The Hunger Games

I've never seen Tyler read a book so intently before!

It always happens to me. I never understand what all the buzz and hype is about until I actually try it and then I'm hooked. It was that way for the Angry Birds game on the iphone, skinny jeans and now The Hunger Games series. (Although I must admit I've never been impressed with the Twilight series, Britney Spears or N'Sync, or any type of creature you eat that comes from the sea.)

Have you all read the Hunger Games series? I bet you have. Tyler and I seem to be the last to jump on the boat with the books. Nevertheless we are both starting book #2 tonight. (I have a feeling we'll be fighting over it because we only have one copy, but lucky for me Tyler has a midterm to study for!) The first book was a tinch predictable but that didn't make me want to stop reading it. I can't wait to get started on the next one. When Tyler was reading the book he kept having to "politely" tell me to not to bother him. I loved how into it he got!

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And any post wouldn't be complete without bragging about what a cute baby we have, right? Kidding. Kind of.

Bath time. Tyler made sure to cover the little guy up (so his future girlfriend won't internet stalk him years later and find a surprise!)

What do I do with all of his hair? And all of those cowlicks? I want to give him a haircut but who gives a 3-month old a haircut?? And I'm worried his cowlicks will just get worse if I cut it. He can wear his hair curly or straight, but if I put too much product in it his hair gets greasy really fast. Suggestions?



Some tidbits I want to remember:
He has recently become fascinated with the couch cushions.
He laughed yesterday when I read him The Alphabet Bookby P.D. Eastman. When I got to the letter J and read "juggler with jack-o'-lanterns" he giggled.
He sleeps 9-10 hours every night, from about 10 at night to 7 or 8 in the morning. It's really nice for Momma!
He is 25+ inches tall! (Kind of hard to get an accurate measurement) He is probably 14 pounds now. Yikes!!
He loves to kick his arms and legs! It looks like uncoordinated jumping jacks.
He loves when I read to him.
After he sneezes he always goes, "ahhhhh" afterwards. Cute!
No matter what time church is, he always wants to eat during Sunday School. Does he find it boring??
He eats about 5-6 ounces each feeding, and doesn't mind ice cold milk anymore (see this post). Some days he goes 4 hours between each feeding, and STILL sleeps through the night!
He is normally very well-behaved in public. Well, he is at home too. But everyone always comments on how "content" he is just sitting in our laps.
He loves air being blown in his face. It's pretty much a guaranteed smile. :)

Kindle Lending Club

Here's an awesome website created by Amazon that allows people to borrow and share their Kindle books! It's easy to register and navigate the site, and completely safe. :) This has been EXACTLY what I've been looking for!! I've already requested The Hunger Games and Ender's Game.

**EDIT: The way it works is you sign in (I used my Facebook account) and then you can request a book you want. You just type in the title you want and then hit "request" and the system will find someone and ask them if they can lend it to you. You can also post your own books (manually) to lend. On the Kindle, you can only lend out your books once, and I believe it is for 14 days. But I see this as more than fair. :)


I am currently engulfed in a book called Matched by Ally Condie. It is about a "perfect" Society, where everyone's choices are made for them: what they wear, eat, their vocation, and even their marriage "Matches". Cassia is the protagonist who is matched with her childhood friend Xander, but also accidentally (due to a system malfunction) matched with a boy named Ky. This makes her really doubt who he true Match is and who she is supposed to be with. She also begins to doubt everything around her being controlled by the Society. Based on what I've heard, it's sort of like a lighter-reading cross between 1984 and The Giver? It's very clean and a quick read. I'm almost done and so excited to see how it ends! Five stars.

(I'm also excited to read Ally Condie's other novel, Crossed.)

The KINDLE!

My Christmas present this year from Tyler was an amazon Kindle. I love it! I am already almost finished with my first full-length book. I can use it while I feed Jack too which is a big plus. I don't have to sacrifice reading books anymore!

The book I am currently reading is called Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand: Curious Adventures of a CSI. I seem to have some sort of weird fascination with medical books. (My other great medical reads were Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and The Woman Who Swallowed a Toothbrush: And Other Weird Medical Cases) Yeah, I'm a little weird.

(But I also started reading the free Alice in Wonderland book and it's quite good too! Just not quite as captivating as Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand.)

DwellStudio

I'm a HUGE fan of DwellStudio's kid books. They beautifully bridge the gap between modern design and being kid-friendly.

