Wordless Wednesday: Lovely Luna

Review: The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

About the book: Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.

Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

My Thoughts: I am so amazed and in love with this story. Nicola Yoon has such an amazing writing style that I completely enjoyed and I got through this book in 2 sittings. It would have been 1 sitting, but the kids gotta be taken care of. I loved how it deals with the things that are important today like immigration, racism not just against whites and blacks but with different nationalities. It deals with small businesses and I love the multiple perspectives. I kept asking myself, how is Nicola Yoon going to tie in these minor characters, like the security guard or the paralegal. My favorite of the entire story is the multi universes. I have been thinking about how would my life be different and what my strings would be like if I didn't meet Cayce, I would have gone to college... but would we have lasted. The scientific aspect of this was just incredible and non boring.

I do have one question. In the author bio, it says that Nicola Yoon parents were immigrants. I want to know is this, is this story somewhat true about her life. Did she meet a Korean boy? Was there a possible deportation threat over her family's head? Or is this one of the many strings of her life in the way her life could have gone if she had made just one change?

About the Author: NICOLA YOON is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star, a 2016 National Book Award finalist. She grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, who created the artwork in these pages, and daughter, both of whom she loves beyond all reason. Everything, Everything is her first novel.

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

Freebie Haul 1/9- 1/14

This was a great freebie week. I loved everything that I received. I didn't sign up for a lot of freebies this week, so I know in the near future one week will totally BLOW! But let's get on with this weeks haul.

Monday: The best freebie day!

Goodreads Giveaway Win: Lola

Disney Movie Rewards: Santa Paws 2

Meow Mix Bistro Recipe Coupon

Meow Mix treat cups

2017 Betty Crocker Calendar

February 2017 issue of Comspolitan

Tuesday: This freebie made me laugh my ass off and almost vomit at the same time.

KFC Extra Crispy Sunscreen

it smells nothing like chicken

Wednesday: No Mail

Thursday: Another coupon and magazine

Coupon for a free Gillette razor

January 16, 2017 issue of Sports Illustrated

Friday: Didn't get anything in the mail, so we redeemed two coupons!!!

Gillette Coupon redemption: Gillette Fusion Proshield

Meow Mix Savory Morsels

For Luna and Missy!! 

The other cat food coupon we have will be for President Snow

Saturday: A big magazine day!!

February 2017 issue of Marie Claire

February 2017 issue of Elle

January 24, 2017 issue of Forbes

January 23, 2017 issue of Us Weekly

February 2017 issue of Fast Company

Hope you all enjoyed seeing my haul for the week. If ya'll want freebies of your own, go check out Freebie Ninja over on Facebook and also Freestufffinder.com

School Week 21 Photo Diary

This was a great school week. It was productive and it went by quickly. We also had a lot of fun this week. We got a lot of reading done this week, which is now dubbed the reading week.

Monday: They started the morning with their morning routine and they went and got their reading time over with because I had a lot planned for the day. After, we started a new language arts unit from Lesson Pathways. We read The Lion & The Mouse. After we read that book, I had them make paper bag puppets to retell the story to me. They both got lions and mice. They spent almost 2 hours coloring, cutting and gluing them together and there re-tellings were amazing. They had me laughing hard when they were done with their stories because they made the puppets take a bow and it was so unexpected.

When they got finished with their story re-tellings, they got their new spelling words for this week and next week. Since these are bigger words, I am going to give them extra time to learn them. 

We finished the day with reading the first 3 chapters in book 3 of A Series of Unfortunate Events. It's not good yet like the 2nd. 

Tuesday: We had a late start to the day and it threw me off. We had a magic school bus watch party for the beginning of the day while I got woken up and took care of the animals and got some breakfast myself. They watched 4 episodes and drew pictures. I was going to strictly have this only on Fridays, but this Friday we will be watching A Series of Unfortunate Events.

After, they reviewed spelling words and we read three more chapters of The Wide Window. Then they had their own reading time and I joined in with my library book that is due back this weekend. Then they wanted to bake with me and I had been wanting to make some more chocolate bread, so they helped me measure and mix everything.

