Top 100 Children's Books

We love books. We love books a lot. Not just children's books, all books. My instinct is to show you a picture of our built in bookshelves, however they are so packed to the brim that they are embarrassingly dishevled at the moment. We have hundreds of books. The girls are probably reaching 100, I can never see a book as a bad investment. 

I was thrilled to find this list of Top 100 Children's Books, from ChildrensBookGuide.com. Unlike a lot of other best of the best lists out there, I was pleased with the mix of old classics with amazing books that are newer. I'm also pleased to know we have a ton of this list on our shelves. 

These are some of our favorites:

All of these books can be found at Amazon.com, of course. 

And, if I were creating this list, I would add these books:

Find the entire list of Top 100 Children's Books Here

I found this list via Pinterest! 

Follow me to see other awesome things I find. 

What are some of your favorite books?

Drool Baby Expo...Giveaway!

 Can you believe it is already May? I can't, in part because that means Arya is going to be 7 months old.  Last year at this time I was pregnant with her and one of the most fun things I got to do as a pregnant mama was attend the Drool Baby Expo. There are definitely perks to living in a city (or even within driving distance), events like Drool being one of them. Now that I have another infant, Drool is still very relevant to me and my life. 

So, what is a baby expo?

"The Drool Baby Expo is modeled after smaller, upscale expo-style events produced by Big City Moms in New York, and Magic Beans is collaborating with Big City Moms to produce Drool, which aims to give new and expectant parents in the Boston-area the opportunity to meet with the people behind all of the most crave-worthy baby brands. It’s also a fantastic networking opportunity, and will feature spa services, prizes, and a sumptuous gift bag."

Basically that means all of the best, latest and greatest in the world of baby goods will all be in one room. Have a stroller addiction? Do you keep buying diaper bags even though you have 4 already? Looking for organic baby food that is so yummy you want to eat it? Drool is the place for you. That is just if you have an infant already. If you are an expectant mama, Drool is pretty much Nirvana. As a blogger I am privy to lots of great products, I get things first before the public, I pride myself on being on the cutting edge of what is available. That being said, in the time between my first baby and my second baby a million and one better baby products were invented. Last year at Drool I got to try out the best in the world of all double strollers which totally helped me decided which was the right one for me. 

Ok so you go to Drool to see the greatest and chat with companies. What else? Well many of the companies and Magic Beans themselves offer really great discounts on products bought during the event. That's a huge perk. See something you loved, why not buy it that night and get it for cheaper then retail? Yes please.  Even better then a discount is the huge raffle. Companies are literally giving away their top of the line goodies and you have a chance to win. 

If all of that isn't enough to entice you into going...there will be cupcakes :)

Drool Baby Expo at The Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts (in Boston's trendy South End) from 5:30pm-9pm on Tuesday, May 15th

Buy Tickets to Drool Baby Expo

I would definitely love to see Boston mamas there! I'm very excited to be giving away a set of VIP tickets to Drool! (which are totally already sold out) 

VIP guests ($60 value per ticket) get special early entry time of 4:30pm, plus a super-premium gift bag, a $25 gift card to Magic Beans, and complimentary spa services, food & beverages, access to exclusive discounts and free raffle prize entries. 

Win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Girls Night Out...Palettes

There isn’t a mother among us that doesn’t desperately need a night out. Case in point, I went out last night and I need a night out. Motherhood is stressful, filled with constant inner struggles and worries, near constant outward battles with toddlers and children, spit up and piles of laundry, it’s never ending. Yes, it’s rewarding, but it’s exhausting.
Going out to dinner or for drinks with friends is great, even a date night can be a great but both come with issues for me. Those issues are my children, they lurk into every conversation I have with my husband or friends, even when I leave them at home. How do they do that? While it’s nice to get away for a few hours, I never really feel like I am leaving it fully behind. Until now.

Last night I was able to spend the evening with a group of Boston Parent Bloggers at Palettes in Natick, Ma. The idea behind Palettes is simple, a night of guided painting with food, drinks, music and good company.  Palettes insists that no previous art experience is needed, I would agree. For $35, they provide you with a blank canvas, paint, brushes, apron and a guide. You sit down at your canvas and your instructor guides you step by step through the painting process. It’s pretty awesome actually how a painting can be broken down into a few simple steps. Everyone in the class is painting the same picture but everyone’s comes out differently.


What I wasn’t expecting from this night was the really great food and drink they have put together on their menu. I’m not sure any pictures can do justice to the happy surprises that await. Grapes covered in goat cheese and rolled in pistachios. Deviled eggs with gorganzolla cheese. Yummy asian noodles.  Palettes has also compiled a drink menu that was a lovely departure from the usual Cosmos and Appletinis (neither of which I drink). I admit I did my best to taste several of the drink offerings, without going overboard because I had to drive home :) My favorite involved Absinthe over a sugar cube topped with champagne.

We painted a field of flowers, we laughed, we tweeted, we explained social media to our painting instructor Ben. The best part was, we didn’t talk about our children the entire time, we didn’t even think too much about them. I think that is exactly what a mom needs to do once in awhile. This was so much better then a date night out to dinner and a movie, it was better then drinks at a bar with a friend. I literally can not wait to do it again, I have already checked my calendar for openings. I love that I can go to the Palettes website and see what paintings are being done on which days, I can pick one that matches a room in my house or just a scene I love. Call some girlfirends, get a babysitter and go out with your husband, it's a great night of fun and laughs. 

I told Coraline that I painted this picture for her, she carried it around all morning.

