My most recent reads...

Although I have not been POSTING about reading....I have actually finished a few books in the last few months.  Some good, some not so good and some GREAT!!!!  Here is what I have had on my night stand..

THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton.  This book was FANTASTIC.  I can honestly say (and remember I am an English teacher) that this is the most well written book I have read in a long time.  I LOVED IT.  It took me forever to read because it is big and thick and full of twists and turns, but WELL WORTH IT.  I cannot even begin to explain the main gist of this book...to much going on.  It switches back and forth between the past, the present, and the WAY past.  It jumps through generations in order to answer all of the questions.  The main question being...who is Nell and where did she come from...and why???  As a toddler Nell was found on the docks in Australia and adopted by a local family.  She does not know where she came from or why she is alone.  This book travels through time to find out WHO SHE IS.  Many times you think you know...and then WHAT???  You have no idea.  I loved the mystery of it.  And seriously you cannot figure out the answers unless you read the whole thing.  LOVE THAT!!!  I have also read The House at Riverton by Kate Morton and loved it also. 

Next I read Rachel's Secret by BJ Hoff.  I am not sure why I end up picking so many Amish books, but I just find their culture just so darn interesting.  In this one, Rachel is an Amish widow.  One night she gets a knock on the door and it is a white man with a gunshot wound and a black man.  They end up being conductors for the Underground Railroad and the whole thing causes problems in the quiet Amish community.  Rachel ends up having feelings for the man (which is a big no no!!) and outsiders begin causing problems for the Amish; barn burnings, verbal abuse, and finally kidnapping.  This was an OK book.  I am always interested in the Underground Railroad, but there was not enough about it in the book for me.

Of course that did not stop me from reading BOOK 2, Where Grace Abides.  Jeremiah stays in the community but cannot socialize with Rachel because he is not Amish.  More problems arise and MORE love problems.  Again...ok but not a great book.  I have not read the 3rd installment and am not too sad about it.

I realize I may have a problem, but when I see an Amish girl on the front of a book I just have to check it out.  BESIDE STILL WATERS by Tricial Goyer was my next read.  This was another OK, but not great book.  This book starts when an Amish family traveling home gets into a horrible accident.  Their buggy is hit by a Semi Truck and their 2 daughters are killed.  The mom, who is pregnant goes into labor and delivers a little baby girl.  Born on the day of  her sisters' deaths, Marianna always feels like she has to fill up the void left by them.  She tries to be perfect.  When she reaches marrying age, her parents decide it is time to move out of the community and go to Montana.  Although she love a local Amish boy she goes with her family.  They have to learn to live in the Amish community in Montana, which is NOT as strict in their beliefs and rules as their old community.  Marianna socializes with BEN, a local by and starts to fall for him.  She then has to decide whether to go back to her home and her Amish boy, or stay in Montana and deal with her feelings for Ben.  THEN right at the end you find out their is a book ....bummer.  I might have to go find it and see how it all turns out:)

This next book jumped off the shelf at me because of the title; LOVE FINDS YOU IN PENDLETON OREGON.  As soon as I saw Pendleton, I had to read it.  Sunny is the main character.  She is an out of work professor, Native American, and model.  She heads to Pendleton for a modeling shoot during the ROUNDUP and decides to look up her ancestors while she is there. I loved reading about the Roundup, I liked the stuff about Native Americans, but the love interest in this book was WAY OUT THERE.  It was one of those things where when it ends you are like...WHATEVER.   I am all about happy endings and chic lit, but I don't think anyone finds their true love and is ready for marriage in one week.  SOOO on that note, this book didn't do it for me. 

I really enjoyed this last one.  THE SHAPE OF MERCY by Susan Meissner.  Lauren is a super wealthy college student who tries to act NOT SUPER WEALTHY.  She lives in the dorm, goes to a state school, and wants to get a job.  She decides to take a job transcribing an old journal for Abigail, an older (also wealthy) lady.  The journal is from a young lady (Mercy) who lived during the Salem Witch trials and gets accusted of being a witch.  I liked learning about the witch trials and thought this book was pretty entertaining.  A good mix of past and present.  Speaking of present....my son has stopped sleeping AT ALL, so I may have a few (hundred) books to add to my list soon.  BLAHHH!!!

Fall is in the air~

I am still lovin' Fall over here.  We have been taking walks through our neighborhood, and the trees are AMAZING!!!  I super LOVE Christmas, but I would not be sad if it stayed Fall forever.  I love the weather, the food, and beautiful scenery.  I guess I also love the fun crafts too...although that is pretty much every season.
I am still on my mission to decorate my house without spending a whole lot. AND I am still in love with PINTEREST!!!  So I am trying to ACTUALLY accomplish some of the things that I pin.  I crossed 3 pins off my list this week....
First...I updated my candy jars from Halloween to Fall.  (AND I finally got all of the pirate decorations out of my house!!!)

