Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Last Years Book List

These are the books I read last year. The highlighted ones are books I would highly recommend, the others may have been good, but my memory is not that great. Let me know if you have any recommendations for this years reading list. I'm always looking for a good book to read.
Bamboo People
Burned
Three To Get Deadly
Two For The Dough
One For The Money
The Maze Runner
Sackett
Olive Kitteridge
Teaching Your Child About Sex
Mockingjay
Outliers
The Book Thief
The Help
The Devil in the White City
The Graveyard Book
Garden Spells
A Year Down Yonder
A Long Way From Chicago
These Is My Words
Catching Fire
Hunger Games

Saturday, February 19, 2011

A Funny Story

Today we were having a nice relaxing Saturday. Casey, Hanny, my mom, and I were just finishing up a rousing game of Rummikub and my Dad had opted out of the game in order to do some yard work. We had enjoyed watching him burn the tufts of elephant grass in order to prepare them for the new spring growth, when suddenly we noticed my Dad running to the garage, then away from the garage with a rake. He was running fast enough to alert us that something was going on, it wasn't a leisurely run. We all sprang from the table to see what was the matter and what to our wondering eyes should appear but a blaze of fire and to our neighbors wood pile it was drawing near. To be a little more accurate the wood pile was actually on fire, and on the opposite side of the yard one of the grass fires had spread and was leaving charred yard in it's wake. A few of us flew into action and manned the water hose in a way that would have impressed even the best fire departments, and my Mom grabbed a large metal shovel and began beating the tire out of the lawn fire. The situation was so funny we couldn't help laughing as we worked to subdue the flames, but as we finished my dad said "I guess you should never plant that stuff close to your house, I only used one match, just imagine if you had them close to the house one cigarette butt could burn down your whole house". On a brighter note, I know know what I'm doing for Dad for next years memory Christmas. I'm getting him a box of matches and labeling it "The Amazing All Inclusive Lawn Care Kit".

P.S. I've been getting a lot of slack about ignoring my blog, and I just wanted to submit photographic evidence (these are just the ones I could find easily) that I have not been sitting around eating bonbons and watching Soap Operas. I'm (actually everyone in this house) is frantically trying to keep up with this little scoundrel! Exhibit number one - he smeared butter all over the refrigerator, himself, the counter, and the floor (then he had the audacity to look at me as if he were totally innocent). Exhibit number two - he managed to trap himself inside the lamp shade (if we'd been smart we would have left him in there). Exhibit numbers three and four - you can just see the mischief in this little boy.




Tuesday, February 1, 2011

A wordie update

It's been so fun being at my parents house I haven't found much time to blog, but I've gotten some heckling (mostly my dad and Grandpa) so I'm going to try to do better. We've been without a laundry machine for the past week, which really stinks. That is one thing I NEVER take for granted. Every day I feel grateful for a washing machine (I think it's because I've lived without one for so long), but Casey being the sweetheart that he is has been taking on the responsibility of taking the wash to the Laundromat.

In other news Miles is really starting to talk. Well, I guess I should clarify, he likes to repeats words, but there is a little list of words he'll say on his own. Some of his most frequently used words are "Juice", "Nana" (meaning banana, much to the dismay of Nana - my mom), "Hot", "Shoes", "Belly", "Shoot", "Ball", and "Bath". He's learned to climb out of his crib (grrr), I'm not sure why my boys insist on being so adventurous at such a young age, but I'm just telling myself it's only a phase. He'll also start Nursery this week which should make church much more enjoyable (YIPPIE).

Bennett is enjoying the peace and quiet of the days when the kids are at school. He's quite the square eyes and wants to watch TV every chance he gets. I think we got into quite a bad habit because for the past 3 weeks we've been passing sicknesses back and forth, and since we can't leave the house with sick kids we've been relying on the TV a bit too much. Bennett really wishes he could go to school like Porter and Maya, but I'm just not ready to give him up yet. He's still at that age where he really loves his Momma and I love that he will cuddle with me throughout the day.

Maya is loving school and although she seems to be a bit behind in math she does well with reading and spelling. She is such a pleasant kid and like Bennett would be happy to sit in front of the TV all day. I'm really grateful to have Maya in our family. She is so easy to get along with. She is still dying to get a pet, and sometimes we have to put up with tears because she doesn't have one. They had the 100th day of school on Friday and in her 100th day of school book she wrote "I wish I had 100 pets". I keep thinking I should just get her a hamster and be done with it, but I remember when we were kids my Grandpa got us two hamsters which turned into more hamsters! Then the mom hamster went crazy and ate the babies and starved the dad to death. It wasn't the cute little happy hamster family you imagine. I'm just not sure I'm willing to gamble on my ability to pick a non-pregnant hamster.

Porter is also loving school (he's been kicking butt on his spelling tests) although he almost always puts up a fight about waking up. Recently we've discovered he'll wake up pretty willingly for one of Nana's egg sandwiches. That boy loves his Nana. She took him to the church for the scout pinewood derby race the other night and he was absolutely in heaven. He's getting really excited for his eighth birthday. We've been talking about baptism in Family Home Evening and trying to prepare him for that, but I think after the Pinewood Derby he's more excited for Scouts. We are really excited that Casey's parents will be able to come out for the baptism! It'll be so fun to see Grammy and Poppy again. Porter and Maya were putting together a puzzle of the United States, and I was showing them all the places Casey has sent portfolio's to (Washington D.C., Mass., Ohio, Indiana, Texas, Utah, and Washington). I asked them which place they would like to live the most. Maya picked Utah "So we can see Benji" and Porter picked Indiana, Ohio, or Pennsylvania "Because Utah is too far from Nana".