Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Spring Break is over, folks! The kiddos are back to school, the dishwasher is running, and I’ve got a hot date with laundry and Costco to look forward to today. (The dishwasher is already running, but the counters, stove, and ‘by hand’ dishes are also awaiting my attention.) I wanted to post before I got distracted, however, and eating breakfast while I do so works out nicely. As for what we did for spring break–we drove to Goblin Valley and climbed around the hoodoos on Monday, finishing up with a drive to the booming metropolis of Hatch, UT (a town so small that gas stations don’t have to open when they say they will, leaving hungry people to drive into Bryce Canyon for breakfast, find the breakfast buffet closed, and kill half an hour before the lunch buffet at 11) and a VRBO.

Tuesday saw us in Bryce Canyon, where four of us (my hubby was sore and my 16-year-old is not a fan of heights) went on a 1.3 mile loop down in and up out again, where the scenery was breathtaking but the climb out reminded me that I’m older and heavier than I used to be. We drove on to Vegas that afternoon, grabbing sodas shortly out of Bryce and stopping at a grocery store just before our hotel on the strip. Dinner was a paltry affair in the hotel room after hauling our bags through Excalibur, but we finally settled and slept pretty well, all told. Wednesday morning saw us breakfasting at Einstein Bros. in the hotel and hitting the pool in groups–my hubby and the three younger kids in the morning, and everyone but my hubby (who took one for the team and stayed with our stuff in the heat) in the afternoon. In between we found lunch, narrowly preventing a child meltdown, and hit the M&M store, which was fun to look at but horrendously expensive. After the second bout in the pool we went to Blaze for dinner and took ourselves off to bed.

On Thursday we breakfasted off groceries in our room and then I went to the Arte Museum with my bookends, who absolutely loved it. (It was cooler than I expected, honestly. Expensive but impressive.) We walked there but my hubby picked us up, and we ate at the hotel buffet before driving to the Las Vegas Temple, stopping to get my youngest a sticker book on the way. She sat doing her sticker book while the rest of us went to the temple, and after grabbing some fruits and veggies at the store we ate those plus leftover Blaze (for those who had it) in the hotel room and watched KPOP Demon Hunters together. (SO catchy with the songs!) Friday was our drive home, Saturday was a baby shower on my hubby’s side and then Stake Conference in the evening, and Sunday was more Stake Conference (the speakers were so good!) and family time. There were a few rough patches, but overall it was a good week.

NOW. I started April Pulley Sayre’s The Slowest Book Ever almost two years ago on the way to a family reunion; I picked it up again relatively recently, and I finished it on the drive to Vegas. (It appears to be out of print, which is why there’s no link, but it looks like used copies may be readily available if you’re interested.) Sayre does amazing picture books that focus on breathtaking nature photography, but this was 150 pages or so of somewhat random science facts and explanations, initially focusing on slow things in nature but starting to meander at around the three-quarter mark. I’m less of a science-y person, but I do enjoy interesting facts, and so I found Slowest Book to be an interesting read (even if it lost its focus towards the end). I don’t know how many kids it will appeal to, but the format is highly conducive to reading bits at a time, so science fans and those looking for a book that doesn’t suffer from very short available reading times will want to check it out. And if you’re still with me after such a long post, I hope your day is lovely–I’m off to switch the laundry!

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter! This week is my kiddos’ spring break, and since they’re home and life will be crazy, I’m taking the week off. See you next Monday!

Today my youngest had a rough day at school and a rougher afternoon; she had a sub and our family schedule was off because of a poorly timed doctor’s appointment (it being, of course, the only time the doctor had today), and she found out her team didn’t advance to the next round of debate, which she’d desperately wanted to do. This is a child that struggles frequently with emotional disregulation, and I fought unpleasantly familiar feelings of helplessness as I sat, eyes itching wildly from my weekly encounter with our piano teacher’s cat, and tried to get her to talk about what was wrong. She, at least, is in bed now, but I’m still trying to finish hard boiling eggs to dye tomorrow, because my burner keeps choosing to feel disconnected from its power source. (There’s definitely a metaphor there, but I’m going to let you parse that out on your own; PTA meeting Fridays are always long, and I’m just too tired.) Tomorrow is my hubby’s birthday and we have an impressive list of errands to run, and all I want is to shower and finish the puzzle in the living room and go to bed.

