Cat Nights by Jane Manning (Greenwillow Books, 2008) is a perfect book to read during Halloween week. The story is about a young witch named Felicity (who is turning 263!) who is really excited about her birthday this year. This is the year that she will be able to grow warts, get those really curly shoes, and most importantly turn herself into a CAT!

Felicity LOVES being a kitty. In fact, she may be willing to permanently change into one. Her witch relatives (three cousins who are...

jamie

This weekend Kate, her grammie, grandpa and I went to the Crayola Factory at Two Rivers Landing in Easton, PA. The trip took a little over an hour for us each way. It was worth the ride, though.

For a Saturday, the place was relatively empty. I was expecting a mob scene, but I soon realized there weren't too many people visiting. (Probably due to the fact that...

jamie

One of the newest Halloween books out there has to be Mary Engelbreits's Queen of Halloween. (HarperCollins, 2008.) This book is perfect for young children who may be feeling anxious about the upcoming holiday of Halloween. (I know my 3 1/2 year old loves Halloween, but she is beginning to ask if ghosts and witches are real, so a bit of fear seems to be creeping into the holiday for her.)

Decked out in their finest costumes, Ann Estelle and her friend, Michael, go trick-or-treating...

jamie

We had some big news to tell Kate the other day. She will be a big sister in February! My husband and I struggled with how and when to tell her, but as she kept staring at my expanding belly, we decided it needed to be sooner rather than later.

I went to the store and bought a few books about bringing home a baby. The one we decided to use for the announcement was The Berenstein Bears: New Baby The story was so cute, explaining how brother bear outgrew his old bed, and then had to...

jamie