Casual Fridays

Wow. It has been a hot minute since we've caught up around here. I think this is the longest I've gone without blogging since I started this whole thing, and let me tell you: the temptation to just throw in the towel is real because there is a stack of books waiting to be recapped sitting in my little home library and some of them still date back to last summer. We're doing great. I'm sneaking this post in today so that when I look back at the blog archives, it will seem like I only missed one month instead of three which is the actual truth because the two posts I published in May were technically scheduled and ready to go in April. Oy to the vey. Let's ease back in with a chatty Casual Friday, shall we?

First of all: hi. This is what we look like in case you forgot. And if you missed it, we've been North Carolina residents for over a year now. So this photo is basically in our back yard. We are nestled right in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains and sandwiched between a national forest and a state forest. There's a waterfall around every corner.

And speaking of living in NC now: it snows here, y'all. We got nearly two feet of snow in January and we didn't know what to do with ourselves. I'm sure our neighbors thought we were crazy because we were outside playing in it like a couple of kids. We were sledding down all the roads in our neighborhood, laughing and squealing like we were ten years old. All Cody's winter wonderland dreams came true, and you know what? Sitting inside by a cozy fire drinking something hot and reading a good book while there is a blizzard outside is not a bad life. Driving in it was terrifying, but we survived. 

In April, we went down to Myrtle Beach, SC for my littlest sister-from-another-mister's wedding. Funnily enough, this was the first time we've ever taken our dogs to the beach, and I think Cody had the most fun he's ever had on a beach in his life. Meggy was a beautiful bride, and her reception turned into a mini-Class of '06 reunion for me which was fun. I also convinced two of my BFFs to share an Airbnb with me so the whole weekend was basically one big party.

Also in April, my baby had a baby. I can't. I'm very "in my feels" about it, and you better believe I immediately drove down to Georgia to snuggle that little man. 

And speaking of being "in my feels" (as the kids say), my best friend and her babies came to visit a few weeks ago and I took her oldest out for a little date to one of my favorite spots and don't mind me crying into my Dr. Pepper over here while I stroll down memory lane remembering the day she was born. She's totally a teenager now and an amazing artist and writing her own books and somebody please stop time, for the love. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to May... 

...in May, I got to exercise my constitutional right to vote in the 2022 primaries. This was my first opportunity to vote as a resident of North Carolina. I'm so very grateful to live in a country where I'm afforded this opportunity. Even though politics and politicians can make me want to bang my head against a wall sometimes, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. God bless America. 

Also in May, Cody and I celebrated ten years of marriage. I actually got back into my wedding dress and my husband patiently indulged my request for a mini-backyard photo shoot. We watched our wedding video together, looked at photos, and went on our traditional date to Barnes & Noble and the Melting Pot. We also officially checked North Carolina off on our goal to #SeeAll50, but that's a post for another day. May is a crazy month always, and I blame my blogging failure entirely to that fact. Just in our immediate family, we celebrate three anniversaries and four birthdays. My brother and sister came in to celebrate our Mom's 60th birthday, but I have been strictly forbidden from posting the photos I took with them online. Oh wait! We did take a nice family photo at the Olive Garden. So here's that:

May also turned out to be my last month delivering packages for Amazon. I made it almost a full year. It was a good job, but I don't miss it. After a few too many less-than-safe driving experiences and being so entirely exhausted on all my days off, my husband and I decided the cons were starting to outweigh the pros of me having this job, and I gave my bosses my notice. I had great bosses, and delivering packages in the mountains of Western North Carolina certainly whipped my body into shape. I don't know if I would necessarily recommend being a delivery driver, but God provided for us through this job and I'm glad I was able to do it while it lasted. 

The first weekend of June saw us on a roadtrip to my beautiful Florida. Two of our nieces were having their first dance recital and there was no way we were going to miss cheering on those tiny dancers. We, of course, had to spend an afternoon with our boy, my sisters and I went to the beach for a day, and I got together with my book club. It was a jam-packed weekend trying to see as many people as we could and do as many of our favorite things as possible. (You know I came home with a stack of books from The Book Shelter.)

