Passing on a love for reading

This last year, I've spent a lot of time reading. Reading to myself, reading to my girls, reading with Hailey, teaching Hailey to read, etc.  I've told Nate how I really want them to love to read.  So far, we are doing pretty good with it.  Hailey is really good at reading and Addy LOVES to be read to.  I decided a while ago to start reading chapter books to them.  I was really excited about starting this new journey. I've always looked forward to this point in my parenting and i'm excited to see where it goes.

The first book we tackled was The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  I was a little worried about this because it's been SO long since I've read this myself and I didn't remember details.  I decided to just go with it and see what happened.

To my surprise, they absolutely loved the first chapter and were asking me to read 'just one more chapter' EVERY night.  Every night, they would get their extra pillows set up on the bed, snuggle in their blankets and get all ready to read. Their favorite, was when Nate would join us and he would snuggle right in the middle of them. 

I was surprised at how much they got out of the book.  Even the little details I didn't think were very important, they would giggle at and repeat or they would ask questions about them.  I was loving this.  

When I was little, I LOVED books. With time, I grew apart from my love of reading because I felt I had more important things to get done. I forgot what reading can really do for your mind, and for your imagination and for your life.

I have some really old school books that I held on to from when I was little and it's really fun to have them.  I do have a slight problem as an adult though.  A couple years ago when Hailey started preschool, she started bringing home scholastic book orders.  I was so excited because this was my favorite thing about elementary school... well almost.  I remember studying those book orders in and out before making that important decision of what to order.  This time it's a little different. The difference is, I buy more than one... on EVERY order.  The girls have this book case that I bought for their room and it's huge. It use to be that the bottom shelf and half of the next one was what had books on it. Now, the entire 5 shelf book case is pretty full.  I can't help but keep adding to their collection.

The rules at night are that they can each choose 2 books to take to bed with them. It's the cutest thing to see them page through the books or read to eachother, or make up stories that go along with pictures when they think i'm not watching or listening.  I love listening to them bust out in laughter over something they saw in a book. It's the cutest thing.

Once we finished reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, we watched the movie as a family. There were a few parts that were pretty scary, but the girls loved watching a story that they new so well in their minds.  I'm excited for all the others that are on my list to come and so are they.

Here's to passing on a love for reading....