This is one of my favorite picture books to read aloud every year when Independence Day approaches. I love to celebrate every major holiday with picture book read-alouds! I’ve read this book to my youngest the past few years after discovering it. Now I plan on reading it aloud to my grandsons this week, and more grandchildren in future years.
The subjects of the book, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, were the original frenemies, before that even became a word. They demonstrated the two truths that opposites attract yet often repel as well.
We see their opposite natures of these two Founding Fathers of the USA from the first double-page spread of the book: Tom was born into wealth. He started out life sleeping in a cradle of a sumptuously furnished home. He stayed in his cradle, blissfully sleeping. John was born into a hard-working, not wealthy family. Not poor, but not wealthy. His bed was a bureau drawer in a home not sumptuously furnished. The illustrator of the book, Edwin Fotheringham, shows baby Johnny not staying in his bed, but having climbed out and crawling away to explore. We see the introverted, withdrawn nature of Tommy and the extroverted, exploratory nature of Johnny from the very beginning.
Then as they grew, as seen in the pages of the book, the introverted and extroverted natures of these future American heroes became even more pronounced: John skipped school to fly kites, play with marbles, and have boxing matches. Tom never skipped school, instead he skipped recess, to study Greek grammar. Amazing! When they went off to college, John loved to talk and argue, so he joined the debate club. Tom avoided public speaking whenever possible and expressed himself in writing, as he hated arguments.
They both became lawyers, but they lived different legal lives. John lived on a farm and worked in mud. Tom lived on an estate and planned a new estate, his beloved Monticello. John was fat and obnoxious, Tom was tall, lean, and polite.
Did they have anything in common besides being attorneys? Yes! They both believed George III was a tyrant. They hated the taxes he put on the colonists. They both went to Philadelphia to talk with other delegates about what to do about the unfair King. The discussion ended with the two volunteering each other to write an explanation of the king’s abuses, explaining why the colonists were declaring independence. Because John was better at arguing, he persuaded Tom to write it, with very good reasoning, and Tom relented.
So Tom wrote it and the two lawyers joined other men in signing it.
That’s the basic story in this book. Even if you or your children have heard it before, it’s worth reviewing the story again with this wonderful picture book. I love that the illustrations are realistic, not too cartoony, and done in vibrant patriotic colors of red, white, and blue with the occasional gold. The story doesn’t get into the frenemy aspect of John and Tom’s relationship. You will get that when you read the Author’s Note at the end. (Always read the Author’s Note, as you will always learn more to enhance the regular story in the picture book.)
I just love this book! I love that it succinctly tells the story of the Declaration of Independence through telling the story of two of the most famous Founding Fathers. I love the illustrations and how they show so well the opposite natures of Tom and John. This week of Independence Day, I hope you find this book at your local public library and enjoy it.
Hint: the author and illustrator have teamed up to create some other great books about real people. Check out these other ones!
Double hint: If you want more patriotic picture book suggestions, go here. I’ve got chapter book suggestions for older children and adults here. Then here’s my other website with more suggestions of both kinds of patriotic books under the July sub-heading.
For months I’ve wished I could blog about at least one family movie a week and one date night movie a week. Alas, I have never achieved that goal. It’s not sustainable for me with all my other stuff going on. Maybe I can keep up the pace of one movie of each type once a month.
For June’s family movie of the month, before June is over, I’m sharing about The Parent Trap. DH and I got to see it recently on the big screen, in full color. That was the first time I’ve seen it in full color. It was at BYU. Once a month, the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU hosts a classic movie in the Reynolds Auditorium. For June it was The Parent Trap. I’ve always ever seen it only on TV and in black and white. Wow, it was such a treat to see it in color! Maureen O’Hara’s flaming red hair and the lavender and green floral dress she puts on for dinner with her ex-husband are just a gorgeous combination! See her in it at the 1:50 mark below.
I first saw TPT when I was 11 or 12 with my sisters and cousin and loved it. The whole summer camp vibe and the twins theme completely fascinated me. I’ve seen it many times since then and still love it. The remake with Lindsay Lohan, which we saw at a drive-in with our three young children, for our family birthday/wedding anniversary, in 1998, is fun but just not as good. I’m just partial to Hayley Mills’ acting. I even have a niece who looks just like her. My sisters and I also loved her in Pollyanna and Summer Magic.
