Easter Decorations and Redeeming Easter Baskets

Easter table

Tonight we cut some branches off a dogwood tree and completed our Easter decorations.  I'm excited about how pretty it looks and also how I'm going to use the branches as an "Easter Tree".  Starting tomorrow morning Susie will get to open an egg and hang what is in it on the tree -- I have 12 symbols or trinkets that have significance in the Easter story.  I was suddenly inspired when I remembered my milk glass chicken to use that to "hide" the egg in each morning.  To go with the chicken/egg, I've ordered the book Petook, (a tale based on the hen that gathers her children under her wings that Jesus refers to when speaking to the Jewish people) from the library.  If it's good, I'll let you know and maybe buy it for next year!  The cup on the table holds the paper scraps I cut for Susie to add each day to our paper chain (which is now long enough to hang over the mirror by the table).  And one of Susie's Easter watercolor paintings is under the mirror -- I've been adding her Easter pictures to our decor as they are completed for several weeks now.

Another decoration I made this year was a banner out of scrap fabric with verses for Lent clipped to it.  I like the way the fabrics look together, but I think next year I will improve the way I did the verses -- I'm open to suggestions!  I would also love to hang this by the table -- maybe next year that will work out better.  For now, it's hanging over the couch, which is ok.

I'm almost done with gathering up what is going in my kid's Easter baskets!  Since Susie was tiny I decided to do an Easter basket, but to redeem them by making them focus on Jesus and the real reason for Easter!  In the past couple years I've just given her one or two books with a plush lamb and maybe one piece of candy. . . but this year I bought in advance, so the amount is building! :)  I still need to get Chippy a lamb (I kind of want one that rattles but not shaped like a rattle, if that makes sense), but otherwise, everything else is at least ordered.  I may end up giving them one or two of their books early.  In addition to the books, I have a big stuffed sheep for Susie and a chocolate cross (which she spotted in the grocery store and began singing "Easter Friday" at the top of her lungs).  Here are the books I giving this year:
 
The Big Picture Story Bible with audio CD by David Helm

The Easter Story by Patricia Pingry

The Very First Easter by Paul Maier

Jesus is Coming --board book about the triumphal entry

I got/am getting all my books from LifeWay -- if you are in the Louisville area, the campus store has or will have all of these if you want to pick any of these up!  Also, please join us for storytime on Good Friday morning at 10:00 am --  I will be reading the account of the passion of Christ and resurrection from The Big Picture Story Bible!

Valentine Books and Reading with Chip

I took Susie to storytime at our local bookstore on Saturday, and she had a great time listening to Valentine's stories, eating cookies and making a little craft.  The store is called A Reader's Corner and just moved to a new location on Frankfort Avenue, which is great!  They give each child a free book for attending the reading. . . WOW!  When I flipped through the basket of free books, I was delighted to come across a little flocked book about a deer named Tuffer from 1959.  It has a chipmunk in the story, so I knew it was the one for us.  I knew that if I took Susie to the bookstore, I'd probably let her choose a book, but I ended up choosing one for Chip as well. :)  Sus picked a Strawberry Shortcake Valentine book, which is ok, but I found a cute board book called "Kiss Kiss" for Chippy.  The baby hippo forgets to kiss his mommy until he sees the other baby animals kissing their mommies. . . ohhhhh, so cute!  This is a CHIEF reason to shop at your local bookstores!  They will have a variety of books that you didn't even know about, and it is ohhhh so fun to discover a new book.

I've tried to be more intentional about reading to Chip and giving him books to play with.  I read to Susie quite a bit at his age, and sometimes he gets left out because Susie chooses longer stories that he can't always enjoy, or that he wants to grab and bite or tear.  As you can imagine, Susie is not a fan of this!  So here are my little tips about reading to a baby when he is your second child:

1. Read during 1 on 1 time.  Chippy has time alone with me in the afternoon while Susie is still napping.  That's when I give him books to play with and read him little board books where I let him turn the pages, or take it away from me altogether.  It is book exploration, and it will lead to him learning how to turn pages, and enjoy the pictures on his own.  

