When I Carried You in My Belly by Thrifty Umrigar and Illustrated by Ziyue Chen

The 411:

I adore this book. The words and the illustrations. It speaks to my heart and I believe it is the perfect gift for first time moms as a Mother's Day or a Baby Shower Gift. In this story a mother loving relays to her daughter why stories of when she was carried in her belly and how it correlates with why she is the lovely child she is today.

"When I carried you in my belly, we fed kittens out of saucers, baked bread for our neighbors, and hung bird feeders on the trees and that is why you have the biggest heart in the world."

Beside these sweet, loving words and the cutest illustrations ever by Ziyue Chen which I couldn't help sharing with my Instagram followers last week. Gorgeous!

My children are 11 and 13 and still love hearing the stories of when I was pregnant with them. I just wish I was as poetic as Thrifty when I share with them.
 

Coloring Books For YOU! Use Code STORYTIME for 20% OFF

Here is a great gift idea for anytime and with Easter in Mother's Day in the next few weeks these personalized coloring books from Put Me In The Story are perfect.

I received a Keep Me Calm and Color On book that is probably one of the prettiest coloring books I have ever seen because well, it has my name all over it! 

A book and some colored pencils, markers, gel pens are all of them would make a great gift for yourself or someone you love.

The books are filled with interesting and detailed mandalas, shapes, ornate, delicate , complex and intricate patterns that will allow the coloring artist to just relax and color. It is definitely a mental health moment that is so worth it!

I love the pretty patterns and the quotes on the pages.

Here are just some of the pretty pages!

Dig Two Graves Opens Tomorrow

The 411

Sometimes the mistakes of someone else's past can come back to haunt you. That is what happens when Samantha's brother drowns at the beginning of the movie. The movie is creepy in a non-creepy way.  My father always told me don't be afraid of the dead be afraid of the living for they are much scarier and he was right.

Samantha Isler/Jake does her best to act aloof in her serious scowl and 70's clothing but for a girl who lost her brother and obviously loves him enough to want him back from the dead I was confused by her bored, trusting innocence.  I did however enjoy the slow roll out of the story of the past. It definitely made things interesting.  For some reason Cher's Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves kept running through my head through the movie.

I liked the 70s vibe and the unscary horror film that reminded me that ghosts can't hurt us but the past of our relatives just might.

Worth the watch! 

Protogenesis by Alysia Helming and Kostas Martakis

The 411

Helene's mother is missing and someone is trying to kill her. She is told to trust no one as she makes her trek to Greece to stay with a Godfather named Janus she doesn't know while she tries to figure out what happened to her mother.  Janus is an eccentric character who is as confused that she has arrived in Greece as she is that he and her mother were friends.  With glowing stones, a magic cat, a and mirror that becomes a portal another planet while she tries to balance out her potential boyfriend's Ever and Nick and figure out the mystery surrounding her mother's disappearance Helene certainly has her work cut out for her.

A truly great read. Alysia mixes culture, mystery, Greek mythology, romance and fantasy into a wonderful story that will have fans of Percy Jackson and Harry Potter loving each magical chapter except this time we have a female heroine with male sidekicks. Hooray! Girl Power.  

Guitar Lessons With My Daughter

I love Thursdays because it is the night my daughter has guitar lessons. We leave before it gets dark and I stand for the next hour listening to her learn to play the guitar. There are plenty of places to sit but I like to stand and pace listening to her instructor teach her the notes, how to get a better sound, how to let the notes resonate and how naturally good she is. I bet he says this to all his students but I honestly think she is good.

My dream is that one day she and her dad will be able to play something together. When she said she wanted to take guitar the first thing I thought was hooray, this is something that will bring you and your dad closer. He has football with Handsome but not much in common with Goddess other than she is very much like him; not terribly mushy, very smart and extremely quick witted.  For practice she is using her Daddy's acoustic which also makes me so happy.

It makes me so happy that we are in a place to provide lessons for her at this point. I don't know how everyone does it. Affording vacations, feeding the kids, buying new clothes, putting them in activities that will make them better people and more. I see the posts on Facebook and while I am happy for everyone often wonder how they do it. How do they afford it?  For now we can but I constantly inform her that if she doesn't practice outside of her lessons she will not be able to take more classes. While I am proud of her I think it is a privilege to take music lessons. It certainly isn't cheap.

signing the wall at the music studio

For now I will continue taking her and forcing her to put in at least 15 minutes a night of practice time and at bed time I will pray for her continued interest and the one day I won't have to remind her to practice because if I have to remind her she obviously isn't really that interested.

Getting back to the first photo...when we leave it is dark out and the sky has that ombre look that forces us to both look up and say...wow. My phone didn't do the moon, star and gorgeous sky any justice but we snapped a pic and walked hand in hand to the car with the guitar in her other hand.

The Mirror Sisters Series Book 2 Broken Glass - V.C. Andrews

The 411:

I enjoyed this book better than the first one. You can see my review here.  Two identical twin sisters Haylee and Kaylee live under the thumb of their very controlling mother. She is so controlling that she won't let one wake unless the other is awake and they must always dress the same, do their hair the same and finish each other's sentences. This works for mom but the girls would love to have their own separate lives. One of them has done what she felt she needed to in order to make that happen and it is at the expense of her sister.

This book had me hooked and it was finished in three days even with my job, my kids, homework and mommy work. If I had the time it would have been read in one night. The book starts right were book one leaves off. One of the twins is missing and now the other has to talk about what she knows.

I was dying to know what was going to happen and was happy there was some closure at the end of the book although I cannot wait for book 3.

This book reads quicker than the first and highlighted just how much parents can screw up their kids. The psychological damage from an overbearing mother and the absence of father due to divorce was the breeding ground for jealousy, hatred, and manipulation.  It was a perfect storm and book 3 can't come soon enough.