Best Books 2014

For the past 2 years I have had a goal to read 50 books by Jan. 1st. Which has been kind of crazy, but I also feel very accomplished. Here are the most impactful books I read in 2014, the next blog will be for 2015.

Terrible Lizard: The First Dinosaur Hunters and the Birth of a New Science

by Deborah Cadbury

This was a bookclub pick - My science teacher friend picked it, she says she hates history books, but that's exactly what this is. The very first paleontologists, who had no guidelines or process, who named dinosaurs based solely on the jawbone that they found in a quarry or beach. I found it utterly fascinating.

Austenland 

by Shannon Hale

This was also a book club pick but I was planning to read it anyway based on suggestions from friends. Also the reason it is so good is because of this movie that they made which I watch whenever I need a good laugh.

Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

by Michelle Moran

This is a novelization of true events during the French Revolution. Filled with big names and the pretty awesome story of how Madame Tussaud's wax figures figured in the French Revolution. It is a captivating story that made the history of it more relevant.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

by Charles Duhigg

This is a research-type book that explains how habits get started and perpetuated in our lives. It uses science to explain why, how, and when we reward ourselves which creates a pattern of living. Super interesting.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life

by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is a genius and one of my favorite writers. He is an exhaustive researcher who likes to explain things down to the smallest detail. This book is about each room of the house, how and when they emerged and why we use our homes the way we do.

One Summer: America, 1927

by Bill Bryson

Here is another Bill Bryson, here he wrote about just one summer and all the world-changing stuff that happened in just those few months. He starts with Charles Lindbergh's flight over the Atlantic - Do you know he wasn't just the first person to fly solo across the ocean, but just the first person to do it at all? So many interesting events happened that summer, and in Bill Bryson style, he does all the backstory and research about how it all ended up happening.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

by Erik Larson

Erik Larson is another amazing researcher who can use only primary documents and create a complete and compelling narrative with full bodied characters. This book jumps between two stories, happening simultaneously in Chicago. One is the story of a very creepy serial killer and the other is the story of the 1893 World's Fair, from conception to completion and all the bumps along the way. The first Ferris Wheel debuted here! I liked the World's Fair stories, less so the serial killer. 

London Corollary Post

Shalane brought up a good point in the comments of Rebecca's announcement. I don't put up info about my pregnancies, not sure why, I probably overdid it with Anna and now am overcompensating.

But there is a good story I have to go back to tell you-
So you may remember I went to London with Ben in April, I was only a few weeks pregnant - hadn't been to the Dr. yet - but I was plenty sick. Sick sick sick. Combined with jetlag, I was just barely keeping it together the whole trip.
So at the end of our stay Ben ordered an Uber ride to the airport which was a solid 40+ minute car ride through London early in the morning. By the time we got dropped off at Heathrow I was done. I stood there, as the car drove away, shaking my head at Ben who was ready to do his airport thing - he does it so well.  I knew that if I started walking, I would regret it. And yet, standing still I also regretted it. So in the early morning, at the drop off lane of Heathrow Airport, I tossed all the cookies in my tummy. And at the end I desperately needed something to wipe my face with, so I cracked open a zipper and pulled out a pant leg from my luggage, cleaned myself up and stuffed it back in. Then fetus, Ben, soiled luggage and I and all walked in to start a 14 hour travel day.

I'm glad we can laugh about it now. 

Rebecca

On Friday morning I had to get up super early, take this picture then drive to the hospital -

To have a baby - 

Rebecca Juliette was born around lunchtime after about 4 1/2 hours of medicated labor.

Stats: super cute, looks/acts like her siblings, loves pacifiers cuddles and eating.

(Actual stats: 7lbs 2oz 19")

Ben was there.

Her sisters adore her but they have been on an extended visit to grammas house and have not seen much of her yet.

Calvin is still working on facing this new reality.

Mommy, I can't

This has become an oft-quoted video at our house. Even Calvin likes to watch it repeatedly. It just perfectly sums up how it feels sometimes, when life gets a little hard.

