2009: A Year of Books

I thought I had been reading a lot this year until I talked with my grandmother at Thanksgiving who told me she had read over a hundred books so far this year. My total got to 36, which I'm still pretty proud of. I have posted several reviews throughout the year of some of my favorites but I thought I'd record a quick rundown of the books I've read, by category.

(The ** are my top five favorite books of the year.)

Category 1 - Book Club Reads

I've recently gotten into a book club group and these are the books I've read for that this year.

The Ladies Auxiliary, Tova Mirvis

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier

Category 2 - Series

I've read several series this year, mostly from friend recommendations. Most of them are fantasy series.

Sword of Truth series, Terry Goodkind- recommended by my husband (12 books, 3 of which I read this year, the other 9 I read in 2008)

**Hunger Games and Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins- recommended by Jenni

Graceling and Fire, Kristin Cashore- recommended by Jenni

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith (I read 5 of the books, and I think there are 4-5 more)

Mortal Instruments series, Cassandra Clare

Books of Bayern series, Shannon Hale

Category 3 - Barnes and Noble Recommendations

I enjoy looking at B&N Recommendations to see what people are saying is good right now. I enjoyed all of these books I read from that list.

Sarah's Key, Tatiana de Rosnay

**The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Schaffer
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

**The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton
Prayers for Sale, Sandra Dallas

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
**The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Category 4 - My Own Wanderings

Scattered throughout all these readings were some of my own interests.

The House at Riverton, Kate Morton- I read this before The Forgotten Garden since it was her first novel.
**These is My Words, Nancy E Turner- I saw that many of my friends gave this book 4 and 5 stars on goodreads.com so I thought I might as well read it. It was awesome.

The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown- I also got in a Dan Brown kick, finishing with this, his most recent novel. It was good and as fast paced as usual, but I definitely preferred The DaVinci Code.
Digital Fortress, Dan Brown
Deception Point, Dan Brown

Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt- I believe I read this to add to my "classic" repertoire. It was excellent.
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck- Another classic to add to the list, very short, and it felt like I had read it before.

I think it was a good year of reading. I definitely need to mix in some non-fiction and maybe stay away from the YA fiction series. Some books up on deck for me to read early in 2010 are:

The Seamstress, Sara Tuvel Bernstein

The Help, Kathryn Stockett

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, Katherine Howe

What did you read this year that you liked? What are you planning on reading in 2010?

Merry Christmas

I hope you all had a nice Christmas! Ours was wonderful. We've been busy the past few days. On Wednesday I baked Swedish bread and sugar cookies:

On Thursday (Christmas Eve) I did more baking (Cinnamon Apple Pie, Pecan Pie, a cheeseball, and an overnight breakfast casserole for Christmas morning. Sorry, no pics!). Then that night our Christmas Eve traditions are: 1) Chinese food, 2) Acting out the Christmas Story, and 3) Opening two gifts each- Christmas PJs and an ornament.

On Christmas Morning, we got up at 7:30, checked to see if Santa came, and he did!! Avery got her Baby Ariel Doll- just what she asked Santa for. And Camryn got the Belle Baby Doll (in Camy's words: "Me Belle!")

The girls were spoiled with way too many toys! Thanks to all our extended family who sent us gifts. It would have been fun to spend the holidays with family but it's also fun for us to start our own traditions with our kids here in our own home. On Christmas night we had two families over for a nice Christmas dinner. We enjoyed great food and great company. Merry Christmas to everyone!

Fire Station

Yesterday for preschool we did a field trip to the fire station. The kids were excited to see the fire trucks. They weren't red but "yellow-green" (that's what color Avery decided they were. Thanks to Crayola, my kid knows all the in-between colors too!). Here are all the kids sitting in the fire truck.

What a fun little memory.

Christmas is Coming!

I got the tree and decorations up on Friday. We were going to put it up as a family on Saturday but Avery was too excited. All Friday morning I kept hearing, "It's Saturday now! We can put up the tree!" (me: "We have to wait for Daddy to come home.") "Let's just pretend that Daddy's home!" So we called him and he said it was okay if we did it without him. Avery and I put it up during Camryn's nap. She was a little grumpy when she woke up but when we came downstairs and saw the tree she got all excited and said, "Whoa!!"

The kids have been not so great with my ornaments. I put the breakable ones up higher but they're still learning how to keep the unbreakable ones on the tree. We have to watch them because a moment of boredom near the tree could lead to disaster!

We're excited for Christmas and the kids can't wait!! Thank goodness for chocolate advent calendars from my mom- counting down to Christmas is a little sweeter this way.

Snow Day

(Click on it to see the pics more clearly.)

One week ago today - picking my little brother up from the airport!

