Fridays...

So, on Friday evenings Brett leads an outreach bible study. And Friday's are always bad. Coincidence? I think not!! And I don't think I fully realized that until this evening when I caught myself thinking, "Man, it would be cool if Brett just forgot that he had bible study tonight so that I could get a break from these children."

You know, these children that I love. The one who has discovered that awful word, "Why?" which he says any time anyone asks him to do anything. Or that other one, the one who seems to have some sort of stomach issue going on. Who literally was happy only when being held a certain way and who didn't want to sleep at all....

Anyway, it is not accident that I'm not such a great of a person on Fridays. Kind of like when I was younger and I was always particularly terrible on Sunday mornings, the mornings that my Papa spent preparing his lessons for Church, and then one day my Mom or someone mentioned that maybe I was being used as an attack on those precious morning preparation times, and I was all like, "NU-UH am I gonna let the devil us ME!" So I tried to be good on Sunday mornings. ( tried being the operative word).

Anyway, so back to Fridays. So, when I caught myself thinking such an awfully selfish thought, I made a turn for the better and while my son continued to ask me "Why?" up until I turned the light off at 8pm. And while I did have to hold my crying baby girl several more times during the evening, I decided to end my night writing.

And not just any writing....I was going to write in the Priscilla Tabitha Story. And we're up to the part where we loose Priscilla which, as you can imagine, I basically have stalled on for quite some time.
But, I did it, I sat down and I wrote it.

I listened to Natalie Grant's song Held on repeat and I wrote it. And the cool thing was, that in the end I think the Lord gave me insight into some new cool thoughts. Which is why I love writing. Sometimes as I write a new thought just pours out of me as though I'd thought it before and like it was what I was going to write all along, when, in reality, it just came to me in that moment of fingers to keys. Those are some of the best moments and it is why writing is my therapy.

So I am grateful to a happy end to this day.

Children's Books: Favorite Authors Edition (1 yr olds)

Thanks for all of you who mentioned some of your favorite books....some of you even mentioned some nonboard books that I'd lined up for future posts ( different categories, you know! hehehe!) That being said I've currently got FOUR MORE blog posts in the works, but its SO HARD not to just over run you with a million books...especially since there are a MILLION good books! But that's a good problem to have! If you haven't read my Board Book recommendations, you can do that....and stay tuned for "Books that I love ( 1-2yr olds)",  "Favorite authors for 2-3 yr olds" and "Books that I love 2-3 yr olds."....and probably several more...hehe.


So, now I'm in to a section of books that is a little bit more complicated-every child is different, has different interests, will sit through different books, different lengths of books etc. etc.
And since I've only had ONE child so far,  I have limited knowledge. But, limited knowledge has never ever stopped me from blogging before, now has it?!?! NOPE! hahaha! But seriously, I'm confident in my recommendations here....if you or your kid doesn't like these books then I'm wondering...can we really be friends?! ( kidding).

So without further ado! The books Ransom and I have liked over the last year or so have been varied and many so this will be in several posts. Tonight, for matter of simplicity I'm just going to list three authors who we love a LOT of their books. Kind of like Sandra Boynton I feel you cannot go wrong when you see one in the bookstore.

Mo Willems was introduced to me by my friend Miranda and I love love LOVE his books! Many of them are perfect for 1 year olds because they are pretty great on the words to pictures ratio for those with shorter attention spans. And the humor is good for both adults and children. Ransom's favorite is:

There are 3 Knuffle Bunny books, and beware. When I read the third one....standing in the children's section of Barnes and Nobles, I actually cried.  As in tears.  So don't let anyone tell you that you can't have actual heart in a picture book, because you can.  These books are WONDERFUL. 

My other favorite Mo books are probably the Pigeon Books and we check these out from the library pretty regularly: 

Another favorite author of mind is Peter Spier. Many of his books are just pictures, which is great for all your non-readers but big-imagination children. I remember looking at several of his picture books for hours as a kid, coming up with my own stories. The thing is, that doesn't just happen. I think as parents we give our kids a head start in the imagination department by sitting down with them and showing them how its done. Which is what we've done with Spier's book, Rain: 

And this book, Circus, while not entirely pictures- is still so rich in detail on every page that it might as well be! We hardly read what is actually written ( or at least not yet) its very technical, but Ransom loves looking at it and will often play "circus" throughout the day. 

What I do NOT recommend is, "Noah's Ark". While we actually own a copy and Ransom will ask us to read it periodically, I do not think it is fitting for young children. Let's just say that Spier is maybe a little too good at being accurate in his pictures, and while Ransom loves pointing out all the piles of poop on the ark ( very good point, there Spier) , he also wonders what is going to happen to all those animals with water up around their necks that didn't make it on the boat....not a convo I'm wanting to have with my 2 year old!

Another great author that everyone probably already knows, is Richard Scarry. 

My mom read this book every single night to Ransom when he was staying with her this past year. It was so soundly intrenched in his bedtime routine, I actually worried what we would do when he left! While I didn't go so far as to get my own copy ( this book is definitely a book that Spicy reads) we do have our own selection of Scarry's books that we love. Ransom's favorite of our collection is probably: 

It's definitely a "boy" book, but it has enough other interesting things on every page to make it pretty enjoyable for girls too! ( Like looking for little goldbug on every page. totally fun). And if you're interested, the more story focused rather than picture focused of Scarry's books my favorite is probably, The Great Pie Robbery its pretty hilarious. : 

And what about you? What are your favorite authors who just can't seem to go wrong when it comes to the tot books?! I'd love to hear your favs!