Our first trip to the library . . .

I know those of you that know how much we read to the girls and know how important books are to our family are astonished that today was the first time I have taken my girls to the library! I guess since we go the bookstore at least once a week or every two weeks for my business, I've always just bought lots of books for the girls. Our attic is full of books that I had for my classroom when I was teaching, so we've never had a short supply of books in our home. My business bookcase alone has three shelves of new children's books that I use in my literacy bags. The girls know if I have one they want to read, they are welcome to it and our playroom is filled with oodles of great books. So today was truly our first trip to the library! When they were younger all they wanted to do was chew on the books anyway, so now that Emma is old enough to be quiet at the library and sit still and look at books, it was so much fun! We talked about library manners and how you had to be quiet and whisper. I taught them how to pull out a book on the shelf and leave it on the shelf to mark their spot in case they didn't want to check out the book they were previewing. They were so disappointed to learn that you can only check out 2 books on your first visit. After we receive our permanent card we can check out as many as we want. Emma was heart-broken because you have to be five to get your own card. I am going to make each of them a "library bag" this weekend so that next week after our permanent cards come in, they can go load up their bags with books to check out. Here is a picture of their trip to the library! They were so proud! (And yes, that is a Christmas book that Hannah checked out! We read it tonight and even sang the carol in the back of the book!) (It was actually a mouse lullaby but we joked that we looked like Christmas carolers huddled around the book singing a song from a Christmas book!)

I am happy to announce that hopefully these will be the last pictures taken of my children with this camera. I'm going this weekend to buy a new one. We have had such horrible luck with all of our expensive cameras breaking that in November I bought this one for $100.00 the day after Thanksgiving. It is an 8 megapixel camera but it is worse than my very first digital camera that was a 1.5! I was blessed with two large unexpected orders this week, so I'm taking the money from one of them and getting a great camera. I can't wait! We were going to go tonight but it was so rainy that Joe got delayed coming home and didn't get home until 6:30 and with it raining so hard we decided to stay in and not take the girls out in the yucky weather.

Lastly, here is a page I am working on to go beside Emma's date night picture.