Jenuine Cupcakes

Happy Birthday To Me! ;)

  I could NOT wait to read this book but once I had it in my hands I wanted to read it as slowly as possible. Why?  Well, because when author, Becca Fitzpatrick announced the other day that there is going to be a 4th book in the "Hush Hush" series I knew it would be at least another YEAR before I would get my Patch fix again and that's a long time to wait. Like torturously long and I wanted to savor as much Patch as I could.  Can you really blame me? ;) There was sooo much heart racing excitement at the end of "Crescendo" that I expected "Silence" to pick up right where it left off, in Patch's shed or Jev as we found out was his true name, (Honestly, I don't care what he calls himself, as long as he calls. Wink. Wink.) but it doesn't.  It actually picks up three months later in a cemetery where Nora has woken up without a clue as to where she is, what day it is or how she got there.  Oh yeah, and she has no memory of the past five month...

A MUST read for everyone whose every been the victim of a bully or worn the mask of one.  Thank you to the authors who were brave enough to share their stories.  While I don't think bullying will ever completely go away as long as there are broken and wounded human beings walking this earth, I do think this book does a go job of shedding light on the damage it does.

There are two book releases today that I'm VERY excited about!  Have you checked them out yet?  What. are. you. waiting. for?  The first is Becca Fitzpatrick's "Silence" (Book 3 in the "Hush Hush" series).  Becca announced the other day that there will in fact be a Book 4 in the series... Yay! = More Patch & Nora!  Boo = We have to wait another year for more Patch & Nora. ;) The second book is Rick Riordan's "The Son of Neptune" (Book 2 in "The Heroes of Olympus" series).  We finally get to find out what happened to Percy?  Where is he?!  Will he make it back to Annabeth?!  This is quickly becoming a favorite of my boys (just like Percy Jackson was) and it's a fun way to incorporate Greek and Roman Mythology into our homeschooling.

Look who showed up at my door today...  "Cupcake Boy" um, I mean Ash!  I was so excited when I opened the door and saw the mail lady coming but almost had a heart attack when I saw the way she just threw him to the ground.  Did she not KNOW she was handling a prized possession?!  (OK, so, she probably didn't.)  I know Ash is used to battle and all but I'm not!  Geesh!  I thought I might have to lob a cupcake at her or something.  Once I got him safely inside, unwrapped and saw that he hadn't suffered any injuries,  I celebrated his arrival with a chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake.  I then proceeded to show him off to any member of my family that would stand still for more than 5 seconds.  They nodded and smiled and Ash just stared back at them.  (I wasn't too surprised, I mean, staring IS his specialty.)  When my husband got home, I introduced him to Ash, but again, more staring, although I think it was more my husb...

I decided to wait until I'd read all three books in this series (which I did over the weekend) before writing my review because I wanted to see how it all ended so to speak. All of the books in the "Perfect Chemistry" series feature the three Fuentes brothers, Alex, Carlos and Luis and follows the story of their lives as they struggle with gang life in the south side of Chicago. All three books have Epilogues and I would like to personally thank the author, Simone Elkeles for that because I LOVE me an Epilogue! ** In my opinion, if these books were rated as movies are, I would give them an "R" rating for thematic material such as gang violence, strong language, and sexual content.  The covers themselves are a little suggestive for YA books, but once you read the stories, you can see that they actually pertain to the storyline and are quite clever, still suggestive but clever. ** "Perfect Chemistry" (Book 1) - is Alex (the eldest Fuentes) and...

7 years ago today we were blessed with another little boy who brings lots of love, joy & loads of hilarity to our lives!  His name is Samuel which means, "asked of God" and I spent almost 2 years asking for him. We like to tell him he was named after another "Sam" too (which he was in a way) - Samwise Gamgee, BFF of Frodo Baggins from "The Lord of The Rings." When I was sitting in the theatre watching "LOTR, Return of The King" because I'm a supportive wife and that's what we do, not at all because  Viggo was in the movie...really!  I turned to my husband and said, "You know, if our prayers are answered, and we're lucky enough to have another little boy, I think we should name him Samwise Gamgee.  He's the real hero of this story and I think I love him."  My husband thought for a second and then said, "Or we could just name him Samuel because he might get made fun of with a name like Samwise."  "Y...