Currently

some of the non-digital photographic treasures I found this week!

Tracking my days in my planner by mood.  I've been feeling in a rut lately and for the past two weeks, I've been tracking my overall feelings by giving each day stars in my planner; up to a five star day.  I'm trying to see any patterns to what makes my days a two star day (bleh) versus a four or five star day.  I'm noticing some interesting trends from doing something creative, to the weather, to my own screen time, to the length of time I get in the morning before the kids wake up.  I'm planning on doing a full post to update with my findings but it's been interesting and I like the level of self reflection it brings with it.

Reading (still) Their Eyes Were Watching God and now starting our first Inspired Readers book club book Make it Happen by Lara Casey.  If you're interested in reading along, join our facebook group!  Already, our book club book seems to be inspiring to move towards getting out of my rut (above) and that makes me excited, especially to dig deeper into conversation with all the other readers!

Digging up patience from way down deep in my soul.  It was been one whiny week over here with lots of teasing between Greyson and Gemma.  If I say, "mind your own business" one more time this week, I think I might scream.  Grey has been trying to control all things Gemma does or doesn't do which just makes her whine and cry.  I've been attempting to remind him that she is three (a challenge in itself) and that when he was three he also said made-up stories, and wanted to do everything himself, and tried to be a big kid.  As much as I'm sad about him going to kindergarten this fall, I think the separation for them might be a really good thing.  Give them a chance to miss each other a little.

Reminiscing while I put together our individual memory boxes (100 small things item #18 ).  I had already started on the kids' boxes, but this week I pulled the HUGE box of memories and mementos down from the attic and finally combed through it to pull out only the things that Brandon and I want to hold on to.  Sort of like the limited collection of items that someday the kids can look through and say 'this is what my parents were like.' (and then totally trash it all afterwards if they want - we don't want them to feel an obligation to hold on to any old stuff).  What a walk down memory lane to see so many pictures (many of Brandon and I from high school, hahhah) and read through old high school notes (!) and cards from my grandparents (all since passed). What a relief to finally go through all that and get it more organized and pared down!

Playing!  We had a play day with our cousin Caleb on Wednesday and the kids had so much fun together. And then we had a play day with our favorite friends the Fiores yesterday and it turned from just playing the afternoon into a full day of playing followed by dinner together too!  It was so  nice spend the day with Kate chatting and laughing while our babies played and giggled.  What a fun week!

Cleaning up all the floors and low shelves:  Violet Mary is on the move!  She started crawling midweek (I'm calling it officially) and thankfully she is finally happy again. It's been a frustrating past week for her as she wanted to so bad to be and see everything that's going on.  She is delighted to be moving around, getting into everything she hasn't been able to before, and explore our home.  She thinks she is so funny and big now, shout-babbling and trying to talk to us.  She has us all cracking up with her little personality.

Celebrating our community as the Valley Girl's Softball team is killing it in playoffs!  We've had to miss their games this week (boo!) but we've been refreshing facebook constantly to get updates from the parents and fans posting the score live.  I was whispering to Brandon while he was on the field at Grey's teeball game the score updates on Monday! They just won again yesterday in the quarterfinals and had an emergency vehicle escort parade back into town last night!  #bluejaypride forever.

Planning the upcoming Conemaugh Valley Alumni Association's 5K and family fun run/walk as we are now only three weeks away.  I am lucky to be working with such an great group to get the plans all together and organized (thank you!) We've had awesome donations secured this week, the scavenger hunt list for the family walk/run completed, and prizes ordered!  It is all coming together and such a relief for me that the next two weeks will be mostly about organizing and double checking!  Keep those registrations for the 5K coming in!

Thinking ahead to summer plans.  We've got a packed summer over here (what's new?) including weddings, family reunions, 7th annual beer Olympics, Grandma & Kid trip to the city, AKT summer playdate in VA, graduation parties, and local festivals.  There are lots of double checking of open dates, booking hotels, and making travel arrangements.  It's both exciting and overwhelming - but that's how we like to roll.

This week in interesting internet:

Obviously a lot in the social media world this week about Caitlyn Jenner.  Regardless of your thoughts on her decisions on how she lives her life, this was an interesting read on sharing things on the internet without researching first.  I commend the guy for owning up to it instead of just ignoring his findings.  karma and irony can be really cool sometimes.

