Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I’m guessing no one’s surprised that I only managed a Monday post last week; in addition to making pies and getting ready for Thanksgiving, our family (minus the youngest, who was too nervous) spoke in church last week, and we also managed to get our major Christmas decorations up. Busy busy! And on this past Monday I ended up taking a child into the doctor to talk about his mental state, as well as making applesauce and PTA calls. I was at the school doing things both yesterday morning and this morning, but I didn’t stay all morning, since yesterday my youngest had therapy and today I had a cavity filled. Now, however, with my lemon chicken orzo soup in the crockpot, I am finally ready to talk about Pie Night and Thanksgiving.

The short version? I ate way, way too much. And while there were absolutely games, there weren’t as many as usual–my mother-in-law was sick and went to bed early both nights. The longer version involves my oldest bringing her robotic baby (she’s in child development at school), my kids making all their pies on Tuesday with minimal help from me (the oldest helped the youngest quite a bit), and an interesting combination of fewer pies than the last few years but more pies I truly enjoyed. As far as OUR pies went, here’s the rundown:

My hubby–none. He’s been fighting a cough plus serious congestion, and he just couldn’t muster the energy.

Me–this Cranberry Pear Crumble Pie. It was SO good. It was also impressively popular.

Child #1–this Grapefruit Curd Pie with Basil Whipped Cream. The basil whipped cream was weird, but I oddly didn’t hate it by itself. I thought it made a strange combination with the pie, though; I’d have preferred conventional whipped cream.

Child #2–this Root Beer Float Pie. It was tasty and popular, even if the maraschino cherries were forgotten.

Child #3–this Old Fashioned Chocolate Pie with this Homemade Oreo Pie Crust. He garnished it with Oreos, Brownie Brittle, M&Ms, and whipped cream.

Child #4–this Blue Raspberry Kool-Aid Pie. She garnished it with crushed blue raspberry Dum-Dums and fresh strawberries, and she and her sister mixed an individual Starburst Blue Raspberry drink packet into the whipped cream before folding it in. I could only find a Blue Raspberry Lemonade Kool-Aid packet, but she said that was good!

And there they are, folks! I have multiple books that need reviewing, of course, and yet I’m not sure I have both a Pie post and a book review in me today. Maybe tomorrow? In the meantime, I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. Christmas, here we come!

That’s about how I feel about last week, folks. I’m sure you’ll have noticed I missed Wednesday and Friday, so here’s a quick rundown of what our family did last week. For posterity. (Children referred to by number for simplicity’s sake.)

Monday–#3 had the eye doctor, #1 and #2 had the dentist, #2 and #3 had piano.

Tuesday–I had PTA stuff in the morning, #4 had therapy, and #1 and #2 had dance. Plus Tuesdays are library days.

Wednesday–I had a temple appointment and lunch date, #3 and #4 had Activity Days, and I had a PTA event at 5. #2 came with me to help at the event, while the Activity Day leader brought #3 and #4 over to the school once their activity was done.

Thursday–#3 had the pediatrician at 9, #1 had a med check at 2:30, it was #1’s birthday so I had to get chicken as well as prescriptions for her birthday dinner, #4 had dance, and then our whole family had tithing settlement. And then came presents!

Friday–I cross-stitched with my friend Linda, cleaned up at the school, took donated food to a food pantry, and picked up two casseroles to bake and bring back to the school at 1:30-ish. I had the dentist, along with #3 and #4, #1 had her dance TA job, #4 had piano, and then #2 had planned a surprise birthday party for #1 afterwards, which I had to leave unsupervised by 7 to go to my Relief Society service project.

Saturday–I had to deal with Mount Washmore, which had been building all week, plus #1 needed Cowboy Spaghetti sauce made and fitting in family scripture time was tricky.

Sunday–My hubby and I taught Sunday School. And then crashed.

Yep, last week was a doozy. And while this week will be holiday-busy, I did manage to do our Pie Night shopping plus laundry today. It’s almost 6:30 now, and I’m usually lacking in enough brain power to post by then, but I finished reading Because They Marched: The People’s Campaign for Voting Rights That Changed America to my 14-year-old last night, and if I review it now, it can leave my house tomorrow. (And that’s motivation.)

