February Wrap Up

I got through 8 books this month and I am currently reading three. Not the best but it was great for how short the month is. I read a mix of good and not so good books. I have read a total of 17 books so far this year and I feel myself slowing down. I have not been wanting to just sit and read anything. Also, I am not going to be doing a review on Dollhouse by the Kardashian sisters. I didn't enjoy the book and it was a waste of time and that is when my reading started to slow down too. 

1. The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith

2. Infamous by Lauren Conrad

3. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle

4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

5. 10 Reasons Not to Fall In Love by Linda Green

6. How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky

7. New Boy by Tracy Chevalier

8. Dollhouse by Kourtney, Kim and Khloe Kardashian

Review: ready Player One by Ernest Cline

About the Book: In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade’s devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world’s digital confines—puzzles that are based on their creator’s obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. 

My Thoughts: When I first started watching Booktube videos a couple years ago, this was the book that was getting a lot of hype. Everyone loved it and I wanted to read it too. It has a lot of 80's references and I knew that I would understand those references because I was born in 1990 and I had an older brother born in the 80's and growing up in the 90's my parents would play a mix of music, mostly 80's. My brother had some of the game systems mentioned and I would play them when he was at his dad's for the weekend. 

One of my resolutions this year was to finally read this book because I want to see the movie, and when it popped up on Blogging For Books, I grabbed it. Now one of the cons I have about it is that there are some boring parts when he is describing a game in detail. I already know what most of these games are about. Also, the text in this book is very tiny and it has a lot of words on each page. I am enjoying the quest and adventure. I would describe this book as Percy Jackson meets Gamer( movie). That's how I described this book to Cayce. I told him to just think of the movie Gamer that stars Gerard Butler.

About the Author: Ernest Cline is a novelist, screenwriter, father, and full-time geek. His first novel, Ready Player One, was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and appeared on numerous “best of the year” lists. Ernie lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-traveling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic video games.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

GO SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL!!

YouTube Channel: Kelly Lyn

Review: New Boy by Tracey Chevalier

About The Book: Arriving at his fifth school in as many years, diplomat’s son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day – so he’s lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can’t stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players – teachers and pupils alike – will never be the same again.
 
The tragedy of Othello is transposed to a 1970s suburban Washington schoolyard, where kids fall in and out of love with each other before lunchtime, and practice a casual racism picked up from their parents and teachers.

My Thoughts: I have never read Othello, so I have no idea if this is a good retelling of the Shakespeare tragedy. It is from the POV of some sixth graders and it focuses on the arrival of a new kid. This new kid shakes things up quite a bit because he is African. He is the son of a diplomat and has been the new kid at different schools for the past few years. He befriends the golden girl Dee in the Sixth grade and they have a spark. Ian, the class bully is bothered by this and wants the new kid to know that he runs that playground and preferably the whole school. 

It just brought me back to my sixth grade year, where there were groups on the playground that we all stuck with and where we hung out and who to watch our for. Who was the popular ones and who were the outcasts. 

About the Author: Tracy Chevalier grew up in Washington, DC. She received her BA in English literature from Oberlin College before moving to London in 1984. She later attended the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where she received her MA in creative writing. Her works include The Virgin Blue, The Girl With a Pearl Earring, and Remarkable Creatures.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

School Week 27 Photo Diary

We had a long and productive week. I think it was only long for me because of the weekend. As I am writing this, I am still exhausted and have not been really productive or relaxed as I have been wanting to be this weekend. We did get a lot of learning in this week. I was going to start them on something new at the end of the week, but figured it would be better to do on Monday because it will fit. But that will be in the next post.

Monday 2/12: I did plan on starting early and I did get up after Cayce had left for work, but then I stupidly went back to bed, and overslept. They had their pop tarts for breakfast and we ended up starting at 10:45. Ariana did more workbook pages and Sammy did Easy Peasy while Addy watched Super Why.

After Addy got done watching Super Why, she did her Easy Peasy while Ariana did some reading and Sammy also worked on her Easy Peasy lessons.

We ended our day with reading library books.

Tuesday:We had our early start that I wanted for Monday morning. Sammy started at 7:40 when she got done eating her pop tart and then I started Ariana and Addy when they got done with their breakfast. Addy started her day with drawing and Sammy started her day with Reading Eggs Mathseeds lesson and then she decided she wanted to work on Reading Eggs worksheets. Ariana did more workbook pages. She is flying through that workbook.

