Books, Books and More Books

Wow, it has been so long since I've blogged! What's up with that?  But I'm back and I'm committed to keeping a "journal" of our everyday life.  It helps keep my family in Guatemala and San Antonio up to date with our milestones, etc. So bear with me...

We've read so many books lately. Here are just a few...

I think this might be Carson's favorite so far. He enjoyed the book so much that he MADE me go and buy his friend Ella (from school) a copy.

(Like father, like son...that's the way Dave started to trick me!

~Of course, we were MUCH older! Ella has said she wants to get married, but Carson is non-committal at this point.)

Another great book we enjoyed was "Where The Red Fern Grows."  Since reading this book, Carson has been letting us know that he's saving his money to buy two hound dogs. It's a very, very sad book. I had gone to the grocery store the night they finished reading it. While shopping I received a phone call from my children crying hysterically. At first, I didn't know what was going on! Finally, I realized that they had finished the book and they were devastated that both dogs had died. The funny part is that they didn't even cry when they watched the movie. That just goes to show you that the movie is never as good as the book.

We also read..

(This book inspired Natalia to be Dorothy for Halloween this year. The plan was for all three kids to choose a character from the Wizard of Oz, but the boys wouldn't go for that nonsense :0(

(Are they old enough to make those decisions anyway?)

and...

As a matter of fact, these last two books Natalia finished reading on her own. According to her, I wasn't going fast enough.

It's just so fun being able to sit as a family and read. ~So, why not grab a book and start reading...you'll be hooked!

In addition to our family reading time, Natalia loves to read on her own too. Here are a few from her collection...

The American Girl books - The Kit series plus these two mysteries:

She also enjoys The Magic School Bus books!

Do You Like Happy Endings?

Well, this book sure is full of happy endings! And we had a happy ending too as we met to discuss our 3rd book, Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews with good food!

We had our 3rd book club meeting last night.  We all met at Kristi's house (thanks Kristi!).  We had a delicious homemade meal.  

The menu:

For appetizers we had crab-cakes made by yours truly.  At the end of the book there was a recipe for Crab-cakes, which by the way, is excellent.  They are very easy to make too so that is a plus.  I also made a Lemon Remoulade sauce to go along with the crab-cakes and the shrimp.

They were better than what they look like on this picture, 

but you get the idea.

Brittney was in charge of the shrimp.  She did an excellent job marinating and grilling the shrimp.  She is such a champ with the grill even though the starter was broken.  I wanted to capture the explosion as the grill started but this is as close as I got.  :0)

Kristi baked the potatoes.  They were so yummy!

Elizabeth was in charged of all the stuff for the baked potatoes.  Did you know you can add red bell pepper, grape tomatoes and Italian dressing to your baked potato in addition to the other stuff like butter, sour cream and cheese?  I've never had it so loaded like that before, but I'm glad I tried it.  It was really good.  Definitely not P90X approved!

Lucy cooked the best broccoli ever, which complimented the meal very nicely.  She also brought Limeade.

And to end the meal, we had Key Lime Pie!  Thanks Heather, it was heavenly!

Okay, so with all that being said, we are ready to embark on our new adventure as we read our 4th book selected by Heather....

Drum roll please...

Stay tuned, who knows....we might end up in New York to discuss this book next month!

  

My Little Bookworm!

Natalia loves to read and normally she can read the Junie B. Jones books in a day.  She has read several of these already, so one day, I decided to buy her her first American Girl book.  I just thought it would be a little more challenging.  

I went with Meet Kristen.  She loved it.  I started by reading it to her.  One day she got so tired of hearing me say to her "wait Natalia, I'll read it to you in just a second", that she just grabbed the book and read it until she finished it.  

She loved it!  So, I went ahead and bought her another American Girl book, but this time I got her Meet Felicity and, yea, I don't think she liked it as much.  I had to finished reading it to her.  The last two pages, she made me laugh.  She kept jumping up and down saying "please stop reading, oh I just don't want to know what's going to happened, please stop!"  

