Exhausted

I feel like I’m always tired and always a few steps behind where I want to be with things! I’d really like to fix both of these things, any suggestions? Maybe  I could pawn off all my kids on one of you for a weekend  and then drink a bunch of caffeine (which I quit, mostly) and get caught up! Sounds good, I just need to do this once a month or so!

Anyways, I have no pictures to post but I’m sure I will after tonight, of course you might not recognize them, but you can try! Okay I’m off to work on a bit of catching up around the house and to chat with hubby!

What are ya’ll doing tonight? Anything exciting? I think we’re just trick or treating with our family and going to bed, okay maybe we’ll watch a movie or play a game before bed  and I’m going to try and do some muffin or cookie baking just because it seems like a good day for that!

Don’t forget to enter my contest!

My Book List

So I realized that I can't keep all the books I've read in the a list on my sidebar so I decided to make them on a separate page and just link in my sidebar for those who might be interested! I've missed quite a few but am going to try and keep better track now that I'm doing it this way and may occasionally write a brief opinion or fact!
A Mitford Trilogy by Jan Karon ~ starting with At Home in Mitford, very, very good and what I'd call heartwarming, I've actually read past the first three books, not sure how many there are but I've read (or listened to) five now and I know there is more. Sweet stories about an Episcopal preacher that will mostly keep you turning the pages for more, they have a similar feel as a James Herriot book!
A Map of the World (Oprah's Book Club) ~ don't read this if you don't want to be slightly depressed and crying. It had a lot of dark subjects in my opinion!
The Shepherd's Voice by Robin Lee Hatcher ~ I really felt like I learned more about being a good Christian woman from reading this book, I loved how much the lead woman- Akira- talked with God and repeated scriptures to herself, plus it was just a good book.
Ezekiel's Shadow by David Ryan Long

Violet Dawn (Kanner Lake Series #1) and Coral Moon (Kanner Lake Series #2) ~ these are Murder Mystery's written with a Christian perspective, easy reads, not too deep, but I'll probably finish the series.

Maximum Ride Series by James Patterson ~ aimed at teens, I let my 10 yr old read these and she loved them! I liked them pretty well myself.

The River Wife
Cross Country
The Poisonwood Bible
Face of Betrayal
The Other Side of Silence
The Twilight Saga
A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards: A Novel
Merciless ~ great Christian Science Fiction Trilogy
Fearless
Relentless

Update 7/2014
I've read so much since I last posted on here, so here are some I can remember

Most everything by Charlaine Harrisincluding
The Sookie Stackhouse books - While I loved these fun books, I did not like what I saw of the True Blood show based on these books.
The Aurora Teagarden Mysteries - Small town librarian solving mysteries.
And most recently Midnight Crossroad - this one took a little getting into, but I liked how it incorporated characters from her other series.

I'm currently rereading the The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
 to analyze for my own YA writing - I enjoyed the first two but not third so much.

I also really enjoyed her Gregor the Overlander books. unfortunately I couldn't my kids into these ones, though my older two read the Hunger Games. 

I recently read the grown up book

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson - this was different for me, it took awhile for me to figure out who was talking - It centered around a very small town social worker in the early 80's. The ending sort of tapered and off and left me feeling incomplete. 

I've also managed to hit some non-fiction writing books in search of help

My favs so far are Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers
 -this one I've read the most of

and Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies

I'm not good at completing non-fiction books, I usually just read parts. 

. 

Cheerios, Books & a Giftcard Giveaway

Over the past eight years, Cheerios has given away more than 40 million children’s books by distributing them free inside cereal boxes and has donated $3.2 million to First Book, their non-profit partner, which provides books to children from low-income families. The program is part of Cheerios’ ongoing commitment to helping parents provide their children with a healthy, nutritional and educational foundation.

Beginning this month, Cheerios is again bringing books to the breakfast table, by providing six million children’s books free inside Cheerios boxes. To help spread the word I was sent a great gift package courtesy of Cheerios, including a huge box of Cheerios with a book inside, a copy of each book they are giving away, plus a $25 giftcard to Barnes & Noble!

My children and I have had the pleasure of reading through all 5 of the books! Some are simpler and some have a bit more to them. I have to say my favorite is Ballyhoo Bay (by Judy Sierra) because the pictures in it are so bright and wonderful. These are fairly small paperback books, which makes them great to stick in a purse or diaper bag! My other favorite was Tea for Ruby (by Sarah Ferguson), but it’s a bit girly so my young boys didn’t take to it. The other books are Junkyard Fort (Jon Scieszka), Sleepyhead (by Karma Wilson) and What's Under the Bed? (by Joe Fenton). One more thing to mention about the books is that they also have the words in Spanish on each page, while I think the goal was to reach those who don’t read English I think this could be great for bi-lingual families or those trying to learn Spanish.

Now do you want to win a package of what you see above? I mean I know you all want that giftcard to get yourself a new book or two right? Well here’s what you have to do….

To enter leave a comment telling me about what story time with your children is like, you can go into great detail or keep it short, if you don’t have kids tell me what you picture it as or if your kids are grown tell how it used to be!

For extra entries (only after doing first entry):

(Leave an extra comment for each thing you do)

1- follow my blog (counts if you already do to)

2-blog about this giveaway and link back here

This contest will end at midnight EST Friday November 13th!

I will pick one winner via random.org to win the prize pack!

This opportunity was provided to me by …

The Flu, Surgery and a New Day!

It’s the start of a new week, thank you God for new beginnings! All three of my school aged children went to school today, how nice!

