Month: December 2014

Pointe

December 29, 2014

Daughter has been dancing for 5 years now and has been most passionate about ballet.  She recently was approved for pointe so last week husband and I took her to get her very first pointe shoes.  We’re very proud her.

KIPOINTE122720140064C_500KIPOINTEFITTING122620140198_800KIPOINTEFITTING122620140199_800KIPOINTEFITTING122620140202_800

 

Random 2009

December 27, 2014

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday.  Instead of sharing photos from this month, I thought it might be fun to share photos from 5 years ago this month:

112009_6639_800Celebrating their dad’s birthday.

112009_6435_800Our current home was being built.

112009_6740_8002nd grade Christmas singing.

KY112009_6440_500Two-year-old Kylie camera shy.

Completed 100 Books in 2014

December 22, 2014

GR100BooksComplete2014_800

This was beautiful to see.  I think I’m going to celebrate and rest this brain for a couple of days.  I’m kidding myself about that.  There’s no rest.  I’ve got 8 books waiting to be read yet.  I am glad to be done with this challenge though.  Now I can continue to read for pure enjoyment.  At the beginning of the challenge, I tried to tell myself that I was reading for enjoyment but as the year got closer to the end and I was behind (by about 16 books!), I felt the stress.  Took a break in July and August and that did it.  I quickly caught up though.

Not every book was chosen by me.  Some were recommendations and a couple were books the authors asked me to review.  Most books were researched by me via Goodreads.com, Amazon, and my local libraries.  Most the books were read on a Kindle my husband got me about three years ago.  Reading so many books makes it hard to remember what really happened in each book, especially that most the books are of the genre, Fantasy and Science Fiction, but there were a few that I truly fell in love with:

1. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon.  This is a post apocalyptic paranormal sci-fi that has what might be a romance blooming.  I loved it so much I actually started to re-read it a couple of months back.  I wanted to finish it again before getting the next book in the trilogy (or series).  I thought the next book was going to be released a couple of months back but it’s actually going to be released in January so I’ve stopped reading (I’m halfway) and will pick up again once it gets closer to the new release.

2. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.  This is one great sci-fi.  It’s set mostly in outer space.  I’m pretty sure all sci-fi fans have either read it or watched the movie.  They are both fabulous.

3. The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley.  The writing is beautiful and poetic.  It’s a paranormal historical romance that touched my heart.

Here’s the full list in photos.  If you want to read the author’s synopsis and see my reviews of the books, go here: Pretty Peony’s 100 Books Read in 2014.

GR100BooksComplete2014i_522

November Random

December 5, 2014

A week late but here they are:

MAC1120140004_800Husband replaced his first MacBook with the MacBook Air.  He’s had his first one since 2006 and it’s still running great.  The kids have it now.

UKMAIL1120140006_800Mail from my penpal in the U.K.  We’ve been penpals since I was a sophomore in high school.  The weird thing is, he now sends me his diaries.  They are pages and pages, months and months, of his night life.  He’s asked me to share my diaries.  I’ve thought about it but honestly I don’t have a diary and if I did, it would be boring.  I’m a mom.  I do what mom’s do.  Maybe when my kids are grown adults, I might have my own interesting diaries.

SWEETPORK1120140026_800Spices I use in making sweet pork.  I’ve tweaked my sweet pork recipe many times and they are pretty good but none have made my palate dance.  I’m getting closer I think.  So far, the spices above are hitting it but the amount of sweet sauce, brown sugar, and soy sauce, are still being worked on.  As for the pork, traditional Hmong sweet pork uses pork belly.  It’s too fatty for me so I prefer something with more meat but still has some fat like pork shoulder.

CASTLEWOODCANYON1120140022_800The family took our Christmas photo at Castlewood Canyon State Park.  It’s a pretty nice park in rural east.  Those are the Rockies in the distance.  Btw, I think Castlewood sounds like a perfect sir name for a fantasy character.  Maybe something like James Castlewood.  I can just read it already:

“And, how is Lord Castlewood?”

“The injuries only winded him, sire.  Nothing more.”

♥