yea erin!

last week i got this baby in the mail....

my brand spanking new 2012 erin condren planner! i'm really excited! i love a good planner. while i've been using cozi, which also has an app for my phone, its been great but i really miss having an actual planner in my hand. when i discovered erin condren (thanks blog world) i fell in love with the color and personalization of their planners. i'm really happy with it and i can't wait to start using it. Lord knows my life could use some serious organization at this point. ha!

book club friday

i'm linking up today for another edition of book club friday. a couple of weeks ago i reviewed my best friends girl by dorothy koomson. i really loved this book. so much that right after i read it i went out and bought another book by this author.....

i loved this one too. i read both of these a little over a year ago, so it may even be time for me to read them again. here is the synopsis according to barnesandnoble.com.


Kendra Tamale is looking for a fresh start and a simple life when she rents a room from Kyle Gadsborough. But against her better judgment Kendra soon finds herself drawn into her new landlord’s household: a young father in way over his head, a beautiful mother out the door, and six-year-old twins, Summer and Jaxon, with hearts full of hurt. Kendra has plenty of issues of her own, but this family seems to need her so desperately that she’s soon falling in love—with Summer’s constant chatter, Jaxon’s soulful eyes, and the sugar-laden Saturday breakfasts she invents. But when a secret from Kendra’s past resurfaces and the children are taken away by their mother, the only way to fix things is to confess to the terrible mistake she made many years ago—and the choice she makes now could break more than one person’s heart.

a great read if you want to read something quick and not too intense. right now i'm reading salem falls by jodi picoult. pretty intense. i'll share that soon. i'm super busy right now so i'm not too sure when i'll finish it.

go link up and share what you're reading and have a great weekend blog world!

miss me??

i know i've been a bad blogger and i haven't posted in a while. to say i've been busy does not even begin to describe my life right now, but that is for another post. today i'm talking about my baby girl's first day of school.

yes, she has been in montessori for 2 yrs now, but for some reason this is really hitting me hard. maybe its because she is looking like such a big girl. and that uniform? don't even get me started! it is so cute ya'll! she is loves school and she loved getting ready this morning and she loved that granny, sister, and daddy also came to see her on her first day at her new school. we are so blessed to be able to send her to an amazing christian school for at least this year. that tuition gets pretty steep the older they get. so, here's a photo dump of my sweet girls morning. enjoy!!

i am so excited about this season of our lives. lots of newness going on around here and i am so thankful to God for all the blessings that he has granted in our family. we are so blessed, but it has not come without a ton of stress and anxiety on my end, but again i will leave all that jibberish for another post. this post is just for my sweet, cute, mischevious girl. my heart is overflowing with love for her. every.time.i.look.at.her. every time.

book club friday!!

this week i've just finished my long awaited read the midwife's confession. this book was soooo good. while i absolutely LOATHED the midwife character. i feel like if i met her in real life i'd punch her in the face. that's how you know how good the book was. i was very emotional while reading it. my emotions ran the gammut between sadness and anger. and i could.not.put.it.down. i can't wait to read more of diane chamberlain's books.

here is the synopsis via barnesandnoble.com:

Dear Anna,
What I have to tell you is difficult to write, but I know it will be far more difficult for you to hear, and I'm so sorry…


The unfinished letter is the only clue Tara and Emerson have to the reason behind their close friend Noelle's suicide. Everything they knew about Noelle—her calling as a midwife, her passion for causes, her love for her friends and family—described a woman who embraced life.

Yet there was so much they didn't know.

With the discovery of the letter and its heartbreaking secret, Noelle's friends begin to uncover the truth about this complex woman who touched each of their lives—and the life of a desperate stranger—with love and betrayal, compassion and deceit.

i think i'm gonna have to pick up a less intense book just so i have a break in between these emotional books.

what are you reading???

book club friday!!!!

today i'm reviewing a book i read about 2 years ago. i was looking for something new to read and i liked the storyline of this book and it had really good reviews (ya'll know how much i cherish the reviews), so i gave it a whirl. SCORE!!

i loved this book so much. it's about friendship, being in love, and the love of a parent. i highly recommend it. it's called my best friend's girl by dorothy koomson. side note: this story is set in england so you'll probably end up reading with an english accent. he he!

How far would you go for the best friend who broke your heart? This internationally bestselling novel tells an enchanting tale of life’s most unpredictable loves and heartaches, and the unforgettable bond between a single woman and an extraordinary five-year-old girl. From the moment they met in college, best friends Adele Brannon and Kamryn Matika thought nothing could come between them—until Adele did the unthinkable and slept with Kamryn’s fiancé, Nate. Now, after years of silence, the two women are reuniting, and Adele has a stunning request for her old friend: she wants Kamryn to adopt her five-year-old daughter, Tegan.

