Proud

We're both so proud of our big girl!

Avery's been rocking at kindergarten. She loves going to school and has really gotten into the routine of everything about it. She loves reading, loves doing homework, loves being with friends. So far, it's been a really great year for her.

And she got her first award the other day!

They had a program called "Reading Rockstars" and the kids had to set a daily and weekly reading goal that lasted about 6 weeks long. If the kid met their goal, they got an award. And Avery met her goal!

So the other night, I went with her to her award ceremony! I was very proud to hear them call her name and see her walk across the stage! My big girl's first school achievement!

The Ham, Books and Bath

I have a few random things from the past few days....

1. My little ham.

As soon as she sees the camera, this is what I get.

Every.single.time. (sorry for the turned photos)

This is from a different day just to prove it to you!

2. Books

Sister loves books.

What she really loves about them? Turning the pages! She's pretty darn good at it!

3. Bath time

Cassandra tried something new today....the jacuzzi tub!

Avery was taking a bath in there and we decided to see what Cassandra thought of it.

Avery looks terrified-I told her to smile!

The verdict? She loved it! She loves her baths so it didn't surprise me. I'm sure she'll be hitting the jacuzzi more in the near future!

The Hunger Games

I finally got around to reading this series...I'm sure you've heard of it?!

To be honest, I wanted to see what all of the hype was about! It was all I heard about for awhile so of course it made me interested.

My Aunts got me the entire series (there are 3 books) for my birthday back in April.

And I just finished it about two weeks ago.

Yes, it took me that long.

The reason?  Work, house, two kids, summer time....enough said.

Typically what would happen is that I'd read a lot in a short number of days (when I started the first book, I read 150pgs in 2 nights) then wouldn't touch it for a week or so.  Each book is close to 400 pages too, but they are very quick reads.

These are young adult books (think Twilight) so like I said, they are quick reads. And each  chapter tends to leave you hanging and wanting more.

I don't want to get too much into the details, because if you haven't read them yet, you should! 

The plot of the book is that it is set in post-apoctolyptic North America.  The nation is known as Panem and there is a Capitol (wealthy) with 12 surrounding districts (poor). The Capitol controls all of the districts and every year they hold The Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games were created because of a previous rebellion of the districts against the Capitol, so this is how the Capitol "punishes" the districts every year. The Hunger Games is where a boy and a girl  between the ages of 12-18 from each district are selected by lottery to compete in a televised  battle to the death until only one person remains....that person is the "victor".

The Hunger Games follows Katniss Everdeen, a 17yr old girl from District 12 and is told through her eyes.  You basically follow her through the "reaping" (the Hunger Games lottery) and the Hunger Games.  This leads into book 2, Catching Fire, and book 3, Mockingjay.

I will say that I was a bit surprised that this is a young adult book. My 11yr old cousin read this for school and I was shocked by that. I mean, a book about kids killing each other? I will say that some of the scenes are pretty graphic too so that's why I was surprised by it.  But, to each his own.

I really enjoyed the first two books of the series.  Book 3 was good, but different. I don't know how to describe it, but everyone I know that has read the series agrees with me-book 3 moves differently for some reason.  Personally, I think there were a lot of characters to keep straight at that point and they all have "odd" sounding names. So for me, it was hard to keep track of who was who and eventually I just gave up and kept reading. I also think book 3 was more political/governmental in feeling which sort of bores me. Of course I was itching to see how everything ended up so I had to keep trudging through!  And I'm happy I did because I thought the ending was really good.

I do suggest reading these if you get the chance. I'm usually not a sci-fi reader, but these were good!They definitely held my attention and like I said, they keep you wanting to read more.

Unfortunately I haven't seen the movie that's out yet, so I'm anxious to see how that is compared to the book. Hopefully I'll be able to see it before I forget too much of the plot!

So....have you read the series yet?? What are your thoughts? Have you seen the movie? How did it compare to the book?  Do share!!

A Million Little Pieces

I finally got around to reading this book!

I've had it for years and for some reason just never read it.

While I was pregnant and had my ridiculously itchy skin, I started taking baths. And when I took a bath I wanted something to read so I decided to start this book. Of course I didn't finish it before Cassandra was born so after a week or so, I picked it back up and finally got to finish it. I've been done with it for awhile now, but thought I'd chat about it since I have nothing really exciting to post about!

