.:.:What can I say (and a bonus book review):.:.

So what can I say when I come home from a long night of school and I find the small boy in bed asleep, clean and fresh smelling from a bath with clean teeth and a full stomach? Also, when I find all the clean laundry that's been sitting around because I've been sick folded and put away?
What can I say except that I have the best husband ever.

Kris does such a good job pitching in and supporting me in all I do. He's the best.

I hate being gone to school at night, but I think it's been nice for Kris and Max to have some focused time together--especially now when Kris isn't having to do tons of studying and homework all night every night. Max adores him and thinks that he's the best thing ever.
So thanks Kris for being such a good dad and good husband and friend.



And now for the bonus book review--it's been a while since I've done one so...
Tonight we dropped by Barnes & Noble quickly and I ran across this classic from my childhood: Katy No-Pocket
Anybody else remember this story? The art is by the guy that did all the Curious George books. We brought it home and read it for our bedtime story tonight. It's definitely wordy, so probably not a good pick for extra active toddlers or for a parent with a sore throat (unfortunately for me) but it does have a great story that I think captivates young ones that are sophisticated enough to follow an involved story line. Max didn't move a muscle while I read the story to him. Turns out this book was actually published in 1944. I had no idea his stuff was so old.
I remember reading this book over and over when I was little--and the pictures are so evocative of childhood for me for some reason.
So I would recommend it, although they didn't skimp on story length or words, so reading it takes a while. Also the female protagonist is a little emotional, but she doesn't give up in her quest to find out a way to carry her baby, so I don't think she's a weak character.  Anyway it's cute. Go read it.

+ Some Stuff +

So I'm thinking that maybe I'll put up a few book reviews/recommendations on this blog. I do a good amount of reading, and maybe there's somebody out there that might be interested in what I dig up--maybe. But more than my reading I especially want to give youguys heads up on some great kids books--good old classics and new ones both. I know I have friends out there with babies that will soon be little kids, and little kids LOVE good books!

So to start with I'd like to present to you, Snoozers by Sandra Boynton.

I would actually recommend anything and everything by Sandra Boynton. She makes some of the best board books that exist. They're all great. But Snoozers is a current favorite at our house. I love it for a few reasons. 1. because the illustrations are so funny 2. because it's 7 stories that are each just an open page long. 3. some of it rhymes 4. it's all about going to bed
5. one of the pages is just a contents page 6. it's short
Max likes it because he gets to pick the order we read the stories in from the contents page (we always just read them in order even though he insists on dictating the order) he loves the illustrations, and several of the stories have kid participation parts. Also I think his favorite part is that there's a song at the end. A really weird silly song. Really weird.
So if you want a quick fun read that'll make your kid laugh and yawn before bed check this one out! If you click on the title it'll take you to amazon.com's page for this book.

A special extra. Several of you have probably already seen this today because it was featured on a couple of different blogs, but I thought this was a really cool site.
It's called Freerice.com. Click here to go to it.
It's fun and interesting. It's like a huge vocabulary quiz. And every vocab word you pick the right definition for, this site donates 20 grains of rice to "the hungry" of the world. They have some details and explanations on the site as to where the rice goes and where it comes from.
I sat down for a few minutes earlier today and got up to a level 47 vocabulary rating--can anybody beat that??