Half Square Triangle Quilt

This is the pattern I used to make this quilt - each block is a different arrangement of half-square triangles, each is unique, there are 72 of them.

Here they are finally finished trying to figure out a layout I liked - it took me a half hearted 2 years to finish all the blocks? maybe, I can't remember. I was definitely working on these at our old house. They got pushed to the back burner a lot while I worked on other things, like the couch slip covers.

The blocks with white sashing.

Here is an up close of the quilting - so glad I sent it out to be professionally quilted, it looks so good.

Top Tip: any time you spread a quilt on the ground, all the children in the area will come stand right on top of it. The back is a gentle paisley that magically matches all the pink, blue, green on the front. The binding is a solid pink.

Here it is on the bed. I'm a little neurotic about this quilt, it being so white and new and fresh, very nervous of messy hands and dirty shoes. That will happen eventually, but hopefully not for a few years.

Thanksgiving 2015

by Anna Gaines

Grandma and Rachel were here for thanksgiving, it was a lot of fun having them here.
At pie night i had pop rock pie. It was good. It felt very tingly. There was a pretty Mona Lisa pie. It was awesome.




For thanksgiving we went to Uncle Todd's house. I played super smash bro. downstairs. I ate some mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls and fruit.

Thanksgiving was super fun.




*editor's note: It's fun to have a guest author now and then, Anna is usually willing to write a short blog about what's going on, hopefully we will see more in the future from her. As her editor I'm not sure how much correction to give her, should I leave typo's and grammatical errors because they are adorable or use the opportunity to teach her?

Halloween 2015

For Halloween this year the girls were both bats and Calvin was Dumbo. They all loved their costumes and celebrating everything. Pumpkins, pumpkin houses, decorations, trick or treating, everything!

Friday night halloween party at Gramma Zoo's house, the kids got my phone and took these selfies in the car on the way there:

looking good Eliza

Calvin had already had some candy, apparently.


Anna got a mustache from her class party, so for a few minutes she was a bat with a mustache.


Saturday was a beautiful day, we stayed outside as much as we could, I cleaned out the garden and the girls got excited to carve pumpkins. They insisted on doing the carving themselves which made me extremely nervous and alert. They did a great job.


Anna did a monster, Eliza's was a cat, Calvin instructed me in doing a "funny face pumpkin"



They are sitting next to their pumpkins in this picture. Good thing we had SO MANY pumpkins from our garden, I will have to give more away next time.

Uncle Thad helped us go trick or treating because Ben was out of town, it was fun and Calvin was so so adorable.

Jakers Jack O Lantern

We went twice to Jakers JackO Lantern in Springville, because Anna didn't get to go with us the first time. It's probably the best pumpkin patch experience you can get for the money with kids this age. It was $1 each and Calvin was free. But if you go on a weekday before 2 pm, it's free. I can't believe they do that.

Anyway, Calvin loved everything about it, pumpkin farm, hay ride, corn pit: jackpot.
The girls liked most of it, showing about half the enthusiasm that Calvin did.

Hayriders:

Jumping in the corn pit:

Being the last Saturday before Halloween, the corn pit was extra crowded, but even with my agoraphobia we had a good time.

Toddler Bed Time

This has been one of the most tortured decisions I have made as a parent. Moving a perfectly happy, solid sleeping, mischievous boy from a crib (aka baby cage) that he wouldn't climb out of into a cage free, totally open toddler bed. This move also meant moving him from his own room to a room shared with his big sister Anna.

But he is 3 now and at some point that becomes cruelty. So I made up his bed for him in the morning, I tucked in his toys, Hobbes, Cat the Cat and Pete the Cat so that he would be used to the idea by bedtime.

As soon as I showed him the adorableness, he promptly tossed all the stuffed animals onto the ground and climbed in to get cozy with his blankets. "I need to sleep!" at 10:30 am.

Fortunately, things are going very well. Pairing him with Anna has been a great fit as she has enough mischief in her that she isn't bothered by his. She keeps him occupied and in the room. He is still excited about it. He even took a nap in the bed the next day. 

It's going so well, maybe I should try potty training...maybe not.

