Life Lately

Dallin is getting his 6th tooth(!) I didn't know kids got teeth that fast but once we're done with one teething phase we're on to another. 

He sure is my son because he loves peanut butter and loves spice. This kid's most recent love is this amazing African Peanut Soup (kale and all! Who knows how long that will last!) from Love Real Food cookbook (love that cookbook so much). 

He just learned to scoot forward dragging one arm in a sort of army crawl way. 

He still loves fuzzy blankets and continually wears them over his face while he sleeps. 

Austin has started playing in an ultimate frisbee league in Seattle. Absolutely loves it. 

I still go on mini hikes and walks throughout our area almost daily. The weather has been warming up so I can do that more. 

Austin is so good to let me have 'me time' once a week for an hour or two. I usually go on a hike and then journal or study the scriptures. This last Thursday evening I went on a new trail and I almost cried, it was so beautiful. I pinch myself thinking that I actually live here and I'm not just visiting. 

I've sort of binge making recipes from Faithful Plateful. Loved all the ones I've made so far! Carrot cake turned into muffins, madras lentils, chipotle bowls, hawaiian haystacks (not Austin's fav but I loved it), oil free granola (needs less salt next time), black bean salsa, mango quinoa salad, and no bake cookies. 

Finally started watching relative race from Emily's recommendation. I mean it only took us 5 seasons of convincing to finally get hooked. 

We also have been keeping up with 'Show offs' on byutv and Jk studios 'free lancer' episodes. Those both have been surprisingly hilarious. 

I've read some great books lately: The Faithful Spy by John Hendrix was the first graphic novel I did and it set the bar very high!

This Promise of Change by Jo Ann Allen Boyce is an excellent verse novel about her experience integrating into Clinton High in the 1950's. 

Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes-I'm still thinking about this one and it's turned my idea of homemaker upside down. Highly recommend!

A Light so Lovely by Sarah Arthur is about the spiritual legacy of Madeline L'Engle and it's very contemplated and moving.

I've been loving watching again and again 'The Sound of Music Live' British version that came out in 2015. Much much better than the Carrie Underwood version. It gives me chills at the end every time and I just want to clap when it's over! Plus the captain singing 'Edelweiss' is swoon worthy. ;)

In March I got two of my wisdom teeth taken out. Easiest recovery ever. I was so nervous but it turned out so much better than I expected. 

We continually love being here, especially grateful again and again for Austin's commute. It's been a life saver for us. He got commuter of the week for his company in March. 

Been to the temple several times in the last little bit thanks to a good friend who watches Dallin. Has been so wonderful!

We loved being in Oregon for General Conference with Mom and Dad Lewis, Ondalynn, Seth, and Viv's family. It was so fun and it went by too quickly of course! So glad to be there for Mom's birthday as well. 

Now for a ton of pictures from the last little while. Recent to later. 

 Dallin's sharp nails got in my nose and gave me a bloody nose haha

 Picture for his commuter of the week award

 Wisdom teeth post surgery-yikes

The battle is having to take away all the library books from his teeth. 

What I've Enjoyed Reading Lately

Here's a brief recap of some of the good books I've read in the last couple of months. I'm finally getting back into audio books which has been helpful to get through some books on drives or cleaning around the house. Sometimes a good narrator does it for you.

Becoming by Michelle Obama

If you're like me, this one had a bazillion holds on it so when I got it, I was so excited to it. Basically I binged listened. We had a snow storm around here so Austin had the car and I was stuck in the apartment all day and so I literally had it playing ALL day. I loved it. I only knew a few things about Michelle from little bits here and there while they were in the White House but I did not know anything about her upbringing, going from Princeton to Harvard, getting her law degree there, or early family life where she dealt with infertility and had both of her babies through IVF and even all the work she did with hospitals. She's incredible! Even though she didn't want Barack to run for President, once she committed the idea, she was all in and tried to do her best to create her role as First Lady her own. It's not a title that has a job description or any sort of manual. She didn't have to do anything if she didn't want to but she got busy with initiatives in health and helping military veterans, an area she was very unfamiliar with at first. Her writing is amazing and I loved the she did the audio version. It will be on my top lists at the end of the year for sure. 

