January book log

Here it is! The first month of my book logs for the year!!

I'm so excited about this. I was so inspired by Sarah's monthly book updates that I now have a long list of "to reads" and a year long goal to read 60 books (if not more!) by December 31.

This month I read three books, which is not a lot, but the fourth book I've been reading I'm on page 500 out of 900+ pages. It has sucked up a lot of my reading this month.

I started the year reading Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I've been eyeballing this book for a while (totally based on the cover, which is creepy cool). It is a young adult novel and a pretty quick read, but I found the story so interesting. We meet Jacob, a bored 16 year old, whose grandfather, whom he adores, is slowly slipping into dementia. When Jacob's grandfather mysteriously dies, leaving Jacob with last words that make no sense, Jacob must search for things in his grandfather's past that Jacob had always thought to be tall tales. This book is smart, well written, and engaging. I'm encouraging Elisabeth to read it, but she's kind of freaked out by the cover. :)

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
I bought this book because I thought it looked interesting and I kept seeing it everywhere. The book is told in short stories, all of which involve Olive Kitteridge in some way--some told from Olive's perspective, others told from her husband Henry, and more from those in her small Maine town. The book was hit or miss. Olive's point of view and her husband's were the strongest and most captivating. The other characters I felt rushed to "meet" and it just felt done ineffectively. I did like trying to figure out how Olive would become intertwined in the others' stories, but overall, this book was very meh. Not a keeper.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
I have been wanting to read this book for a while. I saw the preview for the movie a couple years ago, but I just can't seem to make myself watch anything 9/11 related yet. In the beginning, I thought the book would be only about Oskar, a 9 year old boy whose father died in the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, but the book ended up intertwining Oskar's story with that of his paternal grandmother and grandfather who lived through the bombing of their hometown of Dresdan, Germany during WWII. This book was so unique in its fabulous writing style, visuals that blend in with what you're reading, and characters that were instantly familiar, but still slowly unfolded in front of you. Definitely a book I'd recommend and earned a spot on my permanent bookshelf.


What's the fourth book I'm in the middle of, you ask? A Feast of Crows, book 4 of the A Song Of Ice and Fire series (aka: Game of Thrones books).  I am completely captivated by this world George R.R. Martin has created. But, I'll talk more about that next month.

Roosevelt

When we bought Roosevelt and Figaro in June 2009, we had them checked out at a veterinary and we were told that Roosevelt had a heart murmur.  He was 1.5 yrs old and the vet said that the heart murmur may never bother him and he could live to be 20 or it could catch up with him one day unexpectedly.  On January 8th, his heart murmur caught up with him.  He was outside with Figaro, hanging out with the neighborhood cat gang, when Figaro started making weird noises. Elisabeth heard them from the house and went out to make sure they weren't being bothered and found Roosevelt lying in the grass with Figaro and the other cat staring at him trying to lick him awake. Roosevelt had had a stroke and we laid him on the floor in the house. We were all very upset and petting him as he was dying and, true to his nature, he started purring because he was getting so much attention.

I know that I have talked on here before about how I am not the pet person I thought I was. Having two cats was more than I'd bargained for and I have always said that when the cats die, I didn't want them replaced. Well, I was wrong about myself again. Turns out, I loved that cat much more than I had thought. He had many (many) annoying qualities, but he was sweet. He was so laid back with the kids and let them pick him up, dress him up, pull on his tail, love him just a bit too roughly. 

Besides Figaro, who is still kind of lost without his cuddle buddy, it has been hardest on Julia. Roosevelt was her first buddy, her first best friend. She has drawn pictures of him and we are working on a shutterfly book about him so we'll always remember him. When Evan took Roosevelt the next morning to the vet to have him cremated, Julia, who we had talked to about what would happen, still cried when Evan came home without Roosevelt. She thought that maybe the animal doctors could make him come back alive. Those sobs were the saddest. 

So, here are a few pictures of our Roosevelt. We are so glad that we walked into that PetSmart and saw that big cat in the top of the tower of cat cages, so excited to see people that he was shaking the whole tower trying to get petted. We knew he'd be the one for us and are so thankful for the 4 short years he was apart of our family.

 Seriously, they were so bizarre together.

 I can not even tell you how many pictures I have from my phone and camera of these two cuddling like they don't know where one starts and one ends.

 This is the last picture I took of him, snuggling up with Figaro.

We miss you, Roosevelt.

My girls got to play in the snow!

The day after Christmas, we packed up and headed to Illinois to spend time with our families. The girls were super duper hoping for snow. They wanted to watch it fall, they wanted to play in it, they wanted to go sledding. We arrived in Pekin on Friday, December 27th and it did not snow gobs until the day we left, January 2nd. So, while i packed up the car to leave Illinois, the kids bundled up and played in the snow.

It was the first time Vivian had seen or played in snow. She was surprisingly very excited.

 Why does your Vivian have a sore on her forehead, you ask? Because she likes to rub her head against walls. Completely normal...

 How cute are they all bundled up?  We have zero reason to bundle up like this in Texas. Zero. In fact, yesterday, it was 76 degrees.

 What kind of boots are your girls wearing in the snow, Virginia?  Oh, pink cowboy boots. Matching ones. They're the only boots we own...

