5 Favorite Children's Books

When I was younger I absolutely loved to read. My favorite place to go was to the public library. Good thing we lived only a couple of blocks away from it! Now I still love reading and sometimes can read an entire book in one day, but I don't have the time I had when I was little. I'm sure you all know how that goes!

Now that I have kids of my own, my mom gave us the children's books from long ago. They are all great books for kids to read, but here are five of my favorites that I loved when I was little.

1. The Sugar Mouse Cake

This is an awesome book! I loved the story and illustrations. It's about a cook's assistant who gets help from a little white mouse to bake the best cake in the kingdom so then he becomes the King's Chief Pastry Cook. Unfortunately this book is no longer available, so if you find a copy somewhere, make sure you pick it up! 

2. The Bashful Bear

We have a very old copy of this book it looks like. I also loved this story about a little bear who is embarrassed that he is so small. He is chased by a coyote and after that he feels big!

3. Harry the Dirty Dog

This is a classic, I'm sure almost everyone has read this one when they were younger. Harry doesn't like to take baths so he runs away and hides the scrub brush. When he returns home he is dirty and nobody recognizes him. He fixes this by bringing back the scrub brush so they can give him a bath.

4. Come and Have Fun

This is an easy reader for children just starting to read. It is a cute little story about a cat chasing a mouse and his little mouse house.

5. The Story of Ferdinand

Another classic children's story. I love the illustrations in this book! It is the story of a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight in bullfights.

Reading with your child is very important, even when they are brand new babies they can benefit from it! Some of my best memories from childhood are based on reading and being read to. I hope my children love to read as much as I do and hopefully reading to them every day from a young age will help them learn to love it. 

What are some of your favorite books from when you were young?

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How To: Latch Board for Toddlers

 I've had this idea for awhile now, to make little man a latch/sensory board. I've seen many different ones on Pinterest, so I decided to just make it this weekend. It would also give me something to do while I wait for Wednesday to get here. 

It was more expensive than I expected it to be, but little man will love it. He already wanted to try it out while I was working on it. We are going to be mounting it on the wall in the hallway for him to play with. I couldn't find too many different latches, so I added a mirror and a felt board to fill in some of the empty space. 

I spray painted the board first and then had my husband screw everything in place. I then added the letters for his name on top and used glued the felt board and mirror on. I put little reflective buttons on the edges for decoration as well. For now I just cut out simple felt shapes, but later on I will probably make some other felt items as well. 

I think little man will really enjoy playing with it once we get it up on the wall. Hopefully we can do that in the next couple of days here. So far the mirror and the wheel are his favorite parts.

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Favorite Nursery Rhymes for Babies

Nursery rhymes are fun for children and babies and can help them learn important skills such as vocabulary, early counting and music. Research has shown that early exposure to music is important and can help with developing brain connections, boost IQ and even improve your child's overall health! Your baby loves to listen to you sing and nursery rhymes are a fun way to interact with them. It can calm your baby down if they are upset and can also be a good way to distract them.

Little man loves nursery rhymes and these are some of our favorites. He especially loves the bouncing horsey ones. I can remember my parents playing most of these with my brothers and me when we were little and we loved it. I guess we heard them so many times they are now engraved forever in my memory. The nursery rhymes you sing with your baby now are probably the same ones they will sing with their children later. What a fun little tradition to pass on for your family!

I'm sure you are familiar with a lot of these and the actions that go with them. In case you are not, I will try to explain what we do for each one. 

1. This Little Piggy (Touch baby's big toe and each toe after that as you go until you get to the end where you tickle baby all over! They will probably love that part of it.)

2. Pat-A-Cake (This is kind of a clapping game with baby. We usually make the rolling and patting motions and point to "baby and me" at the end.)

3. Jack in the Box (Cover your eyes at the beginning and then throw your hands in the air at the end.)

4. This is the Way the Ladies Ride (This is the first bouncing horsey ride one, it's best for older babies who have strong neck muscles because of all the bouncing. Same with the one after this. Have your child sit on your lap facing you and bounce along with the rhyme. The ladies ride with gentle bouncing, the gentlemen with a little stronger bouncing and the farmers use rather wild bouncing. This is usually the favorite part.)

5. Giddy Up Horsey (Pretty simple, bounce baby until the last line when you tip baby to the side, or upside down like we do. Every baby I've ever done this one with absolutely loves the upside down part!)

6. Ring-a-Round the Rosie (This one is obviously for babies and toddlers that can walk. We used to all hold hands in a circle and go around until the end when we "all fall down." I remember playing this game quite often when we were little, so it must have been fun.)

Nursery rhymes are such a fun and easy way to play with your babies and they love it! What are your favorite nursery rhymes to sing with your children?

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Finger Paint Fun!

One of the things on my list of activities to do with a one-year old is finger paint! Since I know little man will be taste testing everything, I wanted to make my own. I found this great recipe for homemade finger paint at Easie Peasie and decided to try it out.

After making the paint and letting it cool off, little man woke up from his nap and was ready to try something new! I took off his clothes and had him wear a painting shirt for this messy activity. He had a piece of paper taped to his tray so that he didn't rip it up. Ripping paper is one of his favorite activities right now.

At first he didn't know what to think. He did eventually warm up to the idea and painted his first lovely picture for mama. What a cutie! I don't think he really liked having messy hands, he kept wanting to wipe his hands off on mine. Eventually he finished up and now his picture is drying, that part could take awhile!

Here is the recipe for the finger paint that we used: (Source: Easie Peasie)

3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup corn starch
2 cups water

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and heat until the mixture thickens. Let it cool before separating into small containers. Add food coloring to make some lovely bright colors. Have fun painting! 

Check out my post on our fun playdough activity here! 

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Activities with an (Almost) One Year Old: Playdough Fun!

I think that little man is a little young for playing with playdough, but I have been trying to find some activities to do with him to keep him busy. He gets bored easily these days and likes to be entertained, even if his attention only lasts a few minutes! So today I made some playdough for him using a recipe I found on kristanlynn.com. She says its the best playdough recipe ever and I have to agree, it turned out very nicely.