As I already alluded to, my best friend and her kids came for a visit the first week of July. Auntie Hannah had all the fun catching up with these babies. Our 4th of July fireworks got rained out, but that couldn't keep us down. We ate a lot of food, played a lot of games, and had a lot of fun. 

Y'all. I have a bush of the most gorgeous purple hydrangeas in my yard. Let me start this section off by saying I have the blackest of black thumbs. My house is where plants come to die. But these hydrangeas have been blooming on their own like crazy this summer and it has brought me no end of joy. 

And while we're on the subject of nature, deer and bunnies and all kind of fun animals hang out in our yard. We see them on a daily basis. There is also a mama black bear with two small cubs that have been making the rounds in our neighborhood, but I haven't caught them on camera yet. I tell ya: it's a whole new world for me up here in NC. We've gone from lizards and sand hill cranes and gators to woodland creatures, and it's a fun change. 

And one more backyard photo. Because apparently I'm turning into my mother and taking pictures of things like spiderwebs. Here's a handy link to when I recapped Charlotte's Web on the blog. You're welcome. 

Last week we celebrated my Gramma's 89th birthday. And because we are so redneck and Polk County people till the day we die, we stuck a giant match in her cake when we couldn't find any birthday candles. Gramma and I have been alone on the mountain a lot this summer because my parents and Cody have had to travel a lot for work and having her all to myself has been really special. We have a standing Wheel and Jeopardy date each night which basically keeps me going while Cody's away. 

Are you still with me? I know: this has been a lot. But that's what's been going on around here lately. I also have to tell you that Cody read Little Women (one of my all-time favorite books) and watched all three of our movie adaptations with me this summer. He loved the book, and was properly indignant over the liberties taken in the films. His favorite was actually the newest adaptation starring Saoirse Ronan as Jo. 

Anyway, I leave you with this photo of my puppies, because aren't they just the sweetest? Be on the lookout for some actual book recaps coming your way next week, and drop me a line telling me how your year has been going!

Casual Fridays

First things first: I got a little "Currently Reading" widget on the blog! (It's the little things, y'all. And go me for even knowing what a widget is, right?!) Look over to the right of the screen and check it out. (If you read my blog on your phone, it's very likely that you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Web View" in order to see all the extras I have on the side of the blog. I wouldn't personally know because I'm back to that flip phone life, but that's usually how it works.) I created a GoodReads account solely for the purpose of getting that little widget for my blog. So if you ever just want to stop by and check on what I'm actually reading, you can! I'll do my best to keep it up to date. 

And now I will proceed to talk about my anniversary which may get me all sappy and romantic and braggy about my amazing husband so if that totally makes you gag, feel free to skip this part because I so get that. (But don't miss out on the crazy book haul which I will definitely be talking about later in this post.)

Our anniversary fell on a Saturday this year, and my sweetheart's schedule had him working the three days leading up to it (he's an emergency room nurse so his schedule is whack). So Friday night after another long 12-hour shift, he stopped by the store to pick up some goodies for our 4-day weekend. Usually, this means that he will walk in the door with flowers for me and I would be lying right now if I say that a teeny tiny corner of my heart wasn't a bit disappointed that that wasn't the case Friday night. 

However, I wake up at 4 in the morning alone in bed and go out in search of my husband. He intercepts me in the hallway and says he needed to get a drink of water or some such nonsense like that and sends me back to bed. Well, after several minutes of him still not coming back to the bedroom, I walk out to the front part of the house to find him arranging the most gorgeous dozen red roses you ever saw and setting up the table with this banner from our wedding day that I thought had never survived the drive away from the church. Enter scene of Cody being so exasperated that I ruined his sweet surprise and me having an emotional meltdown because I actually married the best guy on the planet and I can't even handle it. We ended up staying awake and exchanging cards (which were not identical but they both said "Happy You & Me Day" on the front—stop it), reading our love letters out loud to one another (more waterworks: we wrote these as a part of our pre-marital counseling and they are framed and hang in a prominent place in our home—even if you're already married and didn't do this, I highly recommend it; it's the sweetest), and dancing to our song (I warned you how sappy this could get, don't hate me). The whole morning is my new favorite memory and I never want to forget a single detail. 

