Summer Book Club!

I had this fabulous idea for a summer book club! After researching some books, I've finally made the book choices and I hope you all like them too. If you've already read them, will you still please join us in the discussion?

We are going to read one book a month and have one meeting a month to discuss the book. If you don't live in my area and want to join along, I will post discussion questions here on my blog and post pictures from our book club meeting and you can give your input in the comments at the end of the post. Now, to introduce the books:

June's Book

The Help. I haven't read it yet, but have heard a lot of good things about it. It's set in the Civil rights era in Jackson, Miss. A young white author and recent college grad returns home to write a book. She decides to write a book, a compilation of stories from the help, the mistreated black women who raise the white children.

The meeting for this book will be on Monday, June 14th, at 7:00 p.m. That gives you 3 and a half weeks to get this book and read it.

I got this book at Costco. This is the most expensive of the three books. I wanted to keep it under $15 a book. I'm sure you could also get this book from the library or buddy up with someone else and share the cost of the books. I will be happy to loan my books out as soon as I'm done reading them. (At the end of the post, I'll talk more about where you can purchase the books.)

July's Book

This is a book I kept eyeing over and over again at Costco. I did a little research and heard some good things. It's a series of letters, back and forth between the author in the story and other people in the Society. It's set in war times. Some say books written in this style can be hard to follow but I've heard this book is well written. It sounds interesting and if you would like to read more reviews, check them out at amazon.

The book club meeting for this book will be on Monday July 12th at 7:00 p.m.

August's book

The Red Tent. This is a book that was recommended to me by two of my book worm friends. Both of them said this was their favorite book of all time. I've wanted to read this for over a year and haven't yet. Some of you may have read this before. I can't wait to read it! Go over to amazon and read the review for this one also.

The meeting for this book will be on Monday, August 9th at 7:00 p.m.

Where to purchase books:

I purchased The Help and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society at Costco. The Red Tent I got at Barnes and Noble for $15. I got all three books for $36.98. However, if you order all three books from www.amazon.com at the same time, you will get free shipping. The cost of the books at amazon are, The Help $13.72, The GLPPPS is $5.99 (paperback), and The Red Tent is $10.20. It's $29.91, if you order from amazon and you'll qualify for free shipping. Not to mention they come right to your front door!

Details:

Book club will be at my house. If you want to join, email me or facebook message me and I will send you my address. My email address is (staples underscore michele at yahoo dot com).

I choose 7:00 p.m. to give the moms time to feed their families and get little ones ready for bed. My children will be here, but my husband is going to keep them locked up in the other room to watch a movie. (Not literally locked up.) Kids would never be banned and it would not be a huge deal if you brought them, but you might enjoy yourself more if your children were not in attendance. I need a monthly baby fix, so please bring your squishy babies for me to hold.

Snacks, drinks and coffee will be provided. Book club is open to anyone, if you would like to invite a friend. I just need to know how many people will be coming.

Please, please join me in food, fun and semi-intelligent conversation!

(I had to spell check intelligent.)

Michele

Wordless Wednesday

To all the Mother's Who....

These were my gifts from Laney. One she made at school. I am so thankful for a homemade gift that someone else helped her make! The other gift Laney made at home, holed up in the playroom. Scroll down for a close-up.

That would be q-tips and cotton balls wrapped in tampon string. She said they were to put in my purse, in case I need to clean out my ears sometime. She didn't have any rope to tie them up, so she used "those thingies". Don't you just love being a Mom!?

Meet Marvin

We got a dog. We are technically fostering him, but we are pretty sure we are going to adopt him. We just need to take him to the vet and make sure he's healthy. We went to an adopt-a-thon this weekend to just "look" at puppies. Josh has been wanting a basset hound but we were still up in the air about getting a dog and maybe waiting one more year until the girls were older. The basset hound rescue was there and we went over to pet them. Josh spotted Marvin, Marvin spotted Josh, it was love at first sight.

He's a basset hound/beagle mix. He's 18 months old and fully house trained. I don't think we could have found a better fitting dog for our family. He's the perfect size, not too big to knock the girls over and not too small to get squashed by the girls. Marvin loves the girls and the girls love him. He's very patient with them and lets them love on him. He sleeps in our bed or Olivia's bed at night. He's already been dressed up like a princess and a jedi.

He's awesome on a leash. Laney walks him to the bus stop every morning. Marvin hears when the girls wake up and goes in to kiss them. I can't even tell you how calm he is.

Addison was a little scared of Marvin the first day. She wouldn't get off the furniture without being held. So Josh calmly and slowly introduced them and showed her that Marvin won't hurt her. (She saying, "No Daddy, he bite me!")

He started with a leg touch. She freaked and then laughed.

And now she's on the ground petting him and sitting next to him!

She's still a teeny bit scared if he sneaks up on her or jumps on her bed.

Giggles

Addy was napping and the other three were supposed to be having quiet time. Instead, they were fighting and I needed them to be quiet so Addy would take a good nap. I warned them that if they didn't watch their movie and continued to fight, I would make them all take a nap. Of course they continued to fight. I turned the movie off. Made them all close their eyes and get under the covers. I got up to check on them and Savanna was asleep (or so I thought) and the other two were still wiggling. I proceeded to tell them to stop wiggling and go to sleep. Savanna, who is still asleep (or so I thought) says, "I asleep Mama!" She's a really good faker! I had to laugh and everyone else laughed and they did not take a nap that day.

Teeth Happenings

My first baby has lost her first tooth. It has been slightly wiggly for weeks, and got extremely wiggly the past few days. She has been saving money for a camera and knew the tooth fairy would bring her money. Several kids in her class have missing teeth, so she was ready to lose it. She asked me to pull it out!

Since Laney goes to school and has seen other kids lose their teeth, she was fully prepared to lose one. Savanna and Olivia had no idea you lose teeth and new ones eventually grow back. So when I pulled it out, Savanna's jaw dropped and she didn't understand. She said she does not want to lose her teeth.

The tooth fairy left a scroll of a hand written note and five dollars. (After the tooth fairy researched on facebook what the going rate for a first tooth is and then ran to the closest grocery store for some cash.) The note said, brush your teeth and you only get $5 for the first tooth because it is extra special.

I had a little bit of an emotional connection to her tooth that I wasn't expecting. Do you keep or throw away your kids teeth?

Easter 2010

Laney

Olivia

Savanna

Addison

This is the only decent picture of the four of them. I let everyone pick out their own Easter dress this year. Savanna picked a WHITE dress. Of course the messiest kid picked the white dress. I couldn't change her mind and her dress was covered in chocolate by the end of the day.

Easter egg hunt at home.

I dressed Savanna that morning and I put her dress on backwards. I didn't notice until after we came home from church.

I made carrot cake cupcakes.

The day was so perfect. We went to church as a family. New Mexico is very windy this time of year and there was almost no wind that day.