Halloween

McKinley bounced between being Jessie the cowgirl for Halloween and a cheerleader. Since we had both costumes, she chose one for her church party and dance party, and the other for the school party and trick-or-treating. The boys were Jeff Gordon. I'm not sure Sawyer will ever choose to be something other than a Nascar driver. He's been a race car driver every year since he was 2! (Oh yeah, I did make him be Harry Potter one year).

Hayden was sick so he only visited Grandma's houses then helped pass out the candy. Sawyer was done trick-or-treating less than halfway through the neighborhood. But McKinley kept going strong and we had to empty out some of her bag into Sawyer's so she could keep going.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

New York Times Bestseller? Really?

I love all things Pride and Prejudice. I own three of the movies (and watch them regularly). I also love the book by Jane Austen. So I was kind of excited to read this parody of it. I fully expected it to be ridiculous and was prepared to laugh at a funny twist on the story.

I think I laughed twice. The rest was just stupidly weird.

He even twisted some of the story to be more...naughty. It was a big let down and most of the zombie parts were just weird, boring, and not well written.

Big Cottonwood

into the mountains today with the boys...

...good times

OhSweetSadie!

I submitted my silhouettes for the OhSweetSadie Show and just got an invitation to sell them there! Yay! I'm so excited!

2011

Did you know they ARE making it into a movie? Yippee! Back in March Lionsgate productions bought the rights and the author is actually supposed to be writing the screenplay.

That sounds promising.

They'd better be good at casting because I don't want another Edward mishap.

But 2011? Does that mean the third book won't come out until around then?

We carved our pumpkins on Sunday night after very persistent pleas all weekend long. I took the pumpkins, tools, and excited kids out back to make our pumpkins together. I ended up cleaning out all the pumpkins (I hate the pumpkin boogers), and then carving all the pumpkins by myself with an occasional visit from one child or another to let me know if they approved of the results. McKinley did draw a design on one of the pumpkins (a cat face), and Sawyer poked some holes in his pumpkin until we were afraid he would lose a finger. Hayden loves his "spooky" as he calls it.

yum!

We may have a serious Nutella addiction.

Sawyer had a class trip to the pumpkin patch today. He was so excited! He loves his school! I got to take a few pictures of the boys together before Sawyer took off with his friends and left us in the dust. Hayden just wanted to climb on the tractors. They had a cute, free corn maze, and a hayride for the preschool visitors. leaving us in the dust with some buddies

No, I didn't make him pose like this.
It was his idea.
He likes to see pictures of himself so he'll strike a few poses and ask me to take his picture.

McKinley got her Principal Pride award today for "great attention to detail" on her picture.

She was so excited and proud of herself. I'm so glad she is developing self-confidence!

Yea McKinley!

Sea Glass

I finished Sea Glass yesterday. It's the sequel to Storm Glass. I had a harder time getting through this story. I think 5 in a row from the same author has gotten to me. I liked the Poison Study books better.

I'm fantasied out.

I need a break from the genre. Good thing book 3 in the series doesn't come out until 2011, maybe I'll be interested again.

This is my day

what a crappy day.



I hate ironing.

Now what do I read?

Storm Glass

Also by Maria Snyder, and my last book review for today I promise. This book is about Opal, who we meet in book #2 or #3 I believe from the Study books below. She is a glassmaker who finds out she has magical abilities related to glass.

If you like the Study books, then you'll like this one. Although I'm not sure how I feel about the impending love triangle. I don't need any crappy complications like Edward and Jacob. Luckily the next book in the series will be ready for me soon.

Fire Study

Book #3. Yelena struggles to understand her soulfinding abilities and help Sitia and Ixia keep peace.

Magic Study

Book #2. She goes back to Sitia to explore her magical powers and meet her family.

Poison Study

by Maria V Snyder

I read this book a while back when trying to get through a book depression. I liked it a lot, but didn't remember about it until I saw someone else recommend it. It's a series, so I recently picked up Magic Study-loved, and then Fire Study-loved it. Then the same author has written more books about a different character in the book called Storm Glass, so I read that yesterday (it was an ignore everything else and just read day). Now I have to wait for the second in the Glass series to arrive at my library :( Now what do I read?

Yelena is captured from her family at the age of 6 by an evil man because she is suspected of having magic potential. He wants to steal her magic from her (accomplished by a horrible life of torture). She eventually kills him (I think she's 19 or so) and ends up in the dungeon. The assistant to the Commander gives her the choice to either be hanged or to become the Commander's food taster for poison. So she chooses the poison taster...

My thoughts: I really like these books and think I want to buy them for my collection. They're obviously from the fantasty genre. And the end of book 1 secret about Commander Ambrose is really weird at first, but by the end of book 3 it makes more sense and wasn't so weird.

I hope there's more to Yelena's story to come.