Well as I told you last week (or was it the week before now) PJ got the Flu, presumably the H1N1 virus (they tested him for Influenza A which H1N1 is a strain of).  So he was starting to get better and then he seemed a bit worse last Tuesday. He had started throwing up, but then had stopped and was just sleeping all day and saying his side hurt. Well I thought his side hurt from laying on it (brilliant mom that I am) and thought he needed to move around. But luckily my husband was home and noticed that he was saying it hurt where his appendix was. So I took him first to the doc, who thought it needed  further investigating, so next to the ER!  So my sweet mom met me at the ER for a long night ahead. PJ is my super picky child, so it is no wonder he wouldn’t drink the contrast he needed for the CT, they ended up having to put a tube up his nose and into his belly, fun, I felt so bad for him. And then several hours later (maybe at 2 am) we were told he would need surgery, that he did indeed have appendicitis and the answer was to remove the appendix. So my  Mom went to try and get my other kids back to sleep at my house, while my hubby came to try and sleep at the hospital with PJ and I.  PJ had surgery Wednesday morning laprascopically and did great!

This picture is Thursday he was playing bingo via TV because he was one of those special precaution kids thanks to the flu!

They brought around toys for prizes, he sure went home with a lot of goodies!

And here is the view out of his 8th story room……

  He was able to go home Thursday afternoon and  is back at school today. My other kids all missed some school last week for being sick and the surgery, but nobody was as sick as PJ.  My sweet Dad came and stayed with PJ  Wednesday night so I could get a bit of sleep, after taking care of my other kids at my house during the day. Unfortunately both my parents now have the flu, so say a prayer that they are better quickly, I am really thankful for their help and  am praying they are back to normal real soon!

In our house, everyone is pretty healthy now! PJ can’t do strenuous activity until after he sees the doc on Thursday and he has a bit of cough as does Madeline, but thankfully everyone was back at school today and doing relatively well! PJ just has a ton of makeup work, otherwise I think it’s going to be a good week!

stopping by

Just stopping by to say ‘Hi’, I’ve not been in Bloggy World much lately as life seems to be a whirlwind of activity and then I crash each night! I used to be able to stay up late and wake up early, evidently I’m getting old!

PJ has the flu, but is doing fine, really I think he’s getting better as he’s been sick since Friday and I’m hoping he can go back to school Wednesday. I’m also praying nobody else gets it! It seemed Sissy felt a touch warm tonight, so we’ll see how she is in the morning.  And Curly stayed home from school this morning with a slight fever, but no other symptoms. Really if it wasn’t for all the hype, I’m sure I’d have sent him, of course when your 4 it’s no big deal to miss school! PJ on the other hand got some work sent home that I’ll have fun making him do tomorrow!

In other news….(I’m thinking)…..Oh how about this…..my hubby made dinner tonight and tried (he still hasn’t gotten the hang of how to load our dishwasher)  to do the dishes all in the same night! Isn’t that sweet? He also did dishes yesterday by hand! He’s been trying to help me and I really do appreciate it, it’s so NOT like him to do dishes or cook a whole big meal, so thank you sweetie (he doesn’t even read my blog, lol)!400

Now I’ve really got some Bible studies to try and catch up on….so night, night everyone!

Just leaving you with an embossed picture of Hubby and Baby Boy sleeping ;)

Not Me Monday

Oh my, it’s been a long week, oh wait it’s a brand new week, that means a fresh start! And what better way to start out than by confessing a few things from the week before!  So of course I’m joining MckMama in another NMM post!

Well we surely didn’t start the week off by all being late this morning! As I was trying to fix a car seat this morning my sweet dog most definitely didn’t run out the front door after another poor innocent small dog that was being walked on a leash!

My kids weren’t all grumbly and complainy this morning because they went to bed so late last night! My kids always go to bed promptly when told with no trouble! They all woke up bright and cheerful and singing a happy song! Nobody complained about what I fed them and nobody’s hair was sticking up at all once we were in the car! 

Also we did not listen to “The Pirate Song”   for the 100 millionth time this morning! I do not know every word of it and I did not used to even really like the song before the 89 millionth time we played it! I don’t still like the “Belly of the Whale”  song, because I’ve only heard it a few million times! I wasn’t happy to finally read those lyrics and learn the words at the end of that song! I don’t exaggerate at all either!

I didn’t just pick up my kids from the bus stop to find out they had a fire at their school today! They didn’t have to wait outside so long that water bottles were passed out. There wasn’t a real fire in the coaches office (or so rumor has it) and three fire trucks weren’t on scene along with an ambulance and fire rescue truck, I don’t feel like I should have known this before they got home! I guess I should have had the news on!

You may not have noticed that I didn’t also shamelessly put up a link to support my Cubscout by buying popcorn. I would never do that I didn’t feel a little bad that we were moving this time last year and that we didn’t participate at all in popcorn sales (their only fundraiser) and the year before we joined right after they finished! So I don’t think a big tin of yummy popcorn would make a great gift for someone you know!  Well it was worth a try anyway =)!

I don’t think it’s time to finish this post  before Monday is all over!

Walking through the Wilderness

Sounds deep huh? Well this isn’t, just a few pictures about a short hike through some local wilderness with the  Cubscouts last weekend! It was just him and me (and the other scouts) on this outing! It was real muddy out as it’d been raining hard that morning. The animals were almost eerily quiet and absent, though we did see a few bugs.  PJ really wanted to hit the playground afterwards, but we skipped it because his Daddy had plans to take the three big kids swimming at the Y’s play pool when we got back! 

Obviously our short hike wore this boy out, luckily he got a quick nap before the pool!