Pages of Penrose: Books of April

Not an incredibly lengthy list this time.  I guess other things have kept me busy and these were longer books so somehow there are only two on my list for my Books of April...

I love Liane Moriarty.  She's such a great author that packs a lot into a storyline.  What Alice Forgot is another fantastic book from her!  I'm excited for her new book that is coming out in June because I have read almost everything she's written already!




Read my thoughts on Five Days at Memorial here.


Remember to follow along with me on Goodreads to see what books I'm loving these days.

Pages of Penrose Review: Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

Wow, wow, wow. Where to begin with this book?  Sheri Fink does a great job at reporting the events that took place at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina disaster.  The entire time that I was reading the story, thinking of what the doctors, nurses, and patients were going through is unimaginable.  If you or someone you know is in the medical field, I highly recommend that they read this book.  It may open their eyes to some procedures that need fixing in their own hospital (although I know that after Katrina many hospitals did re-vamp policies specifically because of the issues that these people faced).

In terms of the actual book, Five Days at Memorial:  Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
, I understand why it was so lengthy--Sheri Fink certainly had a lot of information to tell.  However, that being said, as a busy mom with lots of other things going on each day it was a bit longer than I would have liked.  Perhaps instead of the book having two parts, it became two separate books in a set.  At 592 pages, it was a bit of an intimidating or daunting task to finish!

If you like books about true life events or natural disasters, make sure to grab a copy of Five Days at Memorial.

Do you love to read?  Friend me on Goodreads so that we can follow each other's bookshelves!


*I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review. All opinions are my own.

Parenting Penrose: 12 Weeks with Baby#2

How am I feeling lately? This about sums it up....

and this...

and lots of this...

and unfortunately this...

How Far Along?  12 w + 2 d

Belly Progress:  I've gained 5 lbs and have officially graduated to belly-banding almost all of my pants.  Feeling (and possibly looking?) like I've just eaten a burrito 100% of the time.

Baby's Heartrate:  First appointment was 141, second appointment was 160.  

Common Questions we are getting:

--Do we hope it's a boy this time?  Sort of, but not really. We have pretty much decided to have 3 kids, so I guess we feel like there is always another chance for a boy. Four years ago I never would have seen myself having daughters, but now that I'm a girl mom I do think it would be fun for Ryleigh to have a sister.  She is also pretty set on getting a "baby shishter" so we will see!  It sounds cliche to just say that we just want a healthy baby, but I'm not naive to the fact that a healthy baby is a blessing, so that really is all that we care about.

--Is this pregnancy similar to last time? So far, I would say it's been a bit different.  I'm having weirder cravings this time, and my morning sickness was also different.

--When is my actual due date?  October 30th

--Am I tired?  Extremely.

--When will we find out the sex of the baby? If we wait until my doctor's office does the anatomy ultrasound, it will be sometime around the 1st or 2nd week of June. Not at my next appointment, but the one after.  Jake doesn't do well with surprises and waiting, so he's trying to convince me to go to 3D Dreams in Fort Mill to do their Gender Determination ultrasound mid-May.

--Am I going to breastfeed again?  Yes, as long as I have the supply to do it.  I've learned some things I can do to hopefully improve the latching issues we had with Ryleigh so that I can actually breastfeed this baby, but if that doesn't work I will be exclusively pumping again.  The goal would be 12 months again, but I know that adjusting to two kids will be a new challenge so if I can't do it that long, that will be okay too.  #FedIsBest

--Is there anything that we want to do differently this time around?  I'm sure there will be a few things.  I feel smarter now about things that we had to learn as we went the first time around so I'm sure there will be some changes and some things we keep the same.  I know every baby is different so we will just have to see what works!



 

Pages of Penrose: Books of March

It's here again! My book recap for the month.  This month, I listened to three Audiobooks on my drives to and from work.


I've also been trying to finish what seems like the longest book ever.  I did not realize it was such a lengthy book before I started reading it and with holidays & such this month I have not been able to even really make a dent in it.  So, eventually I will recap this book that I'm actually reading a hard copy of, Five Days at Memorial which is a book about Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina disaster and what the people stuck inside the hospital went through.  

But until then, the books I've actually gotten through are:

Looking for Alaska by John Green

I liked this book, but I thought that it seemed to drag on a little.  The character development was good so that made the read worth it.  If you have not read any John Green books, I recommend reading his The Fault in Our Stars over this book.

The Collector by Nora Roberts

This was a great book by Nora Roberts.  I love the mix of romance and mystery/thriller in her books.  Being an art nerd myself, I really enjoyed this one.

Someday, Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham

Yes, Lauren Graham as in Loralei Gilmore and Sarah Braverman.  I love her and I wanted to love this book so much. I thought it was good, and knowing that it was inspired by her own experiences made a lot of the storyline comical.  I sort of wish that she had just written a longer memoir instead of a novel.  Overall, I'd say this book was okay and a nice first novel for an author, but I would be interested to read something else by her that would probably be a little better developed.