2. When you have together storytime, try to situate the baby like this -- have him sit by older children, maybe on a blanket, and give him a small book to hold, or maybe a toy to chew on.  Then sit across from the children, and hold up the book facing them.  Chip has caught on quickly to direct his attention to the pictures and turning pages, so we have enjoyed several medium length books like this.  I wouldn't do our Winnie the Pooh collection just yet, but something with lots of big pictures and frequent page turns.  He, at 9 months, is seeing that reading together is something we enjoy as a family.  I include him in the questions and sound making (for example -- "can you make a kiss sound Chippy?  Can you make a kiss sound Susie?").  Of course he doesn't answer but Susie does and I do it, and often he grins at us.  He will join in before long.  I don't want to just ignore him as if he's not sitting there reading with us.

side by side exploration

3. Side by side exploration -- this is where I give them both books to look at while they are playing together.  This way he can see what she's reading, and have something of his own.  Now sometimes this will fall into him trying to get her book, or her deciding to take his to read to him (which he gets ticked about, understandably), so I have to facilitate this time.  Generally it works well, and he will explore his book while she "reads the pictures" of her own.  Here's a precious picture I snapped of them reading together this morning.

Feed Me Books Friday -- Hosting this week and sharing books no child should miss

I am delighted to be the guest host for my college friend Janna over at The Adventure of Motherhood, while she takes a break for one more week of Feed Me Books Friday!  I decided to share a couple of books that have risen to the tip-top of my daughter Susie's book choices lately.  Granted, at age 14 months, she is not the most discerning reader, but at the same time, children do know what they like and what they don't.  Here are a couple of books that Susie has consistently been bringing to Mommy and Daddy (saying "iss iss iss!!") and asking to read over and over.  You probably know these, but no child should miss out on them!

Reading with Daddy

The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone -- this is a book I had as a kid, and years ago found it to be still widely enjoyed by a variety of ages.  It is a classic read-aloud featuring Lovable, Furry Old Grover from Sesame Street begging the reader not to turn any more pages because he is frightened of the monster that will be at the end of the book.  Of course HE is the monster, and at the end is relieved to discover that his fear was for nothing, but throughout the pages are opportunities for the reader to border on hysterics acting out the range of Grover's emotions.  This is probably why I like reading the book -- because it's fun to be dramatic.  And that is probably why my baby likes us to read it to her.  She likes to see her parents being dramatic!  I'm such a sucker for Golden Books, which have stood the test of time offering decent books at a low price to millions of children through the generations.  How can you say no to spending $3.99 on a book your child will want to read again and again?  I know I can't!  Of course, I'm sure your library will have this book as well.

Mommy and Susie reading Brown Bear

Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. -- ok, true confession time.  I never used to like this book.  I like the illustrations, but I didn't think the words were interesting.  But I knew that kids like it, and when a sweet friend gave me this board book at a baby shower,  I knew, of course, that I would read it to my baby.  When Susie was really tiny, she would quickly become uninterested in looking at the pictures, so I kept setting it aside.  In the last few months, however, she has picked this book to read perhaps a thousand times!  If there is another child around, they will stop to listen.  Last weekend my sister in law was reading it out loud to 4 or 5 kiddos (mainly babies) at once, who were listening with rapt attention.  My nephew Max, who is now almost 3, had a "Brown Bear" themed first birthday party a couple of years ago.  It was his favorite book to say the least!  I think the style and rhythm of the book has become ingrained in his mind because the other day in the car I overheard him softly chanting to himself  "Susie, Susie, what do you see?  I see Maxy looking at me" and other variations based on the riders in our car.  Precious.  This is what a good book does.  It becomes part of the way you talk and think about the world.

I'm so glad you came by this week!  Please share what you and your children are reading -- or if you're like me and you read stacks of children's books long before you ever had a child of your own, please share a favorite by linking up below!  I'd love to come by and check out your recommendations.

I Am a Bunny

I love it when I find a classic book that is also fun and age-appropriate for a baby.  I Am a Bunny, illustrated by Richard Scarry, is just such a book!

Susie already loves this book.  It's sturdy, colorful, and a great tall size (the shape reminds me of another favorite -- Babies by Gyo Fujikawa).  Though the pictures have great detail and command attention, each page has a fairly short and simple phrase or sentence, which is ideal when reading to a squirmy baby!  


Recently Susie has started bringing me books to read her.  She'll whip one out of her basket and tell me "dat" (meaning "read that", I guess).  Usually after about 4 or 5 pages, she whips out another and tells me "dat".  Every once in a while, she likes to hear the whole thing and sometimes she hands it back to me and tells me "dat" again because she wants to hear it a second time!  That's really exciting to me!  The other day she started fussing when I started to stand up and I realized she was trying to hand me Brown Bear Brown Bear to read again.  You better bet I reread her those bookies just as many times as she'd like! 