After a few ore hours of each doing reading time and Easy Peasy, we watched a show on baby animals on Netflix.

Addy made a little shapes booklet.

Even though Sammy started her day early, they all finished their days at the same time. Ariana finished her day with Reading Eggs. Addy completed her morning work and calendars and weather graph.

Wednesday: We had a very late start to the morning. They did their morning work and then we started a new show called Hidden Kingdoms and it was cool. Then we watched two more episodes of Baby Animals In The Wild. Afterwards, Ariana did reading time. Addy did Easy Peasy lessons and Sammy did some Reading Eggs spelling sheets. After an hour, they did other work. Addy got some Valentine's Day coloring pages while her sisters worked on spelling lessons.

Airy ended her day with Reading Eggs worksheets. Addy was still coloring at the end of the school day and Sammy finished her day with reading to me.

Thursday: We started our day at 9:30. We had a "concert" where we all just sang songs for the fun of it. That's how they woke me up.. singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes at the top of their lungs. Then we watched more Netflix and then I pulled up an episode of Liberty's Kids on Deborah Sampson and then after, I had Airy and Sammy draw commemorative stamps for her. Addy re-watched Leapfrog during this time and she was singing along and dancing..

We finished our day with reading time and reading the rest of our library books.

Friday: I was happy that Friday was finally here. I once again woke up with Cayce and then went back to sleep and we had another late day. They had morning work and Netflix. When we got done with watching our shows, I had Sammy and Ariana do a free write that had to include an animal that they had seen today in the shows we watched. They did great with their stories but I have realized that their writing is getting repetitive and that has to be fixed. While they were writing, Addy finished her Valentine's day coloring pages and then she finished her day with Easy Peasy lessons. She moved on to the letter T and got to make a train craft today.

Sammy and Ariana finished their day with reading to each other. After the school day was done, I felt the exhaustion and happiness that we had a great week without any meltdowns.

Review: 10 Reasons Not To Fall In Love

I bought this book a couple years ago after I found it on Amazon being sold for a penny. I read the synopsis and figured that I could save it for when I needed something to cheer me up. I planned to read it right when I got it, but that didn't happen. I have been staring at it on my shelf and then I finally decided to read it this month for Valentine's Day. I had completely forgotten what it was about.

As I started reading it and the dialogue, I learned that this was set in England and realized that if I read this when I first got it, I would not know what in the hell this characters would be talking about and their jokes. I thank the British YouTubers that I have been watching for learning their slang and lingo.

I read this book in two days. I could not put it down. It is so cute and fluffy mixed with some dark times. It is about Jo, a single mom to a two year old son named Alfie. She is still learning how to move on with her life and be the best mom that she can be. Alfie's dad walked out on them on the night of his first birthday and he is turning 2 and she has finally decided to go back to work as a news reporter. That sold me right there and I connected with the character on this fact because that was my dream job growing up.

One day, they meet a man called Dan. He is a balloon sculptor and Alfie is instantly smitten with "balloon man". We learn throughout the rest of the book that he lives on a boat and then there are parts in the book that are focused on his childhood and these are the dark parts. These parts of the book made me cry. I was so heartbroken for Dan and how he had all these issues going on and yet he just wanted Alfie and Jo in his life.

I loved this pairing and this author has hooked me with this book. I will be looking at her other books. I know that this is a stand alone novel, but I hope that one day she will write another book with these characters, maybe from a grown up Alfie.

The only thing I have against this book is that there wasn't an epilogue and that I wish there was more to this story. I need more of Dan.

School Week 26 Photo Diary

This was a long week for us. We had Tuesday off to celebrate Addy's 6th birthday and then Thursday was just an overall bad day that I decided to do something completely different. I gave them each their own days with me over the week. On Friday, I gave Ariana and Sammy the day off and just did one on one time with Addy to work with her on a lot of things. Saturday, I did one on one with Ariana. She was a freaking breeze. I didn't have any problems with her and when I introduced her to something new to learn, she got it straight away. Sunday was Samantha's one on one day with me and she was the reason for the one on one days because on Thursday she was just not getting along with me and was crying and saying she couldn't do it. I had to cut the day short on Thursday because tempers were flaring. Needless to say, on Sunday, we didn't have any problems and she understood what she didn't get on Thursday. Then we went straight into week 27 and it was exhausting. I am worn slap out. Cayce joked that it should be en every weekend thing and I told him he lost his damn mind.