Fall Gingerbread

I was determined to make a fall gingerbread house this year. When we couldn't find a single boxed kit, I took it upon myself to bake it ourselves.

The girls were excited to play with the dough and cut out some cookies. For some reason we don't have any halloween cookie cutters so we had to get creative, Eliza did some stars.

Here are our baked walls with stained glass windows.

Some of our other cookies. Crabs, ninjas, sharks, a snowman. You know, the essentials.

Here is our assembled house, this was fraught with peril as I had not considered how it was all supposed to go together before I started icing it and was wrong 3-4 times before I finally figured it out. Still, gaps and all but not too bad looking I think.

Here it is all decorated, this picture is right after it started falling apart and right before I told them all to stop touching it and go away. It has survived somehow and it was fun and exhausting to make.

Time\teleport machine

This guest blog post was written by Anna Gaines.

I made a teleport time machine this after noon. I don't now if it works yet.

It looks like this.

this is the computer.it is connected to the teleportor.

I hope it works.

Camping Out

Thursday night we camped out in the yard. We had a small fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Then we set up the tent in the dark, the girls found flashlights. We set up the sleeping bags and got all ready for bed then watched The Lorax on the Ipad in the tent. It was not as stressful as I thought, but my hands were busy enough that I did not take any pictures. Either that or Calvin had my phone for a lot of the activities.
Sleeping was difficult for me, Anna slept very well. I ended up back in my bed at 2am and Eliza found me there 4 hours later. She was a little upset to be left in the tent without me.
We spent Friday recovering from our adventure.

Ben was working late/sick so he missed out on all the fun. poor guy.

written by Toni, Anna, and Eliza

Fall Times

We survived Eliza's 5th birthday. It finally came and went and she was outstandingly spoiled by everyone. She got a new twin bed so that Calvin can take over her toddler bed (a task which fills me with immense dread and has not yet been tried)

I took the kids and one friend to Kangaroo Zoo for an hour after school, same as last year. We came back to the house for pizza and cake with family.

She really liked helping with this pathetic pink butterfly cake. I do not have lofty ambitions in cake decor. We couldn't find any candles, though I'm sure they are hidden somewhere. She didn't notice at the time thankfully.

The bat costume she got as a present, she wears it recreationally around the house. Often.

We have been busy visiting all the parks in the area: My kids just figured out that playing at parks is a fun distraction designed for children, it has been so nice to take them and not have to show them what to do and that they are all old enough to not get hurt.
One day it was so beautiful Eliza suggested we have a picnic out on the grass, which was a genius-level idea. Which brings me to the other outstanding breakthrough -

After watching my poor lawn struggle all summer despite almost daily watering, it finally occurred to me that the water must not be getting through to the roots. So I encouraged the participation of basically my whole family to rent an aerator and reap the benefits. My saintly parents spent a Saturday driving this monster machine all over the valley to 4 different houses and we all shared the cost. And GUESS WHAT?! My lawn was resurrected to a state better than we have seen since we moved in and it only took a week. I am so happy about it, I tell everyone who ever saw my poor dead lawn this summer. Maybe I take lawn care a little too seriously, but having a happy, green, well mown lawn brings joy to my little heart. 

Volunteerism

My mom sent an email to my sister and me early this morning asking if we would be interested in trading babysitting for taking some names to the temple for her. 

My husband has been out of town for the last week, so this was my reaction:

I nearly left before Anna left for school, but managed to get her situated before racing down to Gramma's.

As I was walking into the temple, I reminded myself again that I am now 30 (I have to do this periodically) and should probably start dressing like it. Then I ran into the mom of an old high school friend, and suddenly I was 17 again. But with 3 kids I have to admit that it was in fact an unbelievable 12 years ago that I started college.

Also while at the temple I kept thinking about the stampede that happened yesterday during the Hajj near Mecca. Over 700 people were killed and over 800 injured by their fellow worshipers. Astonishing and heartbreaking. They aren't sure how or why it happened, but apparently deadly stampedes are common enough during the Hajj that "safety precautions" have been taken.