The Quiet Encyclopedia

For Christmas, Allison is getting a quiet book. I made a couple a few years ago for neices and nephews and figured it was about time for Allison to have one. She's SO busy and hopefully this will allow Brian and I to actually pay attention to part of our Sunday meetings.

Little did I know when I started that Allison would be receiving not a just a quiet book, and The HUGE Encyclopedia Britannica of quiet books. The thing is 3 inches thick! I think I got a little carried away. There were just so many good ideas that I wanted to include.

At least this way I can split the book in two in another year or so and add a page or two (since I didn't use up all of my ideas) and I'll have two quiet books to keep two kids quiet at the same time. Bright side, right? =) Here are the photos!

Front Cover. Notice how its curved? That would be becuase its so HUGE!

Alphabet page. We have all the letter in the pocket on the front cover. They velcro on & off.

Getting dressed page & closet. It's got a zipper to play with and the doll clothes velcro on & off.

Lacing and tying shoes & counting/number recognition gumball machine. The gumballs velcro on & off.

The house is "Lift the flaps". Weaving page... some of these pages she'll grow into.

The balloons are color matching. They velcro on and off. I made a buckles page becuase Allison LOVES to play with buckles on her puppy leash, her car seat, the grocery cart...

Winter and spring themed pages. Build a snowman (velcro part) and button on the flowers.

Summer and fall themed pages. The apples snap on and off and the leaves velcro on and off.

Shape matching and hanging clothes on a clothesline.

Counting with beads and a peek-a-book page. When she's older she can braid the yarn hair too.

"Whats in mommy's purse" and a notepad for drawing. Some keys, dead credit cards and play make-up will probably go in the purse.

If you want to try your hand at making your own (its a great project, but its not really any cheaper than buying one, except when you make your own you get a lot more pages for your $30), here are some resources that I found and used to make Allison's.

• Anna Fowler's Quiet Book blog ... lots of good ideas and a work in progress. You might check her family blog for her post that shows all her quiet book pages on it.
• LDS Quiet Book Packets ... for purchase, but can give you some good ideas.
• Mommy Chic: Quiet Books
• How to make an LDS Quiet Book ... this one now has patterns for quiet book pages. The author of the book by the same name as the website gave permission for them to be publish on the website.

If you want to know more about how I made mine or what I used comment here or email me. =)

PS - this was my 100th post, and I just passed my 1 year blog-o-versary! Stay tuned for some blog candy... (aka: a give-away) =)

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Sometimes I wonder...

Why I bother. Case in point... This is my Chistmas tree, fully decorated. Please note that Allison was asleep when this photo was taken.

And this is my Christmas tree when Allison is awake.

Its a little hard to see, but pretty much the tree is bare of ornaments below midway up the tree... they are scattered (Allison would probably say nicely placed) at the base of the tree. Allison takes then off to play with them and collect them. She's also quite fascinated with the lights... she keeps trying to pick off the individual lights.

At least we did the smart thing and went fairly minimalist (and child safe) with the ornaments. Ahh... life with a toddler.

I have the best husband

He took me back to Motherhood on Saturday and bought me that sweater from his spending money. =) Isn't he great?

A Sad Story...

Today I went into Motherhood Maternity. I needed tights, since its December and going bare-legged is simply no longer an option. They had this BEAUTIFUL sweater.

Now, I'll be honest. This picture doesn't really do it justice. Its super soft and I fell in love with it. It is just so... me. I wanted it.

Sadly, I did the responsible things today with our paycheck. I bought 4 of these...

I'm sure you can imagine how much that cost. Tack on the necessary oil change and wheel alignment... *sigh*...

The beautiful sweater is still at the store. And I'm sad now...

Allison's Early Reading Skills!

Allison LOVE books. She asks us to read a good 20 or 25 books a day to her. She's also good at sitting down and reading to herself. She has a few favorites... She loves "Fancy Nancy", "The Tooth Book" and "The Monster At the End of This Book." Lately, this is what we have been finding when she reads her monster book to herself.

She's saying "the page" on the pages where Grover is shouting about having the pages turned! She shakes the book back and forth because Brian and I tend to shake the book when we read it to her on those pages. I thought it was too cute. Do you think I'll have an early reader?

The reason I scrapbook

There are many reasons why I scrapbook. It gives me a reason and excuse to print off photos. It gives me something to do with the vast majority of them. I remember things better when I've gone through the photos and done a short journal entry about them. I enjoy the process. Its a creative outlet for me. But there is a new reason.


Allison loves to look at her scrapbook album. I don't have a lot of pages done in her album, but she loves to look at them over and over again. She will very quietly sit on mine or Brian's lap, just looking at the pages and naming the people (or objects) in them. She gets so excited when I add a new page to the ablum for her to see. I love that she appreciates her scrapbook. It makes me want to get more pages done for her to see and get excited over.