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Okay, as most of you know, I am totally addicted to Amazon. The marketing side of me loves their business model and the Chinese side of me loves not having to pay sales tax (shh! Don't tell the IRS!). Now that so many of our friends have kids and plead with us not to buy them any more toys, I'm on the search for cute books to add to their libraries when it comes to gift-giving time. I thought I'd share with you all!

One of my favorite gifts from Justin's Red Egg and Ginger party last year was a children's book called The Year of the Rat: Tales from the Chinese Zodiac by Oliver Chin.

It's part of a series of all the animals in the zodiac. Each one tells a story about the animal that illustrates its key characteristics (like how the Rat is so cunning - uh oh!) The illustrations are really cute and I think would be engaging for most kids.

So of course, children born after February 14th this year will be Tigers. I think The Year of the Tiger book would be a cute gift for any baby showers coming up!

To be honest, I haven't read the book to Justin yet because I'm afraid that he will tear the pages. He already has a strange fascination with ripping the pages out of his food diary that travels with him to the babysitter. In fact, last night, he sat very quietly on the kitchen floor while Jay and I cleaned up and methodically ripped pages out of the notebook, ripped the pages up into tiny pieces, and handed them to us. Well, at least he was quiet about it...I'll take what I can get sometimes!

Anyways I digress. Thought I'd share one more of Justin's favorite toys: My Pal Scout.

He got one of these for his birthday and I really didn't think he would like it...I mean really, a talking green dog that knows your name? A little creepy if you ask me. Well, I don't know what it is...whether it's the kiddie voice or the multitude of songs the dog knows...but Justin LOVES Scout. At the very least, it knows a lot of songs so it's easier for Mom and Dad to listen to as opposed to the dang toy that only plays three songs over and over - yipes!

Anyways in Justin news, he's doing well. He's slowly getting closer to talking I think. His range of "babbling" is getting bigger. He doesn't just make the same sound over and over, but lots of different sounds that really sound like another language altogether. He's starting to make certain sounds for certain actions...like he'll make one sound when he wants something and another sound for when he's looking for you. Like when I go upstairs and he's behind the gate, he starts yelling what I interpret as, "Where the heck are you going? Come back here!" Of course the actual sound is more like "AI YA YA! AI YA YA!" Jay and I actually think it's cuter with Justin just babbling...no talking back yet!