Thanksgiving Break

We had an awesome Thanksgiving break this year. We went to Houston, Texas where my family lives to celebrate the holiday, and also the return of my brother, Jordan, from his mission to Zurich, Switzerland. My whole family was there, as well as my grandparents Granny and Poppa, from Idaho. What a fun time we had - all 15 of us! Some highlights:

- It was a surprise for us all to be there to pick up my brother from the aiport. He walked out and said, "Wow! The WHOLE family..." :) It was so nice to hear all his stories and see about 600 of his 1200 pictures he took there! Talk about a beautiful place to live!
- Merrick, my dad, and Poppa went to the NASA Space Center (as in "Houston, we have a problem.") They had a wonderful time seeing all there was to see.
- We ate our Thanksgiving meal on Saturday so that Jordan didn't miss out. Yummy food!
- My nephew Stephen brought four lightsabers and the four kids had
a blast with those.
- The weather in Texas was mild, but definitely warmer than the chilly 30 degrees we came home to! It was really pleasant to be able to walk down to the park without coats on!
- Jordan gave his homecoming talk on Sunday so that we could all be there. My younger sister Katie also received her Young Womanhood Medallion that day.
- We all went to see the movie The Blind Side. It was really a great movie. I highly recommend it.
- Granny had a broken foot and was only wearing one shoe most of the time. It really bugged Camryn. She kept pointing at the bare foot saying "Uh-oh, shoe!" all the time. It really cracked us up.
- We celebrated my sister Ashley's birthday on Monday night before we all left.
- LOTS of food, lots of visiting, lots of fun!

I don't have any pictures yet but I'll share some when I get them! I'm grateful for my family and that we could all be together. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too.

Dress Up

Today I thought I'd attempt taking some shots of my kids in some Christmas dresses. I realized (again) that I need professional help. It's really hard to capture cuteness! Especially when it's reluctant to say "cheese" fifty times in a row and can't sit still at ALL! I guess I'll have to take the plunge and pay someone to take pictures that are worthy to post on my wall. For now, these are perhaps worthy to post on my blog...

A is for Avery the Artist!

Avery is very talented at drawing. She loves to draw and probably spends a couple hours a day coloring. I like to buy her blank notebooks instead of coloring books sometimes because she can get more creative this way. She's really into drawing faces and I'll give her tips and she really sticks to them. Like eyelashes - she's on a big eyelashes kick right now. I took a few pictures out of her current notebook to show where she's at right now. She's good - you'll see:
This one's a little more disturbing. Maybe she was really tired when she drew this one?
BTW, most of her people are princesses with crowns on their head. Sometimes they'll have earrings and necklaces.

This one reminded us of a SpongeBob head, but she insisted it was a Princess Avery:

Here's a "sad Avery" picture. Yes, those are tears.

And finally, her other talent involving her fine motor skills: Writing. Here's the card we wrote out for Merrick's birthday. I told her which letters to write and she wrote them all by herself. We didn't have room for the "a" in birthday. And the "Avery" ended up on the other side of the card, in a lighter color. But still, pretty impressive! She can write most of the alphabet now and can write several short words and names on her own without my help!

Lightning McSpendy

Merrick had a birthday last week. Avery decided/insisted to have a "Cars" theme. No, he did not get a car for a present!! On his crown I wrote "Lightning McSpendy" because at work they call him McSpendy. He liked that a lot - especially because he gets made fun of for walking really fast (like lightning, get it?). Here are a few pics of our party:

The tradition of making birthday crowns continues...

What a cute little partier!!! Camryn really got into the party idea, and even learned the word "cake" for the occasion.
Avery and Camryn had to wait all day for Dad to open his presents. But they exhibited surprising restraint and did not rip anything open! Good girls!

The "cake", which was really an ice cream pie. My improvised version of a Mississippi Mud Pie recipe I found. Oreo crust, a layer of chocolate and toasted almonds, oreo ice cream, and another layer of chocolate and toasted almonds. YUM!

Halloween.

Halloween started for us a week early this year with our Ward Halloween Party. Avery was a princess again and Camryn was a ladybug (although she didn't keep her costume on long!) I thought it was a good idea that they had coloring sheets and crayons on the tables for the kids during dinner. Then they had activities like face painting, a Halloween craft, and a table full of playdoh. Here's Camryn trying to get in on the playdoh:
After the activities, they had families each decorate and man a door around the building and the kids did trick-or-treating. One group had a spooky room all set up and it was so crowded I sent Avery in. I thought Merrick was helping her but he came out without her and she had been loading up on the candy for a while! Too bad it was mostly Laffy Taffy. :/ We had a fun time at the party and it was great to see all our friends dressed up. My Chipotle Chocolate Chili I made in the chili cook-off was a hit!
The next day Merrick came down with the flu. Within a few days we all had it. Probably H1N1 although we never got officially diagnosed. It was no fun, and we're still recovering. The biggest bummer was that we didn't get to go trick-or-treating. It was a cold night and Avery actually got a 24 hr case of croup on top of the flu so she just couldn't go out. I still dressed up the sickies in their costumes and we did some mock trick-or-treating with them. Oh and I did take Avery to our duplex neighbor's door and she loaded us up, so that was nice. She actually was a good sport and didn't get too disappointed, although I was let down after having told her three trick-or-treat stories every night for the past month to get her ready!

