I LOVE Pinterest. So many great ideas in one place. A girl can easily get overwhelmed. Thankfully, Sarah at Amongst Lovely Things has started a way to ensure that I actually do something with all those great ideas.

Here’s one I actually already did a few weeks ago. I saw this idea and I knew immediately I wanted to make that for my in-law’s Christmas gift. I got to work straight away snapping pictures of the kids.

I took a ton of pictures, some with the letters spelling out LOVE and some without. The frame I picked out had 8 mini-frames so I wanted a few different pictures for variety. I prefer to do outdoor pictures whenever I can–I like the nature scenery and the natural light.

Here is my finished project:

It wasn’t perfect, but I like how it came out. It’s freaking miraculous that I got a picture of Cutie holding the E. That picture is the one and only I managed to get, because she thought it was hilarious to slam down the binder the letter was in the second the camera flashed. So every picture had the binder facing down. She’s a rascally little toddler.

I love making goals. I love it even more if I can actually achieve the goals that I set. I tend to make a lot of grand resolutions and then give up by the end of January. I’m determined to do better at that this year. I sat down this morning with my notebook and came up with some goals for the new year.

So, what are your goals for the new year?

I didn’t read quite as much this year as last–I’m in the middle of book #60 right now. Hopefully I’ll finish it by New Years eve. I did read a lot of pretty great books this year, so here’s my Year in Books for 2011:

Best History Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach – This was a quirky little book, both interesting and sometimes hilarious.

Best Homeschooling The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn – Not the best book I’ve ever read on homeschooling, but the only one I read this year, lol. It was an interesting read, but I’m not about to jump into full on unschooling. It did help me to see that I could relax a bit though.

Best Parenting Drive: 9 Ways to Motivate Your Kids to Achieve by Janine Walker Caffrey – This is actually a fantastic book. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants their children to do well in life. It’s all about how children are too comfortable these days – they get everything they want and don’t have to work for it. This leads to adults who don’t want to leave their comfy nest. This book gave me lots to think about.

Best Religion/Theology Seven Lies About Catholic History by Diane Moczar – Another very interesting read. This gave me the other side of the story while going through Sonlight and Story of the World with the kids. There isn’t a lot out there written in an interesting, engaging way to give the Catholic perspective. This at least gives me some knowledge to add to our discussions.

Best Current Events A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman by Lisa Shannon – Not the most well written book this year, but it was fascinating. I didn’t really know anything about the wars going on in the Congo. This was definitely eye opening.

Best Biography/Autobiography Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen by Anna Whitelock – I’ve always been fascinated with the Tudor period. I’ve read a LOT of books about that era. This was a great “other side of the story” book about Queen Mary. She’s often handled very unfairly by historians, most often painted as a villain. It was nice to see that she wasn’t nearly as horrible as she’s often made out to be.

Best New-To-You Author Definitely would have to be George R.R. Martin.

Best New Book in a Series Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 11) by Charlaine Harris

Book that Made You Laugh out Loud Not a full book, but a short story in Death’s Excellent Vacation, a compilation of short stories. The story Perils of Effrijim by Katie MacAlister was absolutely hilarious. I really need to read more by her.

Book that Made You Cry Dreams of Joy: A Novel by Lisa See. I love her writing and this book was a harrowing view into Maoist China in the 1950′s.

Best New To You Series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

Best Series Overall I’m going to have to go with A Song of Ice and Fire again. Even though I’m only up to book #3, I’m completely riveted.

Best Plot Twist A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One by George R. R. Martin. All I’ll say is Ned Stark.

Most Overhyped Book This is a tough one…all the books that were hyped that I read turned out to be pretty good. So, I’ll go with Dean Koontz. My mom has been telling me how amazing his writing is for ages, so I finally tried reading some of his stuff and all I can say is Blah. To each their own I suppose.

Worst Book to Movie Transition I feel like I’m repeating myself, but True Blood sometimes gets on my nerves. It’s like the Sookie Stackhouse series on steroids. I continue watching because I always hope it will follow the plot of the books in some way. Plus Eric. That’s a pretty good reason.