This book was quite the controversy awhile ago. You may remember that Oprah chose this as one of her book club books (which is why I wanted it). She had the author on and this book was supposedly his story.  Well after he was on, word got out that things didn't really happen the way it was written, etc. She got pissed at the author and had him back on the show to get the real story. I think what the conclusion was is that things were exaggerated a bit in the book and it was meant to be his memoir, not an autobiography.  All of the characters existed, but some scenarios didn't take place exactly as written.

Whatever. To me it doesn't matter. 

Anyways, the book starts with James getting off of a plane with two black eyes, a broken nose, teeth knocked out, a hole in his cheek and he's covered in vomit, blood, etc.  And he has no idea where he is or how he ended up the way he did.  Good way to get you into a story right?! 

I won't get into too many details, but the book basically follows James through drug and alcohol rehab. Detox, meeting different people, getting himself fixed up (physically and mentally), family visits, etc.

I'll tell you this....the guy is lucky to be alive. I think in the story he's 23 years old and the amount of drugs and alcohol he did in those short 23 years is incredible. You gotta wonder how someone gets into that habit in the first place and how they can sustain that habit for years upon years. It's pretty wild. And in the book, he's in one of the best rehab clinics and get this...only 15% of patients stay clean for a year. Forget about longer than a year!  To have one of the best sobriety rates and it's only 15% is pretty sad if you ask me. Once an addict, always an addict for most cases.

I really enjoyed the book. It got my attention right away and I kept wanting to know what was going to happen to him. Would he leave rehab? Would he make it through? What about the friends he made? Would he make amends with his family?

One thing that was tricky was the way that the author wrote out conversations. There were no quotation marks or anything. It was written like:

Bob was walking towards me. He speaks.

Hi James, how are you?
Good how are you?
Where are you headed?
Out for a walk.

Enjoy! It's nice outside!

And these conversations would go on for pages. You can imagine how hard it can be to follow at times. There were a few times I had to go back and re-read it to see who said what because I got lost somewhere in it! 

The other thing I want to mention is that the author curses like a sailor....lots and lots of swearing in the book.

One thing I liked was at the very end of the book, they did a recap of what everyone in the book is currently doing and it they remained sober or not. So that was pretty cool to see how everyone is  as of these days.

I definitely enjoyed the book and thought it was a pretty quick read. I would recommend it for sure!

Has anyone else read it and want to share their thoughts?





Another Sunday Night

Here we are...another Sunday night. The weekend is over (boo!) and the work week about to begin again. We had a nice, long weekend together. Gabe took off Thursday and Friday and I had my usual Friday off so it was nice having a few extra days together.

Friday Gabe and I took Avery to story hour at the library. I try to take her there as much as I can-she really enjoys it. We went out for dinner that night since we don't get to very often these days.

Gabe always says he can't wait for the day that Avery will lay down with us and cuddle in bed. Well, on Friday before her nap, she got comfy on the couch with Gabe while he read her some stories. It was so cute! She just loves her books these days which is great! I hope she stays that way! Look at her studying the book!

Yesterday we took a trip to Buffalo for the day. We started out by stopping at my Uncle Joe's house to see them. My Dad also came by so we got to visit with everyone which was nice. We had pizza for lunch and Avery loved exploring a new house (and the cats!).

Then it was off to my Mom's house to hang out and have dinner. Avery showed off her walking skills: And played with her car:

Today we went to my in-laws house for a bit. My sister-in-law, neice and nephew were there so we all got together to visit. Then Avery and I went with one of her daycare friends to a nearby playground which was fun! Avery tried out the slides and swings and had a lot of fun! Now she's in bed, I just got back from grocery shopping and it's off to work tomorrow.

By the way, did you notice it's August 1st? Seriously?! August?! Where is this year going?! I hate to admit that I went to two stores in the past three weeks that had out Halloween stuff...just insane!

Story Time!

Today I took Avery to a local library for an infant story time. I have known about them for awhile, but they had been holding them on Mondays-which is one of my working days. I happened to check their website the other day and they are now on Fridays-one of my days off! So today, Avery and I went to check it out! It ended up being really cute and I think she enjoyed it. There were about a dozen of us there-only one Dad in the crowd. We all had a little rug in front of us and sat in a big circle. They opened with a song that introduced every infant there, which was cute. Then they did a bunch of rhymes/songs that we all sang together. Mixed in that we read through 3 books. After doing maybe 10 rhymes and the books, they gave us free time-they had a bunch of books out and some infant toys and the kids were allowed to play for about 15min. Then we all gathered for a farewell song.

