The Animals' Christmas Eve

You can't go wrong with a classic Little Golden Book.

Purple Butterfly received this book as Christmas present from a friend her first Christmas, and I immediately fell in love with it. The Animals' Christmas Eve by Gale Wiersum and illustrated by Alexandra Steele-Morgan is a sweet retelling of the Nativity story told from the point of view of the animals in a barn on Christmas Eve. It's also a counting book from 1-12, which I just find clever. Each number represents an animal telling part of the Nativity story, with the number 12 being the bells of Christmas Day. The illustrations are darling with farm animals that are drawn to be warm and fuzzy looking, without being overly cute.

I do have a slight issue that number 3 mentions the Three Wise Men (obviously) before Mary, Joseph, or the Baby Jesus are mentioned, but it is a counting book, and where else would the Three Wise Men be? It can be easily overlooked by the rest of the sweetness contained in the telling.

It's Christmas Time

Not only is it after Thanksgiving, it's December 1st, which is sufficiently late enough to start thinking about Christmas, no matter who you are. If I had an Advent calendar for the girls, we'd be breaking it out. But I slipped up on that this year. Next year I will not be so forgetful.

I think about Christmas when I was a kid, and it really sparkled. It was magical. And it wasn't just the presents. It was time with family, baking, the decorations, the music, just everything about this time of year was magical. And my mom had lots to do with that. When my mom died, Christmas lost so much of that sparkle. It was still a special time of year, but I now realize how much of the magic was my mom's doing.

Now I'm a mom, and it's hitting me that making Christmas sparkle for my kids in now my job. Wow. That seems like such a tall order. I don't know why Christmas memories would take any more precidence than any other childhood memories, but there's a lot pressure to make sure that Christmas is special. How am I going to do that?

Honestly, I don't think my mom put a Herculean effort into Christmas. She did what she could, and everything else fell into place. There's enough environmental hoopla about Christmas that it probably won't take too much effort on my part, either, to make it sparkle. We need to establish a few traditions and just have fun.

It's the traditions that are tripping me up. The Christmas traditions I grew up with are still in place - Christmas Eve with my immediate and extended family, Christmas morning and day at my dad's house. That was Purple Butterfly's first Christmas. Being late in pregnancy last Christmas kept the Butterflies in their own house, and it was nice. I want my kids to wake up in their own house Christmas morning, just like I did for 33 years. But I also want them to spend Christmas Eve with their grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Not an easy task when the two are 2.5 hours away.

So we'll make our own Christmas Eve tradition and wake up in our own house with our own tree that we cut down and hung with our own ornaments. And then at some point we'll make the 2.5 hour trip to visit the extended family, and have Christmas there. Of course, when to make that trip is also a decision...

Regardless, as long as we're together as a family, I think there's enough magic in Christmas that there will be enough sparkle for my daughters.

Cleo the Cat

We first borrowed Cleo the Cat from the library when Purple Butterfly was about 10 months old. Cleo is a playful stray who finds a home by befriending a little boy. Purple Butterfly really liked the book, had us read it to her often, and she even tried to imitate the "meow, meow, meow" written in the book. She liked the book so much that we decided to add it to our own collection. Even though Cleo may be a little young for Purple Butterfly these days, she still likes to read it. Stella Blackstone's text is simple rhyming text and Caroline Mockford's big, bold illustrations continue to interest her.

Cleo's Color Book was next to join our library. The rhymes are fun, and Cleo and her little boy use different objects to illustrate color than the run of the mill items used most color books, such as plums, ice cream, a submarine, etc. Both Purple Butterfly and Pink Butterfly like this book. Purple Butterfly loves the illustrations and Pink Butterfly likes the rhymes.

We borrowed Come Here, Cleo from the library last week. I picked it as a book that both of my butterfiles would like. In this book, Cleo has a playful kitty outdoor adventure. The text mirrors that in Cleo the Cat, and so it has a familiarity that my kids appreciate. The illustrations are the same bold illustrations, but have incorporated a a slightly different color pallete for the outside adventure. And of course, Purple Butterfly loves that it has a purple butterfly in it.