With a graphic designer as a mother, our kids will most definitely come to loathe Comic Sans as much as I do. It's never too early to encourage good design with your kids!

Adventures with the Joneses

Yesterday we started cleaning out the spare bedroom and found multiple sheets of bubble wrap.
You can only guess what we did next...we jumped on it! It was one of the loudest sheets of bubble wrap I've ever jumped on. It was endless! (I tried to get action shots of Tyler jumping, but it turns out you can't jump very high in a basement apartment with low ceilings and no padding on the floor. Stupid, cheap carpet.)
Next we went to the park. Well, if felt like the park to me. I sprawled out on the green, itchy grass and delved into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.


Tyler and Colin played tennis. It was a great game until the last 3 rounds or so (are they even called rounds? Tyler is going to kill me because I said that wrong...) they were both exhausted and so pooped they barely even tried. It got to be pretty amusing to me: when they'd hit the ball to each other, the receiving end would sometimes just stand there and let it go instead of running for it. I don't blame them though--an hour and a half in 94 degree weather can kill you!

But good job, my friends. Really. Way-to-go.

I also completed our wedding album yesterday! Now when people ask to see it, I can show them. (Okay, I'm telling a small fib. I didn't actually complete it per say, but I rather finalized which pictures are going where. I just have to wait for a snapfish.com sale and then order them all. And then paste them in. So there really is a lot of work left over, but the hardest part is done!)

An Early Birthday Present

It's been really hard with Tyler gone, even if it has only been a day. I can't wait until he comes home late tonight! I've found myself crying uncontrollably at the most inconvenient times--for example, last night I went to a relief society couponing club (which was fabulous, I might add) and they asked the typical, "how are you today?" question, and I about burst into tears. Only a few teardrops shed later, the club distracted me enough for an hour and a half. But when I got home, I broke down again and sobbed uncontrollably.

I think Tyler must have expected this. I really am an emotional person, and will break down crying when I burn dinner just a little bit. But last night was bad. Even when I thought about him, the tears started coming. Anyway, long story short. My birthday is tomorrow, and Tyler is a very good secrets-keeper. Last night while on the phone with him, he asked me what I was doing to keep me occupied. He knows I love to read, but I explained the book I was reading to him wasn't helping me feel better (it's called The Lovely Bones and is actually quite good so far, except for the fact that it's about a girl that was raped and murdered and is watching her family down on earth from heaven try to cope with her death). He then walked me through the bedroom (over the phone of course) and told me he's been keeping a book for my birthday (which is tomorrow) and he wanted me to have it early. It's perfect.

It's called The Tales of Beedle the Bard, written by J.K. Rowling. It's fantastic! It's already impressed me and so far I've only read the introduction. Here is Amazon.com's summary:

"Offering the trademark wit and imagination familiar to Rowling's legions of readers--as well as Aesop's wisdom and the occasional darkness of the Brothers Grimm--each of these five tales reveals a lesson befitting children and parents alike: the strength gained with a trusted friendship, the redemptive power of love, and the true magic that exists in the hearts of all of us. Rowling's new introduction also comments on the personal lessons she has taken from the Tales, noting that the characters in Beedle's collection "take their fates into their own hands, rather than taking a prolonged nap or waiting for someone to return a lost shoe," and "that magic causes as much trouble as it cures."

But the true jewel of this new edition is the enlightening and comprehensive commentary (including extensive footnotes!) by Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, who brings his unique wizard's-eye perspective to the collection. Discovered "among the many papers which Dumbledore left in his will to the Hogwarts Archives," the venerable wizard's ruminations on the Tales allow today's readers to place them in the context of 16th century Muggle society, even allowing that "Beedle was somewhat out of step with his times in preaching a message of brotherly love for Muggles" during the era of witch hunts that would eventually drive the wizarding community into self-imposed exile. In fact, versions of the same stories told in wizarding households would shock many for their uncharitable treatment of their Muggle characters.

Professor Dumbledore also includes fascinating historical backstory, including tidbits such as the history and pursuit of magic wands, a brief comment on the Dark Arts and its practitioners, and the struggles with censorship that eventually led "a certain Beatrix Bloxam" to cleanse the Tales of "much of the darker themes that she found distasteful," forever altering the meaning of the stories for their Muggle audience. Dumbledore also allows us a glimpse of his personal relationship to the Tales, remarking that it was through "Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump" that "many of us [wizards] first discovered that magic could not bring back the dead."

Thank you, Tyler!