Best Historical Fiction Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

Best Children’s YA lit The Gammage Cup: A Novel of the Minnipins by Carol Kendall

Book You Hated So Much You Almost Couldn’t Finish Strangers by Dean Koontz – Boring flat characters, a plot that started interesting and then just fell completely apart and turned into something fairly stupid…yup, that about sums it up.

Best Book You’ve Been Meaning to Read for Years The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – I’ve literally had this on my to-read list for several years. I finally found a copy at the dump of all places, and then devoured it. Fun, quirky, loved it.

Best Reread Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Book 1) by J.K. Rowling – Sometimes you just have to go back to Hogwarts.

Best Book Overall It’s a tie between Dreams of Joy and A Game of Thrones.

If you’d like to participate feel free! It’s a fun way to look back on what you’ve read each year. You don’t have to do all the categories and feel free to add your own!

Outside my window…Cold and bright. It doesn’t look like we’ll have any snow for Christmas, which is highly disappointing. I think Mother Nature got her holiday’s mixed up. We had a white Halloween, but no snow on Christmas? We’ll keep our fingers crossed here that we get at least a flurry on Sunday.

I am thankful for…Vacation from school! We all are very ready for a break. We’re still doing math and language arts this week, but that’s it. And then we have 2 weeks off!

I am thinking about…Plans for the new school year. I have a hard time not planning. It’s an addiction people. I’m contemplating going back to Sonlight. I need to remind myself why that didn’t work the last time, but I have a feeling I won’t listen.

Learning all the time…We’re all in break-mode, but even so, we’re always learning new things. Right now I’m on a quest to discover what the difference is between a province and a state. (Gamer-boy was pondering this while looking at our wall maps and I honestly don’t know the answer.)

From the kitchen…LOTS of cookies. I’ve been baking like a mad-woman and now we have more cookies than necessary. Not that we’re not enjoying them. Thank heavens for my Pamela’s Ultimate Baking and Pancake Mix. That stuff is amazing.

I am creating…What, besides oodles of cookies? Hmmmm…I suppose I could say I’m creating Christmas cheer.

I am working on…Organizing. Not well, mind you. But I’m trying. Baby steps, right?

I am going…to try and enjoy this week before Christmas. I have cleaning and such to do, but otherwise, we’re going to listen to carols, eat cookies, and watch our favorite holiday movies.

I am hoping…to squeeze in 3 more books. I made a ridiculous reading goal (80 books!) this year and I’m not going to make it. So my new goal is to read 60 books. I have 3 to go and only 2 weeks.

I am reading…
A Great and Terrible Beauty (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Book 1) (I’m reading this aloud as my twins haven’t read them yet.)

I am hearing…Annie is singing Christmas carols–she’s practicing for the recital she’s planning on performing on Christmas day. If her brother’s allow it.

Around the house…I’m just trying to maintain some sort of order before the Christmas Chaos takes over.

One of my favorite things…Hot chocolate with Whipped Cream and Christmas cookies. While watching favorite holiday classics.

A few plans for the rest of the week…Present wrapping, some more housework, my father is coming into town tomorrow for a week long visit, so we’ll have plenty of Pappy time. He’s Jewish, so I’m making potato latkes for dinner tomorrow. Mass on Saturday evening and then our traditional Christmas eve party with Rob’s parents and my father.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing with you…

Cutie making the "goon" face

I’m on a mission to make all our favorite holiday treats gluten free. One of our favorite Christmas cookies is 7-layer bars. They’re so gooey and rich…I could eat a whole pan if I’m not careful. Of course, one of the layers is graham cracker crumbs. I tried to find gluten free graham crackers, thinking I could just make my own crumbs, but they are EXPENSIVE. So not worth crushing up a whole box of them just to make some cookies.

So, I came up with an alternate layer and it ended up being really tasty. We couldn’t really even tell the difference!