Favorite Illustrators

There are some children's books I could just look through over and over, admiring their illustrations.  For picture books, the pictures tell as much of the story as the words, and are made truly precious when the artwork speaks for itself.  I love many, many classic illustrators, and quite a few new ones as well, but here are 2 of my favorites.  I am currently building my collection of these 2 illustrators -- someday I'd love to have everything they've done!  

1. Eloise Wilkin -- who doesn't know the chubby faces of Eloise Wilkin's children?  Her Golden Books in the 50's 60's and 70's are classics that generations have grown up with.  I have collected a good number of her timeless books, and in fact, I chose the Eloise Wilkin Baby Journal to use for a baby book for Susie, which has illustrations from several of her "Baby Dear" series of books.  I simply adore her chubby baby faces and joyful life-like actions of the babies.  

Another favorite from Wilkin is The Wonders of Nature.  May I recommend this book for some summertime outdoorsy exploration?  When I look through this book I want to be 8 again, wandering through the woods on our property in Wisconsin -- fishing in the river, finding deer paths, making forts in the trees and never ever hearing cars go past, just the rustle of the leaves all around you.  Today's children are often hurried from one activity to the next, involved in so many sports, lessons, playdates, etc. to "improve" them that they miss out on good old dirty fun.  Reading this book with your little ones and then getting out in the backyard or local park to explore (forget the weather! Just go out!) would make a wonderful summertime activity.

My all-time favorite Eloise Wilkin book is sadly out of print, We Help Daddy.  I am on the hunt to find it for Susie (yes I could order a used copy from Amazon, but I'm hoping to come upon it at Half Priced Books or something).  I have very old memories of being read this book by our babysitter and she changed the names of the boy and girl in the story to Gretchen and Nathan (my brother and me).  The next time my mother read us the book (correctly), I said "No!  Their names are Nathan and Gretchen!!"  I looked and looked at the picture of the little girl (whose name is actually Sue -- that's why I want it for Susie) watering the plants with her little watering can and thought it looked to be the most fun chore I could imagine.  Maybe one of these days Random House will reissue this favorite -- We Help Mommy is available, so why not this?  Is it too gender specific to suggest that helping Daddy involves outdoor chores?  Gasp! Heaven forbid. HAHA!

2.  Gyo Fujikawa -- her pictures of children are much more comical and cartoonish than Wilkin's, but classic and endearing in their own way!  Susie got her Mother Goose collection when she was first born (from our friend Barb), and Oh What a Busy Day collection for her first birthday (from Aunt Emily).  I believe these are both reprints of books from the 1950's (or perhaps a bit later), but they are beautifully done.  Her Babies book was an early favorite of Susie's, and the first book Fujikawa both wrote and illustrated.  She was ahead of her time illustrating books with muti-racial babies and children in the 1950's, which is one reason why her illustrations still look so fresh and new.  I did not grow up with these books (that I recall), but when you look at her pictures, you feel like a child again!  I could sit and page through the collections over and over exploring the expressions of the children in them.

It may take me quite a bit longer to collect everything Gyo Fujikawa has done, since I've just begun, but I'm up to the task!  I think I might try to get this one next:  A to Z Picture Book.  It looks like another one I could page through for hours.


Who are your favorite children's book illustrators?  Can you even narrow it down to one or two?  I'm linking up to Feed Me Books Friday at The Adventure of Motherhood, so check out other great book recommendations there!

Susie's Birthday Book

When I read a biography of Elizabeth Prentiss (author and hymn-writer in the 19th century), I was pleasantly surprised to discover that she wrote not only books for adults, but also for children. Even more pleasing, in my mind, was that her first popular children's work was a book called Little Susy's Six Birthdays. Oh! I thought, I'd certainly like to read that!!

Well, good news for me, I found it free online! Now, you won't get the pleasing cloth bound cover, which is precious indeed, but the online version does contain many of the original illustrations. I printed off the online book and spiral bound it to give to MY Susie to keep as a birthday memory book! My thinking was that I would put in pictures from her birthday each year and have her party guests sign their names by the chapter that corresponds with that year's birthday. And then, each year, we can read the chapters leading up to the birthday she is having, and read a NEW chapter ON her birthday.

