Reading to Children

By reading adventurous books to your child daily, you will help your little one build his or her imagination. Studies have shown that parents who read to their children daily will help their children develop a lifelong love for learning. Books promote a child’s cognitive and emotional development.

Books also help children explore their environments and develop a creative outlook on life. Personalized childrens books provide children with a unique method for helping them explore their imagination. By including your child’s name, picture and other images that your child can relate to in a personalized book, your child will use his or her creative abilities and contribute to the creation of an enchanted story. Your child can imagine that he or she is involved in the story as you read the personalized book, and it will also help build your child’s motivation to explore more books and help your child develop an increased level of self confidence.

 Many children enjoy developing a connection with some of the popular animated characters. They use their imagination daily to bring their toys to life, and books help children learn more about their favorite characters. A unique and personalized book for your child will certainly promote your child’s passion for many of his or her favorite story book characters.


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Party Details

"You Are My Sunshine" is Charlie's favorite song.  So it was pretty much a no-brainer when it came to thinking of what theme to have for her second birthday.

I browsed for some ideas for Pinterest, but mainly came up with everything by myself.  I try and come up with a party theme a few months in advance so I can take my time searching for decorations.  For this party I got all the supplies at Michaels, Party City, and Five and Below.

For the food, I made the cupcakes, cookies, and macaroni salad myself.  We ordered two 3 ft sandwiches from Stop & Shop.  For drinks I made some lemonade and put out bottled water.

Now for all the pictures!!

I made the little signs on PicMonkey and printed them out on stock paper.  I taped them onto extra tall toothpicks. 

I got these cute little boxes in the dollar section of Michaels and filled them with M&Ms....simple and easy!

I ordered this vinyl online and put it onto this piece of wood I had painted

I made the frames.  I painted a piece of cardboard gray and the frames yellow.  I ordered the vinyl online and attached it to the glass.  It reads "You are my sunshine my only sunshine you make me happy when skies are gray"

I made this wreath myself.  I bought a form at Michaels.  I wrapped it in gray ribbon first, then in the yellow and white ribbon.  I also got the C and suns at Michaels.  I painted the C gray, and then hot glued them onto the wreath.  I finished it off by hot gluing the ribbon at the top.  I am SO happy with the way this came out.  

I created this sign on PicMonkey and printed it out on stock paper.  

My Sunshine Girl Turns Two

Saturday we had a very full day of celebrating the birth of our sweet Charlie.  I normally don't have the girls big family party on their actually birthday, but since C turned two on a Saturday, it just made the most sense to have it that day.

Her last night as a one year old!

We started the morning off with balloons, presents, and of course donuts for breakfast!

We then put some finishing touches on her You Are My Sunshine party before our family got there {there will be more details on the actual party tomorrow!} We also waited and watched for the exact moment, 10:56 am that Charlie turned two!

My sunshine girls!

The moment my girl turned 2!

It was a really relaxed party and I think everyone, the birthday girl especially, had a great time!

Snuggling the grandparents

Cupcake time!

Pic taken by my sister....too many people and presents was a little overwhelming for my girl

My sis got a family picture!!

We got the girls down for a nap and everyone went home.  After nap, we took the girls to the mall to ride on the carousel and have some Chick-fil-a for dinner!

When we got home we all went outside to play and I got some really great pictures of the girls.

Twirling

More cupcakes!

Sweet Charlie, we had a wonderful day celebrating you...I hope you had a fabulous day too!