Show Us Your Life: Favorite Books

Show us your life this week is all about your favorite books – for yourself and/or your kids.

This is a HARD one for me to do. Not because I hate books, rather for the opposite reason! I LOVE books, LOVE to read, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! So, picking just a few favorites is HARD for me - VERY hard! But, I'll give it a shot.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger ~ I just read it a few weeks ago, but it was SO GOOD! If you want detailed thoughts, here's my review.

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke ~ Not just the first book, but the whole series. GOOD! If you've seen the movie, I'm sorry. It sucked. The book is a gazillion times better!

The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan ~ Again, not just this one, but whole series (to date – two more are yet to be published). I took a chance with this one. I had registered to win it on Goodreads.com, and didn't win. I got a private message in which I was offered the book at a discounted price. I thought it sounded good, so I said sure. I had medium-to-low expectations when I went into this book, but I was BLOWN AWAY! This book FAR exceeded my expectations. I have read each of the following three books published since then (two of which I helped with editing), and this series gets better as it goes. Each book can be read as a stand-alone title, although I'd recommend reading them ALL because they are THAT good! My review for this one is HERE. If you want to read my reviews of each book in the series, they can be found HERE.

I'm going to stop here, because I could just keep writing until my fingers fall off. I LOVE to read. And, honestly, I'm probably a pretty easy judge of books. But, for me, it's all about the story. I can overlook sub-par writing if you get me hooked by the plot! ;-)

Show Us Your Life: Your Kids' (or Future Kids') Names

How could I resist another opportunity to talk about my little loves? This is hosted at Kelly's Korner. The objective is to share how you came up with your kids' names (I think).

Abigail Frances

We chose Abigail as our first daughter's name years before we were even ready to discuss having kids. We just knew that if we had a girl, THIS was her name. Frances is my mom's middle name. Family tradition on my mom's side (before I was born) was to name your daughter after your mother. Well, my mom partially kept that – she gave me her mom's middle name, but chose the first name. So, we followed her leave, and lucked out that Abigail and Frances go very nicely together! ;-)

Grant Daniel

We had the HARDEST time agreeing on a boy's name. Before Abby was born, Andrew was our boy name, but DH's brother used it a year before our son was born. That name was out. We tossed around a LOT of names. When I was ending the first trimester, I threw some names out at Abby while in the car one day. All of them received a giggle followed by "no." When I said Grant, she said, "Grant. Yes, Grant." She called him that pretty much from that moment on – even though we didn't officially decide to name him Grant until after he was born. He is named after his father in that his middle name, Daniel, is my husband's first name.

Natalie Elizabeth
Natalie was the #2 girl's name on our list when Abby was born. I wanted to explore other options, but my husband really liked the name Natalie. I eventually caved. To be honest, I still really liked it – just wanted to make sure it was THE NAME. Elizabeth is after my grandmother – it's the name I would've been given if my mom had followed tradition. My grandmother passed away when I was in the third grade, and every day I miss her. This was my way of keeping her with us. Plus, I think Natalie and Elizabeth go well together, too.