Gluten Free 7 – Layer Bars

4 Tbsp. melted butter

1 8oz bag of chopped pecans

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 c. brown sugar

Add all of these to a food processor and pulse until well blended. This is your bottom layer. Spread it evenly into your well greased 9×13 pan.

1 c. chocolate chips

1 c. butterscotch chips

1 1/3 c. shredded coconut

1 c. chopped walnuts (optional…I left these out since the whole bottom layer is nuts. Dh thought it would have been fine though)

1 (14oz ) can sweetened condensed milk

Layer the chips and nuts over the nut and sugar mixture. Pour the condensed milk over top and sprinkle it with the coconut.

Bake until the edges are golden brown, or about 20-25 min.  Let cool completely before cutting into squares.

Sometimes, especially when you’ve been a stay-at-home/homeschooling mom for as long as I have, all those parenting books tend to get a bit redundant. Happily, Strengthening Your Family: A Catholic Approach to Holiness by Marge Fenelon was not one of those book.  Reading this book was like having a chat with Marge Fenelon over tea. Strengthening Your Family covers topics a wide range of topics from discipline to parental authority to marriage to dealing with worldliness. She speaks as a Titus 2 mother, having raised 4 children.  Each chapter contains a quote from either a saint, scripture or catechism, as well as discussion questions and a prayer. This would make a book to discuss in a mom’s group, but it would also be great for just journalling your thoughts as you read.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Strengthening Your Family . They are also a great source for a Catechism of the Catholic Church or a Catholic Bible.

Sunday – Sesame Chicken, jasmine rice and sugar snap peas

Monday – Meatloaf, roasted potatoes, brussel sprouts

Tuesday – hot dogs and  homemade sweet potato fries

Wednesday – curried chickpeas with onions, peppers and zucchini, jasmine rice

Thursday – Taco pasta and broccoli

Friday – Spaghetti and meatballs

In the midst of that I’ll also be baking lots of goodies–there’s always WAY too many treats in my kitchen in December. Happily, I’ve been able to successfully convert all my Christmas cookie recipes thus far to gluten free without any problems.  

Today is the end of the Read-A-Thon, so there isn’t a challenge. Today is a good day to finish up any books that you are working on, and reward yourself for all your hard work. I’m thinking we might go get some ice cream today to celebrate. I would have liked for a bit more reading to have  happened here — but I know my boys did what they could (they do NOT like to read and this week didn’t seem to change that.)

The scavenger hunt was a big hit here–my kids really had a lot of fun hunting through all our books and comparing their answers. I could definitely see doing this again…maybe making it an annual event. Overall, it was a fun way to spend a vacation week.

Today is a fairly easy challenge – read a true story. It can be a biography, a non-fiction book, a chronicle of a specific event, whatever–so long as it’s true.

I also have a book scavenger hunt for the kids to do today. I tried to make it fairly generic, but at least one item is specific to our family. Feel free to ignore  number 2 if it doesn’t apply to you.

Book Scavenger Hunt

Happy reading and hunting!!

Update:

We had another beautiful day yesterday, so between the scavenger hunt (which took most of the morning) and wanting to be outdoors–not a lot of reading happened.

Annie:

Joan of Arc – Diane Stanley

Dino Boy and Gamer Boy:

Amazing Sharks – Sarah L. Thomson

Cutie:

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb – Al Perkins

First, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

Second–today’s challenge is easy – Read a book about Thanksgiving!

Happy reading! (and happy eating!)

Update:

We honestly didn’t read much yesterday — between watching the parade, cooking, and eating–well, we just didn’t read much.

Annie:

Thank You, Sarah! The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving – Laurie Halse Anderson

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving – Charles Schulz

Dino Boy:

The Hungry Thing – Jan Slepian and Ann Seider

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving – Charles Schulz

Gamer Boy:

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving – Charles Schulz

Cutie:

Happy Thanksgiving Biscuit! – Alyssa Satin Capucilli (read aloud by Dino Boy)

Mamasaurus:

I only managed to get 2 chapters into Dracula the Undead – Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt