As a SpokesMom, you’ll receive a free portrait session and a free mini session approximately 6 months later.  In exchange, you’ll promote Emily Steele Photography to your friends and social groups.

To apply, click here.  Contact me with any questions.

We all love popsicles, but regular homemade pops lack the instant gratification everyone wants.  You mix them up, throw them in the freezer, and then you have to wait 2-4 hours before you can eat one.  Where’s the fun in that?  But the zoku makes the hours of waiting a thing of the past.  Keep the zoku in your freezer, pour in juice, and in less than 10 minutes, your pop is ready to eat!

As if that wasn’t cool enough, the possibilities with the zoku are basically endless.  We’ve done juice pops, layered pops, fruit salad pops, ice cream pops, pudding pops, smoothie pops, cookie pops, even a fish bowl pop!  And for the grown ups, you can add alcohol and make margarita pops, mohito pops, you name it!

Here’s some of our pops – milk and cookie pop, layered pop, and a fruit salad pop

We love our zoku.  It’s easy, it’s fun, and we use it almost every day.

Press Here by Herve Tullet

What makes this book fun is that it’s interactive!  Not like those annoying cartoon character button books that make so much noise, but the illustrations and text cleverly makes you think that you’re making the pictures change.  Press the big yellow dot on the first page:

And you’ve made 2!

The dots multiply, change color, and move around the page, all from (or so it seems) your child’s actions.  This book amazes, makes you laugh, and gets enjoyed again and again.

Daniel’s class has a very cool program – Royal Reader.  Every Friday, someone comes in – a student’s parent, grandparent, older sibling, babysitter, whatever – and reads a book or two to the class.  The kids love it.  Last Friday, I got to be the Royal Reader.  To me, as a lover of picture books, being Royal Reader is a big challenge – I try very hard to find the perfect book.  Noah was Royal Reader in March – he read one of Daniel’s favorites, Trashy Town.  My mom was Royal Reader last month and she read Z Is for Moose and The Napping House.  So, I had to do a lot of thinking to find books to read when I was Royal Reader.  The class loves books that make them laugh, so I had to find something silly.  Luckily, I was able to find a couple of great books with a big silly factor as well:

First, Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock.  This book is a lovely retelling of one of the old African Anansi tales.  Anansi the spider is a trickster.  He’s also very lazy and wants good things to eat without having to work for them.  Funny, and beautifully illustrated, we see how Anansi tricks his way into some treats, and gets what’s coming to him in the end.

Then we read an old classic, Caps for Sale.  Do you remember this from when you were a kid?  A cap peddler walks around town with all his wares on his head, and takes a nap when no one is buying.  When he wakes up, all his caps are gone, thanks to the monkeys in the tree above.  Then things get funny when he tries to get his caps back.

The class loved both books, and there was a lot of laughing.  (Nothing is funnier than watching a class full of 3 and 4 year olds laugh over a story.)  What are your favorite books to read aloud?

This little guy was crawling on the fence when we were at my mom’s for spring break.  Caterpillars move fast!

Remember Bandit the Wonder Dog?  He doesn’t like it when he’s not on the same side of the fence as everyone else.

Dogwoods: (By the way – the dog to dogwood transition was totally unintentional)

Daniel loves dandelions.  He calls them “blow away flowers” which always makes me smile.

And this is my favorite from the day, I think:

Wherever the boys go outside, so goes the dog, Bandit.

Whatcha doin, boys?

Even if it has boys inside, a box and markers are not as much fun as sticks.

Bandy the wonder dog loves sticks!

They’re awfully cute when they work together.

I’m going to start with our new favorite book – Z is For Moose:

This book is a riot.  The day we got it, we had to read it 6 times.  The 4 year old loved it, the 8 year old loved it.  I loved it.  We were all laughing.  This book starts off typical.  A is for Apple, B is for bear, etc.  Except on D, moose jumps ahead, and as we all know, D is not for moose.  Moose is impatient, and hilarity ensues.  Kids of all ages will love this book, even grown ups.  Check it out!

But I did get to photograph this little cutie.  Isn’t she adorable?

It’s been so long since I’ve gotten to photograph a baby girl!  It was nice to be able to pull out the pinks and purples again.

Curious what they ordered?  Click here to find out!