january: sickness and books.

We've had a few dreary, cold, sickness-filled weeks over here...resulting in not many exciting stories or pictures to share. 

There's been a lot of time spent sitting around in our jammies. One of my favorite things to do is watch Millie as she plays by herself. She jabbers and points and laughs as she reads or plays and it is basically the cutest thing ever. Most of the time she ends up making a huge mess, so on this day...I took a picture right as she was getting started. Ha.

Millie decided to pull all of the shelves out of her kitchen (an endless source of entertainment these days) and take a look under the sink. Maybe she has a future as a plumber? I missed the perfect plumber picture where she was laying on back, looking up under the sink...ugh. It was amazing. Darn my slow reflexes.

She's been hard at work perfecting the important life skill of eating cereal and milk like a Big Girl.

She's doing a good job. Except for when she decides to dump the whole bowl in her lap. Or on the floor. Then it's not so great.

(When I texted my mom these pics, she was like "wow, no bib!! Amazing!!"...hahaha, no. What's amazing is how often I still forget to put a bib on her. Or think 'eh, this won't be too messy'...and I'm pretty much always wrong.)

This is the face I got when I spent five minutes hyping up talking to Nanny and Pop Pop (my parents) on FaceTime...and then they didn't answer and I had to say "my bad, never mind. No FaceTime."

She made this face as she pathetically moaned "Poppppp Popppp!!! Popppp Popppp!!!" It was heartbreaking. I think my parents learned their lesson, though, and they will never again neglect to answer a FaceTime call.

And I know you can barely focus on the sad face in the above pictures because OH MY GOSH THOSE PIGTAILS!!!! It's a common situation. Her hair game is ON POINT (on fleek? Is that what the kids call it these days?) lately. And she knows it. As soon as I put her clothes on, she starts patting her head-- girlfriend isn't fully dressed without a ponytail (or two)!

Ignore her expression- I was trying to get her to look at the phone (and smile, ideally, but yeah right) and asked her where her ponytail was as a distraction. She proved that she knows!

Lots of lazy sick days has resulted in lots of reading for me! My 2016 goal is to read (and keep track of, haha...that's the harder part for me!) 40 books. So far I've completed four (point five), so I'm off to a good start! Several folks on Instagram requested that I do more "book reports" or updates or recommendations or whatever on my blog, so I'll try to include those periodically! Of the four books I've read this year...I recommend all of them. And I'm terrible at doing summaries, so I won't even really try. Ha. I'll (affiliate, FYI!) link them to Amazon and you can read much better summaries there! 

1. The Boston Girl (Anita Diamant): A+ 
    This was a historical fiction book club pick and I LOVED it! We all described the book as just refreshing. The writing, the story, the characters...it was just a joy to read. It was great to discuss, too, so a good pick for a book club!

2. After You (Jojo Moyes): B+
    This is the much-anticipated sequel to Me Before You, which my book club read last year (and I loved). I really enjoyed this one too. I didn't really know how she would pick up the story, but I thought she did a good job. I must admit, though- I finished this like two weeks ago and already I can barely remember what it was about. Ha. Not sure what that means, but I do remember liking it!

3. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant): A++
    I picked this one up as soon as I finished The Boston Girl, just because I enjoyed TBG so much! This one is historical fiction, but of a MUCH earlier time period- it's a fictional retelling of the story of Jacob (you know, Jacob of "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" Biblical fame) and his wives and children. It's from the perspective of his daughter Dinah, whose story is told in only a few short (and terrible) verses in Genesis. I honestly never would have thought this book would interest me, but because I loved TBG so much, I wanted to give it a try. And this book BLEW MY MIND. We are actually discussing it at Book Club tomorrow night and I can't WAIT. I'm serious. This book isn't new or anything, but if you haven't read it...do it. I couldn't put it down and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. For that reason, I have to give it an A plus PLUS. Because it needs that extra plus.

4. Ready Player One (Ernest Cline): A+
     Oooookay. Here's the thing. NOTHING about the summary/description of this book appealed (appeals) to me. Gamers (as in video gamers). Sci fi. 80s pop culture. Nope, nope, nope. So I can only say that the reason I even picked up this book is because of the cover art and the fact that a few other bloggers/Instagrammers I know (and typically trust, book-wise) recommended it...despite ALSO proclaiming to not like any of the premises of the book. I actually thought this would be one of those books that just sat on my shelf until it was overdue and then I'd return it, never having actually opened it. But NOPE. I broke into it and COULD. NOT. PUT. IT. DOWN. It is indeed chock full of video games (endless video games), sci fi, and 80s pop culture. And yet it's one of the most compelling stories I've read in a long time. I can't explain it, I can just recommend it. 

So it's been a good January, book-wise. The other book I started (but haven't finished...and might not, seeing as I put it down and have read two books since then...) is The Girl in the Spider's Web, which is the fourth book in the Millennium (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) series. It's been a good story, but to be honest, I get so lost in all of those Swedish names that every time I pick it up, I have to re-remember who everyone is and it takes forever and it just makes me want to pick up something else where I can remember what's going on. So I don't know if I'll finish this one or not...guess we'll see how bored I get this weekend!

Anyway. So some not-wonderful pictures and a lot of good books...that's basically been January. There's a chance we'll get some wintery weather this weekend, so you know we're all falling to pieces and beating down the doors of the grocery stores! If you're stuck in the snow- stay warm! And read a few of these books! And put pigtails on your baby's (or your dog's...or your own...) head...guaranteed mood lifter!