Monday 2/5: We started our day around 10:30. They got their chores and morning work done. After, Ariana started her Easy Peasy lessons, Sammy read and Addy watched some Superwhy because she had been singing the song all weekend. It was totally cute and that is the only time she will sing is to herself. She gets shy in front of us and won't sing anything.

After an hour, Sammy did some of her Easy Peasy lessons and Ariana completed some workbook pages. Addy had her own little quiet time today looking at books and I sat with her and we pointed out some things in the pictures and I had her repeat some words back to me while I was reading to her. 

Once we all got done with that, we watched a couple episodes of Wild China. After they got done with those episodes, I had Ariana and Samantha write a summary of what they watched and Addy did her Easy Peasy lessons.

Tuesday: No School. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADALYN!

Wednesday: We had an early start day. Sammy started at 8AM. She did some Easy Peasy lessons and she learned about polygons and congruent shapes. An hour later, I got Ariana and Addy started because they had finally woken up and had their breakfast. When they got done with their morning work, we all piled into the living room and watched Heidi with Shirley Temple. We had been reading that book for months and Sammy really enjoyed it, and it also introduced them to Shirley Temple who I grow up watching with my dad whenever it was on.

she had to make a picture with polygons

After the movie went off, we went straight into watching more Wild China. Those shows are so fascinating. Afterwards, we reads chapters 9-10 of A Wrinkle In Time. I can't wait to see this movie. To end the day, Ariana did workbook pages. Samantha was done for the day since she started earleir then her sisters. Addy finished her day with making a second rabbit craft.

Thursday: We had another late start today. We started at 10:40 because I slept in. They had their morning work done and then we watched Wild Madagascar because we just can't get enough and it is also our topics of conversation while eating dinner. They recap what we watched to Cayce and they are learning, so it's justified. After that, I had Addy watch the Leapfrog videos again. I know I said I was going to stop showing those to her this half of the school year, but she asked. So while she was watching that, Sammy and Airy were doing another summary on Wild Madagascar.

When they got done writing, Sammy did some Easy Peasy lessons and this is when the day went down hill and we stopped early. Ariana was doing workbook pages and doing amazing. They finished their day with reading time together because I was trying to calm my nerves and Sammy just needed to have some time to herself and work on her reading which is finally getting better every day it seems. Addy finished her day with writing practice and this is when I decided to do the one on one with them during the weekend. Addy needs to work on her writing. Ariana is doing wonderful and she is ready to move on to more things. Sammy needs to work on reading comprehension.

Friday: Addy's Day. We started at 9:25 and I had Sammy and Ariana play at their end of the house to not distract Addy during her time and they were very well behaved and trying to make up for the awfulness that was the day before. Addy loved her one on one time with me. It got me thinking that I may do this once a month till the end of the school year, but as I am writing this a week later.. I am not so sure because I am wrecked. Anyways, Addy got a lot of Easy Peasy lessons done. She made a shape mobile and one thing I learned is that she needs more practice with shapes.

After her mobile was done, she moved on to writing and this is where she needs the most help. She is switching hands when she writes every time. One day she will write with her left hand and then the next day she will write with her right hand. She also needs my hand on top of hers when she writes and I did that with Sammy and Airy but it never took them this long to learn how to write. Every time she goes over to my parents, I ask my mom to help her write because my mom is left handed. 

She started getting tired of the writing practice and I didn't want to push her any farther and it result in tears, so I got the number flash cards and she counted to 25 for me and then I quizzed her on which number the card was and she got some wrong and most of them right. She watched a couple of YouTube videos on months of the year and days of the week and she sung them out loud with me. That is something else that we need to work on vigorously before the end of the year. We read some library books and then to end her long day, I got her back with her sisters and we sat and finished A Wrinkle In Time. The girls absolutely loved it and I immediately requested the second book from the library.

Saturday: Ariana's day. We had a late start to the day. Cayce had to leave to go work at our pastor's house and he fed the kids breakfast and they let me sleep in. I wasn't worried about Ariana having a bad day because she has been doing great with everything. She did workbook pages for an hour and a half. Then we read for an hour together. She read Captain Underpants and I read the book I was currently reading at the time which I can't remember.