For some reason, when I checked Because They Marched out of the library, I was thinking it involved a march on D.C. Nope! It does involve a march to the capitol, but the Alabama state capitol–Montgomery, to be exact. The march started in Selma and involved supporters from all over the country and beyond; it was one of the most famous civil rights marches in American history. Russell Freedman balances individual experiences along with the bigger picture with his usual deftness, and while my sensitive girlie struggled with the horror of what the marchers experienced, I was profoundly moved by the whole story of that 1965 march. Packed with photographs of the events, this is a book we all should be reading with our kiddos.

In other news, I don’t see a Wednesday post happening (because Pie Night), and Friday’s going to be anybody’s guess. Happy Thanksgiving, folks!

That’s what this week is going to be, folks. This morning my son had the eye doctor, my older girls have the dentist after school, and the middles have piano at 4; tomorrow I have PTA and then my youngest has therapy, while the older girls have dance in the evening; Wednesday I have the temple and then we have a PTA sponsored event in the evening that I’m going to be prepping for and then attending with the kiddos; Thursday my oldest has a med check and my son has a ‘his meds aren’t working well’ appointment, plus it’s that oldest’s birthday, my youngest has dance, and we have tithing settlement; and Friday the littles and I have the dentist, my oldest TAs at dance, and my youngest has piano.

I really can’t wait for this week to be over.

On the other hand, I finished The Runaway’s Diary last night, and I’m thrilled to be reviewing it because I’m sending it straight back to the library without anyone else reading it–OR any other books by James Patterson coming in. I think I’ve already mentioned that I don’t find James Patterson impressive enough to need to go through all of his books–is that even possible now that he does all the collaborating?–which is why I’m not replacing this book with another on my daughter’s library card. I’m not passing it on to any of my kiddos, however, because I don’t think any of them need to read it. Being a YGN, it’s most definitely too old for my youngest; it actually feels a little old for my 14-year-old as well. She’d read it, certainly, but I don’t feel like a book about a runaway 15-year-old looking for her sister NEEDS to be a part of her worrywart life right now, and I think the twist might annoy her. (It kind of annoyed me.) My oldest is too busy for me to pass on books to her that I’m not passionate about–unless, of course, I truly believe SHE’LL be passionate about it, but that isn’t the case here. (I didn’t really consider my son–he’s too young as well, but he also isn’t passionate about graphic novels.)

As for me? I appreciated the art (shoutout to Valeria Wicker), and the story kept me reading, but I felt the book tried to be two different things at once, and I don’t think it was as successful at either as I would have liked it to be. And I’m honestly not sure who to recommend it to–the attempted duality made the age and stage of the target audience contradictory. Ultimately, I guess I’m saying ‘eh’ to everything but the art. If you read it and felt differently, though, feel free to let me know!

Including, apparently, my Wednesday post. I also put off Walmart (until today, and I still haven’t brought in my non-perishable purchases), Costco, making a baked good my 8-year-old will reliably eat for breakfast, making spaghetti sauce–you get the idea. On the other hand, we did teach our new Sunday School class on Sunday, I finally got my first batch of fruit leather base done and I’ve been making fruit leather, I did multiple PTA things, got my littles to therapy and back, had lunch with a friend in Lehi, and rendered my son’s room presentable again. (I generally don’t clean my kids’ rooms for them, but his had gotten bad, and more than half of the stuff belongs to his little sister, who no longer sleeps there but whose stuff is still mostly stored there.) I even did a decent amount of mid-week laundry! Thankfully, my hubby picked my niece and her family up from the airport on Monday AND got our youngest through her science fair project over the weekend; I did make raspberry jam with my 14-year-old, though! (He even took said niece and family TO the airport on his way to work the day after Halloween–it was so fun to have their 3-year-old trick-or-treat with my kiddos!) I took my older girls to see a friend’s school production of ‘Hunchback’ last Friday, however, and while I generally enjoy musicals, the music is really the ONLY thing I enjoy about that play. Still, we supported the friend–although my 14-year-old did NOT enjoy the production.

Anyway. Today there will be Costco later, plus my older daughter to run to the dance class she TAs for and my youngest to run to piano lessons. I’ve actually been cross-stitching on the project I’m working on for my sister-in-law, and tomorrow is Saturday. Who could ask for anything more?