I love you, Cody Aaron Hancock, and I don't deserve you. 

Anyway (for those of you trying to get past all the mush, here's where you should tune back in), later that morning, we drove out to Lake Wales to check out a new little used bookstore I've been hearing whispers about, and we hit the mother lode, y'all. We walked out of there with no less than 14 books, and that was only after me getting through one shelf. You guys, I cannot recommend this place highly enough. It's called The Book Shelter and they're only open on Fridays and Saturdays from 10AM-6PM, but you need to check it out. They have a fantastic selection (obviously), great incentives (we got a free book just for finding the silverfish—ask me what this means), and the prices are insane (to put this in perspective, the stack of books from The Book Shelter on the left side of the roses cost less than the four new books from Barnes & Noble on the right side of the roses). I can't even, and yes I'm going to list all the books we got because I know you want to know. If you decide to check it out, tell them I sent you. 

And now for the books. The stack on the left side from top to bottom are as follows:

A Walk to Remember : Nicholas Sparks

Hatchet : Gary Paulsen

Dogsong : Gary Paulsen

Mrs. Dalloway : Virginia Woolf

The Joy Luck Club : Amy Tan

The Devil in the White City : Erik Larson

Housekeeping : Marilynne Robinson

Lila : Marilynne Robinson

Gilead : Marilynne Robinson

The Idiot : Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Scarlet Pimpernel : Baroness Orczy

Love in the Time of Cholera : Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Beloved : Toni Morrison

East of Eden : John Steinbeck

And the new ones from Barnes & Noble because we don't just throw tradition to the wind even when we've already bought 14 books somewhere else:

Present Concerns : C.S. Lewis

The Woman in White : Wilkie Collins

I Am The Messenger : Markus Zusak

The Hunt for Red October : Tom Clancy

Cody only chose three out of all of these. I have a problem. We also walked down the street from The Book Shelter and finally spent a gift card I've literally had since our wedding. Six years seemed like long enough to hang onto it. And, of course, we had our date night to The Melting Pot and Barnes & Noble. Six years and it just keeps getting sweeter. 

The Melting Pot : 5/19/2018

Have you read any of the books from my list up there? Can you guess which three Cody picked out? Can you guess which two I've already read since Saturday? 

Casual Fridays

I have been doing pretty great with the book recaps (4 straight Mondays in a row, but who's counting?), but I have totally fallen off the Casual Fridays wagon. I think it's time to remedy that. Let's have a little catch-up. Go grab a hot cup of tea (or coffee, if that's your jam) and settle in for a chat because it's been a while, am I right?!

Let's start by talking about reading because duh. If you've been keeping up around here, you know that I started 2018 firing on all cylinders reading 5 whole books in January. And 4 of those were even from my 2018 book list. Go me! I wanted to start strong because I have some pretty hefty reads coming up. Since the beginning of February, I've started Anna Karenina (my first Russian) and a biography on James Madison. After finishing Part 1 of Anna and getting almost 5 chapters into J.Mad, I took a break to read Outrageous Grace (recap coming Monday!) in preparation for my church's annual missions conference. It's coming up on February 24-25 and the author is going to be there! I'm pretty psyched to meet her, especially after reading her amazing story. I'd like to try to fit Twelfth Night in during the month of February also because for the last two years in a row, I unintentionally read my Shakespearean comedy in February and my tragedy in August so now I think I should just make it an official tradition.

My cutie niece has lost teeth #5 and #6. So basically she is a grown-up and I'm an emotional mess because will they ever listen and stop growing up already?!

