Picture Reading

Ok--sorry, but I just couldn't help myself. This totally makes up for all the sleepless nights :) I know that pretty much all kids picture read at some point, but Mikaela just cracks me and Eric up, so I had to share :) Right now Mikaela's favorite book is called "The True Princess." She wants to read this book practically from the time she gets up until she goes to bed (thus a number of the pages have been patched up with tape :) ). And many times we find that she sleeps with it (yes, that means she disobeyed us by getting out of bed to get it :) ) I have to catch her for her very first reading of the day in order to get the best one. So I had to video two days worth in order to catch almost all the things she will normally say when "reading." She will only let me read it to her for bedtime--any other time she wants to read it herself. And when we do read it, she's looking at my facial expressions the entire time so she can mimic them later :) If you're not familiar with the book, here are some things to listen for in each of the videos (the things in purple are what she gets out--some of the things she only did in one of the videos and then others she did in both) :)

1. Her deep voice with puckered lips represents the voice of the king.
2. Her soft voice represents the voice of the princess.
3. Towards the beginning the king is saying that the princess must be kept safe.
4. After that, it talks about the princess being worried. Then the princess asks a list of questions, the last of which is, "Who will make me laugh?"
5. On one of the pages, the princess and Nana are baking, and the princess put too much yeast in the loaf of bread, and it went POP. The princess said she need jokers to make her laugh, and Nana told her to just look in the mirror (and Mikaela is laughing with them).
6. When the king returns he goes to his palace, and the guards announce, "The princess is here!" Also, notice her point at the true princess in the back of the room.
7. When the king sees the posing princesses, he asks, "So many princesses?"
8. The first girl responds, "She has maids to do that," to the king's question to her.
9. At the end, the king picks his daughter up and hugs her, so that's why MJ is hugging herself in the second video.
10. At the very end of the second video, she says, "Read princess more--last time." :)

Hopefully that will help you catch some of the words that she says. Most of it is jibberish, but I have a feeling she has even more of it memorized than we can catch :)