2013: Year in reading

Every year I like to share what I read. In 2013 I read 60 books, below my recent highs of around 80 per year, but much more than I expected to read with an infant. It turns out that you can easily read (especially on a phone -- it's the perfect size) while breastfeeding and rocking a baby to sleep. :) Here's my Goodreads profile and the final list for 2013, with favorites in bold.

January 2013
A Good American by Alex George
Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman (book group)
Arcadia by Lauren Groff (book group)
Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein
Lucky Break by Esther Freud

February 2013
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives by Annie Murphy Paul
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (book group)
How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed (book group)
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year by Anne Lamott
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

March 2013
Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks
The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (book group)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Speaking from Among the Bones (Flavia de Luce #5) by Alan Bradley (book group)
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg

April 2013
Take Me Home by Brian Leung (book group)
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

May 2013
The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin (book group)

June 2013 
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (book group)

July 2013 
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (book group)
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (book group)
The Days are Gods by Liz Stephens
Austenland by Shannon Hale
Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Crashed by Timothy Hallinan
The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) (book group)

August 2013 
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Big Brother by Lionel Shriver
Girl Walks into a Bar by Rachel Dratch
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Elsewhere by Richard Russo

September 2013
May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes (book group)
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Solar by Ian McEwan

October 2013 

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
Divergent by Veronica Roth
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

November 2013 
NW by Zadie Smith
Insurgent by Veronica Roth
The Future of Us by Jay Asher
The Circle by Dave Eggers
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

December 2013 
Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (book group)
Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Christmas

This was Nora's first Christmas, and it was awesome.

We got to spend the whole week of Christmas together

Nora got some excellent presents

Nora gave her very first present to Seth (a tractor he can take apart and put back together with a power tool)

And she got a pretty Christmas dress!

12 months

We had a birthday party with Nora's friends in Laramie. I didn't really get many pictures, but here she is checking out her candle. 

Nora loved celebrating Christmas and her birthday with her cousin Seth (and lots of other Bowles family members, too).

Playing with a tractor with Great Grandpa Bowles on Christmas Eve

We were all dressed in purple for Nora's birthday party with family in Idaho!

She loooooved her cupcake!

Nora got lots of nice presents.

This one-year-old loves books!

Family Photos

Thanks to Shelly Coulter for taking these beautiful pictures of our family on a very cold morning (14 degrees, felt like -1). We were on the University of Wyoming campus, a place that is very special for us. You can see the library in the background in many of the photos.

Oh, Christmas Tree

We set up our Christmas tree today, and Nora is enchanted.

She was also quite festively dressed for church today.

Eleven months

Still not too sure about standing up.

Nora: 11 months old on November 28th
Favorite foods: clementines, French toast with soy nog and cinnamon, crackers
Signs: all done, more, milk, food
Tricks: army crawling, blowing kisses, clapping hands, playing peek-a-boo
Favorite things: books (especially touch-and-feel), bath time, the kitty, seeing new people, sippy cup
Least favorite things: nap time, puffy coat, carseat

And a few more pictures:

Prunes for breakfast -- yummy!

It took a little while to learn to crawl forward instead of just backward. . .

Sippy cup is a big hit. Also sometimes a big mess.

Bath time!

Thanksgiving

We visited Idaho for Thanksgiving, and even though Nora was a little bit sick we had a good time seeing family and farm animals and eating a yummy dinner.

Pigs!

Calves!

Horses!

Nora tried a few foods for Thanksgiving dinner. She was not a fan of cranberry sauce.

Mike and my brothers grew mustaches for No-Shave November.

I didn't get any pictures of Nora with her cousins -- I guess I was just having fun watching them -- but she had a really good time playing with Clancy and with Seth. And we got to meet tiny little Baby Graham, who is seven weeks old.

Library conference in Las Vegas

Mike and Nora joined me for a library conference in Las Vegas in the middle of November and we got to see some of our family members while we were there. Fun! We visited my cousin Celia and saw a couple of her kiddos (they live in Henderson) and we drove up to St. George and saw Grandma & Grandpa Brough and Brian & Kim Brough and their kids. One of my favorite things was seeing the Brough kids interact with Nora--they were all so cute together! Nora looooved it when Adler let her touch his spiky hair. It made her giggle.

We went to Ethel M.'s Chocolate Factory and enjoyed a factory tour, some chocolates, and the cactus garden that is all decorated for Christmas. It was so strange to me to see Christmas decorations when we were out and about in 70 degree weather.

More cacti

Nora acknowledges her fans

Don't let this pouty face fool you--she was totally into the family gathering.

Adler's hair!

Grandma & Grandpa Brough have this awesome 100-year-old high chair that all the kids get their photo taken in. Nora was hamming it up.

This is the Lied Library on the UNLV campus, where the library conference was held.

And here I am giving my presentation.