Bookish Christmas

I thought I'd take a little break from the New Year goals and challenges to rewind and share the bookish gifts we gave and received this Christmas. And don't worry, there are more New Year challenges to come :)

My inlaws did a little photoshoot while babysitting one afternoon and gave us this photo in a beautiful frame from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. How adorable?!?!

There are quite a few friends and family members who know we are book lovers, so the little man received a few more for his collection :)

My husband and I gave these two by Nancy Tillman to our son. I absolutely love all her books because they are both beautiful and sentimental in the best possible way. Highly recommended.

Another gift from my husband and I to our son. My parents still have Volume 2 & Volume 3 from when my brother and I were kids and we borrowed those to read this year leading up to Christmas. And while I know they will happily lend them to us again, I thought I would track down a copy of the first volume to add to our own collection. They are apparently not so easy to find, but I lucked out at this Etsy shop. I think it will be nice to mix up which volume we read each year in the future.

I received the Outlander graphic novel from my aunt- and uncle-in-law. I read it from the library (last year?) and loved it, but I didn't have a copy for my collection. Now I do! :)

And finally, my cousin and her family got us this awesome heat-sensitive Harry Potter mug...

 ...and HP onesie for the little guy. But, shhhh, we all know he's really a wizard :) :)

  

A Classics Christmas

Since it is my son's first Christmas this year, I have been wanting more than ever to continue with some holiday traditions. Of course, he's not quite 8 months old yet and won't remember any of it, but still, there are certain things I like to do to get in the Christmas spirit. It's more challenging this year to actually do those things while also taking care of a baby, but I keep reminding myself that there is no such thing as "perfect" and that there is also no need for "perfect."

While I do believe that Christmas is really about the intangibles -- love and family and hope and joy -- it has been so much fun doing some of the other stuff too. And you're mostly here for the books, right? So while I don't read any specific Christmas story every year, I like to read something Christmas-related during December. This year, with the help of this list, I decided to dive into some classic Christmas stories. I mostly chose ones I had hidden in my home "library", but there are some other great suggestions on that list as well. A lot of these are in the public domain and available as free or inexpensive ebooks if you're looking for a last minute holiday read.


Charles Dickens

• A Christmas Carol & A Christmas Tree
• Stories for Christmas (I won't be reading this whole collection, but I do hope to read a few more of the stories over the next week or so. Of course, this also contains the above two stories, but I'm reading those from an illustrated edition.)

O. Henry

• The Gift of the Magi

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• The Blue Carbuncle (from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)

Grimm's Fairy Tales

• The Elves and the Shoemaker

Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales & Stories

• The Steadfast Tin Soldier
• The Little Match Girl (This one is super sad.)
• The Fir Tree (Also kind of sad -- it really is true that fairy tales are pretty dark!)
• The Snow Queen

Picture Books

• The Night Before Christmas
• Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Of course, we have also read a lot of newer Christmas picture books, but I thought I'd stick to the "classics" for this list. Do you have any favorite holiday reads? Please share in the comments. And don't forget to enter my Christmas giveaway! (Ends midnight on Sunday)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from my little Frankenstein!

Yes, I know Frankenstein monster costumes are
inaccurate literature-wise.
No, I don't care. Isn't he cute? :)

Fascinated by all the other kids at our library's
Halloween parade

A few of the costumes might have been a little scary...

We carved a pumpkin last night and today we'll be greeting trick-or-treaters, watching Hocus Pocus, and hanging out with our little monster. Have a great day everyone!

So this happened yesterday...

I've been reading to my son practically since he was born. He has no idea what I'm talking about yet, but I still love doing it and I think it's important. Over these past six months, he started grabbing for the pages and little by little he seems to (maybe?) be actually looking at them -- or at least the colors and the motion as I flip them.

When he was a teeny tiny newborn I used to hold him while reading, but he's been so wiggly the past few months, we started lying on the floor so I could hold the book above us and let him move around. Last night was the first time he really sat with me in my comfy reading chair and the pictures my husband snapped make this bookish mom's heart happy, so I had to share :)

We've (OK, I've...) been on a Halloween book kick, so here we are reading The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree he got from his Godmom. I must admit I feel like a kid again myself rediscovering picture books. I know they are not every adult's cup of tea, but I just love these stories, even though they are aimed at audiences 25+ years my junior. Maybe I'll change my tune when my son gets old enough to ask me to read the same book for the thousandth time, but for now I'm exploring a whole world of stories I've barely touched in a few decades and it's just plain fun! :)

Baby Books to Make a New Mom Cry, Part 2

Back in May, I shared some of my favorite baby books -- the ones that were getting me all choked up as a brand new mom. I've found a few more since then that I absolutely adore, so thought I'd share this next batch. The waterworks don't turn on quite as easily these days, but I still love some of these more sentimental stories. I'm enjoying them while I can -- before my little guy is big enough to pick what I read to him, that is!

