I love reading with my babies. With my first daughter I started reading board books to her from the first day of her little life. With my second daughter I didn't get into a consistent routine of reading with her until she was just over 1 year old. As we have started reading together everyday, I am reminded just how much I love some of my favorite board books.

Today I want to share with you my top 11 board books that I love to read with my babies. These books never get old to me, the illustrations are beautiful, the stories are fun and engaging, even to little ones. If you are looking to build your library or give the gift of reading to a new mother, these are the books I would start with!

1 | The Big Hungry Bear - Don & Audrey Wood - I put this book first because it is maybe my favorite book of all time. I remember reading it as a child and it brings me so much joy to read it to my children. I love the way that you, as a reader, are talking with the mouse in the book. Also strawberries are one of my favorite foods. There are so many reasons to love this book and it is one of the first ones I got when I was just starting to build a library for my baby.

2 | Each Peach Pear Plum - Janet & Allan Ahlberg - This is another book I remember from my childhood years. I loved finding all the characters as I read through the rhymes. The illustrations are fabulous and the book is so fun to read aloud.

3 | Jamberry - Bruce Degen - Just before I started having kids of my own, I watched a little boy a few times a week for a few hours. It was a small glimpse into motherhood and what I was getting into. I loved it, and I loved reading with this little guy. One of my favorite books they had in their library was Jamberry. I had never read it before, but it was one of my favorite books to read with him. When I had kids of my own I was sure to get this book to add to our collection. It is such a fun read-aloud.

4 | We're Going on a Bear Hunt - Michael Roen - Of course this classic made it to the list. One thing I have realized with both of my girls is that they seem to love the way this book alternates between colored pictures and black and white pictures. Fun to read, it is a great book for actions, and it has a fast paced ending that makes you feel like you just went on an adventure

5 | Duck & Goose - Tad Hills - So far I love all of the Duck & Goose books I have in our library. The original is great and another favorite of mine is Duck & Goose Colors. The illustrations and characters of these books are lovely and good and so child friendly. I would definitely look into getting more of these books for my kids.

6 | Glorious - Mallory Hazel Barrick - I wrote and illustrated this book as an invitation to my daughter to go outside and appreciate the beauty and wonder of the world around us. I hope as I raise my children I can teach them again and again just how incredible the world around us is, and I hope I can teach them to care for it because it is our home and it takes care of us.

7 | I'd Know You Anywhere My Love - Nancy Tillman - This book is the book that gets me a little emotional about how much I love my children. I want them to know how much I love them, and I think this book conveys that sentiment without being cheesy. I love this book and so many of Nancy Tillmans other books as well. 

8 | Love Monster - Rachel Bright - This book is just a joy to read. It is very casual and fun while sharing an important message. I think the illustrations are pretty great as well.

9 | Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? - Dr. Seuss - This simple books of silly sounds you can make didn't seem to interesting to me when I first got it (if I am being honest). But my kids have loved it. It is so engaging for them. I love reading it and watching them listen intently. I also love as they begin to start to try to make the sounds themselves. As it turns out it is definitely a good one. 

10 | The Very Busy Spider - Eric Carle - When it comes to teaching your children classic animal sounds, this is probably my favorite book. I especially love watching the spider web grow from page to page and have fond memories from my childhood touching the raised spiderweb as it grew. 

11 | I'm as Quick as a Cricket - Audrey Wood - I love this book because it highlights that kids are full of all sorts of traits and emotions (and sometimes they are contradictory). I do my best not to label my children as any one thing, because I know they can be brave and scared, happy and sad, wild and calm. I think this book showcases that it is okay to be everything - loud and quiet, fast and slow, busy and lazy.

There you have it. These are some of my top favorites. We have so many board books in our homes, but these ones I can read over and over again (some I read everyday). The best part is I don't get bored of them and my children don't either.

What are your very favorite board books for babies and toddlers? Let me know in the comments below!

Mallory

If you love this book list, I'm sure you would love my Ultimate Children's Book List filled with my favorite board books, picture books, first chapter books & holiday books!

*Some links in this post are part of the Amazon Associates Program. Thank you for supporting my family.

My daughter decided she wanted to start homeschool next week. She let us know in advance that she was ready to begin. So I decided why not. I was going to give her one more week of summer, but I think we are all excited and ready to get into a routine. 

Since her announcement about homeschool I have been getting our homeschool classroom organized and ready. Now when I say homeschool classroom I mean our kitchen table and the corner next to it. It's not fancy, it's not separate from anything else. We will eat breakfast, clear the dishes, wipe down the table and start homeschool in the same place. It's going to work perfectly!

This week we did bring in a bookcase from our garage so we could put all of our curriculum and supplies right by the table in an organized fashion. I also brought lots of books to the bookshelf as well to make sure we have our own little library as part of our classroom. This week I went to the store to get brand new school supplies which is always exciting. 

