Favorite Reads of 2010

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien has been on my to-read list since I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy forever ago. I finally made it around to it and was rewarded. I love to good book, and this is just such a fun story. I never thought I'd enjoy Bilbo Baggins like I did.


I read Nathaniel's Hawthorne's classic tale of adultery, repentance, and redemption out of my need to make up for all the books I didn't have to read in high school. I fully expected to wade through it. Instead, I was totally drawn into the storyline. Some books are classics because they are simply good books. This is one of them. P.S. Do NOT read The Grapes of Wrath. It may be a classic, but there were no redeeming features to this book!


This book was my most anticipated read this year. Mockingjay is the third in a series by Susanne Collins about a girl forced to participate twice in a reality-show type competition where she has to kill off other kids to survive and "win." She ends up as the face of a revolution and suffers immensely for her efforts. The series is full of drama, heart-rending defeats, and little hope. But it's enough, and the ending was perfect, I thought. Her characters are messed up after their experiences, to be sure, but you're left feeling that the world is a better place because of them.


Deanna Raybourn's Silent in the Grave is the first in Victorian-era series about a widow, Julia Grey, who becomes entangled in mysteries after the death of her first husband. Getting a taste for the intrigue, she follows Nicolas Brisbane around trying to vie for a place as an agent and possibly more. I absolutely love the temptestuous relationship between Julia and Brisbane, and this series fits totally within my current obsession with historical novels.


The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is one of those rare books that is just good all the way around. It's written very creatively through the letters of the characters to one another and takes place on an island post-WWII. Fantastic book!


Linger by Maggie Stiefvater is probably my favorite YA novel of the year. The story about teenage werewolves in perhaps not my favorite, but her writing is so fluid and beautiful. It feels like you're reading straight poetry. I love it!


The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig is my absolute favorite book of the year. In fact, it's well in the running for my favorite book ever. Set in Napoleon French era, it's full of swashbuckling spies, and romantic misadventures. The characters are hilarious, and the plot to unmask the Pink Carnation was totally surprising. I love the commentary from our modern counterpart, Eloise. I love Richard, Amy, Jane, and the whole gang. I'm reading it a second time right now and love it even more. Side note: There's a couple decidedly PG13 pages in this book. Beware sensitive readers.

Silly Natalie

Joe was cleaning out his garage and found Brooklin's infant carseat. Natalie was cold watching tv, so she found a place to sit. Ridiculous how comfortable she was inside there.


One day, Joe put Natalie's tutu on his head and told her it was a new fashion. Later that night, I went to tuck her in bed and found her thus!


Another night, we found Natalie like this. She told us the next morning that she just thought it would be funny to stick them to her head.

Christmas came early this year, really early

Santa did in fact make it to our house this year, even though the kids were sketchy at best in December. AJ was so naughty one day that I wrote a letter to Santa telling him not to bring presents. But he managed a come-back before I sent it.

And speaking of naughty, AJ woke up at 4:00 on Christmas morning, making it our earliest Christmas ever. But instead of waking up Mom and Dad, he just woke up the girls, and they started opening presents. We had no idea until half an hour later (still earliest Christmas ever) when Natalie ran up to tell us Santa brought her a pink scooter. We made them stop and go back to bed. Which turned out to be a great idea, because then they all slept until after 7:30. They only opened a few presents each, but I'm still frustrated that I didn't get to see their initial surprise reaction to Santa's coming. That's my favorite part!

We told the kids flat out that they were not going to get everything on their wish list this year, partly because we couldn't afford it, and partly because there were things we didn't want them to have. But we talked a lot about being grateful and not complaining. This strategy worked very well until AJ opened his Sunday clothes from his mom and saw a purple shirt. He exclaimed, "Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" He stopped himself right there and wouldn't say anything else about it. I asked him later, and he said, "Mom, it's just that I HATE purple. I don't like it even a little bit!" So we'll be returning the trendy purple for another color :)











We had Christmas Eve dinner at Liz and Nathan's house this year. It was Italian de-lish!! So good! We all ate way too much and enjoyed doing it.
We escaped the post-unwrapping apocalypse at our house Christmas morning by heading over to Grandma Johnson's house for fabulous prime rib dinner and more presents.

The holidays were very good to us, and I just want to say how grateful I am for the incredible gift of my Savior's life. I know He lives! I am blessed every day by His love. We love all of you and wish you a Happy New Year!!

Preparing for Christmas

Our Christmas season began right after Thanksgiving with the annual "Put-up-the-tree-and-see-how-many-ornaments-the-kids-can-break" celebration. Although, believe it or not, the kids didn't break a single ornament this year!!! We can't claim a total victory though because two of the ornaments we got in the mail from Grandma Muhlestein were not handled with care. Nothing a little super glue can't fix!


