of neat tidbits of information and amazing facts about specific things certain animals can do. It also shares things they can't do. It's great for identifying animals and having J make the appropriate animal noise in addition to learn neat things about them.



Sounds Around Town
This one was fun! I thought this would be a good one when I skimmed it at the library. I love interacting with J while I read and this one had all kinds of different sounds in the pictures that I acted out for him. They also have two pages of kids drawings of various sounds in the front of the book and each time we read it, he makes sure I go through each picture making its sound.



Too Big, Too Small, Just Right
This book is a good one that I wanted to use to teach J more about size comparison. It uses two colorful bunnies and in a variety of situations they are in learning about too big, too tall, too dark, too bright and others. It also highlights their friendship.



Some more book reading fun!
Click below to visit the other book blog carnivals I link up to:

What My Child is Reading

I found a new blog hop that highlights what we're reading with our kids. Click the link below to see what others are reading!

Mouse's First Halloween
This was just a simple little Halloween story, trying to take the spook out of Halloween. I really enjoyed the illustrations; the way they used fall colors and especially how they used light. J has been having us read this to him just about every night!














Hush Little Baby - A Folk Song with Pictures
I was so excited to find this book. Over the last couple years with my son J, I have tried to find a lullabye-type song that would soothe him when he's disconsolate. I found that this song is just about the only one that soothes him and calms him down. He loved reading this with me and having me sing it to him.




One More River - A Noah's Ark Counting Book
J always loves books with elephants and he enjoys them even more when there are lots of animals. This was a great counting activity where J counted along with me as we read. He also liked the last couple pages the the animals looking out of their windows. He had fun naming them one by one.












God Made Creepy Crawlies
This is a great book that has been fun to read. I somehow grew up without a fear of most creepy crawlies so I want to instill that in my son. There are so many amazing insects and reptiles and this book captures celebrates them. Everything from spiders to toads to stink bugs!

Julian's got a belly button!

After losing my cat Rio last night, I let our other cat (Buca) sleep upstairs in our bed. He was really distraught yesterday and didn't go anywhere near Rio not even to go to the bathroom or eat. I had to carry him to his food area so he could do his thing. He was purring so loud sleeping with us and he stayed there all night. We haven't done that since Julian was born because he used to wake us up. He has been my little shadow around the house which has helped me deal with my sadness of losing Rio.

Julian is too little to know that Rio was sick and now isn't with us. For a while he seemed to think the word for cat was Rio. Then I think he finally got it that Rio was her name. Most of all, he loved to pull her tail and I was surprised by how good she was with him. She pawed at him once but I never saw her try to nip. That was restraint for Rio!

It was so beautiful this morning and at 9:00 I wasn't sure what to do so I asked Julian if he wanted to go to the park. He got so excited so we went and I took the long way so I could get some exercise too. We had the park to ourselves for the half hour we were there. We went down the slide and played on the jungle gym. He loved going in and out of this little tube on the jungle gym. For me, it was nice just listening to all the birds and enjoying the sun.

Today I read 2Samuel 16 and 17. David continued on the run from Absalom (his son). On the way, he ran into a man of Saul's clan who started cursing him and pelting them with stones. David wouldn't allow his men to hurt him saying maybe the Lord would see David's distress and repay him with good. Absalom sought advice from two different counsels about how to attack David. The counsel he followed was really from a friend of David's who was risking his life to mislead Absalom and help David.

In my study of Esther today, she had become queen of the most powerful nation on earth. We see that she attained royalty for the purposes of God. Haman was a man elevated to second in command under the king. He was an evil man and was enraged when Mordecai (Esther's cousin and "adoptive" father) wouldn't bow down to him because of his religion. Haman was so enraged that he hatched a scheme to destroy all the Jews. Unfortunately, the king approves this while he is not aware that his queen is a Jew.

Today for lunch the only thing Julian would eat was yogurt. He calls yogurt "Dora" because that's the brand we get. It has a picture of Dora on it. So when he asks for Dora, I know what he wants. I offered him chicken fries, ham, cheese, hot dogs, peanut butter sandwich and finally gave up. He fed himself and ended up with yogurt all over him. In the afternoon, I had some errands to run. The lady at Walgreen's offered him a balloon since he was pointing to them. He kept saying "yellow" though so she ended up giving him a second balloon. We played "balloon basketball" when we got home. He wasn't too happy that I didn't let him bring the balloons into the next store.

It was really funny, Julian was fascinated by his belly button today. It dawned on me that today was one of the first times that I didn't have him in a onesie! I usually have a onesie on him beneath his shirt, but today I put an undershirt on. Throughout the day, he'd lift his shirt and look at and touch his belly button. Then he'd go up to me or daddy and lift our shirt wanting to see our belly button! This is how enthralled he was: He loves to read placing an open book on the couch while standing in front of it. Today he'd be "reading" aloud when he'd step back, check for his belly button, then go back to reading. It was so cute.

He took a short afternoon nap and had fun coloring while I made dinner. He had fun saying "tacos" whenever I asked him what we were saying for dinner. It was so cute how he said it. Daddy played with him for a little bit until he left for a men's get together. I read about four books to him during our night routine. Usually it's one, but tonight I kept going. This ended up being a pretty hard week for me. I'm glad the week is over and I can relax.