Blog Future

Hello! Not that I have a big following, but I wanted to pop-in and talk about where my head is with this blog. I stopped blogging at the beginning of 2025 because the big kids were complaining about their pictures being put on the blog without their approval {valid point, kids!}. But I have realized that I miss my online scrapbook! So I think I want to keep blogging in some format but also want to be more respectful of what my kids want as it comes to their pictures and their stories. I plan on going back and sharing some stuff that I've missed over the past 6 months but might not go through everything. Here are some highlights though!

- More musicals! We saw Come From Away {my 2nd time, Drew's and my mom's first time}, Hamilton {took both of the girls!}, Annie, and Moulin Rouge.

- Gus turned 1! We LOVE our sweet boy!

- Lots of Girl Scout fun! I took Drew and Paige on a leader-daughter retreat, we went primitive camping with the whole troop, and had a fun trip to Kalahari. Continuing as a troop leader for next year, and Paige is joining our troop.

- We celebrated Drew and Paige's birthday in early 2025 - having a Christmas b-day can stink.

- We finished our living room remodel, yay.

- Big bummer - my mom had a stroke - but she's recovered amazingly and we are so thankful it was minor.

- Drew made the middle school cheer team for next year - she worked hard, and we're so proud of her!

- We finished school! Drew and Paige both ended the year with All A's, Drew was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society, and Trent was recognized for his PSAT score, NATIONALLY!

- Brent and I took a quick trip to Mexico with friends.

- As always, more LJA fun with Brent's company!

- We celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary!    

- Paige got her braces off, whoop!

- Trent turned 16, and he celebrated with his friends at Kalahari. 

And that mostly catches us up! I'll share some details about the biggest of these and will figure out how to share my life while respecting my kiddos!

Book Results: 2023

Year-End Book Review time!! Yay! I love looking at how my reading shook out over a whole year. My stats don't look all that different from last year - I know what I like I guess. {grin} I did find my audiobook #s continue to grow, which means my overall books read grows which I love!

Enough talk...here's how the books broke down!

Book Goal: 100

Books Read: 130 - my highest # ever, yay!

Physical Books: 26 {20%}

eBooks: 71 {55%}

Audiobooks: 33 {25%}

Fiction: 100 {77%}

Nonfiction: 30 {23%}

Female author: 107 {82%}

Male author: 21 {16%}

Nonbinary/unknown: 2 {2%} 

White author: 102 {78%}

POC author: 27 {21%}

Genres [I choose these myself and can give a book more than 1 so this won't add up to 130 for anyone checking my math and honestly some I didn't give anything past 'fiction' if I couldn't pin it down]:

• Chick-lit: 23
• Romance: 30
• Biography/Memoir: 19
• Culture/Gender/Sexuality: 4
• YA: 7
• Fantasy/Sci-fi: 17
• Thriller/Mystery: 5
• Historical fiction: 19
• WW1/WW2 {subset of historical fiction}: 3
• Educational: 8
• General Fiction: 18

And my favorites of the year! This year felt a little lower for 'great reads' for me - in 2022 I had 25 of 123 books being 5 stars. In 2023, it was 14 of 130. So some of these were my favorite of the month but wouldn't qualify as an overall favorite and some overall favorites didn't win the month because of another favorite - if that makes sense. Like Fourth Wing beat out Romantic Comedy but I would include both as a favorite for the year.

This was my absolute favorite of the year though - 

months later I am still thinking about it!

Such a powerful book!!

I'm really excited to see what 2024 brings from my favorite hobby!

Favorite Moments 2023

I really like doing this year-end recap and looking back on our year - lots of fun moments with my little family.

JANUARY

- We always start the year off right with Drew Baby's 10th birthday - can't believe 11 is right around the corner for her!

FEBRUARY

- A small but big event - Trent got his braces off after just over 2 years - it shocks me every time I look at older pictures, his teeth were SO crooked ha.

- I started using Noom which has been a great experience for me.

MARCH

- Nothing super exciting in March apparently, but we will always enjoy Spring Break.

- And I loved posting my favorite bluebonnet pictures through the years!

APRIL

- We went to the first ever Two-Step Inn music festival in our little town and had a BLAST. {We already have our tickets for next year, and I am so excited - one of my favorite bands is headlining - Turnpike Troubadours!}

MAY

- We had a lot of fun celebrating Brent's 43rd birthday!

