Free Range Family

I know I have already posted several book reviews this month, but I just keep checking out more and more books at the library, devouring them and then needing to post about them lol. Up until this post, I had about four different books I was either reading or had finished reading that I had yet to post a review for them. Lon suggested that I stop reading the other two books until I have caught up on the reviews on my blog, so I started posting like mad. And here we are! I still have one book to finish and post, and another to start! But I will post this review and then I can continue reading lol! Without further ado, here's Parentology by Dalton Conley! Parentology by Dalton Conley This book was amazing! Finally the book gods have blessed me with a wonderful book! I had read so many terrible ones! Oh I am so excited that I finally got a "good one" I was starting to lose faith in my process! Along with the title of this book it says "Everything you wan...

We have so much going on this week! Yay! Anna starts her dance classes at Diversity today. Unfortunately though, we all woke up super sick and sore. I think we may have finally caught what has been ailing Lon all last week. Bleh… We would have to walk to the dance studio this week, and with the way everyone is feeling, I think it would be too much. Which does suck, I really don't want Anna to miss out on her first day of dance class. :( But Alan starts preschool tomorrow and on Friday he turns five years old. Last weekend we had Aunt April's first cheer game and Aunt Natalie's in town wedding reception. It was a crazy weekend and now we are starting yet another crazy week lol. Plus, we have not found the right car for us yet so we are still a single car family. Which makes things difficult when we don't live together lol. But we are making things work! I have just two more books to review, I will post this one this week and then the next one sometime next week. I am w...

This weekend we have quite a bit to do, on top of all the busy-ness this week brings us. I am in the middle of helping teach Theatre Camp at the YMCA. This weekend is also the showcase for my hip hop classes. And the same day is Kelton's birthday party, they are having the Power Rangers make an appearance. So cool! Then on Sunday, we are having our family pictures taken up at Zimmerman Park. Its been almost a year since our last family pictures, so it was due time lol! But I would love to have one slow weekend before Alan starts up school again. Okay, that will probably never happen. So I am already almost two books behind on my reviews, so I figured since I had a moment to breath (not really, we started Theatre Camp this week with the Y) I would post another book review, this one a sequel to one of my favorite King novels! Here is my book review of Doctor Sleep by Stephen King! Doctor Sleep by Stephen King So let me be clear on something before I start this review, I rea...

I have quite a few book reviews to catch up on, this summer I have been reading about two books a week. Its been crazy, but I love that I can get back into the old things I used to love doing. I have always enjoyed getting lost in a book, so happy I can do that again now! Truth be told, it has been driving my hubby and family crazy though. Every chance I get, my nose is in a book lol! It has been a great source of stress relief for me, which is good. But here is my first of many  book reviews for this month lol. Enjoy! Life in Motion by Misty Copeland Life in Motion is a non-fictional autobiography by Misty Copeland, the first African-American female to perform as a American Ballet Company soloist in twenty years. She didn't come from a typical upbringing that a ballet dancer would have either, she and her siblings lived in a poverty stricken area with their mother. They experienced hunger, gang violence, domestic abuse, and homelessness as children. Misty also has anxie...

I know, I like never write on the weekends! What has gotten into me??????? Well, for those of you who know me personally know that I only don't write most weekends, because that is my family time. It is the time where all four members of our family are available, so we spend as much time as possible together, doing fun things. I am usually too busy to post during the weekend, I just recap everything from the weekend that following Monday. In fact, the year I started this blog, that was one of my personal rules: No posting on weekends.  But today, I woke up early before the children and I thought I would go online for a bit. Started checking my FB and then my blog and I decided, hey why not post today? If I have something to write, why shouldn't I write? So here I am, typing up a post for today. It will mostly be filled with random thoughts and musings from the weekend. I still want to save my Dirty Dash post for Monday. :) But I have like a billion and two little things I ...

We are finally all starting to feel human again! After a week of everyone getting sick and passing it around and around the household, we have finally gotten better! Whooo! This week we started going and doing stuff again. The kids were super antzy, even though they hadn't been feeling well, they had Cabin Fever baaaad. :) I took them to the library on Monday to renew my Frida book. Tuesday, Anna had her third gymnastics class while Alan was in preschool.And the end of the week is Valentine's Day with all of its fesitivities. What a week! The kids always enjoy going to the library. We have made it into a weekly thing now and they love it. I love taking pictures of them at the library apparently too! I guess this post has the potential to become a photo dump lol! :P We played in the play area for sometime before picking out several Snoopy books for Alan. Anna chose a book about Spot the dog and one about Arthur babysitting. I need to finish my Frida biography and my VC Andrews...

We didn't end up doing too much this week, the kids were sick most of the week and today I have been quite ill myself. Plus with our blizzarding weather outside, it doesn't make for a good recipe for sick kids. The kids went to their gymnastics classes this week, but I unfortunately had to cancel our playdate with Kelton and Karter to the library. Hopefully we all get better soon, next week is Valentine's Day! Anna is another month old... I swear this month she has grown up so much! I look at 2 year olds in daycare and she acts just like them. She talks so much more now and you can understand almost everything she says now. Her vocabulary has quadrupled in the past month! Its crazy to me! :D Only five more months until she is two years old! Wow! Miss Anna is still recovering from her croup and her teething, but she thankfully never caught the stomach bug that wreaked havoc on our house this week. At nineteen months, Anna Ariel: *weighs approximetly 24 1/2 pounds and i...