 What I loved is that Ethan and Owen were so excited for the girls to see snow. They wanted it to snow just as much as my kids did just so they could all play in it together.

And, because they are awesome, Nina and Papa had the toboggan ready just in case it snowed enough. They came over in the morning and took all 5 kids sledding down the hills on the golf course behind Kyle's house. 

I'm very thankful that the girls got to experience a white Christmas. I do miss the smell of snow and how glittery and pretty it is after it has freshly fallen. However, I will say that there was a part of me (a large part, right around pancreas) that is so very glad that we do not live where it snows. Dude, it is cold up north.  Like, painful to breathe in cold. And, you have to scrape your car and warm it up. There is so much to make sure you have to avoid your children turning into popsicles like gloves, scarves, hats, big coats, all clothing fleece, tall socks. We took up an obscene amount of room in the church pew due to having to take off all the layers. I do not miss those parts of winter. 

See? I keep telling you all, the longer I live here, the more Texified I become!! It's in the water, I swear it.

Friday Chit Chat

January has been rough on us health wise. Since New Year's Eve, at least one out of the five of us has been ill. It is really hard to catch up on cleaning the house from Christmas and a trip to Illinois when you are either lying on the couch trying not to vomit or so stuffed up your head is going to explode. But, the last two days I have felt almost 100% better and so I thought I would start the year off right by blogging....17 days into the new year...whatever.

These pictures are from November, but I haven't shared them yet and I need to share them with you all.

 There is a picnic area on Ft. Sam that the girls call the Turtle Pond.  It is not a pond, nor does it have turtles, but it's one of their favorite places on post. We took a picnic lunch and enjoyed the balmy November weather.

 One of the things I'm trying to focus on this year is simplifying. We're not very high maintenance people, but it is very easy to get caught up in things and activities. I have a plan on going through our house room by room, closet by closet, and purging things we don't need or don't use. I'd like to spend more time home together just hanging out. No specific bullet point goals, just a simple Simplifying Goal.

 Ooh, I totally forgot to tell you all my book reading goal!  I'd like to read at least 60 books this year and plan on the books I've read each month here. I got the idea from my friend Sarah who did this on her own blog last year and I LOVED seeing her book reviews at the end of the month. I have added quite a few she recommended to my own "to read" list. One of the nice things about forcing my children to love books or be kicked out of the family instilling a love of reading in my children is that Elisabeth is at a reading level where she and I can share books. She flew through The Hunger Games and is currently on the third book of the Divergent series. She's going to lend them to me when she's done and can not wait to discuss them with me. How fun is that? She has her own bookshelf in her room that is brimming with books she's bought or received and she was talking to me about getting another bookshelf for her room.  Yeah, as great as that idea is, there is zero room for another bookshelf. I told her that I might be able to make room on one of my bookshelves for her  book overflow.

 I received 4 cookbooks for Christmas this year. Do you know how excited I am?? One is a slowcooker cookbook, which is awesome because I try to use the crockpot weekly and I am always looking for new recipes. I got the 2nd and 3rd cookbooks from The Pioneer Woman, which is freaking awesome because I do love her food (although Evan is worried I will lose my mind and use gobs of butter like I did when I bought her first cookbook and forgot that we are not active cowboys on a ranch who will burn off those calories before lunchtime). And, lastly, I got the 2nd edition of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking which I am completely geeking out over!!!!  I big puffy heart Julia Child--the girls and I watch her first season of her cooking show on Netflix, I've read a few books about her and how she became this iconic chef, and basically have a cooking crush on her.

 I have been finding books for Evan to listen to in the car on his commute to work. Not only is it fun to try to find books I think he will like, but sometimes I will read the same book (if I haven't read it yet) or pick books that I loved to see how he feels about them. It's kind of like having a spousal book club. I'll tell you what, though, he just makes me want to stay married to him forever every time he says, "Hey, I need a new book, I'm almost done with this one. Can you pick one out for me?" Swoon.

 We took the girls to see Frozen last weekend. Not only was it a cute movie (in that I didn't want to pull my eyeballs out), but it is the first movie that Vivian stayed awake through without trying to escape!  This is a huge milestone for her!  She is not the most patient of children and when she is done...she is DONE! But, with a whole bucket of popcorn within her reach, she was golden.

 Today I went to the Y for the first time in over a month. Thankfully, I did not forget how to use the machines, but I have embarrassingly backtracked in my workout abilities. I am thinking about actually participating in the free classes they offer (I know, novel idea, right?), but first I want to be able to be on the elliptical for 45 minutes again without wishing to cry. I hate how easy it is to fall out of good habits and so easy to pick up bad ones again. Why is it that I must convince myself to get into the car and drive to the Y, but that once I've worked out I am so, so glad I did? I kind of thought these habits would get easier as I age, but presumably not.

 The longer we live here, the more I find to appreciate about Texas. Now, don't get all concerned, I have zero desire to ever (EVER) make it my permanent home, but it is nice to be able to be outside almost all year long. Today, the high was in the upper 60s. The girls played outside the majority of the day in perfect sunshine and light jackets. It stays lighter longer and, even though it gets mother effing hot way too soon, we've lived here long enough that we've grown accustomed to the heat and the girls will gladly play outside in anything under 100 degrees.

I can't believe I just typed those positive words about Texas...