Mid Feb

It is February 13. The day before Valentine's Day. Do you celebrate Valentine's Day? We never have. I usually give Jared a card, and this year I got one for Miles too. He's going to a Valentine's Day party at Mother's Day Out tomorrow. I'm sure he'll love that!

Mostly I've been reading and prepping for Miles' birthday party. The party was Friday evening. It was lots of fun, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately my dad has pretty much all the pictures that we took. I'll post some later.

I need to get to work on my Daring Baker challenge. It is due on the 27th. I still haven't printed off the whole recipe to even look at all the ingredients at once! I did make part of the recipe already. Actually I made it on the first, the day the challenge was announced. We had a snow day here, and I happened to have all the ingredients at home. It worked pretty well. I'll tell you more on the 27th!

Not Much

Wow, I just downloaded pictures. Apparently I haven't done that since the end of November.
Want to see? Nothing too exciting.

Here is our Advent candle calendar. White for Sunday and Christmas. BTW we forgot to light the Christmas one until several days later.
We made treats for the birds (pine cones covered in peanut butter and bird seed).
They were eaten by the squirrels.I guess we played games in our raincoats...but I don't remember really.
We made Christmas presents.

Then there was this...
Miles was in a play! It was so cute, he missed his queue, and came out with Jesus. Then he tried to sleep on the railing.

I walked in on this...too sweet. Miles' great-grandmother reading to him.
This is Christmas morning after gifts before leaving for my Aunt & Uncle's house.
We saw the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band practice for...uhh, whatever bowl game they were in.
More pearler beads...this time with tweezers to really challenge the fine motor skills!
And apparently I fell asleep on the floor of Miles' room while/after playing with him...Yeah, I'm a good mom. And thanks Jared for the pic...not at all embarrassing.
I promise that we decorated for Christmas. I guess I just didn't take any pictures. I actually did something really different (from my norm) that I loved, and I'm sad I didn't get a pic. We had a lovely Christmas, but those pictures are on another camera.
We also had a New Year's party at our house...you guessed it, no pictures. I have got to do better.

January Wrap-Up

It's February first! This is the official beginning of "busy season" in my work. I shift my work schedule from 2 days a week to 3, and Miles goes to a Mother's Day Out 2 of those days. Well, today the weather didn't cooperate. It sleeted from about 2am to 6am, and it's snowing now. Everything is closed today!
January was a busy month here. I completed 2 books which I posted about earlier this week. A dear friend also had her first baby. The baby's name is Riley, and she was born 6 weeks early! She spent the month in the NICU. The mother is dong extremely well. The stress is wearing on her, but she's holding up. Her baby shower was mid month. We really value reading around here, and she's come to me asking about reading, and telling me that the nurses are really encouraging her to read to Riley. I knew we wanted our gift to center around reading. I went to a used book shop, and bought something between 10-15 board books for her. Some were ones that we enjoyed, others were by favorite authors, and others just looked really good. I also made her some burp cloths, and a baby blanket all out of fabric I've had laying about the house for far longer than I care to remember! I really enjoyed sewing again, and I'm looking forward to another project.
Miles' birthday is February 10th, so we've been busy planning a party for him. I have lots of neat ideas, and I'll start posting about them as soon as they start coming together. The party is on the 11th, so I don't have too long to make that happen!
I've all but stopped taking pictures this month. I have to get back on top of that.
The Daring Baker's Challenge was posted this morning, and I'm so excited! I think it won't be too hard for me, which makes me glad. I was worried that the I'd be so in over my head, I wouldn't be able to be creative with it at all. This one I know I can do, and I've already started thinking of creative execution ideas!

Book Recommendations

I didn't particularly make it a goal this year to read more, but it wouldn't take much to read more than last year! Here is where I'm at so far this year...



The Devil in the White City is the first book that I read this year. I zipped through this one really quickly, and I loved it! I first heard about it from Bonnie of The Boatwright Family. Its about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the architects that put it together. It was a fascinating read. I may have to find another of Eric Larson's books to read.




The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is the next book I read. My brother-in-law gave it to his mom for her birthday just before Christmas. As he was describing it to her, both my husband's and my interest were piqued! After she finished, she loaned it to him, but as he was still reading another book I took it first. It wasn't what I would normally read, but I really enjoyed it. It is about the first human cells to survive in culture. Also, it is the story of the woman they came from and her family. They are a poor tobacco farming family in Baltimore in 1951. It was an interesting story, and well written. There was a fair amount of science, but it was not written in a way to be over anyone's head.

I've started another book, but I'm not even a quarter of the way through so I have nothing to say about it yet!
Oh, one more...



I read Real Food: What to Eat and Why at the end of the year last year. It is a very interesting book, and has me looking just a little into the Paleo diet. That would be hard to do while doing the Daring Baker's Challenge though!

Are you ready to be Daring?

I'm so excited! I just found a baking challenge website! The Daring Kitchen! Every month there is a baking challenge. It isn't released to members until the first, then no one can post about it until the 27th, when you are to have completed the challenge! Woo-hoo! I'm so glad that I found it, and what luck that it was today. I think, since I registered this morning, that I'll be able to participate in February's challenge! I can hardly wait!

Sneak Peek

Want a sneak peek at Miles' Halloween costume?
We went to a little Halloween party put on by the Early Childhood PTA. They had some games, some food, decorating sugar cookies, a bounce house, and a bounce slide thing.
Needless to say, much fun was had, much energy expelled and everyone took home tired children. Miles seemed very tired. Did he nap today? Uhh, no. Not my child. I could have really used a nap. Jared has been gone since Wednesday morning, and I'm not sleeping well. Oh well.
Here is a bit of a better view of the hat. I hope to get some really good pics of him in the costume tomorrow. He'll be trick-or-treating with a sweet friend from across the alley, and maybe another friend too.

Happy Halloween everyone! I know I'll have a good one because Jared will be home tomorrow mid afternoon.

Rough Day

Sorry I lost my temper Miles, I love you!