Favorite Picture Books Old and New

I read to my kids. I've read to them since they day they entered our home (some from the hospital, some from Haiti, one from DesMoines). Even though the youngest three are 14, 10 and 10, I still read picture books to them. We read over 100 last summer. Some of them aren't yet on this list.

This week I read to my granddaughter for the first time! She fell asleep, but that's okay. We'll have lots more reading time.

There are some series where all the books could be listed, but I don't want to do that. So here's what I came up with. There are actually 110 books on the list. I have probably forgot some, so if  your favorites aren't on the list, please let me know in the comments section.

I only have pictures for a few of them because it takes time to add the pictures.

These are in no particular order.
1. Blueberries for Sal, McCloskey 





2. Make Way for Ducklings, McCloskey

3. The Little Engine that Could, Piper

4. Goodnight Moon, Brown





5. The Runaway Bunny, Brown

6. Paddington Bear, Bond 

7. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Burton

8. Madeline, Bemelman

9. Corduroy, Freeman

10. Millions of Cats, Gag

11. Caps for Sale, Slobodkina






12. Harold and the Purple Crayon, Johnson





13. The Snowy Day, Keats 





14. Green Eggs and Ham, Seuss

15. The Cat in the Hat, Seuss

16. Horton Hears a Who, Seuss

17. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Martin

18. Very Hungry Caterpillar, Carle

19. Ten, Nine, Eight, Bang






20. The Polar Express, Van Allsbury

21. Where Wild Things Are, Sendack

22. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Viorst

23. Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom, Archambault

24. Amazing Grace, Hoffman

25. Are You My Mother, Eastman

26. Clifford the Big, Red Dog, Bridwell

27. Don't Forget the Bacon, Hutchins

28. The Doorbell Rang, Hutchins

29. Better Not Get Wet Jesse Bear, Carlstrom

30. One Morning in Maine, McCloskey

31. Just Grandpa and Me (Little Critter), Mayer

32. Saint George and the Dragon, Hodges

33. Berenstain Bear and the New Baby, Berenstain

34. Time of Wonder, McCloskey

35. In the Night Kitchen, Sendak

36 The Berenstain Bears:The Spooky Old Tree, Berenstain

37. Winnie the Pooh: The Blustery Day, Slater









38. Just Like Daddy, Asch

39. Raggedy Ann and Andy's Grow and Learn Library

40. Pretzels by the Dozen, Hunt

41. Three Trees, Hunt

42. I Like Me, Carlstrom

43. The Crippled Lamb, Lucado

44. Abby, Caines

45. Just in Case You Ever Wonder, Lucado

46. Mop Top, Freeman







47. A Country Far Away, Gray

48. Golden Bear, Young

49. Humpy, Grumpy Camel, Tangvald

50. The Best Thing About Christmas, Tangvald

51. Mama Do You Love Me? Joosse

52. The Gingerbread Man, Aylesworth

53. The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Lawrence

54. Jambo Means Hello, Feelings

55. The Boy with a Drum, Wilken

56. Jamaica Tag Along, Havil

57. Will You Be My Pet, Tusan

58. Fiddle I Fee, Sweet

59. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, Willems

60. While You Were Sleeping, Butler

61. Pokey Little Puppy, Lowrey








62. I Love You This Much, Hodges













63. The Elf and the Shoemaker, Grimm

64. Where's Spot, Hill








65. Goodnight Gorilla, Rathmann

66. George Washington's Cows, Small

67. Sheep in a Jeep, Shaw

68. Snipp, Snapp and Snurr and the Yellow Sled, Lindmann





69. Flicka, Ricka and Dicka and the Strawberries, Lindman




70. A Chair for My Mother, Williams




71. Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that Type, Cronin

72. Curious George, Rey--I am split on these. Engaging story but to me it teaches that it's okay to disobey as long as good comes out of it

73. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Numeroff

74. Grandfather's Journey, Say

75. Little House picture books, Ingalls Wilder

76. Ira Sleeps Over, Waber

77. Harry the Dirty Dog, Zion

78. On the Night You were Born, Tillman

79. A Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson

80. Leo the Late Bloomer, Kraus

81. Sail Away, Crews

82. The Monster at the End of the Book, Stone

83. Amelia Bedelia, Parish

84. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Barrett

85. Richard Scarry's Cars and Truck and Things that Go

86. Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy Town

87. A Tree is Nice, Udry

88. The Giving Tree, Silverstein

89. Good Night Baby Bear, Asca

90. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Waber

91. Trucks, Crews

92. One Fish, Two Fish, Seuss

93. The Story of Ferdinand, Leaf

94. Stone Soup, Brown

95. Miss Nelson is Missing, Marshall

96. An Amish Christmas (and several others), Ammon

97.Olivia, Falconer

98. Frog and Toad are Friends, Lobel

99. The Little House, Burton

100. The Relatives Come, Rylant

101. Drummer Hoff, Emberley

102. Many Moons, Thurber

103. The Biggest Bear, Ward

104. Song and Dance Man, Ackerman

105. White Snow, Bright Snow, Tresselt

106. Hey Al, Yorenks

107. The Big Snow, Hader

108.Finders, Keepers, Lipkind

109. God Gave Us You, Bergen

110. Let Me Hold You Longer, Kingsbury

What have I forgotten? Which of these are your favorites? Please leave me a comment.

This was one of my baby gifts to my daughter.

River's First Day at Church

River went to Sunday school with Mommy today.

11 days old

Verse for 2016

For the past three years, I've chosen a verse for our family.

In 2013 I was thinking about Jesus's words in John 14:6  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

I used those words in a "discussion" with someone who took verses out of context to say you believe in any God you want because everyone's path is different. I "argued" that every path had to lead to the foot of the cross. And I used John 14:6 because those are Jesus' own words. (NKJV)

Shortly after that I went into the Christian bookstore, and they had that verse on a sweatshirt that happened to be on sale. I bought one for both Jasmine and myself.

So I claimed that as my verse for the rest of that year and the next.

Last year I chose Matthew 5:16-18

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (NKJV)

I thought of this because every year on either Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, we light sparklers and talk about how Jesus is the light of the world.

This year friends joined us.

As the kids left for school, I would tell them, go glow in the dark.

Ty made this out of glo sticks.

This is our verse for 2016:

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8 (KJV)

Do you have a verse for 2016? If not, why not chose one?

A Grandmother by Any Other Name

Growing up, I called my Grandma "Grandma."

When my stepdaughter had children, I became "Grandma Kathy" by my request.

When Jessica got pregnant, her mother-in-law, step mother-in-law and I started talking about what we wanted River to call us. I wanted something different than Grandma Kathy. As it turns out, we all had different ideas.

So we became (left to right) Gigi, Mimi and Nanny.

My question is, is this regional? Or do  people all over the US use those names? I don't remember hearing anything but Grandma when I was young and living in Indiana. But I don't know if it was because of the time or the region. What do you think? What do your grandchildren call you or what do you call your Grandmother--and Grandfather?

Happy Gigi shirt

My stepdaughter Ashley with her children, Phoenix and Griffin

Leave a comment below. What do your children call their grandmother? Is it the same as what you call yours?

Quick Tips: Having a Personal Quiet Time with God in 2016

A new year is underway. If one of your resolutions was to spend time in the Bible this year, author Cheri Cowell has some tips for you. 

Quick Tips for Devotional Reading in 2016:

1. Take it with you: Perhaps you sit in a carpool line or you take a lunch break at work. Take your new devotional book with you so it can be a regular part of your day.

2. Start or end your day with good thoughts. Whether you are a morning person and can awaken a few minutes early for devotions or if you are a night owl and can slip into bed a few minutes early with your devotional book, make your best time of day your sweetest.

3. Don't beat yourself up. If you miss a few days and get behind, don't shelve the whole idea of devotional reading. Simply start again. No one is grading you, and even a spotty devotional life is better than none. Jesus will meet you there, no matter when you make it happen.

 Cheri is an author, speaker and sidewalk theologian.
Here are some of the books she's written:

You can learn more about Cheri and her books HERE

What Did You Do With Your Vacation?

Before vacation I posted a challenge to do one thing a day, and I posted some suggestions. I planned to do seven of them myself. In fact, I'd hoped for all of them. Things didn't go as planned. For some reason the photos aren't aligning right on this post, but you'll get the point anyway.

Here's how we did with the list:

• Read one book. We are reading an easy version of Peter Pan that we can read in one sitting. Then we are going to watch the movie. We read the book, but all the library copies of the movie were checked out and it's not on Netflix instant play.

• Do one puzzle.This is a puzzle that was my mom's in the 1930s. It does not have interlocking  pieces, so it's very easy to knock it all apart. Anyone seen these puzzles before? We did this puzzle, but it was mostly Rick and I, so we've started a regular interlocking puzzle. It's a bit challenging, so we aren't done yet.