This book is just so sweet and cute! I was nearly giggling aloud when I read how she portrayed the children -- it really was a delight. Here is the introduction:

TO THE CHILDREN WHO READ THIS BOOK

MY DEAR LITTLE FRIENDS:

This book was written on purpose for you. While I was writing it, I often said to myself, I hope this will please Mally and Willie! I wonder how Sarah and Louisa will like it? Then I thought that I would read what I had written, to a few children, to see what they would say. Because if it failed to interest them, I should be ashamed to have it printed and sent to other children. So I read it to several. Some of them were quite large children, larger than any of you; and other others were small. One of them was nine years old, and one seven, and one six, and one five; and when I saw them smile, as if they were pleased, I was very glad, indeed. And when one of them said she hoped I would print as many as two, one for her and one for her cousin, I felt still more delighted, and thought I would have one for everybody's cousin. A great many little Johnnies and Geordies; many little Nellies and Hatties, will read about Susy's birthdays. Wherein she was good, I hope you will all be like her; and then your birthdays will be happy ones. Sometimes little children don't live to spend six birthdays in this world. They go to heaven and spend them there; and they are better and happier days that any little Susy ever knew. But now I must bid you good-bye. Perhaps I shall write another story for you one of these days.

AUNT SUSAN

I'm so excited to have found this book to use as a special birthday book!! I'm wondering if any of you have birthday book traditions in your family? And in honor of Susie's birthday, don't forget to go here to enter my giveaway of Andrew Case's excellent book of prayers for parents. I'm also linking up to Feed Me Books Friday, so check out more book recommendations there!

Moo, Baa, La La La . . . and book storage for Baby

I chose Moo, Baa, La La La by Sandra Boynton to share for Feed Me Books Friday, because it is a board book that Susie has suddenly decided she loves. A friend gave me this book at a baby shower, saying it was a fave for her kiddos, and I expected Susie to be into it, too. It took her a while to warm up, I must say. I guess the illustrations weren't super appealing for a very young baby (she seemed to be more into the really bright, colorful ones, and things with real pictures). Now she LOVES it! It's the perfect length for her, and it rhymes and is funny. I do the animal sounds nice and loud. I remember Sandra Boynton being a big favorite at Blue Kangaroo Books, a children's bookstore in Illinois (where I had the VERY fun privilege of working!). I see how catchy she is when you are reading her out loud, over and over. I'd really rather read this book 4 times straight than just a book naming the animals on each page (we read those, too). If you aren't already a Sandra Boynton fan, check her out!

Here is a picture of Susie looking at this book outside the other day. I had this stroke of genius to take a cardboard box and throw some "outside stuff" in it for her to explore. I mostly put in board books. We don't have a real yard or any sort of garage or driveway. We live in an apartment, which has a nice sliding door and bit of grassiness for us to explore outside it. I like to take Sus out to get a bit of outdoor time every day, and unless I haul out a blanket, I'm just putting the books right on the ground. Empty box -- PERFECT for keeping stuff off the grass, and adds to the fun for her dumping it out. I love the way she imitates me pointing at the pictures. Stepping stones to reading!

I also came up with a way to store her board books so they are always available to her! I got these CHEAP little baskets with liners and filled them up. Now, in the picture, I've got them all tidy, but the cool thing is that I can just seriously toss the books in and they look fine. And since it was a set of 2, I can put them in different rooms. I was thinking that as she gets older, and I start getting out more of her paper page books, I can rotate them out of the baskets so there are "new" books for her to look at! This has been a big improvement over the bottom shelf I had initially given her. It was just way too confusing to keep the books she CAN have right underneath Daddy's textbooks, which are "no touch". It's pretty funny when she crawls under her jumpy and looks at her books. It's like a little house to read in!

Bizzy Gets a New Book

Wednesday night I found myself with a rare blessing -- a suddenly free evening with access to the car. So after dinner, I grabbed Biz (one of many nicknames for my daughter), my baby sling and the bag of magazines and books I was planning to trade in, and headed to Half Priced Books. I'm still thrilled that I actually live in the same city as this store. What a treat! I decided to drop off my bag at the buy counter and take Susie to explore the kid's section. I figured if I found a board book we couldn't live without, it would probably end up being free.