Baby Love, by Angela DiTerlizzi

When the World Was Waiting for You, by Gillian Shields

Wherever You Are My Love Will Find You, by Nancy Tillman

Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney

If I Could Keep You Little..., by Marianne Richmond

* * * * *

What are your favorite books to read to the little ones in your life?

A Bookish Decorating Project, #2

A while back, I shared my bookish decorating project for my son's nursery. Before I ever even started working on that one, I had another decorating project in the works for our living room, a.k.a. my "library room." My basic idea was a *collage* of favorite bookish quotes with some bookish artwork/prints mixed in. I already had a bunch of matching frames in different sizes, so I started filling them in one by one based on what fit in best where...

So what's in the collage?

1. Five of my favorite bookish quotes printed out on white cardstock in various fonts:

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you know, the more places you'll go" ― Dr. Seuss

“And every book, you find, has its own social group--friends of its own it wants to introduce you to, like a party in the library that need never, ever end.” ― How to be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran

“I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.” ― The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” ― Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by J.K. Rowling

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”― C.S. Lewis 

(Note: I have since read the book of essays by C.S. Lewis where I believe this last one is taken from. It seems wherever I first read it had the wording a bit off, but I'm leaving it for now. The message is the same regardless!)

2. Two illustrated quotes printed from Goodreads' monthly newsletter:

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." ― Jorge Luis Borges

"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities" ― J.K. Rowling

3. A copy of my UK Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone cover.

4. An illustrated postcard of The Elephant House, the cafe I visited in Edinburgh, Scotland where J.K. Rowling wrote parts of Harry Potter.

5. A print that came with my collector's edition of The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Here's what my reading corner looks like :)

As you can tell, it's a bit Harry Potter-heavy :)

Has anyone else ever tried any bookish decorating projects? I'd love to hear about them!

Baby Books to Make a New Mom Cry

Now, I don't actually mean that in a bad way. Some of my favorite baby books so far have been the sweet, sentimental ones. And thanks to the postpartum hormones (WAY crazier than the pregnancy hormones, in my experience anyway!) my eyes were rather leaky while reading them to my little man. Whether I was outright bawling, just getting a little misty-eyed, or something in between is directly related to how far removed I was from delivery when I read them. Proceed with caution if you're trying not to trigger the waterworks (is such a thing even possible?!), but I highly recommend all of these wonderful books for any little one's library.

I Love You Because You're You 

by Liza Baker, illustrated by David McPhail

I Love You as Big as the World

by David Van Buren, illustrated by Tim Warnes

Love You Forever

by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw

On the Night You Were Born

by Nancy Tillman

Bunny Roo, I Love You

by Melissa Marr, illustrated by Teagan White

The Runaway Bunny

by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd

Corduroy

by Don Freeman

A Bookish Decorating Project for the Nursery

I can't believe my son is 3 weeks old already! I know that is not really a lot of time, but it just feels like it's flying by already. As my due date approached last month, I kept myself busy with projects around the house and I had some serious nesting going on. One of my favorite projects was decorating the nursery. I knew from the beginning I didn't really want to do a "theme" where we bought perfectly coordinated sets from a baby store, but I definitely wanted to add some bookishness to his room.

I mentioned a while back that I wanted to do this wall art project and frame pages from favorite childhood books of mine and my husband's. But in the end, I had a really hard time tracking down the books my husband remembers and I truthfully couldn't come up with a favorite of my own -- I remember loving story-time with my parents, but there wasn't any one book that stood out in my memory. So, since an unofficial animal theme seemed to be forming anyway after we chose the bumpers for his crib, a lamp for the room, and received an adorable bookcase at our baby shower, I decided to go with three different children's books/series that feature animals: Make Way for Ducklings, Humphrey the elephant, and Paddington Bear:

Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey

Humphrey books, by Sally Hunter

Paddington Bear books, by Michael Bond
(Top two frames)

Paddington Bear books, by Michael Bond
(Bottom two frames)

I am thrilled with how this project came out and it really was very simple. I already had the frames because I got a great deal on packaged sets back when I first started hanging pictures around our house and still had a bunch leftover. This nursery project actually filled up the remaining frames I had, so that was a few less piles of "stuff" laying around our house which is always good! Then all I had to do was buy extra copies (some new, some used) of books I already bought for the baby and knew had artwork I loved and would fit in the frames. I tore out the pages I needed, trimmed them to size, framed them (some with mats, some without), and hung them up.

