valentine’s tradition 2013

ever since camryn was a baby, we’ve had the tradition of a family trek to the bookstore for valentine’s day.  instead of knick knacks or chocolates or flowers, everyone gets to select a new book.  on saturday after naps we bundled up to hit the bookstore.  for the second year in a row, they were having a piano-athon to benefit the local children’s hospital so after the girls had made their selections, we enjoyed the music for awhile as andy was browsing.

here’s what we left the bookstore with this year :

[andy + melanie] i may have created a monster when i gave andy michael symon’s carnivore for christmas.  he’s all about meat and curing his own and grilling and smoking and whatever else might fit into that category.  his book, good meat, is a 2″ hard cover book.  his eco-friendly wife is thrilled with the subtitle of “sourcing and cooking sustainable meat.”  love that we’ve begun cooking and collaborating on meals together.  he just cured his own bacon this weekend.  in pouring rain.  good times.

my book, whole grains, has been on my wish list for a few months.  whenever i get a chance to read, it’s on my kindle, so if i’m purchasing an actual book, it’s always a cookbook.  i’m interested in serving different types of grains to our family and i’m excited to try some new recipes.

[camryn] daddy, being the softy he is, told the girls that they could get two books this year.  one book that they’ll read to us and one that we could read to them, although technically the girls can read both of their books.

for the book she’ll read to us, she selected beck’s bunny secret, a disney fairies book.  i’m not a princess or fairy type of gal, but at least these inexpensive step into reading books keep their interest and are easy for them to take along places.

of course she picked a berenstain bears book for her other book.  she has almost the entire collection and knows without question which ones she has and which ones she “needs.”  she selected the berenstain bear sick days.  because nothing says happy valentine’s day like a story about sick bears, right?  she looked through it constantly while we were in the store.  love her love of reading.

[leighton]  here we go with the princess theme again.  the girls’ received the cinderella dvd for christmas and are all about her and prince charming.  i’m still shocked that they’re able to watch the entire thing as they had never watched anything that long before.  they are truly captivated.  leighton chose the step into reading cinderella as the book that she’d read to us.

leighton is our resident mo willems fan.  she has all of the pigeon books so she’s venturing into the elephant & piggie series with there is a bird on your head!  listening to her laugh as she reads the witty banter is nothing short of hysterical.

[carson]  otherwise known as selected by mama.  since the girls were getting two books, of course the handsome boy was getting two as well.  i normally would’ve gotten him a hardcover book for his library but fell in love with hipposites when i saw it on the shelf.  his signature animal is a hippo and it has the best illustrations.  he also received first 100 animals.  i’m a sucker for board books and love to have them stashed in my purse, car, baskets around the house, etc.  of course we have many from when the girls were younger, but we also need some more boy themed books as well.

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what books have you recently added to your personal library?