Still. It’s Easter weekend.

Any parent knows that holidays with children involve more work and less relaxation than holidays without them, but I am trying to choose peace, because there is peace in Christ. If you’re looking for some peace as well (because frankly, who isn’t in our world?), or just a peaceful way to celebrate this Easter season, you could (virtually) join my family and members of our faith around the world in listening to messages about our Savior this weekend. Click here if you’d like–the first session of messages begins tomorrow morning at 10:00 MDT–and have a happy Easter!

I was searching Pinterest the other day for recipes that would use items from my fridge without requiring me to go to the store; one of my picks was these Healthy Strawberry Oatmeal Bars, only I didn’t exactly follow the recipe. (Which means they weren’t necessarily quite as healthy, but oh well!) I used half whole wheat and half white flour instead of any almond flour–my oldest is allergic to most tree nuts, so nut flours are generally not a thing in my house–and melted butter instead of coconut oil, because I didn’t have coconut oil. I used maple syrup in the crust but regular sugar in the strawberries. I also stirred in a bit of strawberry freezer jam, because the berries were definitely not oversweet, but I ended up regretting it. You know how things are sweeter when they’re cold? Well, I refrigerated the leftovers and found that I preferred them cold (hot strawberries not being so much my thing), but once the bars were cold, the berries were sweet enough without the jam. I would definitely make them ahead next time in order to have them either cold or at room temperature, but I did rather enjoy them. Do with that what you will!

Okay, I’m still tired, but since it’s Monday morning I imagine you are, too! Either way, I’m finally reviewing Kate Messner’s The Trouble with Heroes, which I love love LOVED. It was already on my radar when it turned up on the preview list for Battle of the Books, but needing to preview it bumped it way up on my endless TBR list, and I’m so very glad it did.

So. If I could describe it in one sentence, it would be this: Gary D. Schmidt could have written this book. And if you know me, you know that compliments don’t come much higher. On the other hand, Gary D. Schmidt doesn’t really do verse novels, and Trouble with Heroes takes place in New York, not New England. It follows Finn Connelly, who lost his dad physically during Covid and metaphorically–to some degree, at least–after 9/11. (His dad was a NYC firefighter.) Hurting and angry at the rough hand he’s been dealt, he gets caught on camera kicking over a gravestone at the cemetery. In lieu of paying for a new one, which his family definitely does not have the money for, he agrees (somewhat under duress) to climb mountains instead. (Explaining why would take longer than it’s worth, since you really just need to read the book.) Suddenly his summer becomes a series of summits, accompanied by a varied group of climbers who have been there before; along the way, he loses some of his anger, makes a few discoveries about his dad, and finds his own way to being his own kind of hero.

Did I mention I loved this book? Finn’s journey is both heartbreaking and hopeful, his automatic text response to his mother while climbing adds both humor and tension by the end, and the entire story is satisfying in an ALL THE FEELS kind of way. I have yet to see what my 5th grader thinks of it, but as for me, I probably need to own this book.

In the meantime, we finally had a calmer weekend, which was lovely, and spring break is next week. Hallelujah!

We all survived the fundraiser, folks. And it was successful, which was a big relief. It would have been nice to make more, yes, but we still did pretty well. I think I’m waiting until Monday to attempt another review, though, because my mental energy still hasn’t replenished. In the meantime, at least three people in my house would buy the twice-baked chocolate croissants from Costco again (at 6 for $10), and I highly recommend the Boom Chicka Pop frozen strawberry almond bars there, which are finally back. Have a great weekend all!

I don’t have the brain power to review anything this week, friends. I spent 4 hours at the elementary school today, and if I never have to look at another penny–let alone count baggies and baggies of coins–I will not be sad about it. Tomorrow night is our fundraiser and I’m going to be at the school or shopping for the fundraiser for most of the day. Maybe I’ll manage a review on Friday?

Wish us luck!

