Jillian's Room

Jillian never really had a real nursery.  In our other home, the one we were living in when we brought her home from the hospital she shared her room with our office space.  We knew we were moving and didn't want to go through the hassle of moving the office just for a few months.  When we moved back in November Jillian's bedroom was painted brown from the previous owners so we never deocarated it knowing we would be painting it soon. 

Finally.....

She has a real little girls's bedroom!!  Big thanks to my mom and dad (Papa and Grammy) who worked so hard painting her room! 

Finger Painting Pudding

We are still trying to keep busy during these dreary winter months so I pulled out my bag of preschool teacher projects for this one. Very easy to do, make the pudding, place it on a cookie sheet and let them go to town! Older kids can make letters and write their names. Mallory liked to make circles and just play with it and the best part was she got to lick her fingers!

The Hat

Jillian is getting harder and harder to photograph these days!  Gone are the days where she's not mobile and just sits there looking at the camera!  As soon as I place her in the spot I want her she takes off and she's having none of my silly props I use for photos!  Hats, baskets, bows etc.. are all pulled off as quick as they're placed! 

The following photos were an attempted photo session with a cute hat....

The Joy of Books

Having spent many years teaching preschool and also at one time working in the children's section of Barnes and Noble I developed a huge passion for children's literature.  I literally could spend hours and hours sifting through all the picture books in the kids section.  During those years I discovered many favorites that I added to my collection and always hoped that one day I would be able to share this love with my own children someday, how gratifying that I'm actually able to do that now that Mallory is about to enter the preschool years! Of course there's the ever popular stories/authors that everybody knows about: Eric Carle and The Brown Bear Brown Bear series, all Dr. Seuss books, Goodnight Moon, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie series, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom etc..  While those books are all wonderful timeless pieces of children's literature I've also discovered some not so overly popular lovely gems along the way.  Some of them I love because of the message they send or the stories they tell, others simply have beautiful illustrations, and some are simply witty, intelligent, and humorous!  All of them are worthy of adding to any young child's library as they discover the joy of books.   

A few of them are some of Mallory's current favorites!  I love that she loves books and get's so excited to read them! 

Some of The Gems:  First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro

                                   Our Tree Named Steve by Alan Zweibel

                                   All The Places to Love by Patricia Maclachlan 

                                   May There Always Be Sunshine by Jim Gill 

                                   He Came With the Couch by David Slonim 

                                   I Ain't Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont 

                                   The Little Light of Mine by E.B. Lewis 

                                   When Sophie Gets Angry by Molly Bang 

                                   One Word, One Day by Barbara Kerley   

Also, any book by Kevin Henkes and of course I can't forget the gem of all gems (in my humble opinion) The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein! 

"There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all."

— Jacqueline Kennedy