- I was able to chaperone another fun Girl Scout event at Great Wolf Lodge for Drew's Juniors troop.

JUNE

- I was finally able to take Drew to see Wicked!!! We had a great weekend with my mother-in-law.

- We had another great weekend at the LJA summer event.

- Trent turned 14 - I still can't believe I have a high schooler.

JULY

- We went to Arizona with our kids and my parents - a trip to remember forever. [Posts here, here, and here.]

AUGUST

- I had a great 43rd birthday.

- The Swope family beach vacation was a hit!

- We had a successful start to the 2023-24 school year with Trent and Drew starting at a new school.

SEPTEMBER

- We took a Gurley grands trip to the Houston Natural Science Museum.

OCTOBER

- Brent and I celebrated 19 years of wedded bliss. I never posted about our anniversary trip, but we took a few days and went to a little town in the Hill Country and had a great time. Wine tastings, yummy food, and lots of time together.

NOVEMBER

- Paige moved schools to be where Trent and Drew are...I haven't posted about this move yet, but it was a big moment in 2023. I've got some life updates coming soon...

DECEMBER

- Baby Patnode #4 was born! {Life update post will share his name!}

- The LJA holiday party was so much fun!

- Paige turned 7...hold me. My baby is getting so grown up.

- Will post about ending the month, but we had a great Christmas AND finished the year with a fun trip to Las Vegas to celebrate a friend's 40th birthday.

I also saw a lot of great Broadway musicals {besides Wicked}: Pretty Woman, Ain't Too Proud, Hairspray, Six, and The Book of Mormon! Looking forward to more in 2024.

What a great year! Cheers to 2024.

Book Breakdown 2022

It's time to see how my reading stacked up for 2022! I am a giant nerd {SHOCKER} about stats and love seeing how it all shakes out. I read 123 books this year, 1 less book than 2021 but more pages according to Goodreads - 46,475 pages in 2022 an 44,070 in 2021.

Book Goal: 100

Books Read: 123

Physical Books: 12 {10%}

eBooks: 94 {76%}

Audiobooks: 17 {14%}

Fiction: 93 {76%}

Nonfiction: 30 {24%}

Female author: 100 {81%}

Male author: 23 {19%}

White author: 87 {71%}

POC author: 36 {29%}

Genres [I choose these myself and can give a book more than 1 so this won't add up to 123 for anyone checking my math and honestly some I didn't give anything past 'fiction' if I couldn't pin it down]:

• Chick-lit: 35
• Romance:  40
• Classic/Children's classic: 
• Biography/Memoir: 19
• Culture/Gender/Sexuality: 6
• YA: 7
• Fantasy/Sci-fi: 16
• Thriller/Mystery: 4
• Historical fiction: 13
• WW1/WW2 {subset of historical fiction}: 6
• Race/Antiracism: 5 
• Educational: 3

And here is my book bracket for the year! I ended up with a tie which might be viewed as cheating, BUT one is fiction and the other is nonfiction, so I felt like it was really difficult to pick between them because they are so different!

How the Word is Passed - nonfiction winner!

The Great Believers - fiction winner!

It's super fun {for me at least} to look at how my year of reading shook out. I already can't wait to see how 2023 will go!

#AMonthofFaves: Moments of 2022

Linking up with girlxoxo for an end of year recap I've done the last few years. It is really fun to look back over the year and remember all the adventures we've had. Lots of highs and only a few lows. {grin}

JANUARY

- Drew turned 9!

- We started the year off finishing up our vacation to Ruidoso with some of our very best friends.

FEBRUARY

- It was a pretty normal February, which I can't complain about! We had fun at one of friend's high school basketball games which was a little day trip with the family and our Ruidoso crew.

MARCH

- We enjoyed our spring break with a trip to a zoo with friends.

- Bluebonnets were ON POINT this year! My second favorite time of the year, I just love bluebonnet season.

- We had our annual trip to Dell Match Play!

APRIL

- Maybe a little silly, but Brent and I 'celebrated' being together for 25 years. {He doesn't really count this anniversary, but it's still special to me!}

- We enjoyed Easter with family!