It was really cute-most of the kids there were under the age of 1. They handed us a print out of all of the rhymes we did so we could continue them at home if we liked them-that was nice because I only know so many kid songs! Avery was just taking everything in and watching all of the kids-she was just mesmerized with all of them! I'm sure we'll try to go again next week if we can!

Rochester Baby Shower

Today was my baby shower in Rochester. It was thrown by my Mother-In-Law and my Sister-In-Law. They had it at the Staybridge Suites which is a new hotel in the area. We were in the Rapids Room which had a door that you could walk out onto a veranda and be right next to the river. It was a very nice location.

Here is a picture showing the table set up-both pink and blue napkins of course!


This is a picture of each place setting. Each person had a small white box with a onesie cut-out on it and their name (place cards). Inside the box were mixed nuts and York peppermint patties. Each person also received a cut-out cookie as a favor.


These are the three cookie shapes they made-a onesie, a baby carriage, and feet. They were all so cute! My Aunt and a few cousins baked the cookies, then my in-laws frosted and decorated them.


This is a shot of some of the food-the fruit display and french toast. The food was very good. We had a quiche with mushrooms, broccoli and peppers. There were small roasted potatoes, chicken french, the fruit, french toast with almonds topping it (VERY yummy) and a basket full of pastries. They also got dessert trays from Orien's bakery (our fave gelato place) which were delicious!


Here are some pics of me opening gifts. We got a lot of wonderful things. My Mother-In-Law had everyone bring a baby book so we received a ton of good books to read. And no duplicates!! We also received our high chair, baby gate, a mobile, lots of cute outfits, some diapers, stuffed animals, etc. Everyone was very generous and the baby is going to be all set! It was a very lovely shower.

Pride and Prejudice

Last night, Gabe and I went to see a viewing of the musical "Pride and Prejudice". It's based on the novel by Jane Austen and the composers are trying to get it on Broadway (his Mom is a HUGE Jane Austen fan and got us the tickets). So they had a viewing at Eastman Theater last night. What they did differently is that the orchestra was onstage instead of in the orchestra pit and there wasn't any set. The cast was made up of the same people they would take to Broadway but in the viewing they were able to carry their scripts with them. It was a one night only affair-red carpet and all!

Overall it was very good. I've never read the book (shame on me) so I wasn't very informed on the plot but it wasn't all that hard to follow. The cast did very well-they had only rehearsed a few times and I was very surprised at how many of them had their part memorized already. One neat thing they did was they incorporated Jane Austen writing the novel into the musical. She was in the entire production and it was pretty cool how they added her in here and there-it was like seeing her thoughts come alive as she was writing.

So, if it makes it to Broadway, it'll be interesting to see how it really comes to life-the sets they use, the staging, etc. And hey, it may be my first trip to NYC!

Finished!!

I'm somewhat of a reader. I like reading good books, but hate picking them out myself. I usually read books that people recommend to me-I just get too overwhelmed to pick out my own for some reason. There are just too many out there to choose from and reading those tiny excerpts on the back do nothing for me!!

Anyways, about 2 years ago now (the start of my last teaching year) I joined a young adult book club with fellow teachers in my school. I read a lot of decent books (of course I can't remember any of the names!) and this started my love of the "Twilight" saga.

A LOT of my students were reading this book called "Twilight". So our group decided to read it so we could talk to the students about it. Let me tell you-amazing book! First of all-its huge-about 600 pages! Second-it's a vampire story-not usually my cup of tea, but this book was addicting! It's a very easy read and one of those you can't put down! After finishing book one, I started book two called "New Moon". Same thing-huge and addicting!

Since then, the final 2 books of the series came out-"Eclipse" which I think I read early this year and "Breaking Dawn" which just released in early August. I just finished "Breaking Dawn" tonight-so I'm officially done with the series. Four great books! I'm a little sad that the saga is over now-I loved looking forward to the next book release. But I have something to look forward to-the movie "Twilight" is coming out in Nov! So I can't wait to see that!

Now to find my next good book to read-any suggestions??