Yesterday Avery started talking about NEXT Halloween already and what she wanted to be - a cat or a witch. So I decided to get it over with so we can move on. I made her hair into some cat ears and drew whiskers on her face. She was positively delighted. I also made her a witch hat out of construction paper, cardboard, and staples and she rode around on my kitchen broom for a while.

We're all starting to feel better now and I'm secretly glad/sad that we don't have a mountain of candy to eat! Hope your Halloween was fun!

19 Months

Camryn is 19 months today. Doesn't she look adorable? Well, she really is. However, she is officially a menace because of this one skill she learned this month - Pushing chairs around and climbing up on them. Hello, little monkey! This gives her access to all my kitchen drawers which she can empty with alarming speed. I quickly learned to hide all my scissors because I would hear the bonechilling sound of scissors: open-close-open-close-open-close. This would send me sprinting into the kitchen only to find Camryn practically beaming at her discovery - "Look Mom! I can work the scissors!" She has also learned how to climb onto the toilet without a step or chair. With a chair, she can get into the sink and onto the top of her changing table. It is not uncommon for Avery to come to me saying, "Uh oh, Mom, look what Camy's doing!" I'm surprised she hasn't broken a limb yet.

Camryn's favorite game is called "Jo" (aka "Joooooooooo!"). It's where she stands at the top of the stairs and chucks a toy down while yelling "Jo!" Repeat until parents intervene. Avery loves to play too, but she's able to make a bigger mess even more quickly. We think "Jo" is her word for "throw" or "go". Silly girl.

Well we sure love her a lot. Even though she drives me nuts sometimes. She really is adorable.

My Date with Avery

Occasionally we like to take Avery on "dates" with just one of us. Merrick has taken her to a few movies and it helps give her some attention away from Camryn. This time I heard about the PERFECT date for me and her: A Fairy Tale Day at the Bayshore Mall. The Milwaukee Ballet Company is putting on Cinderella next week and some of the ballerinas came to the mall in costume and the kids got to dress up like princesses and take pictures with them, etc. It was awesome!

Here is Avery posing with Cinderella herself:

This is her with an Autumn Fairy Dancer:

And her personal favorite - the Spring Fairy, who was her favorite color - GREEN:

The event consisted of pictures with the ballerinas, the kids making their own wands, a reading of the Cinderella story, coloring a Cinderella page, and TONS of little girls dressed up like fairies and princesses. Here's Avery with the wand she made:

We had a great time together! And it really made me want to go see the ballet (I think this was kind of the point).

Lathered Up

We had some friends over for dinner last night. While we were eating dessert, Avery and her friend Nate (who has the same birthday as her, incidentally) were upstairs. We thought they were happily playing with toys while we chatted, until Nate comes running downstairs with some dots on his pants and face. We realized it was lotion and easily wiped him off. I headed upstairs to check on Avery. This is what I found...


A whole bit bottle of Cetaphil lotion DUMPED into the sink and lathered all over Avery - her clothes, her face, her legs... The mirror was wiped all over with it, the whole counter had a nice layer of it.
At least we know she'll be moisturized right? Hehe. It was actually hilarious. I was secretly relieved I hadn't scrubbed down the upstairs bathroom in preparation for company - I have to clean it all over today anyway! (And I was also glad it wasn't on the carpet- that would have been a nightmare). After her quick bath, Avery was good as new.

A couple of three year olds plus a bottle of lotion is not a good combination!

Wisconsin Apple Pickin'

Don't these apples just look delicious? I sure hope so, because we've got a lot of them! Merrick and I took the kids apple picking this morning before Conference. The Honeycrisp apples are in season and we definitely wanted to take advantage of the local U-Pick farm.

Camryn and Avery had fun trying to get them off the trees, although they had a little trouble picking the best ones (according to Merrick). It was a nice chilly October morning!

Merrick and Avery with our big bag of apples. Boy, you can fit a lot of apples in that bag. Of course on the way home we had to try them out. The result...

Happy kids! They both chomped away on them all the way home. They were super juicy, crisp... probably the best apples we've ever had. And I'm pretty sure they were some of the freshest apples we've ever had too! Here's to apple pie, apple crisp, applesauce, apples and peanut butter... Mmmm....