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start up by John Carreyrou

Here's another audio book that I COULD NOT PUT DOWN. I'm not kidding when I was looking for things to clean in my house so I could keep listening. This was about the start up company, Theranos, and all the secrets and lies they were trying to cover up in trying to get this company going. It's a bit unnerving and almost seems surreal. People getting fired left and right, people resigning all over the place, covering up test results to make it look believable. Check out this documentary trailer to get a glimpse of the story. So crazy.

The Unteachables by Gordon Korman

A teacher who is near the end of his teaching career gets stuck with 'the unteachables' as punishment for something that happened 20 years ago that the superintendent still hasn't gotten over. A super funny quick read. It's a great balance of humor and heart-warming-ness that I love in middle grade novels. 

Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce

It’s been a while since I listened to an audio book and this one was delightful to listen to. Great characters and interesting take on WWII period where an aspiring war journalist accidentally gets a job to be a typist for a women’s magazines and ends up secretly replying to ladies in distress because of the war. There were a couple of things left unfinished but overall a great read. Hunted by Meagan Spooner I read more fantasy at the beginning of this year than I normally do and this one was my favorite so far. It's a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast with added characters and a slight twist to it as well. Different than what I was expecting and I was pleasantly surprised! Have you read any of these? What have you've loved reading recently?

2019 Reading Challenge

Now this is one of my favorite posts to write because there's nothing like anticipating what to read next, am I right? 

First, a look back on how I did on my 2018 reading challenge. I read about 10 out of the 14 on my list. I decided to skip Don Quixote and read A Christmas Carol instead which was a better choice. Austin read Dracula for me (and absolutely loved it) so it sort of counts. ;) It definitely makes me want to pick it up now. He couldn't stop talking about it after he read it. Brideshead Revisited was awfully slow and it was the same month that I had Dallin so that was a no-go. I technically didn't finish Wuthering Heights. I just couldn't stomach it anymore. Got about 2/3 of the way through and quit. I think I petered out of the classics by the end of the year because I didn't read Tess of the D'Urbevilles even though I wanted to. I really need to make it a priority this year. 

Some of my favorite reads from the challenge: Middlemarch, The Age of Innocence, Mansfield Park, and East of Eden. 

One thing I learned from this challenge is that I like reading classics but maybe need them spread out so I don't get bogged down by the end of the year. Maybe I'll just try and read 4 classics a year (one each quarter) and go from there. 

Here's what I'm thinking about classics for this year.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Tess of the D'Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Now for my other challenge...

Mostly I'm just going to read what I want to read and not be tied down too much to a challenge. 

I do have a list of authors that I want to read from. That way I won't feel guilty if I read War and Peace and then not feel the need to Anna Karenina. The hard/fun part is picking what to choose. If I don't like one of their books mid-through, it's either an indication I won't like any of their books or I just need to try some different ones. I'm not planning on reading all from these authors this year but it's an ongoing list of what I would like to read eventually. The funny thing is many of these authors are 'classic' so I don't think I'm escaping the classics challenge anytime soon!

Here are authors I would like to read at least one of their novels (starred are those that I'm going to try and read this year):

Wendell Berry

Wallage Stegner*

Jodi Picoult*

Ann Patchett

Leo Tolstoy

Anthony Trollope

Dorothy Whipple

Toni Morrison

Kate Atkinson*

Virginia Woolf

Georgette Heyer*

Ron Chenrow
Maya Angelou

Henry Thoreau

Margaret Atwood*

Louise Penny

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Alexander McCall Smith

Truman Capote

E.B. White
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Marilynn Robinson

If you have a favorite book from one of these authors, please tell!