Storytime

One of my favorite times each day is when we are settling down to put the boys to bed. This tradition started when the boys were about 6 months old or so, and it has morphed into what it is today. We start by reading two or three books (and even more some days), singing a couple of songs, saying prayers and giving night-night hugs and kisses. The funny thing about the stories is that we have literally read (note the redundancy) the same books dozens of times. For almost an entire year, we would read Time for Bed, by Mem Fox and Jane Dyer. The boys had the entire thing memorized, and each page had a little ritual (such as pointing to the moon or making a fish face). This book eventually was replaced by Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, and Jamberry, by Bruce Degen. These two books didn't stay on the playlist nearly as long as Time for Bed, but they will definitely go into the Hall of Fame. From there we progressed to the Seals on the Bus, by Lenny Hort and G. Brian Karas, which still gets limited play time when the boys are sitting on the potty. We have now moved on to a collection of books that we rotate through: If You Give a Pig a Pancake and If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff and Felicia Bond, Pigsty by Mark Teague and The Leprechaun's Gold by Pamela Duncan Edwards and Henry Cole (which I read in a very bad Irish accent). The boys also like to sing along to My Country, 'Tis of Thee and America the Beautiful (sorry, no link for this one). A lot of these books I acquired when I was a teacher, either as gifts from students or I used bonus points to buy them. We have read each of these books so much that Sam and Nate have them memorized, which you can see below. This video is a little on the long side (approximately 5 min.) but well worth it.