It seems the older our kids get, the busier we are. This is especially true during the holiday season. The kids participated in the annual school concert early in December. If you remember a few years ago, when AJ went to a different school, we were not impressed with the holiday program. There wasn't one Christmas song!! Not so at this school. The program had a bunch of super-cutesy songs about Christmas and jingle bells and all the things that a school holiday program should include. It was well worth our time. Not only that, they were smart and didn't try to crowd everyone into the elementary school gym during the middle of the day. Instead, it was held at the high school in the evening, so the parents could actually come and see.



Natalie and AJ were also part of the nativity for our ward Christmas program. AJ was a wise man, and Natalie was an angel in the choir. I decided to sing a solo for the program. I sang, "A Baby Changes Everything". It was terrifying, but I got lots of positive comments. The program was maybe longer than it needed to be, but very spiritual. And afterwards, of course, the kids got a visit from their favorite jolly old elf.






AJ had a piano recital last month. He played "Silent Night" and "I Saw Three Ships" and did great as always.


Natalie's ballet studio and another dance company in town performed, "The Nutcracker" this year. Natalie was a cute little mouse. Her favorite part was in the battle between mice and nutcracker soldiers, one of the soldiers got to lift her up.



It seems even the weather was in a Christmasy mood. We got three or four decent snow storms in December, which is unusual for this area. It would have been a whole lot more fun if the city did anything to actually take care of the roads. Instead, they just let people drive on it, compact it, and turn into a giant layer of ice. Here we are building a snowman with Natalie's friend, Miranda.

Tie trick

Joe has been quite the member missionary lately, making friends with the full-time missionaries and going on team-ups and such. This has led him to reminesce about his mission days. One of the things he liked the best was competing for the biggest tie knot. Here he is with his big ol' knot.


And here's the secret to this knot...

Because my Boo is just cute

Brooklin can be such a stinker sometimes (like when she decides to randomly empty her dresser). But other times, I love her so much it hurts!




She's decided to learn how to dress herself. It's pretty funny.


She's realized that being in a toddler bed means she's not physically obligated to stay put, but she's smart enough not to show her face after she's supposed to be in bed.




Here's a few other random pics. What a funny baby!

Of absenteeism

Last summer, the night shift got together and decided that we wanted a set schedule. Let me explain. Working nights is not like working days. I can't work one on, one off, etc. I will die. When my schedule is the same every week, I work two on, five off. The first day home after working, I just sleep. I get up some time in the late afternoon and pretend I don't feel like death. Then, I try to go to bed at a decent time and lay there half the night wide awake, still feeling like death, knowing that I'm gonna have to get up and take care of kids in...three hours now. The next day, I feel mighty crappy, but try very hard to get something done around the house. Day three is usually better, but still tired. Day four, I'm starting to perk up a bit. Day five is when I feel my best, but then I have to sleep all afternoon because I have to go back to work that night. Anyway, I never get any good sleep, but it's doable.

Now, after we had done the set schedule thing for a few months, one of our nurses decided that it wasn't fair that she wasn't working any weekends (because you make more money on the weekends). Technically, it says in our contract that everyone is supposed to work every other weekend. So we had to do away with the schedule and rearrange everyone. Then, I went to working one on, three off, one on, two off, two on, two off....etc. I wanted to die. Without a set schedule, I pretty much spend every day in either day one or day two mode. I always feel awful, and I never get anything done. And then, the holidays rolled around, and people had requested vacation time (oh, and that particular nurse who was not happy quit), and a few more people quit, so they rearranged our schedule again to fill the needs. Which, by the way, was extremely unsuccessful. We spent more than one night two or even three nurses short. (PS I would like to apologize to anyone who had a baby during the last two months because I'm sure they didn't get nearly as good a care as any of us would have liked due to the shortages.)

So basically what this means is that I've had no real sleep for months, and my blog has taken the back burner in a major way. We're back to a semi-set schedule now, and I'm hoping it stays that way. There's talk about not allowing people to take vacation time during the days they usually work because it messes up everyone else's schedule so badly. Not that they wouldn't be able to take those days off, but they'd have to use PTO, and the hospital would need to find someone to come in extra to cover the shift. Or we could switch shifts with another willing nurse.

If you didn't read my entire rant, I'm sure you're not the only one. Just don't be upset with me if I (A) don't answer your calls in the middle of the day, or (B) growl over the phone, or (C) answer the phone strangely, agree to things, and never follow through (because I'm talking in my sleep).