• Memorize one verse. Our verses for 2015 are Matthew 5:14-16.  We memorized them last January. We decided that our verse for this coming year is Micah 6:8 No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. About half of us have the verse memorized.

• Walk one mile. We are going to walk at the park at least once next week. With all that happened, we only made it twice.

• Volunteer one hour. We are going to go to the shelter where we got Travis and Sasha and take some of the doggies on a field trip to a park. In the summer we take them kayaking. It's almost an hour away, so we don't get there very often. This didn't happen. We were supposed to go Thursday, but Jessica was sick so I sat with her that day.

• Try one new recipe. Haven't decided on this yet. Jasmine helped me make cheesecake from an old family recipe. She might have helped me with it a long time ago, but it's the closest we came to a new recipe. The cheesecake was gone before I realized we didn't have a picture. The only one I have is of her whipping the chilled condensed milk. (I accidentally partly froze it, but it seemed to make it whip better).

Cheese Cake

8 oz cream cheese                    large pack lemon jello

1 c sugar                                   1 c boiling water

1 tsp vanilla                              12 oz can of condensed milk

 2 or 3 Graham cracker Ready Crusts or individual crusts. 

 Blueberry or cherry pie filling as a topping

Chill condensed milk. Combine boiling water with dry jello mix.

Set aside. Mix sugar, cream cheese and vanilla. Add jello mixture

and whip. Set aside. Whip condensed milk. Combine with cheese

and jello mixture. Whip. Spoon into crust. Chill three hours.

• Make one craft. We have been doing loads of craft that you've seen in the past posts on this blog. We will be starting projects for our "Week of Kindness" (or maybe two weeks) we'll be doing in February. We worked on sanding and painting blocks  for a craft, but didn't finish it. We did do several splatter paint jars, made almond bark pretzels and cupcake snowmen (which I'll be posting about on my blog for girls HERE).

• Set one family goal. We decided that we are going to try and go tubing in NC this summer. We are planning the date, finances and travel plans. We didn't work more on this

• Write one letter. Haven't decided on this yet. The kids didn't get this done.

• Play one game. We've been playing Escape, a new Wii game Ty has, and Skip It. Yesterday Jasmine managed to hit a Christmas ornament and send it flying. We played more Skip It and the kids played Wii Outdoor Challenge with Ty and also a new game he bought.

• Draw one picture (and give it to someone). The twins are practicing their drawing and then are going to draw a picture to send to their birth father in Haiti when a friend goes down there. The kids worked on their pictures several days. Now they are going to do one with watercolor pencils.

• Start one new tradition. If you want an easy one, light sparklers on New Year's Eve and talk about how Jesus is the Light of the World, and have each child share how he/she will be a light in the coming year. Our new tradition this year will be the Polar Bear plunge about an hour away. It means getting up at 6 a.m. on Jan 1. We planned to do this with Jessica and her new baby, but with them both in the hospital, and different hospitals at that, we didn't go. We shared our sparkler tradition with another family. 
  

• Clean out closets and storage areas and donate one bag of stuff you no longer need to a thrift shop or local charity. We have been doing this gradually for the last few weeks.

What took up our time was things not on the list. And those fall into two categories, poor behavior (which I'm not going to talk about other than say that it ruined a lot of our plans) and baby drama. (If you read my Cassel Crew blog, you've already read a longer version of this)

Baby drama started early Tuesday when Jessica went in to be induced. Things did not go as planned. She made very slow progress, ended up with an epidural in hopes it would relax her enough to dilate. She was stuck at 7-8 cm and had a C section just after midnight. The baby was born on the 30th at 12:13 a.m. (14 minutes too late for daddy's birthday). 

Unfortunately, the baby started breathing too soon and swallowed fluid. She wasn't breathing (or at least well) and had to be hooked to a CPAP and transported to a nearby hospital that has a NICU unit. Jessica remained at the original hospital. 

Jessica was finally released on Friday and went to be with baby River in NICU. River was released on Saturday. 

Jasmine and I went to the hospital at 10 a.m. Tuesday. She left after 1:00 a.m. Wed, and I left about 3:30 a.m. Went to bed at 5 and got up at 7 to go to both hospitals, and that's how it was until Saturday.

But now Jessica and the baby are settled in at home and doing well.

What did you do with your vacation?