storytime

it's great having a big sister who can read!

bedtime

our kids love books.
i love that otto loves to read. currently he likes to read 10 little ladybugs and moo baa la la la.
greta loves books too. she is currently into the books olivia, blue goose, and she has been enjoying using her bookmark to mark the stories in frog and toad.

more books

two videos of otto reading books in his room. his favorite books lately are pat the bunny and brown bear brown bear. he will say, "buh buh, buh buh" for "brown bear, brown bear", and then he likes to see the page with the teacher, as you'll see him do in the video.

otto is really starting to use more words and talk more and more. i like the way he says "baby" in the first video. and isn't he so cute in his jammies? he had just woken up and wanted to sit in the chair and read...i just love how you can tell on his face that he is still waking up.

reading

library babies

we love our local public library! the newport branch of the campbell county library is only 2 blocks from our house, and was built just a few years ago. it's pretty great, and it's SO close! i've been taking greta there for "babytime", their version of storytime for little ones, since before she could crawl, and now we attend both "babytime" and "toddler time"....which might be overdoing it but we don't care. :) the kids love the storytimes, even though i think they enjoy the bubble machine more than the actual stories and nursery rhymes. they also love to just go and look at books.....
greta is currently obsessed with the summer reading program, which is giving me flashbacks to filling out my "book it!" pins to get my pizza hut rewards when i was in grade school. for every 1/2 hour you read, you put a sticker on a "reading log", and then when the log is full you turn it in for a prize. although the prizes have gotten noticeably more lame as the summer drags on, greta's enthusiasm continues. so far we've collected a water squirter (water gun), a book, many bouncy balls, an inflatable frog, a few rubber ducks dressed up like pirates, and some grow capsules. it's been really neat to watch her get excited about reading (and yes, we're reading to otto too.)

reading

reading in my room

bookworm

our girl is still a bookworm. lately she has been into books by virginia lee burton, like the book katy and the big snow that she is reading in the photo. she got several books by laura numeroff for christmas from the ford cousins (if you give a moose a muffin, etc) and has been OBSESSED with reading these. it seems, however, that the only places that greta does not feel like reading books is in a bookstore. or in church. funny how that works.....

greta meets max!

lately greta has been obsessed with reading the 'max and ruby' books by rosemary wells. just ask grandpa and grandma hansbauer....
so when we saw that the books by the bank book fair at the convention center was having a storytime with a chance to meet max, we had to take greta. and again, she held her own. she walked right up to that big old bunny and gave him a hug. and then as other kids had their turns, she would go up and get in on their hugs with max as well. that's her in the striped pants in the picture, arms out wide....

this girl loves books

what makes greta smile this much? books. books. and more books. she's a bookworm, what can we say??!!

do babies fit in here?

lately greta is all about taking things out but more importantly, about putting things "in." here she is, putting herself in her basket of books.