The More You Read, The More You Know

Books, books, books...we have ALOT of books!! We really love books around here! Well, at least, Selah and I do anyway.  Owen is not too crazy about books...yet! He'd rather eat them, throw them, and rip them as of now, but one day he will grow to love reading, I'm sure of it, I'll keep trying till he does! And Daniel, he loves reading too, but he often jokes about the absurdity of how many books we actually have.  He claims that if a library were ever in a crisis (a fire or tornado or what have you) they would be able use our supply to restock.  He's partially right, we would make a pretty good sized children's section, but the adult section...not so much.  I love reading books from my nook and Daniel uses his iPad to find reading materials, so we don't have a lot of "old-fashioned" adult books.  I sure do love a good old, page-turning book though!!

So, I think you get the idea, we love books and we have a lot of them.  When we moved we had about 5-6 big boxes filled with just books!! The task, ever since moving, has been trying to figure out where to put all these books!! At our old place there was this large closet with big, deep shelves that was perfect for placing all the children's books we had, but didn't necessarily need out yet (books specifically for certain seasons, topical books, higher level books and novels, etc.), but we didn't have a similar storage option here at our new place.  It has been a work in progress ever since, and, although I am pretty satisfied with our current setup, there's other ways I'd like to improve it in the future...stay tuned ;)

For now though, I'll show you what we have come up with, starting with Selah's room:

This is next to Selah's bed...
the books here are rarely kept this neat,
so I think we need a new plan eventually

This is also next to her bed and I LOVE it,
my favorite book storage piece!
This also happens to be my very first sewing project!
I found out how to do it here

This is just a small selection of her bigger books
that don't fit anywhere else
and stand up nicely on their own.

 Now for the living room:

This is in one of the corners of our living room
(well, playroom is more like it I guess)

This is a bookcase we bought when I was still pregnant with Selah.
The day care I worked at had similar ones in their classrooms,
and I knew I just had to have this for our home!
(I kinna wish we had like...five!)

We had originally bought this for toys,
 but we found other/better ways of storing those as well,
and when this became available, I knew exactly what I wanted to use it for!
We try to keep Selah's more easily-destroyed-by-Owen books in the top bins.

And this is our beloved library bag,
always bulging with new finds at our public library...
LOVE that place!!!  

And this, my friends, is where we keep all those extra books
that are inappropriate to have out
 (seasonal books, higher level books, etc.)
These two bookcases are in a corner in our bedroom.

I don't have pictures of Owen's books, but he has a bin in his room next to the glider with board books and bedtime books, but like I mentioned before, he's a bit of a squirmy worm and we don't get a whole lot of reading done in that space.

Since we are on the topic of books, I'd like to share with you an unexpected find that turned into one of my favorite books... 

This book came in a pack of 8 or so books,
all from Little Tiger Press,
that we found a Costco one day

I was reading this to Selah before bed one night for the first time, and just fell in love with its message.  This little mouse is trying to get back home, and along the way various misfortunes keep happening to him (falling into a hole, falling into a lake, sliding down a hill, etc.), but little does he know, these misfortunes are actually saving his life.  For instance,

in this picture there is a bird after this poor little guy,

but since he falls down into this hole he is able to escape with his life.

By the end of the book this bumped and bruised mouse is super discouraged from all the obstacles he had to hurdle before getting home, and as he is complaining to his mom she reminds him that he is now safe at home, and it could have been worse.

The message I take from this book is that I need to remember to be grateful, even during the difficult times, because those difficult times are serving a purpose that I am unaware of at that time, and may never become aware of until the end of my life.  This reminder helps me put tough circumstances into perspective, because I never know what I'm being saved from! I rest in believing God's plan is better than mine! 

What are yall's favorite books?? How do you store your books at your place of residence??