The chocolate bread was delicious and we still have a little bit left. The girls did an amazing job.

Wednesday: Morning work and putting spelling words in ABC order. Then review before Samantha started her Reading Eggs Math seeds and Ariana had reading time. Addy joined us because she had just got home from speech when we started our school day.

After that first hour was up, then we switched up. Ariana did 2 lessons on her Reading Eggs and Samantha read to herself. We started another Lesson Pathways unit today. We started reading Mrs Piggle Wiggle and that book is great but too long. After I got through reading to them, I had them draw a portrait of Mrs Piggle Wiggle and her upside down house.

Of course, we finished our day with reading more of The Wide Window!

Thursday: Today was a real off day for me and the girls could tell. I was not happy or into the lessons or the reading at all. That's one of the reasons I started our day so early because I wanted to get everything done that we needed to do and I wanted to go back to bed. Today was basically a reading day. We read Genies Don't Ride Bicycles, and we finished The Wide Window. They had their own reading time and to end the day, we watched 3 episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Friday: Today was a much better day and productive. We got morning routine and reading time out of the way first, and then Ariana did more Reading Eggs lessons while Samantha did pages in her workbook. They only spent 30 minutes on each and then I had Ariana go do some Easy Peasy copy work pages while Samantha worked on Reading Eggs Eggspress. She did better than she usually does on that particular area. 

When we got done with all our computer work and work book pages, we read two more chapters of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. AND..... to end our day, we watched the first TWO episodes of A Series of Unfortunate Events that came out today on Netflix. The picture below is by far my favorite part so far where Count Olaf is trying on the wedding dress for his play! I laughed so hard.

Neil Patrick Harris is such an amazing Count Olaf. Better than Jim Carrey and Jim Carrey is one of my all time favorite actors!

Til next week!!!!

Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I have finally started this series this year and I am seriously kicking myself for not starting it sooner. It was that amazing. It was the first book on my Goodreads TBR list and I have been staring at it the past year and few months. It was better than I expected and I am ready to watch the movie which I have heard that, it wasn't great and didn't continue on with filming the last two books and now there is a fourth book written by someone else from the original author's wishes before he died. I hope it fits with the first three books.

This is a book about a mysterious disappearance, defamation, scandals, hacking, adultery, sexual assault, and incest. It starts of with the main character getting sentenced for libel. He got a bunch of facts from one of his friends about bad dealings and fraud and wrote about it. But his story wasn't the original and he didn't fight his case.

Then we meet this goth, fuck the world chick who is basically a ward of the state and is considered mentally unstable. She gets a new guardian who has control her money and he basically rapes her and she gets her revenge. She is a badass hacker who eventually crosses path with the main dude.

Bloomkvist gets contracted to help find and solve a 36 year old cold case and also write a family chronicle about the Vanger family. He has a year and gets shit done. Salander comes in with her hacking skills and brings in some of her buddies at the end to help, and then she has to go get feelings for Bloomkvist.

I loved this story. It definitely had me guessing and questioning who done it and I would have never guessed the ending. I can't wait to read the second book.

Recipe: Chocolate Bread

My kids and I have been wanting chocolate breads for the longest time. I would make it on special occasions a few years ago and then stopped. We made two loaves last night and they are sooo delicious. They helped prepped and mix and place in the oven for the end of their school day yesterday.

I got this recipe off the Paula Deen website. It also calls for chocolate butter, but since this bread is so rich and chocolatey to begin with, I always exclude the chocolate butter. I have to make one loaf at a time because I only have one loaf pan big enough and these take an hour to 75 minutes to bake at 325F.

most of the ingredients. The rest were on the other counter.

the dry ingredients all combined

adding the wet ingredients.

mixing it all up and then a mess ensued. 

they were fighting not to drop the bowl..lol. 

loaf #1

looks like poo. 

especially with the chocolate chips and pecans poking through the chocolate.....LOL.

loaf #2

We have crumbs of the first loaf and half of the second still left because Cayce cut half to work to eat and share with my dad and close work family.