#47 Have professional photos taken of us

I can't think of a better reason to have professional photos taken...

January's Us Photo

#27 Read the Sookie Stackhouse Series

I actually "finished" this series a couple weeks ago but I've been a major slacker when it comes to updating this blog. I'm so glad to be done with it, at least until the next book comes out. Honestly I really enjoyed it at first, but it really is a long series in the sense that there are sooo many books. Yes, they are all short, quick reads. But I honestly found myself getting bored with them after a while. They all follow the exact same pattern and after a while I started to feel more like I was reading them to be able to finish them, then reading them and really enjoying them.

So yes, they were decent and I will probably read the next book in the series...but they are definitely not the type of book that I'd recommend to a friend and say that she just HAS to read them. I'm glad that I'm at least to a point now where I have to wait to read any future books in the series. Maybe these books are best when spaced out over a longer period of time???

#26 Beat my NBC challenge score

In the summer of 2009 I participated in an online seasonal reading challenge. Basically there are a variety of categories all broken up into different point values (5, 10, 15, and 25) with a possible total of like 400 something points (I don't remember the exact number). The whole point being to expand your to be read list and to maybe try reading some books outside of your normal reading genera and possibly discovering new books/authors you love. The SuBC was my first ever challenge and I managed a grand total of 235points over a 3 month period.

I'd been itching to do another challenge, but it just never seemed to work out time wise for me. However with me no longer working I've found that I definitely have a bit more time on my hands to read (even with the addition of pregnancy related reading being included in the mix). I figured now was the perfect time to participate because life is about to get a whole lot more hectic for me in just a few short months.

I didn't "win" the challenge (the first 5 finishers get to pick the 25pts tasks for the next challenge). However I did manage to beat my previous score and finished in 10th place with a grand total of 255 pts--and I managed to meet my goal of reading 50 books (52 to be exact!) books in 2010!

December's Us Photo

Taken on my 27th birthday at lunch with our family. It was so nice having Rick's parents in town to spend the weekend with us :)

November's Us Photo

Us taking a little break from our black Friday shopping extravaganza. Poor Rick, he'd been up since midnight when I dropped him off at Target to wait in line (he really wanted a new tv and we knew he'd have to get there early to snag it).

Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls

I've heard such great things about the pioneer woman's recipes, especially her cinnamon rolls, so I thought I'd give it a try. I've been craving them for a while and just haven't made my way to cinnabon yet. I was really hoping that these would do the trick and I'm happy to report that they did. I know it seems like an awful lot of steps and a lot of work just to make these...and yes, I was pretty exhausted by the time I was done but I think that has more to do with my big ol' baby bump and not so much the recipe (honestly it doesn't take much to make me tired these days). If you've never made cinnamon rolls from scratch before I'd highly recommend this recipe. It was my first time too and I was totally pleased with the final product. It made a ton and although I couldn't justify eating more than one (since I saw the amount of sugar and butter that go into these things) it was great to send Rick off to work with the rest-- they were a hit!