Of course we did! My eyes lit up when I saw the spine on Baby! Baby! by Vicky Ceelen. I wanted to get Susie a book of baby faces, since she loves flipping through the Pottery Barn Kids catalog with me, and is mesmerized by the show "Bringing Home Baby" when it's on in the morning. I was not disappointed! This big square book has large pictures of animals and babies on each page, mirroring each other in facial expression or position. The cover is a terrible example (I'm sorry, I don't think that baby looks like that ugly dog!), so here is a picture I took of Susie's favorite page. She just loves the baby sticking out its tongue; she's sort of all about tongues right now. I knew this book was a keeper when Susie was laughing by the last page. Good news! It cost a dollar less than what I made off my trade-ins, so even the tax was covered!


I chose this book for Feed Me Books Friday because it is JUST the sort of book we can enjoy together! I love making up words for wordless books, or just talking about the pictures. Susie loves the babies so much that this morning when I pulled the book back out, she was kissing them over and over. I'd say this book is a win-win-win. Post here if you've had some amazing second-hand book finds! I love to buy used books, and I ADORE discovering something special like this. It was not Walmart, with a dozen of the same books, but almost no selection. There was only one copy and that one was there just for us.


Sorry, I didn't do the books you can sing theme! Head over to The Adventure of Motherhood for more book suggestions! If you're like me, and reading to a baby, please read my post from yesterday on reading to babies and contribute to the conversation!

Reading to Babies

Oh, how I love read-aloud!! I always have. I've looked forward to the days when I had a little child of my own to sit on my lap and read good stories to. I've built up my book collection with the classics that every child should have read to them. And now, I have a precious daughter to read to. All the time. Whenever I want.

But. . . reading to a baby can be hard! And for an active baby -- especially in the 6month+ range, where everything goes in the mouth -- books aren't exactly the best toys, unless you want your autographed Kevin Henkes book ripped to shreds and the cover chewed up. When Sus was brand new, I'd read to her on her changing table -- the bookcase was right there by us and I could choose book after book. Now I've switched to strictly board books (we try a paper one every once in a while, but as of yesterday she still wasn't ready), and I thought I'd share some practical tips for reading to a little booky-monster.

1. Be realistic. It's ok if you can only get through a couple pages. Of course, it's good to build on this, but by choosing short and simple board books that take less than a minute to read, you can set a practical reading goal for your baby. Mamas-of-babies might try to read The Velveteen Rabbit because it was a gift from great-grandma and then get frustrated and think "my baby doesn't like to be read to". Here are some types of books I like:

• Board books with all the words on one page -- sometimes it makes it easier, because I can look at one side and let her play with the other
• Board books with a whole thought/story/poem per page -- keeps your sanity! You actually read something whole, not "Spot went to the. . . " over and over.
  
• Board books with large illustrations -- some even take up a whole page (another reason I like the words to be on one side: that way the pictures can be bigger

2. Give Freedom. Try to hold the book so that your child has some freedom to explore what you're reading. For example, I hold our bedtime book so that all the pages on one side stay tight together, but she can open and close the cover over and over if she wants. Since all the words are on one side, I can still see what I'm reading. For some reason, she loves the front and back covers of her favorite books. It's good for babies to learn to turn their own pages; it teaches them how books work so they can learn to look at books by themselves. I usually try to read through the book as far as I can (you can usually tell when the good listening time is ending), and then let her turn back and forth to pages. Sometimes she has favorite pages and I read them over and over. I have those pages memorized.

3. Make it interactive. It's more than reading with expression, doing voices, etc. I had that down reading to bigger kids. For a baby, I point to parts of the pictures (she usually follows suit and touches what I touch -- this is all good learning), and I try to touch the picture that goes with what I'm reading. I make the lions in Daniel's den roar (softly) to catch her attention (it doesn't scare her). I say "Ooooooooooooh. . . the baby. . . look, he's so cute. . . " and slowly pet the picture over and over to to convey what I think of that cute picture. She doesn't have words to tell me what she thinks of the cute picture, but she can touch it and make sounds like me. In this way, she is interacting with the book.

4. Have a routine and build it up. Our bedtime reading time has really extended and improved since even just a month or so ago. I read from Baby's Hug-a-Bible (read my review by clicking the link -- I love it!) to her each night at bedtime. I've recently found that if we snuggle up and I hold the book pretty close to us (not on my lap like I was doing), the picture fills more of her field of vision, and she's not distracted to look at other things. That may not always work, but for now, she's had extended attentive listening time this way. Of course, it's nice to have spontaneous reading times whenever your baby picks up a book, but it's wonderful to have a storytime before bed and enjoy a wonderful routine. I choose to read a God-centered book because this is the beginning of our devotional time together. As time goes on, we can read storybook Bibles and then just the actual Bible. But for now, I am teaching her that this time is special, and this book is wonderful.