There are 3 more books in the Cleo the Cat series - Cleo's Number Book, Cleo's Alphabet Book, and Cleo and Caspar. I haven't borrowed any of these titles from the library - we have plenty of letter and number books here - but I'm interested in exploring Cleo and Caspar. It's about Cleo learning to get along with Caspar the dog who joins their household.

Baby Giggles

Apparently, it's a fact that babies love to look at faces, especially faces of other babies. And I've noticed that when I go out with Purple Butterfly and Pink Butterfly, Pink Butterfly loves to watch all the kids, but she's especially drawn to other babies, and they are drawn to her.

But when it comes to books for babies, in my experience, it's hard to find books with pictures of babies that aren't picture dictionaries or simple description of emotion or color. But in Baby Giggles by photographer Rachael Hale, there are wonderful pictures of babies with a great rhyming text that explores a range of emotions - from happy to grumpy to hungry to sleepy and in between. The photographs are adorable and well representative of the emotion being discussed. The accompanying text is actual verse and well matched in intonation to the emotion of the photograph. And it provides a great lead in to start your own discussion of the picture and emotion.

Pink Butterfly is not yet the huge bookworm her sister was at this age. She doesn't sit for story after story, and sometimes she'd rather chew the book than look at it. But this book engages her. When we pick it up, she's smiling at the cover. She pats at the pictures of the babies. She giggles along. I talk to her about why the baby might be grumpy or how it looks like the babies are having so much fun in the bath, just like she does. I really think this book is a first step along the path of Pink Butterfly possibly becoming a bookworm.

Saturday Top 5 Laughs.

Linking up with Melissa at The Mommyhood Chronicles to do a Saturday Top Five Laughs. It seems like a fun idea, and I'm sure I'll be happy in the future to have these little gems.

5. My husband was singing Careless Whisper and Purple Butterfly was very concerned that he was "never gonna dance again" and kept asking him why!

4. I took the girls grocery shopping. It was a long day for Pink Butterfly, because by the end of the trip she was cranky and hungry. How did I know she was hungry? She turned herself around (while buckled!) and stood on the shopping cart seat and started rifling through the food in the cart until she found a package of baby food. I sat her down and gave her the baby food package, which she played with/sucked on until I had to pry it from her hands to put in on the conveyor belt so I could pay for it!

3. We were having a snack and Purple Butterfly reached over and took two of her daddy's three crackers to make herself a cracker sandwich. She then took his remaining cracker, broke it in half, put it back on his plate and told him he now had two pieces and could make a cracker sandwich for himself!

2. Purple Butterfly keeps asking her daddy if she can play Angry Birds with him. I just find it funny that my not even 3 year old knows what Angry Birds is, and how to play it!

1. Purple Butterfly and I had each had a Hershey's Kiss. I told Purple Butterfly that if she wanted another one, she'd have to give me a real kiss. Pink Butterfly heard this and started blowing kisses from her highchair, as if I'd trade her a kiss for a Kiss!

Wordless Wednesday

Oh My Gosh, Mrs. McNosh

Oh My Gosh, Mrs. McNosh is the book Purple Butterfly fell asleep reading that I wrote about a few days ago. It is one of her favorite books right now, and I really enjoy it, too.

Nelly McNosh and her dog George go for a walk in the park, where George chases after a squirrel, and Mrs. McNosh chases after Geroge. They crash through streams and fountains, weddings and baseball games. Will Mrs. McNosh ever catch her beloved George?

This is a great book to read out loud. The rhyme and cadence are wonderful. The adventure George leads Mrs. McNosh on is just silly and fun. The pictures support and enhance the story and are equally as silly. There are other Mrs. McNosh books by the same author, and I plan on seeing if they are available in our local library the next time we visit. To me, that is the mark of a good children's book - wanting to read more by the same author and/or illustrator.