Being Bridget

There are so many great books for kids out there!  I love discovering new favorites with the kids at school, at the library, or through friends.  In fact, my two favorite questions to ask other moms are:

1. What are your go to items from Trader Joe’s? (The frozen rice, chocolate sea salt almonds, cowboy bark, and the freeze dried fruit are my favorites).
2. What are your favorite kids books?

In the hope that you’ll share your favorites with me, here are a few of my favorites.  

Books for babies:

When my babies were little, they LOVED black and white books.  They also loved books with baby faces peering out at them as well as things with flaps, textures, and surprisingly, books with no words.  At first I actually hated reading books with no words because it required so much effort!  Now I tend to enjoy them as I can change the pace and story each time.

Black and white books

• Hello, Bugs!
• Hello, Animals!
• I Kissed the Baby
• Checkers and Dot

Books with no words:

• Goodnight Gorilla
• Good Dog Carl
• Baby Faces

Interactive books:

• Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? (with the sliding panels)
• Dear Zoo
• Can You Say It Too? Roar! Roar!
• That’s not my Baby

Books for toddlers:

I really start to see a difference here in what my boy liked vs. what my girl likes.  My son was SO into books about vehicles (construction, trains, planes, cars, etc).  My daughter has gravitated towards more plot driven stories (vs. just truck picture books).

Amazing books with strong female characters:

• Rosie Revere, Engineer (my favorite kid’s book)
• Interstellar Cinderella (a modern twist on the classic tale – cinderella is a mechanic!)

Books with incredible rhyming patterns and stories:

• Circus Ship (my second favorite kid’s book)
• Iggy Peck Architect (if I ever write a book for kids, I want to use this rhyming pattern)

Books for toddlers who love vehicles, construction, cars, trucks, planes, and things that go:

• Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site
• Fire! Fuego! Brave Bomberos (half Spanish, half English)
• Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things that Go
• Little Blue Truck
• Steam Train Dream Train
• Where Do Diggers Sleep At Night? (so cute, mommy and daddy trucks!)
• Dig, Dig, Digging
• Demolition
• I’m a Truck Driver (my son loved the street sweeper page and sounds)
• My Truck Is Stuck!
• Dig! (fun looking for the puppy and his buried bones on each page)
• I Stink (what kid doesn’t love garbage trucks?!)
• I’m Dirty

Fun stories:

• Olivia
• The Jolly Postman (wonderful book with actual letters to pull out of envelopes)
• Spoon
• The Day the Crayons Quit
• Stuck (so silly!)
• Mr. Tiger Goes Wild
• Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (my kids laugh out loud)
• Strega Nona
• Toot and Puddle (there are so many in this series that are so cute)
• Lyle Lyle Crocodile (a great collection of 4 stories)

Sweet stories:

• Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
• Little Black Crow (really sweet)
• Each Peach Pear Plum (kind of a hide and seek book)
• Boy + Bot

Flaps, pop up, and textures:

• Wheels on the Bus (we had to get a second copy, the first was loved to death)
• Dog (my daughter loves this book)
• Bedtime Bugs (I love this author – I had them as a kid and my kids now love them)
• Noodles (out of print, so have to get it used, but SO clever!)

It was so fun to put this list together!  It reminds me just how much we love to find a new favorite book.  I hope you find something fun for the little ones in your life.  If you think I’ve left off something wonderful, please leave the title in the comments!

xo Alice

Boys are SO hard to shop for!  Father’s day (and birthdays and Christmas…) is always a bit of a struggle.  At the holidays every year I look forward to the gift guides for men that so many bloggers put out so that I can get ideas!  Because they are one of my most favorite posts on other blogs, I thought I’d bite the bullet and do one here.  

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 // 11 // 12 // 13 // 14 // 15 // 16 // 17

Tech gifts!

Since I live in Silicon Valley, tech is everywhere.  I thought I’d start by sharing the gadgets that we use and find really useful!  Last year for my birthday, my husband Dave bought me drones (#1 and #3).  I was a little perplexed as to why he would get these for me, but when I saw him in the park having fun with the kids I got it.  Our brother Tommy is big into drones (he has an incredible DJI one  – which can cost over $1,000!), but Dave wanted to play around with them without spending so much!  

Bridget and Alexis suggested the Coravin wine gadget (#2).  We haven’t used it yet, but they swear by it!  Items #4 and #8 are linked – Fitbit tracker with heart rate (#8) and a Fitbit smart scale (#4) that works with the Fitbit app on your phone to track your weight.  Together they are pretty awesome.  I’m addicted to tracking my sleep on my fitbit.  Our brother Johnny swears by his amazing GoPro (#9) – he came back from Hawaii recently with some incredible HD footage.

The Amazon Echo (#7) has been fun to play with.  We use it to check weather, play music, check sports scores, make lists, etc. We also have a Ring doorbell (#6) that we use to track what’s going on in the house and a Nest Cam (#5) that we use as a baby monitor. The Ring doorbell was my Mother’s Day present (notice a trend of my husband buying me gadgets he really wants?) and it has been a game changer.  I really like knowing who has come up to the house.  

Clothes

I don’t think you can go wrong with a swimsuit (#15), a nice work bag (#10), or a dopp kit (#11).  Swimsuits get ratty when used often and getting a new one at the start of summer makes sense.  A work bag and dopp kit are used so often that they also get beat up – it is a nice treat to get a new one as a gift.  Something your husband or father might not buy for himself.  Fun tennis shoes (#12) and a great sweatshirt (#14 – my husband LOVES his American Giant sweatshirt) also make for great gifts. There are literally articles written about what a cult favorite the American Giant sweatshirt is.  It is heavy and warm, but slim cut.  It is really nice.

Books and Drinks

These whiskey glasses (#13) sort of roll around on the table thanks to their curved bottoms.  Dave has two glasses similar to this from before we met and I’ve always thought they were cool.  This cocktails book (#17) is SUCH a classic. It is apparently the first time the Sazarac cocktail was put into print.  The sazerac is the family cocktail so that’s why I gravitate towards this old school classic.  I secretly want this how to book (#16).  Maybe that should be Dave’s gift this year?

Xo Alice