Favorite books

As I was reading to Alyssa last night, I started thinking about how the kids have had a few favorite books and I thought of the funny memories I have of them. When Hunter was around 3 or 4 "Bedtime For Frances" was his favorite book. I am sure we read it at least 3 times a day, but probably more. As soon as one of us was done reading it to him, he would ask the other one to read it. We called it "Bedtime For Hunty" though and we changed things in the book to be about him instead of Frances. After a while, he started to "read" it by himself. He had memorized what to say with each picture so he started reading it to us. One of the times Frances gets out of bed, she asks for some cake and milk. We would always have cookies and milk at night so we changed that part. She asks to sleep with her teddy bear, Hunter has a stuffed giraffe that he calls Mr. Two so that's what we had him ask for in the story. In part of the story. I love remembering him looking at the pictures and then saying what we would have and in the same voice. My favorite memory of this book is when I went into his room and he was reading to himself. I grabbed the video camera and then Jared and Hunter laid down and he read the story to us.

"The Fooky Old Tree" Alyssa does an F for her S sounds, it makes for some pretty funny/interesting words. This is her favorite book right now. We don't change anything for her, but she is so cute when she "reads" it. When she first started remembering what each picture meant we would point to the page when it was her turn. That was on the pages where they show the kids, "one with a light, one with a stick and one with a rope". Then one by one they would all get the shivers. When it says shivers we shake Alyssa (she loves that part). Now that she knows the whole book (since we read it everyday) she likes to read it to us now. When she does, she likes to point and have us read the "one with a light..." part. Just like we used to do with her. Then she tells us we did a good job.


I am excited to see what Jackson's favorite book will be when he gets a little older! Right now he loves those touchy-feely books, the ones you can feel a dogs fur or a pigs nose. He also loves his family picture book. Daddy is on the first page so he always opens it and says "Da".


I'm sure Hunter had a few other favorite books that we read a lot, and I am sure Alyssa will have more. I am glad we have these special books and the memories they give us.