I found these printable tags on Pinterest and wanted to use them for EVERYTHING.  It worked out great because there are 6 that print on a page and I only used 2.  SO that leaves some to use for fun fall gift tags!!!

I also wanted to have a piece of Fall subway art, but saw THIS one and fell in love.  It was a free printable...gotta love that.

 

I cut a piece of cardboard out of a diaper box with an exacto knife and then mod-podged the paper on.  Then I sanded the edges with sand paper and used some brown stain to distress the edges.  I wanted it to stand on its own, so I jimmy-rigged a stand out of more cardboard.

So this was a free project!!!  It looks silly from the back, but if you are looking that close, you are not welcome in my house:)

Project number 3 was another free printable for my Mia Maid classs.  This year the Mutual theme is the 13th article of Faith, so I fell in love when I saw these candy bar wrappers.  They are meant to go on a Hershey Bar, but I found Kit Kats on sale after Halloween and was TOO cheap to pass it up.  SOOO I made do.  They worked fine, but the wrappers didn't go all the way around the back of the bar.  NO BIGGIE!!

 Nothing like a bowl of cute chocolate to make a GOOD DAY:)   

Chocolate and Fall Leaves....LOVE IT!!!

NOW Fall is here!!

I made the first pumpkin cake of the year last night....SOOOO that mean Fall is officially here.  I know I share this recipe every year, but it is so simple and yummy.  2 ingredients and topped with whipped cream.  PLUS it makes your house smell like a dream.  And since it is made with pumpkin (a vegetable??), it must be super healty too:)

A few moments of craftiness

Amongst the crazy candy-ness of Halloween, I did have a few (precious) moments to myself.  Usually after midnight and in the dark, but still happy

Some of my free time is spent on Pinterest, which I love.  The only problem…I see what other people are doing and then I WANT TO DO IT.  I start to feel that my friends, teachers, kids, and Mia Maids must be suffering compared to others in other places.  Like all of those amazing places on the internet..haha!!!  So then I feel that I have deprived others of cuteness and start feeding my own inadequacies. 

WELL thank goodness I had a pirate party at my house this week because my church girls FINALLY got some of that Pinterest cuteness for themselves.  Our lesson was on virtue.  I found the quote first and then decided upon where to put it.  AND I was lucky enough to have chocolate gold at my house…pretty handy.  SOOOO I threw some gold in the bag, cut rectangles of scrapbook paper, folded them over the top of Ziploc snack bags, stapled the sides, and glued on the quote (which I had just typed up and printed on my computer).  I am not a scrap booker, so I just used scissors, Elmer's glue, and a stapler.  Nothing fancy here (actually most of it was a bit crooked and wrinkly).  BUT at least I felt like I accomplished something…like those amazing Pinterest folks always do

  I had the same idea for the ladies I go visiting teaching to.  The idea was from PINTEREST.  I couldn't find black kisses, so I settled for purple, but I figured the witches I stole the hats from were just more stylish than those silly black Pinterest witches.   I also do not have a circle punch…nor do I know what one is, so I cut the old fashioned way and glued the circles to some card stock.  I am not gonna lie…I pretty much love the whole candy bag thing right now!!!

And another small victory at our house…the soap dispenser.  I have also seen lots of monogramed and decorated soap dispensers on—you know where.  I don’t need my name on my soap, but I DOOOO need something cuter than  a dawn bottle on my counter.  I am CONSTANTLY cleaning bottles and HATE getting under the sink for the dish soap.  Sounds dumb, but with child proof cupboards, it causes me great anger.  SOOO I spray painted my dishsoap.  SERIOUSLY.  I just took it into the garage and spray painted it.  I didn’t do anything else they said…no primer, no taking off the stickers, nothing.   Just painted it.  It still isn’t pretty, but now it kinda just blends in.

And another success.  The drying mat.  I was sick of either my counter being wet, or using all of the paper towels, so I made a drying mat.  I just sewed together some fabric and then sewed it to a super absorbent drying towel.  I got mine at WALGREENS for a dollar.  Perfect for all those darn bottle parts. 

SPEAKING of the bottle parts, I finally figured out a way to clean out DR. BROWN bottles.  We lost the little brush that came with them, and it was traumatic (for me).  I   used my somewhat unused brain and decided on PIPE CLEANERS.  SOO  if you are like me and need to clean the gunk out for your DR. BROWNS.  GO buy some crafting pipe cleaners (mine are sparkly halloween colors) and they work perfect.  TRUST ME.  I googled it and couldn’t find an answer….THIS IS THE ANSWER!!!  

