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.