New reads:

We have a tradition at our house, as I'm sure most of you do, of a bedtime story. We snuggle down after bath time and disappear into a great story. It's a tradition I'm hoping will continue as our family grows (you should see my list of books). Story time is one of my favorite parts of the day and I love sharing my love of reading with M.

Our local library is participating in 1000 Books Before Kindergarten and we are on board. It's a super simple concept: you read books to your child and keep track of what you read on paper. When you reach 1,000, you get free books. We're already close to 100 and we've only been keeping track of them since January so you'd be surprised by how fast it goes. I think it's a fantastic way to promote literacy and really great for those goal-oriented kids because they get to see their progress.

We've been checking out tons of new books from the library lately with plans to purchase our favorites for our home library. Here are some of the ones we've read lately:

1. Dream Animals -- Such a cute story about dreams. The illustrations are beautiful. Hands down, my favorite of the bunch.
2. Wolfie the Bunny -- Wolfie (a wolf) gets adopted by a family of bunnies. It's a great story about mixed and nontraditional families.
3. A Sick Day for Amos McGee -- Amos McGee, a zookeeper, gets sick and can't go to work so his animal friends come to him! Again, gorgeous illustrations and such a sweet story. We really liked this one.
4. Snoozefest -- A sloth goes to Snoozefest -- like a musical festival but for sleeping. Adults will appreciate the clever comparisons to real life. Or, at least I did. 

I fell out of the picture book circle sometime in early elementary school. Things have changed so much and I hadn't realized. The classics are still there but there are so many special stories out there. It's been a real joy discovering them all.