I had a quietly productive morning, folks, and then worked on PTA stuff right after school; my littles, however, took turn having freakouts this afternoon/evening, so I’m feeling a little wrung out. On the other hand, I also got to finish reading Sara Shepard’s Penny Draws a Best Friend aloud to my youngest after dinner and scriptures, and that was lovely.

The premise for Penny Draws is a classic–Penny starts 5th grade only to find that her best friend, who’s been away at a special gymnastics camp all summer, is acting strangely. She’s suddenly all buddy-buddy with one of their class’s mean-ish girls, and many of the things she and Penny used to do together are now “babyish.” It’s a classic storyline for a reason, of course–friends do grow, change, or choose to swap friend groups–but Sara Shepard avoids dwelling on the miserable emotions involved and instead focuses on Penny herself. She finds a perfect balance between highlighting the inner life of a child with anxiety and finding the humor in that child’s day-to-day experiences; none of the awful bits (the ones that I, as a parent and an avid reader of middle grade fiction, could clearly see coming) were drawn out for too long, and the positives in Penny’s life were a relief. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this aloud with my own fifth grader, and we’re looking forward to the rest of the series!

In the meantime, I’m taking my hubby out ON A DATE tomorrow night, which is incredibly exciting, as we (quite literally) don’t get out much. Cross your fingers that the kiddos will be chill with each other while we’re gone!

I was actually going to title this post “This Might Be a Record”, but then I realized that there was a time–a time before children, of course–when finishing my second current Newbery winner for the year in March was not so unusual. Thanks to audiobooks and some short winners, I have managed it once again, and so you get my review of Daniel Nayeri’s The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story this morning.

Of course, if I wanted to be extra short and sweet, I could just say that ‘this was really good and a fascinating perspective and you should read it’; Nayeri’s latest book, however, deserves more detail than that, because do you know much about what it was like in Iran during WWII? I sure didn’t. (I know there are people out there who do, but I’m positive they’re in the minority.) Now I know that Iran was a neutral country invaded and occupied for its oil, with British and Soviet soldiers and the occasional Nazi spy roaming the streets. In the middle of this chaos we have Babak and Sana, who have just been orphaned by the invasion and are trying desperately not to be separated long term. (As I write this, I realize that there are echoes of Cynthia Voigt’s Homecoming in Nayeri’s story, different as the details most assuredly are.) Their search for a place to stay is complicated by Vulf, an unknown (but definitely threatening) quantity; the Jewish boy he’s looking for (most assuredly with nefarious intent); the need for food; and the sheer abundance of different languages spoken by almost everyone they meet. As a parent, I wanted to hug them both and take them in, while as a reader I cheered them on through both setbacks and successes. Please, please don’t miss this one.

I had those yesterday–honestly I did! And then a few things I hadn’t planned for popped onto my schedule for the day, and before I knew it, it was too late to be coherent. On the other hand, it wasn’t too late to finish listening to Gordon Korman’s Framed, the third book in his ‘Swindle’ series, and so you get that review today. (I was going to review the other book I’ve finished, but Framed is getting passed on to my son, so it comes first.)

If you remember, the ‘Swindle’ series follows Griffin Bing, the Man With a Plan, and his group of friends with convenient, specialized, and complementary skills. In Framed, their new principal is convinced that Griffin is a bad seed, and so when a valuable object disappears from the school, he has no doubt of Griffin’s guilt. Of course, Griffin is innocent, but the circumstances are incredibly damning; how is he going to clear his name? What follows is a whirlwind of planning that involves surveillance, a bag of frozen lima beans, Caesar, a fishing pole, and some nuisance wildlife, with hijinks aplenty before it all comes right in the end. Per Korman’s usual MO it’s over-the-top but entertaining, with plenty of adventure and likable (if a bit stock, so to speak) characters. I’m thinking my son with enjoy the ride.

In other news, the big girls and I attended one niece’s bridal shower on Saturday while all of us attended another niece’s mission farewell on Sunday. My oldest could be getting her mission call today, the PTA Fundraiser looms, and I’m working on paperwork for my youngest’s appointment tomorrow. I am going to be SO ready for spring break when it comes…