Ryden's Little Library

Most of his library sits on top of my piano right now.

Ryden now has 51 books (61 if I included his Children's Encyclopedias). It may sound like a lot for a six month old, but I'd really like him to have a huge collection of books. I loved story time when I was little. Begging for one more book to be read. I plan on being one of those moms that reads with my child. Hopefully, reading will be one of his hobbies. Whatever the Harry Potter or Hunger Games book is, I want to have conversations with him about it. A mom I know does this. She has an amazing relationship with her very smart daughter. I admire that. I don't know how many books we'll end up with by the time he turns one, but it'll be a never ending collection. Maybe I'll even do rewards in the form of books.

His 50th book came from a six month birthday exchange within the moms group I'm a part of. The 51st book was one that I made. When we went to the zoo, I made sure to get pictures of a variety of animals. Ever since my friend Allison told me about Shutterfly putting out free codes for photo books, I watch for them. Either from Shutterfly or Snapfish. I scored a pregnancy book, Ryden's 1st Christmas book, and made a Father's Day Book for my Father-in-Law. I didn't have to wait long for Shutterfly to put out a new code. When they did, I took the pictures from the zoo and made Ryden's First Trip to the Zoo.

It's his first animal book. I designed it with 1-2 animals on a page along with the name of the animal. Flamingo, Elephant, Lion, White Tiger, Gorilla, Alligator, Pelican, and the list goes on. I also included a few of the baby and family pictures. The shipping is a little pricey, but still cheaper than buying a book for the regular price. And it came out great.

The Baby's 1st Easter

We've been celebrating all of the baby's first holidays. While we won't dye eggs or hide plastic eggs this year, I still wanted to do a few things.

His Easter basket is made from an old Enfamil container with fabric modpodged to the container part. The lid was yellow so I left it. Glued squiggly eyes, a pink cotton ball nose, white cotton ball tail, and drew the whiskers and mouth in place. The ears are from a bunny headband. I cut a hole in the top of the container and pulled the ears through it. He already loves the basket with the squiggly eyes!

His loot! I had wanted to make a lot, but ran short on time. The list became:

• (3) Dr. Seuss board books
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar book book
• Oh Baby, Go Baby from Dr. Seuss
• A pair of sunglasses
• A pirate and lion finger puppets
• Two Easter bibs from Target's dollar section
• A super soft Peep plush bunny
• A shakey chicken toy by Fisher-Price. It clucks when shaken.
• (3) Sensory Peep eggs. We filled the eggs with rice, beans, and bells then hot glued them on the inside and outside, smoothing the glue down.
• Not pictured-A hat made from cute chicken and number material.

Looking forward to getting him all dressed up for Easter day!

And lastly: We hung up the Easter wreaths me and my mom made a couple of years ago. We made them from things we found on a trip to the Dollar Tree.

• A vine wreath
• Plastic eggs
• Mini Chicks
• A big bag of Easter grass
• Glitter paint

The ribbon was scrap ribbon. It was a pain hot gluing the grass, but got easier over time. It was a really fun project to do with my mom.