Summer Reading

Soooo, I haven't been blogging much. But I have been reading.

I started the summer with this YA book. It was a lovely read.  Every chapter highlighted a bird drawing by Audobon and I loved how it tied into this story of a tween age boy figuring himself out.  

My MOTHER recommended this one.  

It was totally not what I expected! I was expecting something, I don't know, fantastical like City of Bones, but it read like McCullough's "1776", straight up history but then wait, Abe Lincoln is wielding an axe and chopping off vampire heads! It was fascinating and a lot of fun!

On my way to Minnesota for Memorial Day, I got totally sucked into The Night Circus.  What a delightful read, full of amazing imagery and characters.  It reminded me of the movie, The Prestige. A fantastic circus that is the setting of two magicians who are in a competition to create the best illusion! It was so beautiful!

 So, I didn't love Austenland. It was so hard for me to buy a girl diving into Austen world and then breaking all the rules and thinking her romance was real? Nah! But this one included a murder mystery and real characters! I really enjoyed it! 

 This one came to me via a goodreads friend and I was sucked in by the Jane Eyre parallels.  It is retold in Scotland in the 1960's. I loved the difference, the update and I loved the ending! Ah! All is well in the world when Jane, or in this case Gemma, gets her man! 

 What should I read next???? 

a date with my lu

Miss M had a birthday party, W was off studying, so I took lulu to dinner.  We strolled the shops while we waited for a table. 

 Lulu has had a rough transition to school being out.  She doesn't get her one on one time with sister out of school.  You could tell she loved being with just Mom.

 So I treated her to an oreo big orange shake.  

 And oh my goodness, their hamburgers and truffle fries.  yum!!!!

 I love my little girl so much.  She's been a toot lately but it's pretty much our fault for giving in to that scrunched up grin so much.  

 I love when my mellow girl is a bit nuts like her mama. 

baby shower mania

 It's baby season! My baby sis is expecting a boy at the end of August (totally weird!),

my sister in law delivered twins in March and we finally found time to celebrate Miss Eden, and my dear friend Rebecca is expecting her first boy in July.  

I had my hand in three showers in three weeks! I'm tired and broke now! :) But it was a joy to celebrate all these babies!

Grace wants an alphabet wall for her nursery (like above, c/o pinterest)

I requested the letters M and L so baby Clarke can have some special gifts from my girls.

 Miss M picked out the letter, the colors, the design and helped put the whole thing together.

 We painted her letter, covered a canvas with scrapbook paper and attached the letter.

 She loved how it turned out!

Lulu voted for a design after I suggested a few options.  Funny enough, she voted for buttons but when it was done she said she didn't like it. :(

So Miss M posed with it instead. :)

 And I threw in a monkey shirt for good measure. Every baby boy needs a good monkey shirt, right?

 I made yummy cupcakes but Miss M proclaimed them "ugly but still tasty." I make tasty frosting but I determined to follow more recipes for frosting for better consistency.

I have to grab some pictures of Maria Mae's shower from Grace, but it was a wonderful evening of feasting on yummy treats, sharing presents and chatting with good friends. We are blessed to have such wonderful friends here in Little Rock.

For Rebecca's shower, we were having an open house so we had NO idea how many were going to come, so we will be eating pasta all week! :)

But these lovely beauties are long gone.  I tried my hand at ourbestbites.com's lemon frosting recipe and well, I could eat that stuff by the bowl full, it was that tasty.  I will be making their frosting again!!!

 I made a bunting to decorate the mantle in baby Wilk's colors.  It went home with Rebecca, hopefully to find a home in the nursery!

I still have stuff to make and send off to Idaho and Colorado and Minnesota, the babies continue to arrive! Onward! :)

Operation Summer

After last night's whiny post (I should not be allowed to post in the middle of the night!), you probably are going to think I'm a bit bipolar right now after this one.  :)

The day after school got out, Miss M and I sat down and made a summer bucket list.

I was proud of some of her suggestions.

-exercise

-read 100 books

-read a chapter book aloud as a family

-free movies

-free bowling

-LOTS of swimming

-field trips to the mid-America or Discovery Museum

-play dates with school and church friends

and more!

We've already made a great dent in our book goal, swimming and exercising goals.  I have got to get down a good routine for myself walking now that school is out, but we will get there!

I have added a few things to keep us on track.  

