100th Post

Wow! My 100th post already! I can't believe it. Anyway, this is a good one. Here is a great video of Allen "reading" Walter the Farting Dog Goes on a Cruise. Please ignore me in the background, and note how amused his Daddy is.

xoxo,

Allen's "Book Club" Installment Two

We have moved on, at least temporarily, from Walter the Farting Dog. Right now, we are enthusiastically reading Stellaluna (again, thanks to Aunt Kissen).

While it's definitely an "older" children's book (ages 4 and up), Allen absolutely loves it. He is riveted by the illustrations (I can't blame him). He loves it so much, he wanted me to read it to him twice tonight. This is the second time he's been smitten with this book. I was very surprised to see that he was intrigued by it (and sat still through the entire reading of it) several months ago as well. A definite must read!

We went to Target yesterday, and stopped in the Leap Frog aisle to check out additional books for Allen's Tag. I was thrilled to pick up Walter the Farting Dog Goes on a Cruise.

Since I just downloaded the audio tonight, Allen has not had the pleasure of "reading" this book, But I did. It is absolutely hilarious. However, if you are not a fan of bathroom humor, I do not recommend it. Because Walter farts ... a lot. And each time you point the Tag reader at him, he farts. Quite amusing though :)

That's all for this edition of Allen's "Book Club." Stay tuned for more reviews and recommendations.

xoxo,

Stellaluna picture courtesy of Amazon.com

Walter picture courtesy of Leapfrog.com

Set for Life

It was like Christmas here today ... which for those of you who know us is a strange statement for me to make, since we don't actually celebrate Christmas. But some fabulous family members, who we only get to see at most once a year, sent some lovely gifts to Allen that arrived today.

They emailed me ahead of time to give me a heads up about the packages that would be arriving from Leap Frog. I scoured Leap Frog's website trying to determine exactly what awesome gifts she was sending to my little genious. So, I'm putting it mildly when I say that was really really excited for these gifts to arrive.

Fortunately, UPS dropped the boxes off while Allen was sleeping, so Daddy and I were able to unpack everything and check most things out before he woke up.

Here's what he got:

The LeapPad Learn to Read Complete Phonics System

This system has been discontinued (sadly), but I think will be really helpful in giving Allen a head start with reading. I haven't gotten to play with this too much, but it looks awesome. I think we'll have to work with Allen at first before he can really play with it on his own, but he's already shown quite an interest in it. The reason that this was discontinued is because they came out with:

The Tag Reading System

This system is unbelievable. You load software onto your computer, and then you download the audio software to the additional books purchased (e.g. Cars Tractor Tipping). Then you have options for the "pen" to read the entire book to you; to read you each page; or to read each individual word. There are also games you can play with every book. Absolutely amazing!

Allen doesn't quite have the fine motor skills to point it at each word yet, but he puts it on the pictures already and makes them talk (seriously, ya'll, this thing is unbelievable). I'm sure he'll get the hang of more features in no time!

ClickStart My First Computer with Finding Nemo Game

This thing looks awesome. Sadly, for all the batteries that Brian has stashed in that junk drawer of his, we had no C batteries, so we can't fire this one up. Therefore, we have not shown Allen that it even exists yet. He loves buttons, Nemo, and the TV, though, so I'm sure he will adore this!

And, last but not least, this came a few days ago:

Fridge Wash & Go Magnetic Vehicle Learning Toy

I was a little nervous when I opened this because we have a stainless steel fridge, so it's not particularly magnetic. But, we also have some really awesome metal furniture (remind me to post a picture at some point) that this fortunately sticks to. This is already a new favorite of Allen's. It's the first thing he sees when he comes downstairs, so he plays with it at least twice a day. He knows his colors pretty well, but it helps him with matching and identifying, and it reinforces color recognition for him.

So, thanks to our fabulous family, Allen is set for life as far as any educational electronic products are concerned. Thanks to you both (you know who you are). We love you. We miss you. We can't wait to see you (only a couple more weeks)! And we are so very grateful to you for these awesome gifts!

xoxo,