Anyway, needless to say, I guess we are buying another Kristen book.

 

And Our Third Book Selection Is?

Friday, we had our 2nd book club meeting.  Once again, we met at Tic Tac for a pedicure.  Later, we went to eat Vietnamese food at Pho's.  I love those Charbroiled Pork and Shrimp Spring Rolls with peanut sauce!

After discussing our last book selection, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Brittney introduced our next book assignment:

Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews

Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

 

Dave just finished reading Old Yeller to the kids.  Carson is starting to really enjoy hearing big books like this one read to him.  Natalia, like always, just can't wait until it's time to read and then she never wants to quit reading.  "Just one more chapter Daddy, Please!!!"

The kids were pretty sad the night we finished the book.  As the book was coming to an end, and Travis had just shot Old Yeller, Carson said, "I think I'm starting to cry."  They were wondering why the book had such a sad ending?  

Thanks to Grannie, we were also able to watch the movie this week!  As a matter of fact, we've already watched it twice.  Lia runs into the other room every time she recognizes a scary part is coming, and Carson is upset that the movie left out the scene of the chongo bull and the roan bull fighting.  I guess Carson now understands Tom Clancy's sentiment when he says giving your book to a movie producer is like giving your daughter to a cheap pimp?  (Ah, by the way...this last sentence was added by Dave.)

But anyway...great book and we highly recommend it!

Book Club/ Girls Night Out

Elizabeth and I have been talking about starting a Book Club for over a year and we finally got it going! Sometime in December we made our first book selection.  

                                 

                                                     

                                            

I would have never chosen this book as our first book selection, but imagine this:  Four girls in a bookstore at 10:00 p.m. trying to agree on a book.  We just couldn't decide until 10 minutes before the store was going to close, one of the employees suggested Water for Elephants, so we went for it.

On Friday, Elizabeth, Kristi, Kim, Brittney, Heather and I met for our first Book Club meeting.  We went to get a pedicure and a manicure.  Oh it was so nice!  We will definitely going to have to do that again.

 

Later, we went to eat at Easy's and discussed the book.  And then, it was time for Elizabeth to reveal the next book selection: 

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

                                                  

  

Oh what a great night out with the girls.  Can't wait for our next Book Club meeting.

Library Fun

We love to go to the library. Natalia was so excited to get her very own library card. Carson was a little disappointed because I told him that he cannot get his own card until he can sign his name all by himself. I'm hoping this will give him the motivation he so desperately needs to learn how to write his name.  

Natalia loves to read! She always complains when it is time to leave.  She is also never content with just a few books!!!!! Every time, I have to explain to her that we can't take too many books and that we will be back!  

Luke loves the fact that he can use the computer and he also loves to play with the puppets.

Carson spends most of his time in the Sports section. Most of the books he gets are about sports. One day, he found a black and white, old book about archery. He has been intrigued with bow and arrows since then. We read this book every day for two weeks. After two weeks we had to return the book to the library. We weren't able to go in, so we just dropped it off in the drop-off box. Carson was so heartbroken. A few days later, we returned to the library and Carson was so excited when he found that same book again!  

The next day, we had to take the book to BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) to share with everybody!

"Like the Tellar and the Nellar and the Gellar and the Dellar..."

Ah...look at them hugging!  Okay so they do love each other, but there is another reason why they hug while Daddy reads There's a Wocket in my Pocket! by Dr. Seuss.

                                                                 

                                                            

Ever since Natalia and Carson were very little every time Dave reads this book and gets to a particular part whoever is not hugging gets a "tickle-tickle"!   

Learning to Worship!

Okay, so here we are already!  I never imagined this stage in our lives would be here so quickly.  It's such an important and crucial part of their upbringing.  So, I'm praying for a lot of wisdom and p a t i e n c e!  

Sunday was the very first time the kids went to big church with us.  They were so excited to go, but the excitement wore off after 5 minutes!  I thought it was going to be a terrible experience, but to my surprise, they did great.  