 

SOOO that is all the boringness that is our crafting life over here.  I am super glad to be moving PAST halloween though…now on to tackling some Thanksgiving crafts on my to-so list!!!

Pirate Party EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

 

SoOOO Halloween has come and gone, but the mess of my house STILL remains.  We had our 2nd annual HALLOWEEN party at our house.  A dozen little kiddos running around eating candy and playing with swords.  Did I mention it was a pirate party???  THUS the swords.  BUT still….crazy!!!  I really wish there was a holiday where CANDY was not involved.  I bought NON chocolate this year so that I would not eat all of the candy, but it backfired.  NOW I just realize that I also love Banana Laffy Taffy and Twizzlers. 

The Pirate Perkins plus one beautiful Rapunzel.

Rapunzel had the BEST DAY EVER!!!!  We have pretty much been watching this movie EVERY day at least once (sometimes 4 times) a day for a few months, so for her to be Rapunzel was PERFECT!!!  She was happy…I was happy.  That is UNTIL she wanted mommy to make her costume.  I learned A LOT because 90% of the instructions for this costume were things I had NEVER done or even heard of.  I also learned that next year we are going to the Costume store FIRST and then if we cannot find the costume we want, we MIGHT head to the fabric store.  LESSON LEARNED!!!

Although I planned to make Ethan’s costume using THIS tutorial, I caved.  After all of the time and money spent on the PRINCESS dress, I headed out to buy Pirate Parrot Boy!!!  My sanity is WORTH 15  bucks

NO party is complete without decorations and activities.  Here are a few of our Piratey Fun Times!!!

Indoor Bounce House---best kid pleaser EVER!!!  And the Jessica Pleaser…A little Johnny… 

We had a couple of crafts from Oriental Trading (they rock).  Check out the duel Rapunzels…Little girls love their crafts.  I am pretty sure the boys were all out gouging each other with swords and sticks and such.  

The best part of the party (based on the amount of squealing and laughing) was the TREASURE HUNT. 

I drew up a map of the house on some burlap, burnt the edges on a few fun clues, and filled an old treasure chest with…well treasure!!!

I spotted this great trunk in my grandma’s shed and asked VERY NICELY if we could borrow it.  Then I filled it with all sorts of fun stuff.   This picture is AFTER the kiddos plundered all of their treasures.  They got loot bags filled with a compass, gold coin candy, a pirate sucker, some pencils, a couple tattoos, ring pops, and a blow out party favor.  They also got a Capri Sun and a Pirate dress up kit (courtesy of the Dollar Store). 

Because the Treasure didn’t contain ENOUGH candy, we also had a treasure chest pinata (Oriental Trading). 

Decorating was my favorite part.  I will spare you the details, but everything was from Oriental Trading and the Dollar Store.  No need to spend too much.  There were a FEW things that I really wanted.  One was a plank.  I settled for a 2 by 4 on the floor. 

I also wanted a SHIP centerpiece.  I somehow only got a picture after the kids had cleared and the mess remained, but at least it was still standing.  I tried to find some sort of ship building demo online, but nothing fit what I wanted.  I didn’t want to build an ACTUAL ship.  So I made it up as I went.  I placed a cardboard box upside down on the counter with the flaps all flipped out and laying on the counter.  Then I cut a small hole in the tape on the bottom of the box and shoved my broom through. For some reason the bristle part of the broom kept the pole from tipping over…it balanced right on the counter.  NOT SURE WHY.   My broom had a small hole in the tip, so I put a wood dowel through the hole and hot glued it in place.  Then I used twine to tie some black plastic for the sail.  Then I covered the box by cutting a plastic tablecloth halfway up the middle and wrapping it around the pole.  Then I used a straw and two pieces of paper to make a flag.  Low budget, not TOO pretty, but PERFECT!!! AND much better looking without all of the crap piled around it…oops!!!

I thought the bats were lonely, so I gave them some rat friends to play with.  Rats courtesy of MarthaStewart.com.

I found these plastic apples on…wait for it…Oriental Trading, and KNEW I wanted them.  They come pre-filled with a treat, but I loaded them up with Rolos…cause I couldn’t find any more gold coin candies  My little helper REALLY likes these.  The day after the party I filled the bowl back up and threw the apples back in and kept him busy for a good hour. 

That smile is WELL WORTH the money!!!!

Emersyn is planning next years party already and all of the kids left with a smile, so I guess we will plan to have a 3rd annual party next year.  Maybe my floors will be cleaned by then…haha!!!

Well Me and Mr. Bones are POOPED!!!!  We need a holiday from our HOLIDAY!!!!