Little Smiths, Big Talent

Did you ever realize that Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and the ABC song have the same tune? It makes learning that song convenient for little kids. Although Camryn kind of gets confused and mixes them up a little. Here's a little video of my kids singing talents. I know the Grandma's will at least love it. :)

Avery liked watching herself sing so she got really into the enunciation. Oh and yes, she does say "Z2B" instead of "TUV". I'll forgive her. :)

I Made It!

I've been de-cluttering my house lately, thanks to FlyLady (thanks Ali!). As I was going through my clothes, instead of giving all the rejects to Good Will, I picked out a few things that I could possibly repurpose. I had this longsleeved shirt that was too short on me but the fabric was still in good shape (I wish I had taken a picture of it before I cut it up). I decided to make it into a shirt for Avery, using this tutorial. I basically just made a pattern out of one of Avery's shirts that fits, cut the shirt up, leaving the collar and sleeve hems intact so I didn't have to do those myself. It took about an hour and a half and turned out super cute. Voila!
I love the ruffle detail. That was the easiest and funnest part. Avery is a cute model isn't she? ... I just love having girls.

A SunBEAM!

Avery is a Sunbeam now! This is a picture of her on her first Sunday as a Sunbeam. She's gone twice now. Can you believe there are 17 new sunbeams in our ward? It was a pretty crazy first day!! But Avery did great- after only a few minutes of protesting, she sat in her chair, listened, and even started participating. Yesterday she was asking if we get to go to Sunbeams yet!

Binky Free in 2010

Camryn's New Year's Resolution was to give her pacifiers to the "Binky Fairy." She's a couple months away from her second birthday and it was about time to give it up. So the morning of January 1, 2010 we put the binkies in a box, set them on the doorstep and they were magically replaced with a new toy. Camryn's done really well and only had one rough night. She's old enough to at least partially "get" the fact that they're gone, so she didn't even ask for them very much. We're proud of her!

And really, let's be honest, it was MY New Year's Resolution more than hers. I was thinking about how we've had pacifiers in our house for 3 1/2 years straight. Avery gave hers up over a year ago, a few months after her 2nd birthday. And so that pretty much means I've had to be constantly aware of where at least one binky is ALL the time since Avery was old enough to throw it out of her mouth. If I didn't then that would lead to frantic searching for binkies under couches, behind cribs, in toy bins, in drawers, etc. What a relief to be done with this dependence of my own creation.

So I'm glad to say that we're Binky Free now... At least until we have another kid. (Not anytime soon, by the way!)

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?