Book, books...and more books!

Honestly, when I found out I was pregnant I had every intention of reading to my babY every day (this is when I still thought I was having ONE baby).  I went out and bought tons of my favorite children's books (and then when I found out I was having three babies, I went out and bought three times as many) and put them up in the nursery closet.  At first, I made a huge effort to take out books and make them a part of our everyday routine...I read to them, daddy read to them, grandma and papa and aunties read to them.  But then...well, life got in the way and I stopped reading so much (especially when reading became more stressful than fun...reading to 3 kids with little to no attention span can be somewhat frustrating) and all those books have spent a little more time up in the closet than I had imagined.  I was beginning to worry that I was damaging their cognitive development (ok maybe not damaging, but certainly not helping it either)!

But somehow, somewhere along the way in the last couple of months, books have made a comeback and become a huge favorite with the kids.  They bring books to us all the time and ask us to read.  They even want to read to us (pretend anyway - SO cute!) and they do pretty well with some of their favorite books that have been read over and over again (it also helps if the pictures depict the exact words).  One of their all-time favorites right now is Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton (LOVE her books) and it melts my heart to watch them sit down and read this book out loud.  Yeah, I know they're just "reading pictures", but I'm still a proud Mamma! :)

Emma reading Blue Hat, Green Hat from cover....

...to cover!

And a few more of my favorite reading pics over the years...

The kids STILL love this book - Eight Silly Monkeys

 Nurturing a love for books at Barnes & Noble (they just loved us there...I'm sure of it! ;)

Smarty pants!

Kallie used to wear this bucket on her head all the time!

 This one was just taken yesterday and it's SOOOO Emma!  No pants (hey we're lucky she's wearing a shirt) and mommy's old shoes - lol!  For the record...she walks better in these than I ever did!