I won! I won!

A'salaamu alaikum ya'll. I won, masha'allah! No, not the haram lottery but a book give-away on Umm an-Numan's awesome site "A Muslim Child is Born" . I've talked about it on here before because I get such great ideas from her, may Allah bless her and grant her and her family paradise, ameen.

I am really excited to receive my book and I can't wait to read it with little Aami mommy. She is truly a reading hound which is great by me. Today I was reading a book titled "Under the Wire" which is a US Army soldier's account of his experiences serving as a linguistics officer at Guantanamo Bay. The book jacket said he was really amazed by the things he saw which basically went against every principle the US was founded upon. You know, all that stuff about freedom, equal protection under the law, innocent until PROVEN guilty in a court of LAW? Yeah all those little annoyances Pres. Bush ignored and bypassed. Now it seems Pres. Obama is heading the same path. May Allah guide him, ameen.

OK sorry didn't mean to get sidetracked there. Anyway, as I was reading and Aaminah was playing she climbed up beside me on the couch with her "Pat Them Gently" book Khaltu Lisa gave her last 'Eid. Then she brought "Pat the Bunny" which is a cute little multi-sensory book she enjoys.

Actually her attentions span goes to books that are designed for older ages; I'll do her monster book next time I do a review insha'allah. It's super cute!

OK so I am excited to get my free book and will let ya'll know just how sweet it is!

Ma salaama!

"Together we read"

A'salaamu alaikum ya'll! Umm an'Numan has started a neat project on her blog "A Muslim Child is Born". It's called "Together we read" and is designed to encourage parents to spend time reading aloud to their child and also insha'allah engage in related learning activities.

Alhamdulillah reading aloud with Aaminah (and my boys when they were little!) has always been an easy thing for me to do. We enjoy it so much and truly it is a great bonding experience and has helped my kids tremendously. My boys had large vocabularies from the time they were small and it helped foster a love of reading in them that lasts to this day.

Aaminah loooooves to read masha'Allah! One, two, three, four a night... that isn't enough. Even when she was tiny (just a year old) I would (I am ashamed to say!) hide her books after I had read them 3 times each! Really I would have had no rest. lol Now she has her favorites and I will "review" them here insha'Allah. :-)

She really loves "Kitty Up" by Elizabeth Wojtusik (illustrated by Sachiko Yoshikawa).



It is a pretty simple book with lots of repetition (great for little minds!). Here is an excerpt:

"Kitty up, kitty down. Kitty square, kitty round." Catchy rhymes, brightly colored pictures, lots of action; this makes a toddler classic! To be honest, when I first read this book I thought, um yeah kinda simple. Like my daughter needs to read the encyclopedia. haha Anyway it was an instant hit and its part of our daily repetoire now masha'Allah.

I would recommend this book for anyone with an infant/toddler, especially if that loves animals and really, what little person doesn't?

We haven't done any related activities yet for this; unfortunately I am not as creative as some of my other sisters and am still acclimating to being an insta-mom of 6 so bear with me insha'Allah!

Happy reading and ma salaama...