After we got done reading for the day, she worked on Reading Eggs Mathseeds and she got through a couple lessons and aced her quiz at the end. The she finished her day with one lesson on Easy Peasy. She did have some trouble with the worksheet by being distracted by the TV and Cayce resting from working. She had a good day and loved her one on one time with me.

Sunday: Sammy's Day. We started around 10AM when I woke up. Cayce had woken up early again and fed them and entertained Ariana and Adalyn while I worked with Sammy. She did her morning worksheets and then I had her start her day with spelling pages. I knew that she would do well with those. Then I had her go to some worksheets in the back of her binder where we started working on her reading comprehension. These sheets are much easier than what I gave her the other day and she did amazing on these sheets. She ended up wanting to do more on Monday, but we will get to that in the next post. After she got done with those pages, I didn't want her to get bored, so we only did one lesson.

We ended up reading together for an hour. Afterwards, I decided to get her to start learning more about the states and I bought a puzzle that has the states, a world map, and the presidents. Growing up, I had a state puzzle that i put together a lot and he also had a world map on the back. I loved that puzzle and my dad was glad that I enjoyed it and I think that is what sparked my love of learning about different lands and wanting to travel and explore.

she loved this puzzle, and she read the state names out loud and the capital names as well.

After she got done with the puzzle, she did an Easy Peasy lesson and she also had to do a writing assignment that she thought was the most hilarious thing. Her writing prompt was "Your Day As A Inanimate Object".. she chose a spoon. To finish her day off, she did one lesson of Reading Eggs mathseeds. She started messing up, so I ended the day so we wouldn't have another meltdown. I was happy with how she read so great today.

Overall, they enjoyed the one on one time with me and I really want to do it again, but I am so exhausted. I am mentally exhausted because they got two days off, but I went straight ahead into a new school week without taking a break. This weekend, I am going to be taking a much needed rest and decide that if I do do this again, I will have to come up with a schedule to allow me a day off to recuperate and to also stay on track with our year and finish on the day I have down as our last day.

Review: How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt

About the Book: Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.

My Thoughts: Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, I have been getting more into politics and every time I ask the question how the hell did this man get nominated in the first place. At first, I was thrilled with the idea of a non political guy going into office. He was a successful business man and I thought he knew how to negotiate. Then came the shit show that is our president now. He is an awful man who is tearing this country apart even further.

I am slowly learning all these political terms and I am doing research. Some of these terms I heard 9 years ago when I was a senior in high school and my teacher was great at explaining those things. The thing that really got me irked was in the first chapter when they are talking about alliances, the authors mention Mussolini & Rome, Hitler & Germany, and Chavez & Venezuela. In one paragraph they would be talking about Mussolini, then go straight into talking about Hitler and then go back to Mussolini. It was kind of confusing that they put both of these men together but then Chavez gets a paragraph or two all to his rise to power.

The question is... Is our democracy on its way to extinction?? 

About the Author: Steven Levitsky is an American political scientist and Professor of Government at Harvard University. A comparative political scientist, his research interests focus on Latin America and include political parties and party systems, authoritarianism and democratization, and weak and informal institutions. He is notable for his work on competitive authoritarian regimes and informal political institutions.

Daniel Ziblatt is a Professor of Government at Harvard University. Ziblatt studies Europe from the nineteenth century to the present. He is the author, most recently, of Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy. He has written for Vox and The New York Times, among other publications.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Review: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I like to read 1 or 2 classics every year, and I am starting early this year with this one. I usually like to read classics in the summer because I don't feel to rushed to read because I am not as busy, and I usually like them. I thought this book was OK.

Growing up, I heard everyone rave about this book and how it was just fantastic and before reading it, the only thing I knew about the book was that the man's name was Jay Gatsby. He was rich and lived lavishly and had wild parties and he had a fear of swimming.

The things I did not know was that this is from the POV of his neighbor who doesn't really have a friendship with Gatsby but his standoffish to him either. Gatsby's past is being questioned and the people that come to his parties talk about him and make up rumors and spread them. We learn that he is still head over heels in love with a woman from 5 years ago. He is stuck on her and he tries to be nice to everyone he meets.

He has horrible anxiety issues and he doubts everything.. even himself when it comes to his relationship with Daisy. The thing that was never addressed was the fact that he was scared of swimming. Not once did it say he was scared of the water, just that he would never go in and would look at it with trepidation. But near the end, he tells his butler that he is going swimming.

