A Gift-giving PSA

I know that not everyone who reads this blog buys gifts for our children, but everyone who buys gifts for our children reads this blog, so bear with me as I offer a brief note for the consideration of the latter group.

Birthdays are looming--Margaret's first one, Joseph's third. I don't want to be too presumptuous but, if the past two years are any indication, many gifts will be arriving at our door over the next few months. We love receiving gifts, and so do our kids and we have been truly blessed at the generosity and thoughtfulness of all the gift-givers in our lives. We often think of the giver whenever Joseph plays with a toy or asks for a book. I do not at all want to sound ungrateful.

But . . . you may have picked up on the fact that space is a bit at a premium in our lives right now. Those of you who have visited, back me up here. We love our apartment and, honestly, we will probably always live in houses or apartments that seem "too small" to many people. We like small. Space limitations do require, however, that one be choosy when considering possessions. Please keep this in mind as you are selecting gifts this year. Books are easy to store. A giant ride-on toy--not so much.

You may be thinking, "The Johnston kids have a bazillion books. They can't possibly want more." In answer to this, I say that we have far less than a bazillion books and if you read aloud to our kids as much as we do, the collection would seem tiny indeed. Joseph would pretty much always rather read a book than play with a toy. We read him stacks of books a day. Once we've gotten through "Curious George and the Dump Truck" eighteen times in one week, we are definitely ready for something new. More books is at least as much a gift for the parents in this family as the kids.

Many of you know, also, that we intend to homeschool. We have extensively researched various approaches to curriculum and study and we know that literature will be a large part of our "schooling" as a family. We hope to be blessed with several more children and we'd like them all to grow up with a rich home library.

Each of the kids has an Amazon wishlist for those of you who would like suggestions. We got lots of duplicate books for Christmas last year, so this seemed like a good way for people who want to give books to see what we don't already have! Click here for Margaret and here for Joseph. We'll update these for Christmas as well. (My ever-improving tech skills also allowed me to put buttons for these in the sidebar of the blog.)

Those of you who like to buy the kids clothes, Joseph is wearing 3T and Margaret is wearing 12-18 months. If you want more specific clothing requests, please e-mail us.

If you really, really want to get toys, please bear in mind that we have limited space and that the kids still share everything (so a toy for one is a toy for both). We definitely prefer toys on the creative end of the spectrum rather than something requiring batteries. Do not worry about our kids being deprived of fun. They both get wildly excited for anything stored in the kitchen and, really, Joseph loves, loves, loves books.

Thanks for your understanding and, again, thank you for all your generosity.