When Sickness Strikes

I don't want to brag, alright I totally want to brag; Coraline didn't get sick for the first time until she was over 2 years old. I'm talking not a cough, not a fever, not a runny nose to be had. So when people give me that look...the oh my god that is so disgusting please tell me your daughter did not just eat from the floor, put a rock in her mouth, chew on a shoe, lick that window, bite that public bench...I would laugh it off. I am a huge believer in germs = good. I think keeping any kind of sickness at bay for over 2 years is a testament to that fact. We wash our hands regularly. We cover our mouths when we cough. We are not unclean but I am telling you, let your kid eat the gold fish off the floor, it saves you in the end.

Then again, I knew there was only so long we could go with a perfect record. This weekend, it happened. My beautiful, healthy girls got the ohmygodmakeitstop sickness. It started with Arya, strangely enough. Tuesday night while sound asleep she began to vomit on me (cosleeping hooray), not spit up, vomit. I realized what was happening and quickly picked her up onto my chest where she continued to vomit all over me, over and over and over. I woke my husband requesting help. I have never seen so much fluid come out of an infant. The entire time Arya was happy as could be. I changed my clothes, daddy changed the baby, I layed down towels on the bed because Coraline was still asleep. That was that. I tentatively went back to sleep but she never woke again. She was perfectly fine the next day.

Thursday came along without furthur incident. Coraline had a fine day. JP took her out to pick up dinner that evening and she fell asleep in the car, around 7pm. Since she rarely naps these days, that wasn't odd. We were pretty excited to have some quiet time for dinner and watching Jeopardy (because yes we are those people). When I heard Cora crying at 7:30pm I assumed she simply woke up alone, in the dark and was scared. She was screaming for mommy. I entered the dark room, Coraline was standing on the bed crying, as I wrapped my arms around her I simultaneously realized that she was covered....covered in vomit. I scooped her up and took her to the bathroom. She was head to toe vomit. Funny how disgusting that is but as a mother you don't think about the fact that you are now also covered in vomit. I held her as she cried and I asked if she still felt yucky. She said she did and she threw up more. and more. and more. When she finally seemed to stop I ran a bath, stripped her down and attempted to clean her as best and fast as i could. Daddy was called to fix the bed. I put her jammies on. Got water. Blankets. Dolls. Whatever she needed and we went down to the couch for a bit where we cuddled. While she was falling asleep on daddy I went back upstairs and covered the bed in 4 layers of towels and blankets. My thought was if she vomits in bed, i can strip layers off ( a tip I got from my friend Ida).

The next day Coraline was fairly lethargic, in fact that was a theme for the entire weekend, luckily the worst of it was over...for her at least. On Friday JP came home from work early and spent the day in bed. Sick all day. I was out with the girls, but I was not immune from this illness. I was up all night on Friday, mostly spending the night in the bathroom. I was sick all day Saturday. The illness that my entire family was able to recover from in 24 hours, haunted me for 3 days. What's with that? 

Everyone seems better but the housework fell behind. I feel like I need to  disinfect everything.Blogging, which I am just getting back to since having Arya, is now on my mind again, well, maybe after I Lysol the keyboard.

Boredom Busters....Toddler Edition

The weather was amazing in New England a few weeks ago and we got spoiled. It quickly went back to a regular Boston spring which equals cold and sometimes rainy. It sucks. A huge portion of how I feel on any given day is directly related to the sunshine and temperature. If I feel cooped up in the house for days on end, I know my 2.5 year old is feeling the same way. We are fairly lax with the tv but seriously, there is only so long it can hold your attention (even if kids shouldn't really be watching it but whatever, I need to take a shower and get things done). So, today I decided to do my best to bust us our of the boredom with little to no effort.

First we made binoculars. Someone on tv had binoculars and Coraline wanted some so, I made them. I grabbed an empty paper towel roll from the every growing really should be taken out recycling. Cut it in half, duct taped the two halves together. Done and done. Coraline loves it. It took me 5 minutes. It has been at least an hour of fun.

Second we made frozen yogurt pops. I'm not a huge fan of ice cream or sweets, nothing against them, just not a fan personally. Coraline has cookies and ice cream and what ever, once in a while but when she gets on a kick and starts asking for something, it can get annoying trying to entice her with something healthier. She has been asking for ice cream every since the warm weather struck, not sure why it took me so long to come up with this gem.

If you have a toddler or child in your house, you need an ice pop maker. It is cheap and awesome. We have the one pictured above from Ikea, it was $1.99. I mean, come on, that is a deal. We definitely had this when I was a kid, probably a Tupperware version.

You can fill this with anything to make ice pops. It is simple. Juice works well for a more icey pop. But this morning we used yogurt, because we have a ton of yogurt and yogurt goes bad. 10 minutes of fun while Coraline helped me spoon the yogurt into the cups. We even layered flavors, because we are fun like that. Word to the wise, if your child is a toddler and you want them to help you fill the cups, line up a second activity first. They are going to be super freaking excited about the ice cream they just made and they don't understand that you have to wait for it to freeze.

Third we made a sensory box with beans and rice. I just dumped dried beans and rice into one of those plastic shoe boxes, gathered various cups, measuring spoons, and what not from the kitchen and let Coraline go crazy. I did lay a blanket on the floor (after I took the picture)  and she played in that, so when she was done, the mess was just on the blanket. She stayed there for about 30 minutes while I did housework. When she lost her enthusiasm, I took small objects from around the house and hid them in the box. She had a great time seeing all the things she could pull out.

This was only a morning of activities but sometimes a morning is a life saver!