My husband bought me a brand spanking new 2017 Chevy Spark and it is the cutest thing I have ever driven. Seriously, it had 13 miles on it when we got it, and I don't think I've ever driven a car that new. Even rentals have more than 13 miles on them.

And it's the sweetest beachy yellow.

And it's a 5-speed.

And it has old-school handcrank windows. But there's still a place to plug in my iPod and it has a backup camera.

Basically, it's my dream car.

But just in case you're thinking my life is too good for me: keep in mind we've had to replace both our vehicles in a 6 month period, our garage door broke, and the heating element in our dryer burned out. Because apparently when you're a grown-up, everything breaks at the same time and you still have to be responsible and fix it with your own money. But you can at least look fabulous driving around your super-cute yellow Spark which you call Daisy because even though you're a grown-up that's not going to stop you from naming all your stuff.

Last weekend, my mom and I flew up to Georgia for the sweetest double baby shower. My sister Caroline and her sister Mary Lou are both expecting new babies in March and April and their other sister Theresa threw them the shower to end all showers. It was ace but the real reason we went was to see that insanely cute big-sister-to-be. Obvs. She is the main event and what we are going to do when her little brother or sister gets here I don't even know.

I have had golden toes for the past couple of weeks now, and I've decided that it's a tragedy that my toes can't permanently be this fun, sparkly color.

Like honestly, every little girl should be born with sparkly, fabulous toes.

And also, my sister Lyndsey is right, the key to a perfect pedicure is letting the coats dry completely before you add the next one. No smudges!

How are the crazies, you ask? Just as lovable as can be. I mean, look at Major all snuggled up with his boy. Give me a break. I think I got a cavity just looking at that sweetness. My sister Savannah got this fancy new phone that takes practically professional photographs. (Hence the two glamor shots on the top of the collage.) I think she really captured their two, polar-opposite personalities. Major: head up, excited about everything, ready to go. Colonel: an old soul who gets really sad when I leave for a weekend. I love them both.

Time for a throwback. Cody and I brought in the New Year celebrating with millions of people in the great state of New York. He snagged the snowy shot of me trying not to freeze to death on the right. The shot on the left is me 20 years ago (who feels old? *sob*) on possibly the hottest day of summer New York has ever experienced rocking slightly too long bangs (my signature look in the 90s) and my Tweety Pie t-shirt. My, how the times have changed.

First of all, I'm not sure which was worse: being overheated to the point of nearly passing out and never making it to the crown, or being so cold I was actually crying standing in line in the snow. But I do know that both experiences were memorable and I shared them with the people I love most in this world so both trips to Lady Liberty were a bigtime #win in my book. And I'm pretty sure I still have that calendar somewhere.

Are you so over this post yet? Oh we're not done. I said we were going to have a catch-up, and I meant it.

Let's talk Yahtzee. In the past month, I have had not just 1 but 2 record-breaking Yahtzee games. A few weeks ago (January 5th to be exact because yes, I date our scoresheets), Cody and I were playing Yahtzee with my brother and his wife and our friends Matt and Lauren over the facetime (okay, yes, we're the biggest nerds possibly on the entire planet: I can admit it), and I scored a 528. Which is nearly impossible. But then just a few days ago, I was playing Cody because he downloaded this really cool program that keeps score for you on the computer (I already admitted we were the biggest nerds on the planet, no need to rub my face in it), and he rolled a 305 which is nothing to sneeze at, but I rolled a 529.

Y'all. Just go ahead and crown me Yahtzee Queen of All Time now and forget about it. I am on fire.

Here's a cute picture of my two little munchkins you can look at while I mention that my amazing mommy-in-law graduated from nursing school in December AND she passed her NCLEX on her first try AND she got a job in a Labor & Delivery unit which is exactly what she wanted because she is such a rockstar and I am so, so proud of her, but she has all the pictures from her graduation and party so I've got nothing to show for this paragraph right now. Mommy Trina, I love you so much and I admire the heck out of you. (And I need to come steal some photos soon.)