That's it for March!  
Remember, you can friend me on Goodreads here and come back next month for my books of April.

Products of Penrose: Shopping the Sales - Maternity

I'm excited to be having a fall baby.  Fall has always been my favorite season, and especially October not only because it is my birthday month but also because it is the perfect fall month. There is a fall festival almost every weekend, PSL's are back at Starbucks, leaves change color, weather starts to cool down (at least here in SC), and the world is wonderful.

So, although I am so excited about having an October (or possibly  beginning of November) baby, my current maternity wardrobe options are all wrong.  I have a couple pairs of work pants that I can wear, and I have a few light sweaters or long sleeve tees that I will be able to wear at the very end, but I have nothing for warm weather months.

I was very excited when I came across these sales a couple weeks ago...

I have a feeling maxi dresses will be my go-to all summer long.  I picked up these three Pinkblush Maternity dresses from a Zulily deal where they were 50% off.  Still pricer than I paid for any maternity clothes last time, but I guess I'm giving myself a little bit of wiggle room this pregnancy because we will be saving money with all of the baby gear we can reuse.  And if this child is a girl, she will have QUITE the wardrobe already! You never realize how much clothing your little one has until you pack it away in storage tubs that are now filling the entire closet of Baby#2's room.  

The items I picked up from target were all $7.99 or less on a clearance sale and they are some good summer staples. 

I'm sure sometime in the next month or two I will make a trip to Destination Maternity to pick up some additional pieces. I'm thinking a few pairs of capris will be good for work this summer and a few cute tops. 

  

Fun news

The morning of February 21st, the dogs woke me up around 3am per the usual to go outside to potty and check on the neighborhood--I wish I was kidding but this happens almost daily. Sometimes all they do is walk the perimeter of the fence, staring out at the lots and new construction, then come back inside.  #protectors  While they did their business I decided to take a test--mostly expecting a negative result because I thought it was too soon to take the test.  I let the dogs back inside, set the alarm, and glanced down at the stick in my hand. Surprise!--two pink lines :)


It was hard to fall back asleep with being so excited, and all I did was lay in bed and think of when and how I should tell Jake.  Last time when I found out I was pregnant with Ryleigh, it was on our 2nd anniversary so I played it off as a gift for him.  But this time? It would be so random.  I decided to wait until that night.  I wanted Ryleigh to be sleeping because she's so vocal that I didn't want her learning the news and telling people too early on....(Spoiler alert: she's since spilled the beans to one set of grandparents and all of the people sitting around us at church!)


We went to a different church that morning because the pastor that Jake grew up with was back visiting and preaching at 1st Presbyterian Church in York.  It's a beautiful church and I love getting to visit it--it is where Jake and I attended church almost every weekend when we first started dating and this pastor was still there.  It was a great sermon, and Ryleigh had so much fun in their huge nursery playing on slides and cars and anything she could find.   [Fun background story--when Jake and I had recently started dating we were at a Winthrop soccer game and we ran into him, casually spoke for a few minutes, and when Jake spoke to him that weekend he told Jake "That's the girl you're going to marry".  He predicted well!!]  So, after the service we stood in line to catch up with him and he asked us "So is Ryleigh the one and only?" to which we laughed and replied, "for now, she is. Eventually we want another."  Fast forward to after church while we were going through a drive-thru to get Ryleigh a quick lunch because she needed a nap, and Jake said "haha too bad you aren't pregnant yet otherwise we could have told him, 'well there's one in there'" and I laughed and raised my eyebrows.  Jake looked at me funny and said "wait, what? Are you?"  I laughed some more and said "well, I definitely wasn't planning on telling you in a McDonald's Drive Thru........but yes!"

Lots of happy laughter and kisses followed, and Ryleigh was probably thoroughly confused.  Apparently since we like to keep themes around here, we should be finding out the baby's gender around our anniversary this summer, and our little holiday baby will be due on Halloween (technically, 10/30)!

   

 

Pages of Penrose: Pre-Order for Fixer Upper fans!

Along with much of the rest of America, I'm a huge fan of Fixer Upper and Chip & Joanna Gaines. As an interior designer it can often be so frustrating watching shows on TLC or HGTV because they portray such unrealistic expectations to homeowners when it comes to timeframe, budget, and practicality of their projects.  Chip and Joanna are the real deal and it's so refreshing to see their show doing well and educating people.

They announced recently that they have a book coming out in October, and today I saw that you can pre-order Kindle or Hardcover on Amazon!

Now, I know October is a long way away, but seeing as how the book comes out the week of my birthday I'm going to go ahead and call this a little treat to myself :)

Pre-Order here on Amazon

With Amazon Prime, we should receive it on or before the release date!


What I also love about pre-ordering on Amazon is that they guarantee you the lowest price, so if this book goes on sale between now and October for pre-order, they will reimburse me!  This actually happened to a tune of about $0.26 when I pre-ordered the Adele 25 cd. So it's not huge, but it speaks to their quality of service.  We are big Amazon fans.