Easter

We had a quiet but nice Easter by ourselves in Bloomington this year. I am "too pregnant" to travel the 3 hours home so we spent a day on our own. We tried to go to 10:30 a.m. mass, but it was so crowded we went to Bob Evan's instead. We did make it back to church for the 5:30 p.m. mass, and it was much less crowded.

Hal made a lamb and fruit stew for dinner that was really yummy (and reminiscent of Katniss' fav dish in The Hunger Games).

Luke got an Easter basket the week before from Gammy and Pa (my mom and dad), when Gammy came to visit for a couple of days (she helped me clean my house and get things ready for Nathan's impending arrival. Gammy and Pa's basket included several cute clothes (including the shirt he has on in the picture), a couple of books, an Elmo dish, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and some eggs with chocolate goldfish in them. On Easter, he got a basket from us/the bunny. He got an Elmo cup and note pad, a Reese's egg and chocolate bunny, a couple of books and a slinky. The slinky was a hit! I love the Target dollar spot, where we got all of his stuff.

Spring Break project: The Box

The thought of spring break was a little daunting. Five days alone with Luke (while Hal works). 35 weeks pregnant. Extremely active 19-month-old.

But we're making do. The weather has been beautiful so we were able to spend some time outside.

And we were able to get a project done I've wanted to do for awhile!

Sensory boxes are all the rage on Pinterest and amongst mommy friends. I wanted to get together a box of stuff that Luke could play with whatever way he wanted. Many sensory boxes use rice and beans, and while those are awesome, I wanted to do something a little less messy.

So Luke and I ventured to Hobby Lobby on Tuesday to get supplies for...The Box.

I wasn't sure what The Box would look like when all was said and done. I had some vague idea about pipe cleaners. That's all I got.




Luke was actually very unhappy to be a Hobby Lobby. He didn't want to walk. He didn't want to sit in the cart. He started screaming (hence the "B," as he calls his binky). But then we found some boas, and the whole day brightened (no muppets were killed in the making of this photo).



We picked up an enormous amount of stuff (including a box with a lid. Here is the box with most of our supplies, and I even have some things left for restocking (I didn't place all 100 pipe cleaners in the box, and I left out many of the colored tongue dispensers, too).

What do we have? Here, a (very scientific in terms of the names) list:

multi colored feathers
plastic Easter eggs that open
multi-colored puff balls
sparkly puff ball pom pom things
wooden cubes
pipe cleaners
glass bead things that you often put in candle holders (I got ones that were too big to swallow)
multi-colored wooden tongue dispenser things
four plastic cups
A blue plastic thing that looks like a biga cupcake holder
3 jingle bells

The box and the Easter Eggs were the most expensive parts of the project. Obviously, I got a lot of stuff. I spent about $35, and about $12 was the box and Easter Eggs.

But it has been worth it! There has been a lot of imaginative play that has come out of the box (for Luke and Mom and Dad!). We do a lot of drumming:



We stuff Easter Eggs:



Luke now has a magic wand that Hal made him! I was kind enough to not take the picture of Hal with features sticking up from his hair and waving the wand around. Luke likes to tap Hal's hand with the wand, count to three, and then flying puff balls magically fly up in the air:



The other thing I am noticing is that Luke likes to "cook." Lots of stirring going on:



He has been interested and playing with it pretty much every day we've had it. We'll see how long that lasts. But I am glad we did it!

New York City

I spent Feb 23 to 26 in New York City with Hal!

We headed up to NYC for a sociology conference. My conference presentation went well (I presented the results of my facebook and mourning survey I did in late summer), with some of the best discussion after the panel presentations I have experienced at a conference. It was definitely worth the trip.

Also, I GOT TO SLEEP AS LATE AS I WANTED and we ate and saw shows and spent too much money but it was worth it. We saw Memphis and Sister Act -- we just bought discount tickets to whatever looked interesting/was available. We rode the on/off bus on Friday, which allowed us to see a lot of the hot spots of the city a lot quicker than my waddling would allow. We saw Balto in Central Park and we ate excellent Austrian food at a little place called Edi and the Wolf. We went to the top of the Empire State Building (it was scary!). Obviously, we were total tourists, but it was nice.

Luke spent the weekend at my parents' house and he had a blast by all accounts. He was apparently a perfect angel, too. He never cried "without a reason" even if "some of the reasons were stupid." Ha!

Pinterest

I held out for a long time, but I have succumbed to Pinterest.

However, perhaps I don't use it the way I'm supposed to. I've been on it for a couple of weeks now, and I only have 40 pins.

And pretty much all of them are food.

I find Pinterest most useful for recipes. I'm not planning a wedding. I don't have my own home right now. I don't really care about high fashion.

But I LOVE food.

It has been nice to browse through the pages of yummy foods (and the internet in general) and just pin them to my board so I have the recipes in one place. I have always had to email myself the recipes and then figure out a way to print them or save them on my desktop somewhere. Pinterest seems to be a helpful way to organize my recipe life. (Because I cook SO much, y'all.)