My Dad was quite impressed with the project and had me send him these pictures so he could show them off (in addition to baby pictures of course -- he's afraid the people at his office are going to start avoiding him!) I highly recommend this project for any book lover looking for easy DIY wall art for a baby's room -- or any room! And the best part is that you get to go book shopping first :)

Where I Disappeared To...

I can't even count how many times I said to myself, "OK, today I will post a baby update..." and it just didn't happen. Someone so small sure keeps me busy! So here I am, finally sharing the happy news of our little man's arrival:

Our first day home -- my favorite picture of us :)

I actually went into labor at 3AM on my due date -- of course I didn't really think it was the real thing at the time, but as the night wore on, it became clear that it was indeed "baby time" as my husband liked to call it. He wasn't born until the morning after my due date, but everything went rather smoothly as far as giving birth goes, so I won't complain. My recovery hasn't been nearly as bad as I feared it would be, but having a newborn has definitely been an huge adjustment -- a wonderful one, but not always easy.

I had a week with both my mom and husband home with us followed by another week with my mom when my husband went back to work. This is my first week home alone with the baby -- I will admit I was really nervous, but we are doing well so far. He's a pretty happy baby unless he is wet or hungry and he loves to snuggle. I already can't picture my life without this little one and we just love him to pieces :)

What I've Been Up to Lately + Some News!

Anyone who has been gracious enough to read this blog regularly has probably noticed I've been a bit MIA lately. I was never one to stick to a schedule or post every day, but one post each for the months of September and October is pretty light, even for me. I've missed blogging, but I also must admit I've really liked the freedom not blogging has given my reading (re-reading! chunksters! no review books!) And as much as I like writing, I don't particularly like how much time it takes me to write posts I am proud of and willing to share. Being on a bit of an unplanned, unofficial hiatus has helped me read more books this year than ever before in my life (unless you count my middle school years when I could inhale several Nancy Drew mysteries in a weekend, but I wasn't keeping track then!)

I know that most of the pressures associated with blogging are self-imposed and I can let go of those pressures and still blog if I want to, but I'm honestly not sure if I do want to. That is something I am still thinking about, so this isn't actually a goodbye post -- not yet anyway! There have a been a lot of things happening in my personal life that have bumped blogging to the bottom of my priority list and I am happy to say these have all been good things, they've just given me a different perspective and changed my focus -- #1 on the list being:

Yep, we're having a baby! I'm due in April and have so far been one of those lucky b*tches who hasn't been nauseous or throwing up for the first trimester. We've been telling people in stages and I must say, it's been the best part of this whole experience so far. For both sides of the family, this will be the first grandchild and also the third great-grandchild for each of our grandmothers so there has been a lot of excitement and distraction these past few weeks (months actually!)

If I really look at my life lately, trying to maintain the healthier habits I started before getting pregnant, sleeping more because I've been so damn tired, and also carving out more reading time have been taking up the time I used to spend blogging -- I can't say I regret any of that even one tiny bit though. I have to enjoy the sleep while I still can, right?

I know many moms continue blogging as their creative outlet, I'm just not sure yet if that will be the right thing for me. I love the community and I've still been reading many of my favorite blogs, but quite a few of the bookish gals who started around the same time as me have also cut back or gone on breaks, so it's been easier to let go than I ever imagined it would. I plan to keep this space open and post if and when the mood strikes, but I'm not going to make any grand promises. Inspiration hasn't been striking lately, but can't say for sure that it's gone for good. I'd love to do a round-up post of the bazillion books I've been reading over the past few months, but the list keeps growing so it does feel a bit daunting. I will most definitely still be around on GoodReads though no matter what happens here!

I am grateful for all the lovely people who've visited this space over the past few years and the bookish internet friends I've made -- it was hard to keep this news a secret for so long (especially when a few people were wondering where the heck I disappeared to!), but I'm glad I am now able to share it. I hope you have all been well in my absence and thanks for listening to my rambling today :)