Here's another example of how each of us can decide to spread love and kindness on the internet or divisive hatred and garbage.  This guy had his wedding photos meme'd (without his consent) and he responds in the classiest, kindest (even though they don't deserve it) way.  Putting good in the world, one drop at a time, people.

This Scary Mommy article had me laughing and sort of smacking my former self too about the realization that comes to first time Moms of all the senseless pre-Mom thoughts they had about motherhood.  I think at least twice a week how I wish I could speak to my pre-Mom self and let her know how clueless she was.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything about feminism and I'm still learning constantly about how me and my life fit into the picture:  Can a stay-at-home Mom be a feminist? the answer appears to be yes.  Can I still believe in romance and chivalry and be a feminist?  that answer also appears to be yes.  Articles like this one talking about how women spend time in their life making plans on how to hide their unopened tampons on the way to the bathroom and this video on if buying condoms was like buying birth control remind me of how weird society can be about gender-based things.  Like men don't have to think about this at all and actually probably don't even know this is a thing we have 'plans' for.  (Hello tampon up the sleeve as my go to maneuver). I've started to learn that being a feminist is simply thinking about the world through eyes of equality.  What can the world look like?  What do I hope the world looks like for our kids (our girls AND our son) when they grow up?

The Inspired Readers Book Club

I am clearly a fan of the internet (exhibit A: this blog), but I know how it can also be a big, weird, pile of yuck too.  I'm a big believer in the philosophy that you'll find what you look for - so if you're on the look out for hateful, divisive, internet garbage, you'll find it (for sure).  But if you're on the search for beautiful, inspiring, and uplifting corners of the world (wide web), you'll definitely find that too.  

I'm always on the hunt for beautiful, inspiring, and uplifting and I have found a lot of it in the folds of the internet where the gems are buried but still shining.  Two of those gems have been Ashley from the Big White Farmhouse and Shelly from The Cunningham Family in Bush Alaska.  These two ladies have been a regular source of inspiration and friendship to me over the past three years despite never having actually met in real life.  

Ashley recently proposed that the three of us team up to create a book club since we all share some similar thoughts about intentional living, constantly learning and growing, and obviously - Reading!  And so the Inspired Readers book club was formed!

We are just getting started and wanted to extend an invitation to all of you to be a part of our book club.  We hope to read a wide range of types of books together, but to start Ashley selected a book that was representative of our passion towards being intentional about life.  

As Ashley wrote on her blog..

"Our first book is going to be Make It Happen by Lara Casey. We thought it was the perfect choice to start with since intentional living is what brought us together in the first place! We will be reading and discussing this book for eight weeks, which takes us through June and July. We think this is the perfect pace for the summer and it should be easy to fit the chapters in during all of your summer fun!

The reading schedule is as follows:
Week 1 (started Monday!): Introduction to the Book Club, "Welcome to your Start"
Week 2 (June 8): Chapters 1-3
Week 3 (June 15): Chapters 4-6
Week 4 (June 22): Chapters 7-9
Week 5 (June 29): Chapters 10-12
Week 6 (July 6): Steps #1 & #2
Week 7 (July 13): Step #3
Week 8 (July 20): Step #4 & #5

So how can you get in on this inspiration?  Check out our private Facebook group (join us here!), order your book (real book or Kindle version!) and introduce yourself!

Every Monday we hope to post a few questions to get conversations started, so feel free to check in and let us know how you're feeling too. 

As busy Mums ourselves, we want this book club to be something that brings you joy and inspiration - not another thing to add to you plate and make you stressed.  We want to build community, for it to be fun, and to be a place to recharge your soul! 

Looking forward to meeting you all and to help create and be a part of another inspiring little corner of the web. xxox 

Team Studer's 15 Most Beloved Children's Books

Let me start by saying that I have a fanatical hunger for buying books for our kids.  As a former educator and a lover of books myself, having a plentiful library for our kids is somewhat of an obsession of mine.  I want my kids to have 24/7 access to the classics and the new greats, my favorite books as a kid, informational nonfiction books, fairy tales, stories with lessons in them, and books that only come out for each holiday. The best books are the ones that keep them laughing and wondering long after we close them.