I am going to watch the Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio versions in a couple weeks because I want to think about what I read for a while, and then compare book to the movie and see if any parts become more simplified.

Review: The Fame Game series by Lauren Conrad

I finally read this series after wanting to for so many years. I was a huge fan of Lauren Conrad and watched The Hills religiously during high school. I read her L.A. Candy series after I had Samantha. I wasn't a huge fan of the characters in that series and it was basically just The Hills "fan-fiction" per say. It gave an insight on how just how "real" reality shows are.

This series follows two characters from that series. The "main" character of this series is Madison Parker. She was the mean girl in L.A. Candy. She was the fame whore who was betrayed at the end of it because she was keeping her background and past private.

In this series, we are introduced to two new characters and we learn more about Madison's family and that home life. We see her get knocked down and hated, and then eventually loved again. She loses some of her hatred towards people and start to let others in. She is losing that ice block around her heart and actually making friends with her co-stars and caring about them and being there for their events. We also see her fall in love with some one her age who doesn't like being filmed and photographed as often as she does.

The one thing I have a problem with is that we get an epilogue for Madison's character and somewhat Carmen's character, but Lauren Conrad left open Kate's and Gabby's story lines for another potential series if she wanted to write more books.

School Week 25 Photo Diary

I am finally getting this up on time somewhat. I am currently watching the Super Bowl. This school week was very rocky for us. Cayce went to work on Monday morning and came home two hours later sick. He didn't go back to work till Thursday. So for Monday and Tuesday, we had very late starts. I was going to give them Monday off so I could take care of Cayce, but changed my mind at the last minute. Tuesday, I just slept in because it was a very late night with Cayce.

Monday 1/29: We started at 11AM this morning. I was going to give them the day off and I told them we were taking the day off. They started playing with Legos and then I changed my mind and found some Lego challenges for them to do and they had a blast with that.

We started watching a new show again today called Wild Ones. They enjoyed this one as well. We ended the day with reading chapter 5 of A Wrinkle In Time.

Tuesday: No Pictures. Today was the latest start I think we have had this school year. We started at 11:30. We watched more Wild Ones and they seen some new animals in different parts of the world. After Addy worked on Easy Peasy. Ariana did some workbook pages. Sammy did some reading time. Adalyn ended her day with working on a puzzle. Ariana finished with reading Captain Underpants and Sammy finished her day with Easy Peasy.

Wednesday: By today, I was getting fed up of Cayce and I decided to wake up early just to bug him. It didn't and we started school around 9:35. They did their morning work and we finished watching Wild Ones.

Addy worked on some calendar pages. Ariana did typing on Easy Peasy. Samantha worked on her reading. We ended the day reading Chapter 6 of A Wrinkle In Time.

Thursday: We had a 10AM start time. Cayce went back to work and it was very odd. I wanted him back home. We read two chapters of A Wrinkle In Time. After, Sammy did some reading to herself. Ariana worked on some more workbook pages. Addy did Easy Peasy lessons. We finished the day with watching a YouTube video called "The Real Martha Washington".

Friday: NO SCHOOL. I gave the girls the day off to take a mental health day. Cayce brought it up because he noticed that I was feeling really burnt out and I had been really sad all week about everything. I woke Samantha up early because I was planning on a Ghost Adventures marathon, but my amazon fire stick had a different plan.

Saturday: The girls went to a home depot workshop to make up Friday. They made a Valentine's cornhole game and they have been having a blast. Cayce also took them shopping with their tooth money to buy a birthday present for Adalyn. Then they went to a Toys R Us Pokemon event and they socialized with some other kids waiting for the event to start.

Happy Birthday Addy

My baby is 6 years old today. I just can't believe that my baby is growing up so fast. She has learned so much this past year. It's even more shocking to think that she will be graduating Kindergarten in May... I am crying at the thought.

Happy Birthday to my Addy Baby

February TBR

here is my February TBR. The first two books have been on my TBR's for December and January and I am just starting Infamous. I am also in the middle of A Wrinkle In Time. I am ready to get to The Great Gatsby. I want to read 10 Reasons Not To Fall In Love for Valentine's day spirit and How Democracies Die is my next Blogging For Books review copy. 

I will be doing a collective review for the Fame Game series after I finish Infamous.