A House Is a House for Me

Great Memama gave Lydda Grace A House Is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman for Christmas. I think it was originally published in the late 70s. It has quickly become one of our new favorites!!
The book is fairly long which I was worried wouldn't hold a sweet little someone's attention, but the cadence of the rhymes in the book along with the pictures make it a smooth and very engaging read. The pictures are super detailed and Lydda Grace loves to hunt through them to find things that she recognizes... i.e. doll, dog, monkey, etc.

If you have a baby girl...

My mom found this book at Wal-Mart and it was in Lydda Grace's stocking. It's called I'd Be Your Princess by Kathryn O'Brien and is all about a little girl talking with her daddy about all the things she and he would do if he were a king and she were his princess. That's sweet, but the best part is that each page includes a Bible verse that focuses on what makes "princess-like" character.

For example, "That night at the royal ball, I would ask you to dance with me," said the girl. "And I would let you stay up way past your bedtime," said her father, "because you are such good company." Your love has given me great joy and encouragement. Philemon 1:7

So that doesn't really do it justice... but anyway.

This book was apparently published in 2003 in paper pages, but we have the board book variety. The text is a little long but Lydda Grace does well listening through the whole thing... I don't know that it would be the best for anyone much younger.

I seriously can't get through this one without crying.

Honey for a Child's Heart

Lydda Grace got this book for Christmas, though it's one for me to read and learn from, it truly is for her. Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt is AMAZING! It's basically a book about kids books and the philosophy of including reading and especially reading aloud as an integral part of family life.

I have found myself completely agreeing with everything the author says and have been so encouraged to keep reading and to increase in our reading to Lydda Grace.

The BEST part about this book is that it has book lists for different ages!! Hunt admits that this is not a conclusive list, but it is a really great starting point and worked wonderfully to find books the last time we went to the library.

I highly recommend!

Favorite Books

I'll share my favorite books, since Grayson just kind of listens to anything right now.

This book has been one of our favorites since we brought Grayson home. It's a sweet story to read ANYTIME! God Gave Us You also has some other books written by the same author--God Gave Us Two, God Gave Us Christmas, and God Gave Us Heaven. I haven't read any of those others, but I'm sure they would be great as well.



And of course, we just love this book by Robert Munsch. The first time Chad and I read it out loud to Grayson I just couldn't help but cry. He was only a few days old!! It was a sweet time for us.

Colors and Animals and Faces

Abbie has recently really started to like this book. She will lean down and kiss some of her favorite pages, and she loves the pictures of the teacher and children's faces at the end. It's a great way to learn colors and animals and is repetitive but not too much...

favorite author

So I noticed recently that several of my favorite books for LG are by the same author, Mem Fox. I am going to start looking for more by her. These are the ones we have enjoyed so far:

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes- precious book about babies from all over the world (thanks Janae and Abbie we enjoy this one regularly!)

Where is the Green Sheep?- the illustrations in this book make me laugh, very cute

Time for Bed- I am always looking for "bedtime" books as I like to read those... before bedtime! This is a super sweet one

Usbourne books are favorites of Abbie's. She got one called "Curly's Friends" as a gift when she was born, and it was - and still is among - her absolute favorite books.

These books have patches of different textures, some have flaps as well. Abbie recently was given a farmyard book with feely patches and flaps - and I like that the animals all keep the same names in this series...Curly is always the pig, Daisy is always the cow, etc. These books are geared to help kids learn, and they grow with them. They all have a duck - some have a mouse - that you can search for on every page, and Abbie is just getting the hang of that, so the book is good for infants through a year or two. There is also a series of these I have seen at our library called, "That's not my ..." (fill in the blank ith doll, train, cat, etc.)