LOOK WHAT I JUST GOT IN THE MAIL!

I preordered this back in March for my birthday, and TADA! It has arrived! And the universe is conspiring to keep me from reading it (in the form of, you know, parenting), but I WILL PREVAIL! I may totally shirk my school store commitment tomorrow just to read all day I ain't playin' yo.

So, if you haven't read Kate Morton, you can probably tell that I recommend her highly. If you love fiction and female protagonists and secret pasts and beautiful prose and great story-telling and high drama. If you don't love those things, how are we friends? (I actually am kidding, but only barely).

Let me just say that when I ordered this book, it didn't even have a title or synopsis. It just said New Novel by Kate Morton and I clicked BUY NOW. She never disappoints. This is her fourth novel, by the way. Her others, to save you google time, are:

1. The House at Riverton
2. The Forgotten Garden
3. The Distant Hours

It's not a series, so you can just grab any one and jump in. Liz is borrowing this one as soon as I'm done, but if you want any of that action, just speak up. I'm happy to share. And then talk your ear off about it.

Charlotte is 10!

How time flies!! I can't believe it's been ten years of Charlotte Olivia! I love that girl like nuts; she is so tender and brainy and fun and sporty and literal and creative and loving and just awesome! Here's a jillion pictures of her sweet self!

Inside...

...Outside!

Check out the nasty on her head from the vacuum :(

Fat, bald, sleepy, adorable!

I made this dress for that happy girl.

3rd bday = Superheros!

But still a very girly girl

Angel eyes

So excited to have a brother!

Easter girls, so sassy!

Ice cream smiles

With grandma

Big biker

 Happy happy birthday my Char Char! I love you forever and ever!

After the county fair, soccer, indian food lunch, and turkey dinner, she gets her black cat strawberry cake and will eat it, too. Lucky duck!

If I were a character in a book, my morning would read like this

It was only 9 o'clock in the morning, and she had finished all her pressing assignments for the upcoming youth church event and emailed them off. She had browsed facebook, pinterest, and the blogosphere. She had updated her calendar with all of the important (as well as the completely useless) school dates for October. She had gotten tired of jumping up from the computer every ten minutes to check on the kids only to remember all her kids were at school. What to do, what to do?

"I know!" she thought. "I'll go to the quilt shop! I never get to do that alone, just for fun!" So she grabbed her purse and booked it out the door like the house was haunted. Halfway down the road, she flipped a U-ey in the middle of the street and headed back home for her phone. She left the car running in the drive as she hustled up the stairs and grabbed her phone off the computer desk. Back out and down the road she went, pretending she didn't feel like she was purposeless.

Sitting on the bench outside the locked door of the quilt shop ten minutes later, she felt like a total loser for not even considering that the shop may not be open at 9:15am. She had never gotten anywhere this early, so she wasn't to know the opening times of shops; she was much more well-versed in when things closed. So there she sat thinking that she'll just wait until the place opens. She had nothing else to do, after all.

After 20 minutes of that, though, she felt more like a fool than ever. Was she really going to sit there in a parking lot, alone, and stare at the gravel for 45 minutes? Grrrr! She went home via the gas station where a Coke heche en Mexico and a ham and cheese kolache did little to improve her self-esteem.

The end.

I hate no kids at home.