MAY

- I chaperoned Drew's overnight Girl Scouts trip to Sea World! It was such a great experience. I have loved watching her {and now Paige} be involved with Girl Scouts, such a neat organization.

- Brent turned 42!

- Drew became our first kid to break a bone. Womp, womp.

- We survived school and started summer break, yay!

JUNE

- Brent and I got COVID, yuck!

- But we recovered in time for his annual summer work dinner, and we turned it into a great weekend with friends.

- Trent turned THIRTEEN!!!!

- Drew and I finished the Harry Potter series, BIG moment!

JULY

- We went on a fabulous vacation with Brent's family to Napa and drank all the wine.

AUGUST

- I turned 42!

- The kids started school - Trent in 8th grade, Drew in 4th grade, and Paigey started Kindergarten!!!

SEPTEMBER

- We went on another vacation to Hilton Head, SC with friends.

OCTOBER

- Brent and I celebrated 18 years of marriage.

- We enjoyed trick or treating with our friends.

NOVEMBER

- We went on yet another vacation {WHO ARE WE?} to Hawaii with Brent's parents! The trip of a lifetime for sure!!

DECEMBER

- Another successful LJA holiday party is in the books.

We have Paige's birthday to look forward to and Christmas, so 2022 is definitely going to end on a high note. We had an amazing 2022! I love that we had trips in 4 states this year. We stayed mostly healthy, had a lot of fun, and just enjoyed life.

2021 Book Breakdown

Every month, my favorite posts are ones that talk about books, so it shouldn't be a surprise that this is one I am so excited to write! I can't wait to breakdown all my stats for 2021 - it's everything about books, y'all!!

For 2021, I read 124 books! My highest number of books ever in a year! Yay! Let's breakdown some stats about those 124 books, shall we?

Total Book Goal: 100

Total Books Read: 124

Physical books: 15 {12%}

eBooks: 103 {83%}

Audio: 6 {5%}

Fiction: 96 {77%}

Non-fiction: 28 {23%}

Female author: 106 {85%}

Male author: 17 {14%}

Transgender author: 1 {1%}

White author: 81 {65%}

POC author:  43 {35%}

Genres [I choose these myself and can give a book more than 1 so this won't add up to 124 for anyone checking my math and honestly some I didn't give anything past 'fiction' if I couldn't pin it down]:

• Chick-lit: 21
• Romance: 35
• Classic/Children's classic: 1
• Biography/Memoir: 15
• Culture/Gender/Sexuality: 3
• YA: 6
• Fantasy/Sci-fi: 12
• Thriller/Mystery: 8
• Historical fiction: 15
• WW1/WW2 {subset of historical fiction}: 5
• Race/Antiracism: 16
• Educational: 4

Something new I did this year was a Book Bracket. I picked my favorite book of the month and then compared them. Shouldn't surprise anyone that I did something like this, ha.

Winner for the year!

I knew as soon as I read this one it would be tough to top and it held up through the whole year. I LOVED this book!

You can see my other monthly faves in the image above. I really liked doing the bracket and am going to do it again! 

And that's my reading for 2021!!

#AMonthofFaves Moments of 2021

I like the girlxoxo #AMonthofFaves prompts and plan to do a handful of them! I really like this prompt and enjoyed looking back at the year to find my favorite moments of the year. 2021 put us back into a somewhat more normal life which was so fantastic, and there were MANY things to be thankful for and happy about.

Back to the Movies

It was a long 11 months of not going to the movies, ha.

I know that's a slightly silly thing to be thankful for,

but I absolutely LOVE being able to be back in theaters!

My first movie back with Allison!

I've seen 7 movies in 2021 and hoping to get a few more in before the year ends!

Body Pump Certification

One goal I met in early 2021 was getting certified in Body Pump

and beginning to teach at the local studio I love so much!

Snow-pocalypse

It might be weird to list this as a 'fave',

but I mean it more as something we'll never forget!

Being snowed in for a week, having more snow than I've ever seen,

temperatures lower than I've ever had at home, loss of electricity...

it was a CRAZY experience but I was stuck with my favorite people!

Easter with Family

Easter 2021 was the first time my extended family got together.

We missed so many celebrations as a family,

and it was amazing to be back together again!

Drew's First Communion

We celebrated Drew's First Holy Communion in May!