Besides the difference in skin color—many will assume that headstrong, impulsive Kamryn is Tegan’s nanny—there’s the inconvenient truth that Kamryn is wholly unprepared to take care of anyone, especially someone who reminds her so much of Nate. With crises brewing at work and her love life in shambles, can Kamryn somehow become the mother a little girl needs her to be?

go link up with heather and tell me what you're reading! have a great weekend!

book club friday!

it's that time again! today i'm reviewing....

this is a review from publisher's weekly found on barnesandnoble.com....


When Dana and Hugh Clarke's baby is born into their wealthy, white New England seaside community, the baby's unmistakably African-American features puzzle her thoroughly Anglo-looking parents. Hugh's family pedigree extends back to the Mayflower, and his historian father has made a career of tracing the esteemed Clarke family genealogy, which does not include African-Americans. Dana's mother died when Dana was a child, and Dana never knew her father: she matter-of-factly figures that baby Lizzie's features must hark back to her little-known past. Hugh, a lawyer who has always passionately defended his minority clients, finds his liberal beliefs don't run very deep and demands a paternity test to rule out the possibility of infidelity. By the time the Clarkes have uncovered the tangled roots of their family trees, more than one skeleton has been unearthed, and the couple's relationship-not to mention their family loyalty-has been severely tested. Delinsky (Looking for Peyton Place) smoothly challenges characters and readers alike to confront their hidden hypocrisies. Although the dialogue about race at times seems staged and rarely delves beyond a surface level, and although near-perfect Dana and her knitting circle are too idealized to be believable, Delinsky gets the political and personal dynamics right.

this was a really good book. i finished it in about 5 days because i could not put it down. loved it and would highly recommend it.

if you need any book recommendations, go check out heather's blog and see what people are reading.

have a great weekend!

moving right along....

yep. you see correctly. this here house is just about done. it is completely bricked. all of the lighting is in, the molding is done, the hardware is on. i took these pics last week. since then, that floor you see has now been stained, in the backyard the retaining wall has been constructed and that patio extension has been poured. this week another coat of stain on the floors and carpet is going in. this is exciting right? yes and no. you see......we still haven't sold our house!!! i am getting so nervous. our new place will be done by the end of this month, so we are praying every day that we get an offer on our current place. all prayers accepted :)

book club friday!!

it's book club friday yo! yippee! yes, i do get this excited over books. i'm a nerd. deal with it people! i'm hooking up with heather again from blonde...undercover blonde.

so, last time i linked up i was just starting this book

i really really liked this book, but it didn't start getting really good until almost halfway through. it had great love stories and also the very real dynamics of a mother/daughter relationship. in my opinion that relationship is the most intense relationship there is. during my first pregnancy when i found out i was having a girl i immediately started praying and now having 2 girls, i know why i did that. my relationship w/ my first daughter esp. is so hard. she makes me work mentally and emotionally, but i guess i wouldn't have it any other way. she's awesome.

anyhoo, back to the book. it was really good. i would recommend it. so much so that i'm now reading this...

i thought i was gonna be reading the midwife's confession next, but when i went to retrieve it from my pile of books waiting to be read i found that i wasn't there. i searched and searched and realized i had never ordered it from my trusty barnesandnoble.com. so that's what i did. and while i wait i'll be reading the lovely book aforementioned.

unlike before my daughters, family tree starts out with a bang. in the first 15 pages we find out that a happily married white couple who conceived a baby the old fashioned way (and there was no affair) give birth to a black baby girl. say what?? exactly. it had me at the cover really. so once i'm done here, i will finally get around to the midwife's confession. ya'll know i've been dying to get my hands on that bad boy.

have a great weekend and head on over to heather's blog and tell me what you're reading!

happy belated 4th!!!

we had such an amazing weekend filled with fun, fun, fun!

friday night i went to my book club meeting where we discussed this book. hated it. saturday was basketball games for the girls, then kobby and i met some friends out for steaks. YUM! sunday was church, where we honored members of our armed forces, then off to see our house....again! i'll save that for another post :) sunday afternoon we went to my parents house for dinner and swimming.

then monday, we had our busiest, but funnest (is that a word?) day! i will post all of my pics (and there are a ton) at the end of my post, so stay tuned.....

we started off the day early by going to support kobby in his very first 5k!!! we were so proud of our husband/daddy. he ran the race with my bestie , sumer and her husband. she signed him up for it and has been encouraging him in his running because that is what she does. you may be asking yourself, how is it that this chick (me) has a best friend that is an in shape runner athlete type person when she is such a lazy a#*? God only knows. but she's my girl and has been for over 20 yrs now. anyhoo....the 5k was great, then we went home, refueled and went over to sumer's parent's for swimming, food, and fun.

our girls are really close and they all love to swim so we have been doing a lot of it this summer. her family is like my family so we always have a great time. we stayed there all day long and it was SO much fun for the kids and for kobby and i.

overall it was a great day. we were so tired and couldn't even stay awake for fireworks, but no biggie. we had a blast! i hope your 4th was awesome too. God bless america and our troops! now here's my photo dump. enjoy!