Please share your tips on reading to a baby! Have you had success with reading paper-page books? If so, please share how you do that without communicating that books aren't for touching -- I just can't figure that out!

To the tiger at the zoo, Susie-Q just said "Pooh pooh"

This week, Susie and I had our first outing to the Louisville Zoo together. I love to connect reading a book with a new adventure, so for my first "Feed Me Books Friday" post I decided to write about Curious George and First Words at the Zoo. I read this little board book (click the link to see why I'm board book only at this age) to Sus several times before we left for the zoo in the morning, and we've been reading it a few times since. At 10 months, she doesn't necessarily get the connection, but it won't be too long before she will! At any rate, it's a great vocabulary builder; my husband was reading this to her the next day and she started saying "Dorge, Dorge"!

One thing I really like about Curious George and First Words at the Zoo, is that there is no story, just pictures labeled with words or phrases. Perfect opportunity for mom or dad to be the storyteller! I love to make the story up differently as we turn the sturdy colorful pages:

"OH NO!!! Curious George took the zoo keeper's keys! He's gonna let out the animals!!!"

I hope I'm teaching my child to be expressive and love words. Books are so much a part of who I am, and I find myself quoting bits of children's books when the opportunity presents itself. Here are a couple quotes (that I remember) from our zoo trip:

"Look Susie!! Look at the Elephants! There's a Mama bear elephant, Papa bear elephant and Baby bear elephant all holding each other's tails!". . . then realized I was mixing my animal terms because I was referring to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Clearly, in my mind, "mama bear, papa bear and baby bear" are universal terms to be applied to any creatures that appear in that order.

"Look at the tiger, Sus! Look at his big teethy!!! Is he scary? No. . . 'to the tiger at the zoo, Susie-Q just said "pooh pooh"'!" quoting from Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans.

What books have slipped into your vocabulary? Do you find yourself speaking "book talk" to your kids?

Check out the other recommendations at Silly Eagle Books!

Baby's Hug-a-Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones

I loooooove Sally Lloyd-Jones's writing. Love it. I have raved in the past about the popular Jesus Storybook Bible, and I've tried to keep up with her latest titles ever since I discovered her. So how could I be happier than when I had the opportunity to review her newest book on my blog? And it was a book specifically for babies!! And I have a baby to read it to!!!

Susie and I were filled with glee when Baby's Hug-a-Bible arrived in the mail. Well, at least I was sure enthusiastic, and generally Sus is happy when I hand her something new that she's allowed to put in her mouth. We've been reading it together at bedtime, and I would like to give this book my resounding stamp of approval!

First of all, this book is incredibly God-centered. Each page spread is one picture and one Bible story. Except that, instead of the typical "Daniel was brave. . . you be brave too. . . Noah played with animals. . . do you like animals" kind of stuff you often see in kid's (especially little kids or baby) Christian books, this book is just amazingly God-centered. I'll give examples at the end.

Second, each page has application. Now, I understand that I am reading this to a baby. But keep in mind -- I am a grown up. I need the application, even if my baby does not completely understand it. How many times have I been getting ready to lay my baby down in her bed for her good night's sleep, and I have to recite a Psalm and spend time in prayer, verbally reminding myself that she belongs to the Lord and I can entrust her to Him as she sleeps. I know I am not alone in this! Parents of small children (and especially babies) continually have to fight that battle of worry or fear. . . and reading excellent Christian books to that babe, such as this one, will help arm you in battle.

Third, it is written in a pleasing, easy-to-read aloud rhyming way. Rhyming books are my favorites for babies!! Each page is like its own little poem, containing a bit about the Bible story, questions about God and concludes with application. Here is an example from my favorite page:

"God helps Baby Moses
Exodus 1-2

Who saved a baby in a boat?
Who kept that baby's boat afloat?
Who loved that baby in the reeds?
Who knows just what a baby needs?

Who cares for you in just that way?
And gives you all you need today?
Yes, God's the one, who, day by day,
Will care for you in every way!"

Can you see how reading something like that would remind you of God's character, and his mighty acts in the past, and help you learn to trust him who "day by day will care (for your baby) in every way!"? I look forward to the day when Susie and I read this book together and I can pause after the first section and have her little voice answer "GOD!!" Oh, how I long for her to love and know Him!

Thank you, Sally, for using your clever writing to create something just for the youngest children whose parents want to bring up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.