Did you think we were done talking about books? Because we are never done talking about books. We started this post with books and we're gonna end it with books.

My sexy husband got me yellow roses and a box set of Mary Poppins books for Valentines Day this year. I can't even. That's it for my book list because no way am I not reading these this year. Despite Mary Poppins being my all-time favorite movie (seriously, just ask my mom), I have never read a single one of the books, and can you even get over how adorable these striped copies are?!

I love, love, love them.


How was your Christmas and New Years? And how have you been liking 2018 so far? Did you get anything particularly sweet for Valentines Day? Have you ever seen or sat in a Chevy Spark? They are the teeniest, tiniest, cutest cars! What have you been reading lately? Catch me up with you!

Casual Fridays

Caution: This post will contain photos of actual dinosaur human teeth. If that's the sort of thing that totally grosses you out, I'm putting a buffer picture of happy flowers, but you better be on your way because after that: TEETH. 

The Promised Buffer Picture

As most of you already know, last Thursday I had all four of my wisdom teeth out. And for any who have been worried: no, I'm not writing to you today from the Great Beyond--I did, in fact, survive. (None of you were worried? You all think I'm overdramatic and need to get back to blogging about books?? Well, TOO FLIPPIN' BAD, this is my blog, people!)

First of all, a huge thank you to my mom for the sweet orange vase of assorted flowers and my fabulous niece for the big bouquet of happy yellow daisies. I attribute my recovery to you because flowers make everything better. 

And speaking of my fabulous niece, I wasn't the only one who lost teeth this week. This girl is singlehandedly keeping the Tooth Fairy in business! 3 baby teeth down in less than 3 months. At this rate, she's going to have a mouthful of adult teeth by the time she's six and a half. 

Anyway, on to the main attraction. Are you ready for this? 

First of all, are you loving my super-classy ruler? I've had it since 4th grade. 

But second of all, DO YOU SEE THOSE TEETH? ARE THEY EVEN HUMAN? Those were in my head, y'all. I don't know if you can really tell, but each one is like a full inch long. Those are some massive teeth, you guys. I mean, am I right?! 

I have to say: going under the anesthesia and the surgery itself were not that bad. I (obviously) woke up from it so I mean, already my expectations were exceeded. And I didn't have any adverse reactions to any of the stuff they used to knock me out, so I am one happy girl about that. We got to the surgeon's office a few minutes before 8:30, I remember seeing 8:47 on the clock before falling asleep, and we were home by 10:00. Pretty quick. 

Probably the first 4-5 hours post-op were, by far, the worst. It took a solid 24 hours for the numbness on the entire left side of my face to wear off, and the numbness was worse than the actual pain, in my opinion. My tongue felt like it was on fire all that first day. 

But other than that, my bleeding stopped really quickly (within the first 24 hours), I haven't really had any swelling or bruising (I iced a lot), I've been progressively eating more diverse foods (though I'd kill for a good piece of chicken or steak), and the prescription-strength ibuprofen has been doing an excellent job of minimizing my pain (turns out, pulling bones out of your jaw tends to bring on some massive headaches--shocking, I know). It's definitely weird having 4 actual holes in my mouth, but they tell me it will heal, and they've been pretty spot-on with everything else so far, so I'll trust them.

I cannot praise Dr. Cornejo and Winter Haven Oral Surgery enough. He was straightforward, kind, calm, and patient with me. He answered all my questions prior to the procedure, and even personally called me at 8:00 PM the same day I had my teeth out to see how I was doing. I would highly, highly recommend him and his staff for all your oral surgical needs. 

But the biggest thank you of all goes to my amazing husband. He put up with all my theatrics, brought me pudding and pain pills, kept the kitchen clean, slept out on the couch with me, and nursed me back to feeling normal with the utmost patience, gentleness, and love. He is seriously the best. 

P.S. I have watched an inordinate amount of movies this past week. And one of my most endearing qualities is that I will watch the same exact movie back-to-back (i.e. Audrey Hepburn's Sabrina followed immediately by Julia Ormond's Sabrina or Hayley Mills' Parent Trap right after Lindsay Lohan's Parent Trap). Bless my husband's heart. 