I also printed out our homeschool schedule and a few pages that will help us through our homeschool routines. I have three pages where we will check off items that we need to accomplish throughout our homeschool days. I also have a list of affirmations and a list of songs. Each day (or each week) we will choose an affirmation to say and a song to sing. Since I want her to be involved in choosing I thought I would print out a list for her to choose from. 

Even before we started homeschool, we have started doing our morning routine chart. My daughter loves it, and thrives off of being able to see what she needs to do and checking it off when she gets it done. I think these charts are going to work really well for us. 

Our homeschool room is not from a magazine. Our homeschool routine is going to be beautiful and imperfect. I know some days of homeschool are a little rough. But I also know most days are wonderful. And overall it is such a neat experience to be able to teach (and learn from) kids. I love it. I am so excited about our little space, our set-up, and the great year ahead.

Are you choosing to homeschool this year? What are you most excited about?

Mallory

My one year old baby is moving through the baby stages quite quickly right now and it has been so fun to watch. She is currently learning to pull herself up and move her feet as we "walk" her across the room. We know sometime in the next few months she will learn to walk on her own and we will see it as a miracle. We will be in awe of how just months ago she started to crawl and now she has progressed beyond that.

But right now she is not walking on her own, we just have the faith that it will happen and are doing what we can to help her gain that skill. We are living in the space before the miracle.

Even though she can't walk just yet, it is still a beautiful space to be in. We love watching her learn and progress. It is incredible to see her mind working to figure out that next step. And she is so pleased with herself when she finds herself in motion, even if Mom or Dad is helping her along. There are also bumps along this road. She falls down when she is trying to lift herself up and it takes all her strength to move a few steps. There is a wide range of emotional experiences.

Someday soon she will walk and the miracle of walking will fade into something she is just able to do. We won't think about how incredible it is for her to walk each day, to move about as she desires. That's why I believe it is so important to live in the present moment, to fully embrace where you are, not just waiting for the end goal. It is in the space before the miracle where we are really in tune with how rich our lives are. Where we feel the struggle and the hope coexisting. Where we are not only aware that miracles exist, but that we are part of them unfolding.

I see this in my adult life as well. I think about times that I knew something was coming, but didn't know the details of how it would unfold.

One example of this might be Christmas Eve. When I was a child I loved Christmas Eve way more than Christmas Day. It was a day full of anticipation, excitement, and wondering. There was the potential for the wished for present to not come through and at the same time there was the hoping that the one under the tree was the thing that you wanted. It is a moment that holds depth that the knowing of Christmas morning does not have.

Another example happened after my husband had applied to graduate school. We had waited many weeks to find out if he was accepted or not. We lived in those days and weeks with hopeful anticipation. It was a time we could dream about different possibilities, what it would be like to be accepted, what our life would look like in Pittsburgh, a city we had only visited once. There was also the possibility of not getting in and the disappointment that could come from that. Still we didn't know, so we could live in this space of massive faith and it was a cool place to be.

I also think about when both of my children were born. There were the weeks leading up to their due date. We knew they would be coming soon, but we had no idea when. That space has some of the most rich emotions I have felt in my life. I was so excited for their birth, but I was nervous about the delivery. I couldn't wait to meet them, to know what they looked like, to kiss their heads and count their fingers. I anticipated knowing what their birthday would be and what our birth story would look like. It was uncomfortable and lovely all at the same time. It is those last moments before questions are answered. It is those last moments before the wonder of birth becomes history.

I love living in the space before the miracles. It is a space where so many paradoxical emotions exist and I believe it is a space where the richness of life is experienced. It is a space where awareness is heightened.

This space before the miracles, it's a beautiful place to be.

Mallory

We enjoy smoothie's for breakfast on a regular basis in our household. We eat them for breakfast, and in the middle of these hot July days you may find us whipping up a smoothie for an afternoon snack to cool us down. You'd think we eat a lot of different kinds of smoothies, but the truth is, Daniel has made the same smoothie every single time he wants a smoothie for years. He just loves it, so he hasn't ventured out. He shares this smoothie with Kennedy and she loves it too.

We have also shared this smoothie with family members, and I have gotten so many texts (from people who rarely text me) just to tell me how much they love Daniel's smoothie. I guess it's that good.

So today we want to share with you our favorite smoothie of all time. Try it out and let us know in the comments below if you love it just as much as we do!

Daniel's Everyday Smoothie

1 Cup Oats

3 Ripe, Spotty Bananas

3 T. Cacao or Cocoa Powder

1 Cup Spinach

2 Cups Frozen Blueberries

1 Cup Frozen Cherries

1 Cup of Water (more or less according to your desired consistency)

1. Place everything in the blender in the above order and blend until smooth. Enjoy!

If you are looking for more delicious plant based meals to enjoy, I'm sure you will love my Ebooks Earth Fed Family and Whole Plant Foods. Each cookbook is filled with healthy whole-food, plant-based, oil free and vegan recipes that our family loves.