I’m betting that many people younger than myself–or with kiddos around the age of my middles–have heard of Preston, the babyfaced Youtuber (he’s 29!!!) who goes by ‘PrestonPlayz’. My son is a little obsessed with his videos–maybe a lot obsessed–and would desperately love Preston merch as Christmas and birthday gifts. (My hubby and I would desperately love not to pay what Preston merch costs, which is why I am beyond grateful to my crocheting friend Britt, who reproduced Angry Cactus Jones from the internet pics I sent her with only her brain and her magic crochet hook.) He’s also been dying to read PrestonPlayz: The Mystery of the Super Spooky Secret House, because of COURSE Preston now has a graphic novel for sale. I’ve been avoiding the issue for an impressive amount of time, but since I know he’s planning on putting it on his Christmas list, I finally broke down and checked it out of the library so I could decide how I felt about that.

The verdict? Ehh. I mean, he’s probably going to enjoy it, and as it gets more exciting, I was more engaged. Ultimately, though, it’s either a tribute to Scooby Doo, Star Wars, and another classic or two–according to my husband–or a bunch of cobbled together tropes with a title that DOESN’T roll nicely off the tongue. (According, of course, to me.) Preston fans will probably be fans, but I don’t see him breaking into the non-Preston graphic novel market too deeply.

If you disagree, let me know.

I checked The Beatryce Prophecy out of the library because Kate DiCamillo is amazing; it’s been sitting on my shelf for a while because medieval isn’t one of my favorite kinds of historical fiction. It’s relatively short, however, and so when I went looking for something on audio that I could borrow immediately, it seemed like a solid choice. And once I listened to the first chapter–the equivalent of about three pages worth, in this case–I was hooked.

Here’s the thing about Kate DiCamillo. She tends to have big, profound things to say about life and self and humanity, and she always says them in a beautiful (and ridiculously accessible) way. Sometimes I love her books. Sometimes, however, they’re a little odd for me. The Beatryce Prophecy should, perhaps, have fallen into the latter category; from the very beginning, however, the amazingness that is Answelica the Goat had me captivated. All through a tale that features monks, kings, forest bandits, and murders, the cantankerous, smelly presence of Answelica the Demon Goat tethered me to the more mundane realities of life. (And made me laugh out loud.) At the same time, her love for Beatryce brings a faraway tale as close as the people in one’s life who love with all-consuming loyalty. I tend to care less about fictional kings and kingdoms at my point in life, but I still loved this book because of Answelica. If this book looks good to you, you should absolutely read it. If you’re feeling lackadaisical about it because it doesn’t seem like your kind of thing, you should read it anyway.

The goat’s just that good.

I wanted to make pasta for dinner tonight, except that I remembered just in time that most people had leftover pasta for dinner last night. I went browsing through Pinterest after picking up my elementary schooler, then, and found this Cheesy Ham and Potato Casserole. And while it was more effort than it might have been because I used our garden potatoes, on the other hand, there is no longer a box of dirt-encrusted garden potatoes on the floor of my dining room. (Just boxes and boxes of apples.)

Now, I DON’T know if using reds–or substituting carrots for the peas, since we’ve had peas recently and I do have one pea-hating child–is responsible, but it was surprisingly liquid-y when it came out of the oven, even though when I put it in I was worried about how little sauce the recipe made. (Of course, the biggest pieces of potato and carrot could also have used a bit more time to cook, but I took it out on the early side, since my overtired-from-last-night’s-trick-or-treating offspring were threatening to seriously turn on each other. Or me.) I added some garlic to the onion and butter mixture a minute or so before adding the flour, but other than that and the carrot substitution (and the reds, but I didn’t see that the recipe specified, and they were all I had), I followed the recipe and honestly quite enjoyed it. My 14-year-old, however, gave it thumbs middle to down, and my son gave it a middle. Of course, my exhausting-to-feed 8-year-old gave it thumbs up and had seconds, and my hubby liked it, so there you go. (My oldest ate at a friend’s house tonight.)

Ultimately, I think I’d make it again, and I rather liked the carrots in it. (Frozen peas would have been wildly overcooked, as would broccoli–at least, compared to how I like my broccoli.) If you try it, let me know what YOU think!