Cinco de Bingham Book Day!!

May 5th at the Bingham House is Bingham Book day. (Read about past book days here.) It was basically invented so we could have an excuse to buy books, guilt free! But the kids like it too, and it has become a bit of a tradition. We try and make a bit of a celebration out of it, but as our kids get older and life gets busier, making an event out of it is getting trickier. This year BBD fell in a particularly busy week and had to be squeezed in between baseball practice and Amy's trip to Utah for a family funeral.

Rumor has it that several other families have started Bingham Book days of their own. That makes me happy beyond belief. It is one of my favorite holidays. If you are now a celebrator of BBD, please share! Let's make it a national holiday!

Because BBD coincides with Cinco de Mayo, we decided to go authentic and have dinner at El Pollo Loco. Yum!

I don't know why Lila looks so angry in this picture. She wants her pollo. Strangely, there were no actual Mexicans at El Pollo Loco! On Cinco de Mayo!! Did they have somewhere better to go? I don't get it.

After some delicious chicken and fire roasted corn, we were off to our local Powell's for book selection. It always ends up being a little more harried than we would like - Noel tends to wander and get lost in the store (or leaves entirely and wanders around the mall).  Lila wants to sit in one spot and look at the same Sesame Street pop up book. Jonah can't decide which book of 30 he wants to take home. And Amy and I try to take turns coordinating the madness while the other person leisurely peruses books for their selection. So after a bit of negotiating and finagling, here is what we ended up with.

For Me:
Marcelo In The Real World by Francisco X. Stork
I'd never heard of this book, but it sort of jumped out at me. I think it won some sort of award, and it is about a kid with Asperger's, so that was appealing.

And, because I am a nerd, I picked a second book, claiming it was for the kids, but it really was for me:
Guess Again! by Mac Barnett
This is a kids picture book that literally makes me laugh out loud. We got it from the library and I kept making the kids read it because I loved it so much. I don't want to say much because I don't want to spoil anything (seriously, this is a great picture book), but if you have young kids, get this book. You will love it.

For Amy:
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.
I think this book was all the shiznitty in 2007, but Amy and I have both never read it. Can't wait!

For Jonah:
My Book About Me by Dr. Seuss
It was super cute when Jonah chose this book. He had also selected several nerdy books about robots (Jonah likes to tell us that he is "very into the future right now"), but he chose instead to get this book. It is one of those books that you get to write about yourself. He got home and frantically started filling in what color his eyes are and how many forks are in our house.  Now, Noel likes to read it every night.

For Noel:
Dog.
It's a pop up. I think Noel got it under pressure because he didn't know what to choose. Have you met Noel?  He hates dogs.  I think we are going to return it and pick something he really wants. Does that violate the spirit of BBD?

For Lila:
Elmo's World: Be a Soccer Player!
Lila flipped when she saw this book. Her two favorite things in the world are Elmo and soccer balls, so this was a done deal.

Post book selection, Amy and I needed to soothe our weary souls with sugar and fat. So we went to the frozen yogurt place where you can get whatever yogurt you want and then add toppings and then pay by weight. I love it. Somehow, when we go, Amy's yogurt costs like $1.32 and mine is $18.44. I don't get it.

 Our children are incapable of taking a picture without making goofy faces.

Happy Bingham Book Day! If you celebrated, tell us what you got!