If you liked the Hunger Games...

... I think you would enjoy Matched By Ally Condie. I just finished this book and I loved it! Like the Hunger Games trilogy, it is young adult dystopian literature and has a strong female lead. It is set in undetermined time in the future, when every aspect of life is now controlled by the Society. The Society determines what you eat, what you wear, what job you will have, and, the focus of this book, who you will marry, all with the goal of maximum efficiency. Soon after your 18th birthday, you attend your Match banquet, where you learn who you will marry after your 21st birthday. When Cassia Reyes is matched with her friend Xander, at first she is thrilled. But then her mysterious friend Ky causes her to wonder what it would be like to make her own decisions. This was a great read. I can't wait for the sequel to come out in November.

My Pregnancy: 10 Weeks

Wow, it has been a long time since I've updated my blog! But after having a few people ask me about it, I thought I really should get back to blogging again. As you probably already know, we've had some life-changing news in our family since the last time I blogged. Our family will become 3 this March! We are thrilled about being parents. We've been married for 6 years now, and we've been through a lot as a couple. We've lived in 3 different states. I've had several jobs. We both got our masters degrees and Andrew is nearly done with his Ph.D. Andrew joined the Air Force. We became an aunt and uncle. And on and on. We have enjoyed being just the two of us so much. But we can't wait to add a little one to the mix and start the next chapter.


Right now I am 10 weeks along! That means our baby is about an inch and a half long (or the size of a prune). An amazing fact about our baby this week is that its elbows are already working!

I am feeling the pains of having a "barnacle" growing inside me (the baby's newest nickname). Morning sickness hit with a vengeance at week 6 and hasn't let up since. I feel like I am sleeping all the time! I included a picture here of me this week. Now, I am the first to admit that I wasn't a skinny girl to begin with! So this picture doesn't have much "baby bump" to it, just my normal chubbiness. But I know that I will like to look back eventually and see how my belly changed over time.

So I'm back to blogging. I promise to blog about more than just my pregnancy! Although the recipes may be on hold until the second trimester...

Books 23-26 of 2011

I'm a little bit behind on blogging about the books I've read recently. Life has been slightly hectic. But I have been doing some great reading. I've really been on a roll lately of reading books that are so good I can't seem to put them down! Here are the latest.

Book #23 was Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes, the amazing author/illustrator of one of my favorite children's books, Kitten's First Full Moon. I liked Little White Rabbit a lot as well. It is a sweet story about a rabbit using his imagination as he looks at his surroundings. The illustrations are great too. 5 stars


Book #24 was If You're Hoppy written by April Pulley Sayre and illustrated by Jackie Urbanovic. A fun and silly book about animals with cartoon-y illustrations? Right up my alley! I loved it so much I came home with my own copy of it. 5 stars


Book #25 was The Heights by Peter Hedges. I really enjoyed this book about a young family living in Brooklyn Heights. It was an impulse read, I found it while wondering around the library without any particular purpose. While the blurb on the book flap hinted at a mystery that didn't actually exist in the book, I still thought it was engaging and the format of short chapters with alternating points of view made it a quick read. 4 stars


Book #26 was The Help. Like probably everyone else on the planet (or at least in the Southern United States) I have been hearing raves about this book for a couple of years now. I've been wanting to read it, but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. My husband was actually assigned this book to read for one of his classes, so I thought I'd try to read it as well while we had it checked out from the library. It was fantastic! Well worth all the praise. I could not put this book down. It's 451 pages and I read it in 3 days. It's thought-provoking and eye-opening, especially for someone of my generation and up-bringing. It made me mad and sad and happy and... it's just great. Go read it. 5 stars

Really Big News!

This is a very big day in the Presnell household. Andrew was just sworn in as a First Lieutenant in the United States Air Force! He will be participating in the Air Force Health Professionals scholarship program. They will pay for the rest of his schooling (2 1/2 years including his internship) and then he will serve as a psychologist for the Air Force for 3 years with the opportunity to re-enlist at that point if we decide that's what is best for us. It has been a big decision and we have mostly kept it quiet, because it was a competitive scholarship and we wanted to wait until it was official. I am so very proud of him. It is an opportunity to help our soldiers in a way that is very needed. And a way for us to get some great experiences and opportunities. So that's about all we know for now. I'll share any more details when I have them!

Book #22 of 2011

Book #22 was The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. I loved this book! And I was really excited to find out it was the first in a series of 7 books. The heroine of this book is Flavia de Luce, an eleven-year-old aspiring chemist living in a picturesque English village in the 1950s. When a dead body turns up in the garden of her family's estate, it turns out that Flavia is pretty good at solving mysteries, too. Reading this book was just fun. I highly recommend it to pretty much anyone. 5 stars

Cadbury Creme Deviled Eggs

Usually, I hate deviled eggs. Just thinking about them now kind of makes me want to gag. But THESE are some deviled eggs I could get behind. Although I'm pretty sure I could only eat about half of one of these sugary concoctions, made from Cadbury Creme Eggs and buttercream frosting. If you want to make them, check out the info over at Serious Eats.

Ferris Bueller Board Game

I love this Ferris Bueller board game! So fun, colorful and creative. I have seen this movie probably 100 times (at least). I'll stop every time I see it on tv. "You're Abe Froman? The sausage king of Chicago?" Click on the picture to see a larger image. From Max Dalton.