We've been reading to the kids since they were newborns, so sitting down to read together is one of the most natural things I do with the kids all day.  Our kids love listening to books because they love the stories, pictures, and our sound effects - but more so they love the undivided attention it brings with us.  In fact, when the day feels like it's all crumbling into a pile of madness; my first move is to tell the kids they each get to pick some books and we'll all take a 'time in' to read together.




As our children's library in the house is fairly large (and ever-growing!), it's always interesting to me to see which books the kids gravitate towards naturally.  There are books that I love most for different reasons (the moral in Little Blue Truck , the message in Players In Pigtails , etc) but the kids have favorites of their own and those are usually the ones that I have memorized from start to finish.  These are our Team Studer top 15 Most Beloved Children's books*

*And by our Most Beloved books, that means our most beat-up, taped, chewed, busted up books that are asked to be read over and over again.



Mercy Watson to the Rescue - by Kate DiCamillo
Kate DiCamillo is a writing genius.  This book, these characters, this world is our bedtime bread and butter (hah! pun intended if you've read this book).  I seriously might know all the words to this entire book by heart.  We also have Mercy Watson Fights Crime but DiCamillo's first Mercy Watson book is by far our favorite.  Greyson and Gemma both love this story and I know exactly what page Gemma will drift off to sleep.  It's a chapter book, but we read straight through to the end every time we read it.  Thank you Ms. DiCamillo, seriously this is maybe top favorite book in our entire home.

Sam and Dave Dig a Hole - by Mac Barnett
I love this book so much.  It's a bonus that the kids love it too because I don't mind reading it at all.  Sam, Dave, and their pup go out to find something spectacular and, oh boy, do our kids love knowing all the spectacular that Sam and Dave just barely miss out on!  They love being 'in the know' like the dog (hahah!) and then the odd twist at the end keeps us forever speculating on what actually happened on their adventure. We've only had this book since last Christmas and it's in a heavy rotation of here.

Peanut Butter Rhino - by Vincent Andriani
Bar none, the funniest book we have in our collection.  I was first introduced to this book when my little sis purchased it many a year ago in one of those Scholastic order forms you get in school.  The copy we have is actually THAT copy, so it's no wonder it's been taped up about one hundred times already.  It also helps that my voice for the Rhino is straight up ridiculous and the pages are organized similarly to a comic book.  I mean, is there anything more funny than a Rhino who doesn't know his squished sandwich is still stuck to his butt?  um, no.

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain - by Verna Aardema
I discovered this book while teaching and fell in love with the rythm and the folktale that makes up the book.  The story is set to the pace of 'The house that Jack built,' so it's fun for the kids to hear the story grow up on itself on each page.  Greyson especially loves the idea of shooting the rain from the clouds with a bow and arrow and sometimes we go outside and try to do just that on cloudy days.

Goodnight, Gorilla- by Peggy Rathman
This nearly wordless book captivates my children with some sort of magical pull.  My kids from age 8 months to 5 years all love this book.  It's also one of the first choices when the bigger kids get to 'read' to Violet because the lack of words on each page somehow gives them the confidence to read it without being reminded that they can't yet actually read words.  This book is brillant.

Peter's Chair - by Ezra Jack Keats
Oh, Peter, we can so relate to his ache to keep his own things for himself instead of sharing with his baby sister.  We love Peter because WE are Peter.  Peter doesn't want to give his 'baby things' for his little sister because they are his, but as he finds, he doesn't need them anymore.  The struggle is real over here too with three siblings, so Peter's story is a refreshing and gentle reminder of how big kids get to do big kid things and they grow out of baby things.  Plus, Peter tricks his mom with a funny prank towards the end and the kids think it's absolutely genius.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? - by Eric Carle
We have three copies of this book and read all of them, but our favorite is the interactive slide&find book.  This book has lovingly grown up with our kids from babies (beautiful colors and repetitive words) to toddlers (they love the funny voices I add to each animal), to preschoolers (who find this book easy to 'read').  Eric Carle is wonderful and we have several of his books.  Our second favorite (almost made this same list!) is The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

There's a Mouse About the House! -by Richard Fowler
This book may come as blast from the past - my sisters and I loved the crap out of this book when we were little.  I randomly saw it in a bookstore a year or so ago and had such a feeling of nostalgia I bought it on the spot.  Now my kids are loving the crap out of it.  We've lost and then found the mouse in our own house multiple times.  We've had to packing-tape the mouse up twice now and also the mouse holes in the book.  It's not a great wear and tear book for little ones - but they don't care, it's all busted everywhere and they are still constantly pulling it out.  It's seriously the most fun book ever.

