[Summer Reading Challenge] Link Up #1

A couple weeks ago when Stephanie, Courtney, and I announced our summer reading challenge, I was really excited to start reading more with Mason! Summer seemed so far away and I thought I had forever to figure out what books we could read together and then BOOM, we're already at our first link up! This summer is going by WAY too fast. In fact, ONE month from today, my baby turns THREE. THREE! I can hardly believe it. Seriously, time, please slow down!

Anyway, let me wipe away the tears, and back to the task at hand. Reading. Mason's started to really love reading recently so I thought this challenge would be pretty easy. We have tons of books and I wanted to hit up the library so I thought I would try to follow the suggestions of book topics that we shared in our announcement post. Little did I know that it would be kind of hard to find books to fit all the topics! However, I think we did a pretty good job, and I'm excited to share our first three stories with you today.

(source) Planes : Fire and Rescue // Fire Crew
(a Disney book)

Mason has been LOVING his Step into Reading books recently and this one was a newer purchase for us. Before I quit my old job, I knew I would never get as good a discount anywhere else, so I bought a few new books for Mason (and one for me in hopes that I would actually have more time to read) and this one was included. He's really loving picking up his other Step into Reading : Planes book so I was hopeful that this one would become a quick favorite and luckily I was right. He loves playing with his planes in the bath tub and then reading about them before he goes to bed at night.

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(source) Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton

(a book with an animal on the cover)

This book has been a huge hit in our house for a while now. And although we've read it way more than 50 times, it still continues to be a favorite. I think my personal favorite reason to read this book is because it's fun and catchy and I like to give the story a country twang as I read it. (You can laugh, but if you've read it, then you know how easy that can be!) This book was a no brainer when it came to a book with an animal on the cover.

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(source) If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff

(child's choice - freebie)

Now I can't take the credit for the idea for reading this book and making these Buttery Blueberry Streusel Muffins. Courtney first posted about it a month or so ago. She and her daughter, Aria, read the book and made these muffins. The muffins sounded SO good that I bookmarked them and when we announced the summer reading challenge, I may have made sure that we picked out this book to read. Just so we could make the muffins after. #sadbuttrue

But seriously. They are DELICIOUS. A little time consuming to make, but delicious once they're done. I really should have taken a picture of Seth eating one instead of Mason because he truly loves them. So much so that he rationed them out for the week so he could have breakfast everyday.

I thought Mason would love them just as much since we went to Mimi's Cafe a couple weeks ago with Seth's grandma and Mason literally ate her WHOLE blueberry muffin, but...

Mason, on the other hand, I had to hand feed the bottom half of the muffin to (#highmaintenance) and then refused to eat the top half (the best part!!), so I did what any good mom would do. I took one for the team and ate it for him. #winning. Toddlers. So hard to figure out!

Now, tell us! What books are you reading this summer with your children? What books do I need to add to our summer list? Link up with us below!

PS remember you need to have participated in the challenge as well as linked up at least once to be eligible for the giveaway on August 20th, the final check in!

An InLinkz Link-up