Nighttime Orange Harvest
Jeff took the girls this morning – Addie went to daycare, and Emmie spent the day with his mom, Nana. I took myself to work, and took a big ole basket of oranges to share.
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Pajamas, Pop-Tarts & Prayers
To kick off a new year in GC Kids, today was a special fun day, Pajamas, Pop-Tarts & Prayers! All the kids and most of the leaders, including Pastor Bo, all wore their jammies to church this morning.
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Dips & Apps
Ryan and Gabe woke up early this morning to hit the road back to South Carolina. The girls made sure to get a few extra hugs, and we sent them on their way, with hopes to see them again soon.
We had a lot of chores to catch up on this morning, from putting away Christmas gifts, to laundry, to cleaning a very messy leaving room, and plenty of other things. We spent all morning and early afternoon doing as much as we could, and even gathered up some stuff to donate.
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It’s the Planet!
When we walked into the school this morning, Addison said, “Mommy look, it’s the planet!” And she wanted to take her morning pictures right there.
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Reading Recap of 2024
Every year, I set a challenge goal for how many books I want to read for that year, on my Goodreads account. Goodreads is a website/app that allows you to track books you’ve read, or want to read, and see what your friends are reading as well. I’ve been using it obsessively for 10 years now, so I’ve tracked a lot of books there at this point.
This past year, my goal was 100 books. And by 10pm on New Year’s Eve, I finished 105 books! Goodreads always does a little reading wrap-up, which I love seeing, so here are some stats from my reading recap of 2024:
- Books read: 105
- Pages read: 32,422
- Shortest book: 40 pages (Drop, Cover and Hold On by Jasmine Guillory, part of an Amazon short-stories series)
- Longest book: 874 pages (Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas)
- Most Shelved book: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, on 2.4 million shelves (I read this for the second time, with my book club.)
- Highest rated book: Know My Name by Chanel Miller (4.67 stars average out of 5 stars)
And according to my Kindle reading app, I read 359 days out of the 365 days in year. That means, there were only 6 days all year that I didn’t read! (My longest streak was from 1/1/24 – 5/11/24, when we went to a wedding that day, and I was just out of town and out of my routine.)
Some of my favorites of the year are, in no particular order:
- Crescent City: House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas
- A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
- Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez
- Next to You by Hannah Bonam-Young
- Next of Kin by Hannah Bonam-Young
- The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
- Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
- When in Rome by Sarah Adams
- The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
- Every Summer After by Carley Fortune
- Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young
- Bride by Ali Hazelwood
- The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
- Forget Me Not by Julie Soto
- Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams
- The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
A few interesting memoirs (I have a thing for celebrity memoirs for some reason, but I wanna try to find more “regular people” ones next year):
- Know My Name by Chanel Miller
- Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris
- The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
- Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
- A Little Bit Wicked by Kristin Chenoweth
- One In A Millennial by Kate Kennedy
For this coming year’s challenge, I want to give myself a little more space to slow down on my reading and maybe tackle a few larger/longer books that would usually scare me off. So, I’m setting my goal at only 75 books, instead of 100. And we’ll see how that goes!
And obviously, I love the my girlies are turning into tiny little bookworms as well. Obviously, Addison isn’t actually reading yet, but she loves to be read to. And Emerson is truly into books just as much as I am, reading a new book every single day.
Here are some of my past years’ reading recaps too: 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2023. Apparently, I didn’t do the reading recap post in 2021 or 2022, or else I just can’t find those posts tonight…
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Burgers on the Blackstone
Addie Pie went back to school again today (she’s pretty much back in regular schedule now), and Emmie girl went to hang out with Grandmommie again today.
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Hello, 2025!
We slept in a little bit this morning, then just had some cereal for breakfast. Jeff and the boys went to borrow PopPop’s truck to pick up some furniture Nana’s friend gave us, for free! (I’ll share more about that later once we get everything settled, but we gotta move beds around and sell the baby crib finally…) The girls and I went over to Nana’s house to drop a couple pork loins in the crock-pot, to cook all day for us to all go back over for dinner tonight. Also, please look closely, and you can see they’re both wearing cute little stick-on earrings.
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Defying Gravity
Emerson had her sleepover with Grammy last night, so we only had little Addison at home this morning. She went on to school though, to play with her friends for most of the day.
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Creamy Cashmere
Addison headed back to school today, and Emerson spent the day with Grammy and Grandmommie, while Jeff and I had to go back to work…
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Brothers & Oranges
Everyone was very sleepy this morning, after a long day and a late night. So we were all slow and sleepy this morning, especially with the crazy stormy, rainy weather outside. I was asked to fill in as the GC Kids Jr. check-in lead this morning, with Meg out of town, and her back-up lead in charge, so I went to church by myself early, and Jeff got all four kids up and moving and dressed for church. We only had child-care for preschool and under, so Emmie went into big church with her brothers, and you can see she was clearly comfy cozy with them!
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