Dr. Seuss

This past Wednesday night, our library hosted a special evening storytime in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday.  We haven't been to storytime in several months, so Arin was very excited to be there.  She saw the librarian, Courtney, and immediately ran up to her, hugged her, and stayed right by her side while she read a story (and sang and danced) to the kids.  This was funny to me, because in the past, Arin has been very stand-offish, especially with such a large crowd.  This time, she was "teacher's pet"!  Notice how very close she is to Courtney in all of these pictures.

After the reading, singing and dancing were over, it was time for the special guest reader - The Cat in the Hat.  Arin was very unsure about this.  As you will notice in these pictures, she stayed far away from The Cat in the Hat and she even chewed on her fingers, a sure sign of nervousness.  However, she is still making progress.  She did not run back to me, but stayed in the middle of all the other kids.

Once the story was read, it was time for the kids to make a hat out of construction paper, glue sticks and odds and ends. 

Arin loved this craft, though she would not model her hat for a picture.

Story Friday

We went to the library this morning for storytime. Typically, there are about 6-8 kids at storytime on Fridays. However, today, the three and four year olds from the YMCA daycare were at the library for storytime (about 50 kids). At first, Arin was intimidated by so many people, but she quickly became comfortable and wanted to be friends with everyone. She also wanted to go back to school with them when they had to leave and she was very upset that she couldn't join them.

Storytime was a lot of fun today. Our librarian read two dinosaur books and had the kids dance to the Dinosaur Pokey (Hokey Pokey). Then, the kids were able to color dinosaurs, which later had a magnet affixed to them, so they could bring them home and hang them on their refrigerators.

Playing Before Story Time

Singing, "If You're Happy & You Know It"

Loving Story Time

Dancing the Dino Pokey

Coloring Dinosaur Magnets

Ella Jane Hiding and Having Fun

PJ Party

This is National Library Week. In honor of that, our library hosted an hour long pajama party for the little kids (0-5) tonight. There were stories read and puppets made. They were also supposed to be able to get their own library cards, but there was only one librarian doing that, as well as checking out books, so we decided not to wait on the card tonight. Arin had a very good time and she thought it was so funny that she wore her pajamas to the library!

Fun Friday!

We started today by going to our Chick-Fil-A. They had a promotion this morning - giving away a free cinnamon cluster to each customer. I thought we'd see some kids there and that would allow Arin some playtime. However, there were no kids there this morning. The only advertisment I saw for this promotion was on their website, so that could be why there weren't very many people there. Because there were no other kids there, I allowed Ella to play in the playplace with Arin. It was the first time that she has been in there. She seemed to enjoy herself and Arin loved having Ella in there to play.

After we had breakfast - chicken minis and cinnamon clusters - the breakfast of champions (not!) - we went to the library for storytime. The book for today was The Deep Blue Sea.

This just so happens to be one of Arin's favorite books. We just returned it to the library a week or two ago. She was so excited to see that it was today's book. So excited, that she was telling the story ahead of time :) The librarian asked what the kids thought would happen next and Arin was right there to tell it - nothing like a suspense spoiler :)

After the story, the kids decorated fish. Arin loved this and called it "school at the library". This project was quite a hit with all of the kids.

Arin loves stories so much that she asked the librarian, Courtney, to read her another story. Courtney was super nice and accepted Arin's request. Arin had a private storytime, which she was super excited about. We love our librarian - she rocks! We liked our librarians at our old library, but Courtney is even more awesome and always goes out of her way to help us out! We hope that she never leaves!

Friends and the Library

Arin has been asking for several days to see her friends and also to go to the library. I told her yesterday that we would do both today. She was so excited that she had a tough time going to sleep last night.

This morning, we woke up and went to visit Arin's friend Sophie. The first time Arin met Sophie was when Sophie was 6 weeks old. They met at a playdate at the hospital. We haven't seen Sophie since December, so it was really great to see her again today. She is ten months younger than Arin. Arin had a great time playing at her house, but had a tough time sharing, even though they were Sophie's toys! Luckily, Sophie was very mellow even though Arin was being a bit of a bully. We'll have to visit more often so Arin will learn to share.

This evening, we went to storytime at the library. The librarian reads to the kids for about 20 minutes and then the kids go to the craft room. Tonight's craft was to make a "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" tree. Arin loves craft time, so she enjoyed this. Also, her friend Maverick, from our regular playgroup, was at the library tonight too. It was good to see him.

Library

Yesterday, we had to return our library books. We dropped them off before the library was open. Arin was so excited to see the library and so disappointed when we couldn't go in. So this morning, I told her that I was going to take her to the library. She got so excited. She was talking a mile in a minute in a language that I couldn't understand. The only two words I could understand in her excitement were library and books. So we did our morning chores and activities and off to the library we went. She loves it there. We looked at their books, did the ABC puzzle and a a fruit puzzle, played with a couple of their games and colored. We know the librarian from storytime and she always calls Arin by name and seems happy to see her, which I always think is pretty cool.

We came home with nine books this time. Some books Arin definitely likes better than others. She loves the Eric Carle books. We checked out two this time. We got "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "From Head to Toe" She loves them both, but especially "From Head to Toe" because it asks you to do what the animals do. For example, stomp your feet like an elephant, etc. There are two other books that Arin really enjoys too. One is "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain" by Philemon Sturges (this book is more sang than read). She also loves "Peek! A Thai Haide-and-Seek" by Minfrong Ho. She especially liked this book because there is a little girl hiding on each page and Arin had to find her. Sometimes she was hidden good, but Arin still found her!