What do YOU use Pinterest for?

Look, Santa Came!

Luke was very excited to see all the presents under the tree at my mom's house on Christmas morning!



We had to have him open presents while IN the car because he loved it so much.



But he also got a tent that he liked a lot! :)

(Excuse my photos -- I am trying to figure out photobucket's editing software. It's not that same as my Photoshop -- which simply took too long on my computer.)

I DO look like Katy Perry

I am proud to report that when Luke saw a snippet of a Katy Perry video, he pointed at the screen and said, "Ma?"

I am now going to have to figure out if he needs glasses. ;)

*******

In other news, I am going to do my best to update my blog more often this year!

Book List 2011

Inspired by some friends as well as my 8th grade reading log, I decided to keep track of all the non-school and non-Luke books I read this year (because if I kept track of all the Luke books I read, I would have Barnyard Dance on the list approximately 20000000 times!).

I read a LOT. I love to read. I am always reading something. This year's books were marked by many free kindle books, which I read because, well, they were free. There was a lot of Christian literature on there that I probably would not have read otherwise. I also tend to read books more than once, and there are several books on here that I have read before (is that cheating? I don't know!) -- I marked them with an asterisk, and you'll see that I was rereading a lot when I was studying for and taking my exams. I need to be better this year about writing down all the authors. I could do that now, but I just don't feel like it. ;)

Anyway -- some favorites of the year (for books I hadn't read before):
Columbine by Dave Cullen. I LOVED this book. I thought it was fascinating and I am so glad I bought it.
The Hunger Games Trilogy. I fell in love with this, without even expecting to. I can't wait for the movie.

I also really liked The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards and Skip by Stan Meihaus. However, I must note that both of those authors have personal connections to me -- Kim was a professor of mine in college (I was in her class the day she sold The Memory Keeper's Daughter) and Stan is my cousin. So I am probably more likely to like those books anyway! :)

2011 Books

1. Ender in Exile Orson Scott Card

2. Lake of Dreams Kim Edwards 1/23/2011

*3. Heartbeat Danielle Steel

*4. We Need to Talk about Kevin Lionel xxxx

5. Fat, Forty, and Fired Nigel Marsh 2/20/2011

6. Talk of the Town Lisa Wingate 2/27/2011

7. Leaves book

8. My Life in Film

9. One Night @ the Call Center 3/28/2011

10. Listen

11. Vanishing Acts Jodi Piccoult

12. Testimony Anita Shreve

13. 13 Blue Envelopes

*14. Chasing Harry Winston

15. A Very Special Delivery

16. The School of Essential Ingredients 5/10/2011

17. Heaven is for Real 5/10/2011

18. Wings 5/10/2011

19. Julie and Julia Julie Powell about 5/22/2011

20. Hunger Games Suzanne Collins 5/30/2011

21. Catching Fire Suzanne Collins 6/2/2011

22. Mockingjay Suzanne Collins 6/7/2011

23. Body Surfing Anita Shreve 6/10/2011

24. My Horizontal Life Chelsea Handler 6/14/2011

25. Spoiled

26. Twenty-Something

27. Diary of a Mad Fat Girl 6/25/2011

28. The Truth about Dating 6/27/2011

29. This Fine Life: A Novel 6/30/2011

30. One Day 7/3/2011

31. Sisterhood Everlasting 7/4/2011

*32. From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler 7/7/2011

33. Mostly Good Girls 7/11/2011

34. House Rules Jodi Piccoult 7/14/2011

35. Falling Together 7/17/2011

36. Tempest 7/20/2011

*37. The Chase LJ Smith 7/26/2011

*38. The Kill LJ Smith 7/27/2011

*39. The Pilot’s Wife Anita Shreve 8/1/2011

40.Maggie come lately

*41. The First Assistant

*42. Prep Curtis Sittenfeld

*43. Behaving Like Adults Anna Maxted

*44. She’s Come Undone Wally Lamb

*45. Lummox

*46. The Man of my Dreams Curtis Sittenfeld

47. The Help Kathryn Stockett 9/12/2011

*48. Remember Me Sofie Kinsella

*49. Strip City Lily Burana

50. Skip Stan Meihaus

51. Tell No One Harlan Coben

*52. Skinny Dip

*53. Ender’s Game 10/8/2011

*54. Something is Rotten in the State of Maryland 10/9/2011

*55. The Giver Lois Lowry 10/11/2011

*56. Talk of the Town

*57. The Dive from Clausen’s Pier

*58. The Trouble with Catherine

*59. Good in Bed Jennifer Weiner

*60. Girls in Pants 11/25/2011

61. Stars Collide Janice Thompson

62. Columbine Dave Cullen

63. Beautiful People Wendy Holden

64. Delivered with Love Sherry Kyle

65. Kill Alex Cross James Patterson 12/15/2011

66. Homefires

67. The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky 12/25/2011