For some reason, Luke went with us too.  I think this was the first and last time he'll be with us during worship.  I think 4 or 5 is a good age, not 3!  He did so good though.  At first, he sat with Daddy and then he came and sat with me and fell asleep.  He slept through the whole message.

Carson, thought he was part of the worship team.  He played his imaginary guitar and drums.  During the message, he got a little anxious and kept asking Daddy if we could go to the house, but he did good overall.  There is definitely some room for improvement.

Natalia, was an angel.  Except that every 5 minutes she would ask me when we could go home!  She had her Bible with her so she looked for the scriptures the pastor was preaching from.  She also counted all the light fixtures and she can probably tell you how many chairs were in the auditorium.  She would look at me in surprise whenever she heard the words Jesus, God, cross, salvation, righteousness....all those words she is familiar with.  

I've been reading Parenting in the Pew.  It's a pretty good book.  This is all new to me and I need all the help I can get.  I definitely don't want to miss (or mess up) these precious years I have with my children to teach them what it is to go to church and truly spend time with God in worship.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Dave just finished reading this book to the kids.  What a great book!  Natalia could not stop thinking and talking about it.  Now, we are in the process of watching the movie.  A few more nights before we can finish it.

I just love seeing Dave read to the kids.  He is also so good about working with Natalia on her school work and flash cards.  Every morning, right after Natalia wakes up, she goes and cuddles with Dad.  After a few minutes, once she finally manages to wake him up, they start working on math, reading and spelling.  

Just the Beginning of The Hardy Boys Series

These were Dave's books while growing up, and now Dave is making sure his kids are exposed to them.  (Thanks Grannie for saving all these books for all these years!)  

Natalia hated it when it was time to stop reading.  She just wanted to know what was going to happen next and she was so worried about the man with the red wig.  She is really starting to enjoy suspense novels.  Carson was just convinced that he was Frank.

I'm glad Dave read this book to them because I enjoy books like The Secret Garden, Ann of Green Gables and stuff like that.  Poor Carson, he really needs Daddy to save him from these kind of books.  If he doesn't watch out, he'll be reading Little Women soon.

Forgetting my Spanish???

On Sunday, I was talking to my aunt Lilian,from Guatemala. I was explaining to her that I'm having a hard time writing in Spanish. I'm starting to question my spelling and grammar. She quickly said, "Yes, you know what I think you should do? You should read books in Spanish! Oh and you should read them out loud too. That would help you with the accent." ~~She thinks I'm starting to sound funny when I talk Spanish.

So, today I went during lunch and got this:


I still have to finish reading World Without End by Ken Follett, but I think this is very important too. So, we'll see how long it will take me to read these two books plus the book I'm currently reading to Natalia and the books I daily read to Luke and Carson. ~Wow, that's a lot of reading.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Last night, we finished another book. This time, Carson and Luke also got to enjoy it!

Edward may be a toy rabbit but he has a lot to tell us about the nature of love and how we learn to love.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I finally finished reading The Secret Garden to Natalia. Wow, it took a while, but we finished it, all 386 pages! At about page 280, Natalia started to loose interest, but then all of a sudden, she started to get into the book again. Today, she didn't want me to stop until we finished it. Needless to say, we read until 9:45 p.m. tonight.

While reading through the book, I often stopped and asked her questions to make sure that she was actually paying attention. It amazes me how she can stay focus even though sometimes she looks as if she is somewhere else. For example tonight, in particular, she blew me away. In the last chapter, it talks about a letter that Mr. Craven received from Yorkshire. I asked Natalia, "who do you think sent the letter?" Natalia's answer was Martha (the answer was actually Susan Sowerby, Martha's Mom). I asked Natalia why she thought that it was from Martha and she said, "well, because she speaks Yorkshire." Oh and then, I was reading in a hurry and I mispronounced a word. She stopped me and corrected me. ~What am I going to do with her...