Today we started new chore charts.  We have stickers and everything to help the girls remember to help with things that they can do!

They are in charge of making their beds, putting away their clothes and toys but they also need to have reading time and pick a chore to help Mom (like wiping down the bathroom or sweeping).  Lu is a bit resistant-I have babied this girl a bit, I'm afraid!  But today they are excited about their stickers.  Hopefully that will last! :)

Second, I have added Disney Bucks!

I found cute images online and made our own Disney Bucks.  Disney Bucks can be earned by a good chore day, a great attitude, doing something above and beyond and bigger bucks can be earned for an entire good week!  However, you can also lose Disney Bucks for a bad attitude, sassing, breaking rules, etc.  

This afternoon, we are making Disney banks for our bucks.  At the end of the fall, before our trip, the girls will cash in their bucks for a real allowance that will be their souvenir money for the trip.  

I'm excited.  I was surprised last summer at how bored Miss M was with school out and I was determined to not let that happen this summer.  Here's to a great one!

midnight blogging

I'm up at 4am paying for yummy Indian food at Sunday dinner.
Sam chose Indian for his final Sunday dinner...for the next two years.
It was yummy but it's always a lot of work and I didn't feel very good.
I've decided that drug-induced cycles are just as bad as drug-induced contractions.
It just doesn't feel natural.
We are almost to the end of week two of the madness that is the capstone class.
It's worse than we had planned and anticipated.
I'm not succeeding at being supportive. I am succeeding at nagging and complaining.
My goal for this week is to eat right, exercise, scream less and not ask how many pages he has written.
I think it will benefit everyone.

I was thinking at 2am how interesting it is to me that I almost feel more stressed this month than I did about the house nightmare.
I find that odd and quite sad.
I feel like it's the GEICO summer where my husband lived in another state. He just sleeps next to me this time.
He has a new work supervisor, and he hasn't been as supportive like his last one.
So instead of getting time off to study, he is waking up in an hour to work another 15 hour work day.
It makes me want to scream and call up HR, but then I remind myself of the last time I intervened at work.
Like I said, I'm not succeeding at this right now.
Every conversation is a status update.
I long for pillow talk and the fourth of July.
We usually avoid fireworks, but we are celebrating this Independence Day!
Because we will be FREE from grad school, and it's gotta feel better than this!!

Memphis Temple

I got to be in the temple last weekend with my parents and every one of my siblings. 

See the boy in the middle with the pink nametag? That's my brother Sam.  You've heard about him.  He is leaving on a two year mission for our church at the end of this month.  He will be serving in Reno Nevada, which is a brand new mission, and he will be awesome.  I'm sure of it.

It was a sweet experience to watch him in the temple as he received his endowment.  I'm stealing the following definition from my brother who found it at lds.org.
Endowment. In a general sense, a gift of power from God. Worthy members of the Church can receive a gift of power through ordinances in the temple that gives them the instruction and covenants of the Holy Priesthood that they need in order to attain exaltation. The endowment includes instruction about the plan of salvation.
There you go. You can read more at mormon.org


I love the temple, and I love being in the temple with my family.  My little cute pregnant sister even got to come and be with us in the temple all the way from Idaho and we all made sacrifices so that we could do this together.  (Plus, we got to enjoy the deliciousness that is J. Alexander's afterward!)


The craziness will continue for one more week until Sam and my parents leave for a week of diving in Mexico (I know, life is rough for them!) and then he is off to the Missionary Training Center! 

busy busy

I never knew May would be so busy!
The end of school was a flurry of programs, field day, teacher appreciation week, carpool duty, graduation, and more!
There was only one week between W's semesters for a visit to his parents, so we went for it and threw in a big trip in the middle of the madness! (more on that soon)
My baby brother, who is mission bound at the end of June, went to the temple for the first time yesterday, resulting in a wonderful extended family day trip to Memphis! (more on that soon)
My little sister came out for said temple trip and we threw in a baby shower (because we weren't busy enough!) to celebrate her cute 6 month baby bump! (more on that soon)
I am also helping throw two more baby showers in the next two weeks.
We are starting a summer work schedule which consolidates my hours into two days a week. It also means I'm working on filling the other three days up so that Miss M won't go into routine withdrawals.
We have big plans for major pool time, free summer movies, summer library reading club, free bowling, and vacation bible school!
W has a five week class that may kill us all!
It's gonna be a good one! I'll try to catch up the blog soon!