Such a special day and so happy we were able to do it!!

Normal Start to the School Year

We started the school year about 75% normal, and it was glorious.

And it has remained goooooood!

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

It was a dream come true to spend a few days at HP World with my BFF.

We've only been talking about going together since it opened,

and it was amazing!!!

And I can't close this post without saying it's to be expected/hoped that every year your people get to celebrate their birthdays and remain healthy, but this year it felt extra special!

Nerd to the Extreme: 2020 Book Breakdown

This might be my last 'year in review' post for 2020. I'm exhausted! {grin} It's a lot of fun looking back at the year, but it can take a lot of time to put everything together!

Total Book Goal: 100

Total Books Read: 102

Physical books: 18

eBooks: 84

Fiction: 72

Non-fiction: 30

Genres [I determined the genres myself and gave some books more than 1]:

• Chick-lit: 28
• Romance: 2 {to be fair, I think a lot of my chick lit falls here too ha}
• Classic/Children's classic: 2 
• Biography/Memoir: 17
• Culture/Gender: 3
• YA: 7
• Fantasy/Sci-fi: 7
• Thriller/Mystery: 9
• Historical fiction: 12
• WW1/WW2 {subset of historical fiction}: 6
• Race/Antiracism: 8
• Pop Culture: 2
• Investigative Reporting: 2

I think it's obvious what my favorite types of books are, but also I might need to figure out how to break my chick-lit books down a little better too? Ha!

I most definitely had some favorites this year {I shared my top 2 in my overall year-end post}, but I can't leave it with just 2 favorites! So here are some others that make my Favorites list for 2020! And it's a wide variety of styles, so surely there's something here everyone would enjoy.

My absolute favorite fiction book of the year!

It was just such an interesting idea {a book from the POV of Jesus' wife}!

It was well-researched, well-written, and the story itself was incredible.

My absolute favorite non-fiction book of the year!

It read like fiction - the writing was THAT good.

Yes, it was hard to read {racism shouldn't be easy},

but I felt like I learned so much and enjoyed it while mourning our history.

A lot of complicated emotions and worth it 1000%!

AND it's being turned into a series on Netflix, I can't wait to see it.

This was a great book to read in the dumpster fire that was 2020.

Just when you think humanity is doomed, this ray of sunshine came through.

Reading about a little town in Canada that came together to help stranded passengers in the days after 9/11 was a wonderful story to read.

It was also well-researched and written and just warmed my heart.

Emily described a book she read in 2020 as a 'warm hug',

and that's how I feel about this one.

This series was AMAZING.

Yes, it's fantasy [so if you can't handle that, this won't be for you],

yes, it has its cheesy moments. But was it also an amazing guilty pleasure? YUP.

I couldn't put it down and can't wait for the next book to come out in mere days.

This picture is of the 1st book in the series, but the 2nd was actually my favorite!

This was my favorite WW2 historical fiction of the year.

I didn't know that female pilots were a 'thing' in WW2, 

but they were, and I loved reading about their adventures.

Also had a great love story - you know I'm always down for that!

I am fascinated by the Royal Family.

Just the whole concept of monarchy/aristocracy really.

This was a great look at the power of fashion in the story they want to tell.

So interesting and so many amazing pictures!!

I got this for Christmas, so if anyone wants to borrow it, let me know!

Gah. I thought this was going to be classic chick-lit.

I was SO not prepared for what it turned into, 

and I'm not sure my heart has recovered still.

It was THAT good!

Talk about being gutted by a book.

I thought this was 'just' a story of an immigrant family navigating America.

The son who isn't understood. The parents who refuse to see him.

Which that by itself was interesting enough.

Then the end...I am tearing up just thinking about. 

It was amazing. Absolutely amazing.

I struggled to put the 5th book in a series on this list because if you haven't read any of them, why would you care about this random story.

But that's how good the series is! This J.K. Rowling's latest endeavor.

That woman just knows how to craft a story.

[Let's not talk about my complicated feelings about her as a person right now.]

The first book in the series was good, but each book gets better and better,

and I am FULLY invested in these characters and the world she has created.

This was a gripping look at slavery in the 1800s.

A tale of the master's son. But it was SO much more.

And it was magical!

What were your favorite books of the year?