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale - by Mo Willems
If it's by the amazing Mo Willems, you know its going to be good.  Knuffle Bunny makes our kids laugh and they love knowing Trixie's problem while her Daddy keeps walking totally clueless about the missing bunny.  Knuffle Bunny is our favorite Mo Willems book, but certainly not our only.  We also have the second Knuffle Bunny and two Pigeon books.  My next Mo Willems book that's on my wishlist is Waiting is Not Easy.

Smart Kids: Predators - by Roger Priddy
The kids LOVE these books.  I LOVE these books.  I want all of the Smart Kids books (we already have three of them).  They have just enough information to totally delight the kids, but not overwhelm them.  And if the kids are restless and need something to hold them over until dinner time, I tell them to go get a Smart Kids book and look through it, to which they happily do.  Huge full page pictures of the animals up close and cool graphics to tell you how dangerous and how big each predator is.

Chloe, Instead - by Micah Player
Another sibling book that lends to the fact that having little siblings is both hard and fun.  We originally got this book to read before Violet was born, but it's been heavy in rotation long since then.  The illustrations are bright and beautiful and the kids love Chloe and her hilarious, mischievous nature.  The ending is so sweet, I almost cry every time we read it (hah), and it's such a nice reminder that being a big sibling takes a lot of patience and kindness.

This Jazz Man - by Karen Ehrhardt
I bought this book because of a Intro to Jazz class I took in college when I fell in love with Jazz music and it's history.  To my sheer delight, this is one of our kids' favorite books.  It's set to the rhythm of 'This Old Man' and each page portrays a famous Jazz musician.  We usually end up looking up the real life musicians on youtube after reading the book.  There is a little mouse that hidden somewhere on each page too, which is a big draw for the kids to point the little guy out.

Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? Book of Wonderful Noises - by Dr. Seuss
This book has the wackiness of Dr. Seuss without the length.  I love it because it is both fun to read and also short enough that keeps the kids attention.  I can say it with my eyes closed and the kids like to try to 'sing' the last page with all the noises.  We have the tiny sized board book, so it's easy to carry in the diaper bag (one of the reasons our is so beat up).  It's our favorite book to read while we wait for our food to arrive at restaurants.

A Lot of Otters - by Barbara Helen Berger
This book will forever be held in my heart because it is a favorite bedtime story for my kids while they were still young enough for daytime naps.  Each page has beautiful, almost drowsy, lyrics and honestly lulls the kids to quiet reflection.  Maybe its the beauty of the otters drudging up stars from the bottom of the sea, or the peace that comes when the worrying Mother Moon finally finds her lost child who is safe floating in a box.  I don't know what it is about this book, but we all cherish it.

My No No No Day - by Rebecca Patterson
We all love this book.  Bella is having a crap day and she just wakes up with a bad attitude.  The rest of her day, she goes on to describe all the things that go wrong (spoiler alert: everything annoys her today) and then finishes with her apologizing to her momma before she wakes up to have a better day the next day.  There are some negative reviews on Amazon for this book because Bella doesn't get any consequences all day for being cranky - but we use the book as a way to see how sometimes we all have hard days, life is like that, but it doesn't mean every day is a hard day and it also doesn't mean that every kid who is cranky in public is a bad kid (including our own)!  I also always point out Bella's momma in the book who looks so ragged and tired (so much like ME! Hah!) and how even after Bella is not very nice all day, her momma still comes to tuck her in at night with her favorite story and forgives her - because that's what parents do, they love their kids, even on the hard days.

What are some of your family's most beloved and worn out books?  You know I'm always trying to grow our library over here!

If you're in need of some fresh ideas, you can check out some of my favorite instagram accounts who catalog children's books with reviews.  I basically build my Amazon wishlists off of the accounts of The Little Book Collector, Kid Lit BookaDay, and The Littlest Library.



Disclaimer:  This post includes affiliate links to Amazon.