This weekend, Anna had Lon and I quite worried. The kids had been playing and had gotten quite wild, so I told them to calm down some. After having a talk with them, we noticed Anna was holding her left arm a lot and favoring her right arm. We tried to get her to reach for a toy with the arm and she refused to. The more we started checking it, the more upset she got. We decided that we should take her into the doctor to make sure she didn't hurt it or something. She screamed bloody murder when we tried to put her coat on, she screamed when we seat belted her into her car seat. I was just sure at that point that she had dislocated her shoulder or something. She wouldn't let the doctor's check her temp or take her weight. Actually examing the arm was completely out of the question too. She just screamed and screamed, it seriously almost made me sick to my stomach to hear her scream like that. She definitely does NOT like doctors after her dog bite incident. Poor baby girl! T...

Our local library has recently built a new building and has remodeled. They just opened this past week. They are still under a lot of construction but can start accepting library card applications and allowing people to check books out again. Alan has wanted a library card for ages and I got my first card when I was about five, so I figured it was time to get him one. I took the kids to the new library last Friday and they just loved it! The new library is so cool! We walked all over, looking at all the new stuff. They have a wishing fountain, a tree house reading room and a toddler play area all on the first floor! We agreed that Alan was old enough to be responsible for two books. He picked those two books out while Anna played in the play area. Alan even came and played with her for a bit! However, Miss Anna wasn't too into getting any books herself this time but she really liked the play area and didn't want to leave when it was time to go lol. She put quite the show ...

I haven't done a What I'm Loving Wednesday in ages, I am not sure that Jamie @  Little Miss Daisy Mae is even still doing the link up lol. Oh well, I will still give her a shout out, since I am using her button for this post. Thanks Jamie for creating this midweek positivity blog hop! With my current New Year goals in effect, I want to start doing a WILW every week again! Here's what I am loving this week! I'm loving …  that our local library has finally finished construction on their new building and have reopened their doors to the public! I cannot wait to take the kids there to check it out and to get Alan his FIRST library card! My parents instilled an importance and love for reading books through our public library, I hope to do the same for my children! I'm loving …  that Anna is officially 18 months old! Where did the time go??? She grew up so quickly! I'm loving …  that I had 13 students show up to my first hip hop class of the winter/spring ...

How was everyone's Valentine's Day yesterday? Ours went great! Alan's little party had a very nice turnout, we all had a blast together! I will be sure to post about that sometime next week. I do not think that any of us took a single photo though lol, how silly are we! Lon surprised me with a dinner date to Applebee's KID FREE and then we went shopping for a movie (the new Judge Dredd, AWESOME), which was all awesome. I also got chocolates, yum! I am really picky about chocolates lol and he made a point to get me the PERFECT box of chocolates for me. Oh how I love him so much. He is just so perfect for me! Thanks baby! I am so very excited because Aunt Natalie and Uncle Jake are coming to town today! Yay! We have quite a bit we want to do with them here, I am just not sure what the exact plans are yet. But Alan has been asking for Aunt Natalie since he woke up lol. They are buds since he was born. :) We just cannot wait to see them! Have a safe trip here guys, ...

Good afternoon everyone! I hope that all of you got a chance to read my earlier post about Wear Red Day for Heart Awareness! We are all wearing our red here at Free Range Family! I hope that you are too! We do not have much planned today. Just our usual 15 minutes outside play while Anna naps (in the snow, yes!) and I have a tumbling birthday party tonight at work. This weekend is pretty unplanned as well. I think that maybe the SuperBowel is this weekend? Or is that next weekend lol? We do not watch football here, so I have no idea! :P I am determined to meet up with my friend Kelsie and her son Kelton this weekend. She is due to have her baby very soon, I want to get the boys out doing something fun before she is homebound for a bit! Other than that, we might go visit the grandparents. Not too much this weekend, but its my first weekend off in a while! I will take that over anything! Here is the second Five Question Friday post of 2013! Enjoy! What is your favorite book to r...

Saturday's birthday party was fun. Unfortunately, the kids were not able to come. Alan woke up this morning saying that his throat and tummy hurt. He had a low grade fever and threw up a little too. So we kept him at home with Lon. But the party was really cool! It was for my co-worker's 3 year old daughter and 6 year old son. The party was Star Wars and Dora the Explorer themed. They had several life size cardboard cut outs too! The kids all had a blast, I wish Alan was able to go! Oh well, there's always next year! I finished my book last night! Lon went over to his friend Jason's house for a bit and both kids were in bed, so I sat down and read the last few pages I had been procrastinating. I am sure glad I did too! What a book! I loved it and cannot wait to read the next one! The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games takes place supposedly in the future, in a desolate apocolyptic United States now known as Panem. Originally thirteen distri...