more books

After reading "The Help" I decided I like reading too much to quit. Granted, too often my house goes to pot, but I'm trying to limit what I read at home and do most of it at the gym. I'm horrible at that but I'm trying. So what did I read? I read "The Hunger Games" and then the sequel "Catching Fire." They're teen fiction but I still loved them. Now when I say what they'll about you'll think what the heck but isn't that what you thought whenever everybody started reading about vampires? OK so I enjoyed the hunger games more. basically it's about teenagers that are forced to fight to the death by oppressive government. yeah-not typical natalie reading huh? Catching Fire felt more like a twilight book focusing more on the love story part. i mean it still had a high adventure part but not as much as the first. The best part is the third book in the series "Mockingjay" comes out in August. They're fun super fast reads so I liked them.

Today I just finished John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." I didn't have a clue what it would be about but I liked it. Two ranch workers in California that travel together--one is mentally retarded. It was really good but a bit emotionally challenging. It was a really fast read as well though. It was only 107 pages.

hmmm....i love reading and then the time afterwards i spend thinking about it.

Quite possibly the coolest thing i've done

For Father's day we made this book for our dads. You know the Dr. Seuss book "The Foot Book"? Well we made the book but put our own pictures in it. Here are some of my favorite pages but I loved the whole thing.

Left foot Left foot Right foot right

Feet in the morning feet at night.

(Sam sleeps like me, with his blanket over his head.)

Slow feet quick feet trick feet sick feet

small feet big feet

here come pig feet

more and more feet 24 feet

here come more and more and more feet

the pictures don't do it justice.

my house right now

rachel wanted a post so fascinating as it is...my house right now.

it may look like i purposely made that relief society poster look like jackson made it so i won't have to make one again, but that's not true. I tried.

my foot art still hanging up. i'll post about that later but it's been hanging there for 3 weeks now. and in the background on the wall my cute chalkboard i cut to hang in my painted picture frame. i feel like a handyman b/c i used spray paint and an exacto knife.

cookie plates for visiting/home teaching families.

the reason i was able to make my relief society poster. that's brooke. i'm watching her and her brother owen right now for their mom.

sam-who is now sitting on my lap.

and owen who i accidentally woke up taking this picture but he quickly fell back alseep. whoops.

Photo shoot!

I love this bumbo. (that's the seat that sam is sitting in.) I sorta justified buying it for this photo shoot but i love love love it! It's so much fun to play with sam in it. I love all of these pictures of the boys too.

more and more feet!

This started with a small idea and then got bigger and bigger. It was so much fun! It's now hanging from our fireplace and I love it. It's so pretty and colorful.

Mr.and Mrs. Lance Hutchison

Y'all I know it doesn't look like it but we tried. We combed his hair multiple times. We tucked in his shirt again and again. We practiced and practiced walking the aisle. He still ran up on the stage and stood with the bridesmaids. Then did jump and jacks. I kinda laughed when Katie said we should have candy to bribe him to his seat but in the end that was all that worked.

Aren't these pictures amazing. I haven't seen a lot of them but my mom emailed me these and I thought they were stunning. The whole weekend was so nice. Katie did an amazing job planning everything and it came off perfectly. Katie has been here for all of the other sibling weddings. They've been together longer than anybody else. We're just so happy for them.

Unfortunately, I'm a little bitter towards traveling currently. We've done a lot for all of these weddings this spring and it's all been fine except for the would be last hour of our trip. After an 8 hour drive we thought we were home free once we passed crossville. We then hit dead still traffic. After waiting in it for about an hour we pulled over to feed Sam. Lucky we did b/c while I was feeding him our car overheated. Some hose broke. Brent was able to buy the necessary quick fixes at the gas station and then re-route the gps so we could find an alternate way home. I love that guy and his brains.

They got to play in the rain but all Sam got was a bath

doesn't he look like he's pouting?

finally

Finally! I read a book! It feels good to say that.

Thanks Lori for recommending it. I waited a long time for my turn to get it from the library. They have like 50 copies but it still took forever. It's called "The Help" by Kathryn stockett.

I don't read a lot of modern literature but because Lori said she enjoyed it so much I thought I'd try it. It's based in jackson mississippi in 1963. It's told from the perspective of three women dealing with the racial tensions of the day. I had a hard time putting it down which means that jackson didn't like it at all because I ignored him more than I should. I have a hard time mentally juggling my "southern pride" and embarrassment when I read about the treatment of blacks at that time. Some of the comments the white women would make were so ignorant, not necessarily intentionally malignant. I fear hurting people's feelings. I guess I'm easy to get my feelings hurt and so I really don't like offending somebody else. While I was reading this book it made me wonder if the way I live my life may unknowingly hurt others. Does that make sense? Well I loved the story because it did make me think a lot about who I am, why I'm that way and who guided me where I am. I just love books that make ya think.

baby pics

so i think these are seriously the cutest baby pictures ever. i love the bookshelf one particularly.

i love how these two interact

jackson loves sam. he loves to make him happy. even when what he does makes sam mad, he doesn't get that he's causing the problem. today he was playing music for sam.

so in these shots sam doesn't look thrilled. but i ran to get my camera because he was. i feel like i'm constantly telling jackson "don't shake him" "not so rough" "don't bounce him" "he shouldn't be sucking your thumb" I fear for Sam's life. Sam takes it pretty well though. Jackson has no problem getting Sams attention. I'm not sure if its the "keeping an eye on the enemy" sort of look out or the "you're the coolest person in my world" sort of adoration.