Just one more book.......

Do you ever hear the phrase, "just one more book"?  How do you say no to that?  Well, to be honest, I say no MOST of the time.  

I don't know about you, but putting the kids to bed at night is exhausting!  Everyone is tired and cranky (including mama) and all everyone needs is just quiet and sleep (including mama).  I tend to get more of the bedtime duties because my husband travels quite a bit and therefore, when bedtime comes, I am READY for the little monsters angels to just GO TO BED!

The long list of "I need: a drink, snack, my back rubbed, another drink, to pee, different music, more books, a certain stuffed animal that has been long lost for months".........you get the picture.  My kids will fight and say I am not tired until they finally close their eyes to blink and....viola! they are asleep.

I do have ONE exception to the "just one more book" rule.  It is my favorite book to "read" with the kids.  If they ever ask for that book, they sucker me in!  Luckily, they haven't figured it out yet and so on the rare occasion that they ask for it, I read it, smile and love it!

Are you dying to know what the book is?

Well....it has a story behind it.  My husband LOVES John Denver!  And therefore, after 15 years of dating/marriage,  I have come to LOVE John Denver too.  There is nothing like driving in the beautiful Colorado Mountains on the way to our family cabin singing "Rocky Mountain High"!  Christmas of 2010, my mom found a book on Amazon and wanted to give it to Chris.  I was skeptical.  It was the John Denver song "Country Roads", with pictures.  Sounds lame (I thought to myself-sorry mom).  But in the true form of my mother, it was GENIUS!

Once we got the book and took a look at the pictures, we were hooked.  They are the most beautifully drawn "quilt looking" pictures of all sorts of family members driving to a family reunion.  It is AWESOME!  Then came the best part.....you can't really read the book!  You have to SING IT!!!  It is awkward to try to read the lyrics of a song without singing it.  I will never forget the first time my husband picked up the book and started reading it.  I was in the other room and he said "this book is really hard to read"!  The next thing I heard was his amazing voice coming from the other room, singing the book to our boys.  Of course, I dropped the laundry I was folding in our bedroom and ran in to sing along.

So tonight, when I was REALLY ready for the kids to go to bed, and had already read 3 books (way past my one bedtime book quota) my oldest pulled out the "Country Roads" book with pleading eyes and said, "can we read one more"? what else could I do?

So we snuggled up together and sang "Country Roads" together (because they all know the words by heart now).

Suddenly, bedtime wasn't such a chore anymore and everyone went to bed with a smile on their face.  And when I was asked for a drink, a back scratch, and a new stuffed animal, I did it all with a cheerful heart and a blessed soul!

Sorry, no pictures of us reading the book- too hard for tonight.  But here is what the cover looks like.


 

If you are a John Denver fan, or love beautiful illustrations, I HIGHLY recommend getting this book.  You can find it here on Amazon for a pretty reasonable price (and you can preview it and see the purty pictures).  Would make a GREAT gift!