The Library!

Hailey has such a love for books and enjoys reading so much. We read at least 5 story books a night, and mulitple books throughout the day. She has special books that we take to restaurants and other special ones that we save for the car.

Many books she can recite the words too as we read along, such as "Goodnight Moon", the if you give a mouse a... series, and some of her random favorites that we have accumlated through the past 2 1/2 years. Her bookshelf in her room is overflowing and we can't possibly stack any more in her basket in the rec room either. Mommy is also getting a bit bored with some of the stories being read over and over again so we decided that it was time for a trip to the libary. We have gone a few times in the past but she was really too young to really get the concept.

3 weeks ago Hailey and I made our first trip to check it out, we headed to the Bellevue Regional Library as that was the one that I used to go to. Unfortunatly in a good way, the one that I went to as a little kid has been torn down and is now the new Lexus dealership but I did frequent the new Bellevue one through Middle and High school and definiently in college as I took many protored exams there.

We have been going to the library once a week and have made a total of 4 trips and plan to continue every week. Sshe has had a great time exploring the books and getting acquainted with the suroundings. There was even a very cool wood fort there the first two times and she continues to ask about it but it has since been removed.

The last visit, yesterday, I decided that she needed to get her very own library card. Not sure why, just thought it would be fun and cute to do. We documented the whole ordeal, she helped me fill out the paperwork, pick out the design, (they have pictures on them now!) and then carried it all over with her and not putting it down. She treasures it! :) It has "little dudes " on it as she calls them.

Here are a few pics of her getting her card.

Looking at all the options...

Picking out just the right one...

And receiving it after all of her hard work...

A great tool that the library has put together is a toddler booklist, we have picked out one book off the list each week and will continue to as the weeks go by. They have recommended some great books! Her favorite so far is "Who Hoots". Once we complete this year in about a year, we will move on to the preschool book list. I feel that this will be a great way to continue her love of reading and incorporating some excitement and anticipation.

Here she is showing off her booklist, we highlight each book and check them off the list.

Here are some other fun pictures of her picking out some other books and enjoying herself, sometimes she just grabs random books off the shelf for me to make sure are age appropriate, and then there are times that she picks one off the shelf, carries it to the table and sits down to read it.

And here she is on our way out of the library after our successful visit with 5 books and our new library card with the "little dudes" on it :)