What are some of your favorite sick-day movies? Was it too gross that I took my wisdom teeth home and showed them to the internet? 

Casual Fridays

Oh y'all. I thought April was the crazy month, but May slapped me across the face and then laughed about it. My grandmother passed away, my sister officially became a 2nd lieutenant in the USAF and then graduated from college, Mother's Day came and went, all the ants in Central Florida decided my house was the place to party (they were met with bleach and extreme hatred), my husband and I celebrated five years of marriage, and now I'm going through the ringer with these wisdom teeth. Honestly, there hasn't been much reading going on (although I did manage to fit in Slaughterhouse-Five), but that didn't stop us from buying an entire shelf-full of new books on our anniversary weekend--more about that Monday. For now, let's just look at pictures. That's always fun, right?

First of all, this little cutie-patootie (and her parents) are finally coming back to the States and you better believe I am going to be at the airport in Atlanta to pick them up and personally escort them to Alabama because it's been almost one whole year since I went to Japan to see them. I'm so excited! And I'm so thankful that their next home is within driving distance. I predict lots of weekend trips to AL in my near future. 

Speaking of my nieces, this little hot mess lost Tooth #2 a few weeks ago. I keep telling her she's not allowed to grow up, but look at her just defying my wishes and growing up anyway. It can't be helped. While we're on the subject of teeth, my wisdom teeth are coming out on Thursday so please pray that I don't pee my pants or anything equally embarrassing while I'm under the anesthesia and that I actually do wake up from the anesthesia when it's all over--but, for the love of everything holy, not before! 

Cody was working on our actual anniversary, but the night before, we spontaneously decided to take a date night over to Family Fun Center to celebrate our five blissful years as man and wife. We played all the arcade games (I ruled in skee-ball, he spanked me on the big-game hunting, and we tied on our street race through Rio even though the dumb computer attributed the win to him), ate a total junk dinner (pizza, wings, and cherry coke), challenged each other on the putt-putt course (he beat me by 8 strokes--I was totally off my game), and spent all our tickets on very mature items like plastic samurai swords (I got a black one, he got a red one) and green apple blow-pops (because duh). As you can see, the photobooth had an anniversary option. So apparently, we're not the only ones who like to celebrate our love by acting like a couple of teenagers, thankyouverymuch. We had a complete blast, and the night after our anniversary, we still had our grown-up date to the Melting Pot and Barnes & Noble. 

My anniversary roses. 

Because I couldn't not post a picture of them. 

Insert all the heart-eye emojis here.

These two, amiright?! It's a good thing they're so dang sweet because they (and by "they" I mostly just mean Major although Colonel hasn't been totally innocent) have been getting into the trash lately and eating it. I can't. It's so gross. We went out and got them some new chew toys this week and they have been loving the tough rubber tug-of-war rings we got them. So hopefully they'll stay out of the trash. 

I'm currently in the middle of Job and still slugging along in The Three Musketeers. I'm attributing my lack of headway in this book more to the craziness of the past couple months than the actual content, but I will say that it still hasn't grabbed me yet. I'm contemplating trying to squeeze in Hamlet or Agnes Grey this next week so I can actually check one of my book list books off this month. Thoughts?

And let's wrap this photo-sesh up with my three boys because aren't they the sweetest?! 

I'm the luckiest girl in the world. 

What's going on with you lately? Has May been crazy for anyone else? I still haven't gotten my beach day. What are you reading these days? Any suggestions of what to stock the pantry with during my convalescence? 

Casual Fridays

Congratulations on making it through another week! I don't know about y'all, but April has been the crazy month this year. Our calendar has been slammed. But it's all good stuff so who can complain about that? I can. I mean, not that I'm complaining exactly, but I feel like I haven't slept in a year and a half. I'm ready for things to slow down just a smidge. I still haven't made it to the beach (notwithstanding my cruise to Mexico!), and it's looking like I won't be able to catch a beach day till about halfway through May. C'est la vie.

So in keeping with the craziness of this month, I'm just going to throw a bunch of random pictures at you and call this a Photo-Prompted Post. 

First of all, my pink camo iPhone case has officially bitten the dust. It never exactly fit properly in the first place, but now it is prohibiting the proper functions of my phone so it's time to go. Sad. R.I.P my happy pink camo OtterBox. You lasted almost two years so I guess that's pretty good.

Look at this gorgeous bouquet! As I was running around the house in a crazed everyone-is-coming-here-tomorrow-and-I-have-to-stay-through-both-morning-services-so-this-house-and-all-the-food-needs-to-be-ready-NOW frenzy Saturday night, my husband came home bearing these beautiful flowers and proceeded to arrange them into this fabulous bouquet which made the perfect centerpiece for our Easter celebration Sunday afternoon. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: he is the best. 

And speaking of Easter, it was perfect. The services at my church were poignantly beautiful, almost my entire family gathered at my house (we missed you, S-Baby! oh and you too, Oak and Caroline), and we ate a lot of food and shared a lot of laughter. Jesus is alive and He is good! And for the record: there were people in my life who thought I was a little ridiculous for registering for 16 place settings when I got married. But let me tell you, there were 14 adults and 3 children at my house Sunday afternoon and not a one of them had to eat off a Dixie plate, I'm just sayin'. The picture above is of the adorable salt and pepper shakers my mom gave me for Easter this year. How cute, right?!

Y'all. I got this letter from my Compassion girl this week, and I died. This is the first letter she has ever written all by herself, and she did it in English! She turned 9 last November, and up until now, she has drawn us lots of pictures, but an adult always wrote what she wanted to tell us in her "letters". I'm so proud of her. I want to frame it. How precious! 

My niece is playing soccer again, and y'all should see what an outstanding defensive player she is. She picks her man and literally becomes a human shield between that player and the ball. In fact, at the game after which this photo was taken, it was getting hot and the game was almost over and girlfriend had been working hard in that Florida sunshine, so she turned around to the little boy she was guarding and let him know he needed to "stop moving around so much!" I mean, really. Insert all the laughing/crying emoji faces here. Seriously. 

And while we're on the topic of my niece, she lost her very first tooth! How did this happen?? She was just born yesterday, wasn't she? I can't believe she's big enough to be getting visits from the Tooth Fairy. Go ahead and insert all the flat-out sobbing emoji faces here.

The new Christy book arrived Tuesday night, and I promptly read the entire thing on Wednesday. It was wonderful (of course), but in this book, Todd and Christy took a roadtrip to Glenbrooke so now all I want to do is re-read the entire Glenbrooke series. Stay on track, Hannah. For anyone wondering (since this blog is actually supposed to be about reading the books on my book list), I am slowly working my way through The Three Musketeers. It hasn't exactly grabbed me yet, so when I say "slowly", I mean s-l-o-w-l-y. 

I started a new Bible study this week, and it's Priscilla Shirer so naturally it's going to be good. For whatever reason, I find that Priscilla's studies challenge me the most. I've done a lot of Bible studies that encourage me or that I've learned a lot from, but Priscilla always seems to get in my face and tell me a thing or two I need to change or do better. In the very first video, she said the devil is strategic about his attacks on us so we need to get strategic about our prayer life. Ouch. How often am I haphazard about prayer? She's good. 

And to wrap this all up: Wednesday was haircut day for the boys! Don't they look sharp? The baby boy I nanny was not too happy that his buddies were missing most of the day Wednesday, but boy did they need some grooming. I love when their hair is long and shaggy, but I do not love how much dirt they bring in when it's like that. Yay! for not having to vacuum every single day. At least for a while. 

How's life with you lately? What did you do for Easter? Have you done any good Bible studies or read any good books recently? Do you sponsor a child with Compassion? What do you write in your letters to your Compassion child?