Did you know? It was 64 yeas ago this month, on June 21, 1961, that it came out. That movie is responsible, I suppose, for the name “Hayley” and all its variations being in the top 20 names for baby girls ever since.
I always thought of TPT as just a fun, cute movie about sisters who get their dream when their divorced parents (spoiler alert) get married again to each other. I didn’t every really think of it as having deep meaning, but apparently it does, at least to some. One of my new favorite bloggers and podcasters, Leila Lawler, explained in one of her recent podcasts with her husband Phil that it shows something deeper. She says that it shows the yearning every child has to be part of a whole family. I’m sorry I can’t remember which episode.
I know divorce sometimes is really the best option. I’ve lived enough life to know that not every marriage should last forever, on earth or in heaven. But for marriages that break up for reasons that can be fixed, I want The Parent Trap, and Jesus, to give hope for those situations. As Susan and Sharon (Hayley Mills) say and sing, “You give a little and I’ll give a little and let’s get together!”
So if you haven’t seen the movie in a while, or at all, go watch it with your family, for purchase or rent here in YouTube. It’s in full color!
Here are some fun videos about TPT to enhance your enjoyment.
This video below shows the body double of Hayley Mills, Susan Henning, as well as how the movie was filmed to turn Hayley into twins. Even though Susan never got billing for the movie, she ended up getting a Duckster award from Uncle Walt (one of only three). She also starred with and dated Hayley’s crush Elvis in real life, so as Hayley says in one of the other videos below, “She got one up on me!”
I was enthralled by the dad’s home in TPT, at Carmel-by-the-Sea. It seemed so magical! Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so. Here’s a tour of the home below. Part 1 is the downstairs, Part 2 is the upstairs.
The movie wouldn’t be the movie without the music! Here’s the story of the Sherman brothers writing the music. Did you ever catch that “Let’s Get Together” is played at the camp dance?
I highlighted some mothers last month, in May, in honor of Mother’s Day. Two weeks ago I shared a little story about my father on Father’s Day. Before June is over, in two days, I want to highlight another father.
Credit for Images Above and Below: amazon.com
His name is Charles Mully/Mulli, or Mully for short. Sadly, he was abandoned/orphaned at age 6 in Africa. So then he spent his youth begging from door to door. Miraculously, he survived this rough childhood. At age 16, he went to a meeting and learned about Christ and committed his life to Him. Eventually he became employed as a driver. With that background, along with hard work and an entrepreneurial spirt, he came to own a transportation business, becoming a multimillionaire.
Along the way, he married and became a father of 8 children. After having 8 children he and his wife decided to dedicate their family life to caring for orphans. He sold his business so they could focus on rescuing the street children from the slums of Kenya. He and his wife, Esther, opened up their home to more and more orphans, eventually establishing places to house and educate all these children, in multiple cities in Africa. He has helped over 26,000 children! So astounding!
You can watch his story in movie form here or below. It’s amazing!
“Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you. But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.”
After he obtained riches, he used them to clothe, feed, liberate, and minister to the street children of Kenya. I applaud and admire him and and his wife for their selfless work. No wonder the Freedom Festival Foundation of Provo UT is awarding him with the Freedom Award at the Freedom Awards Gala this Wednesday. Tonight was the Patriotic Service for the Freedom Festival. I had to miss it because of a prior commitment, but two of my sons went to it to hear Dr. Hank Smith speak. They had a Mully sighting! He was sitting on the front row in his signature cowboy hat. I feel I have had a virtual brush with greatness! I’ve seen the documentary/movie and want to read all these books about him and his family now. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Mully for your selfless heroic work. What Christlike people, reflecting Christ’s light and love in such a dark troubled world! I hope we can all be more like Daddy Mully and Mommy Esther in our own ways.
Want some cheap summer fun for you and your children? Of course it’s fun to go to amusement parks, a water park, the swimming pool, the beach, hiking, or the lake, but that’s not always feasible and certainly not something most of us can do every day. Especially if you have a lot of littles.
The best, most sustainable summer activity, in my veteran homeschooling SAHM opinion, is to read aloud books to your children. Now that it’s warm weather you can easily do it outdoors, unless you’re in Phoenix, or Yuma, LOL. Here are some great suggestions for summer read aloud books. I’m showing some of the books mentioned in that list, also in the video below, and adding to it some of my own ideas.
Marcie, the mom behind the list, and shown in the video down below, says the following:
“Are your kids bored? Here’s my trick! I stop what I’m doing and read to them for 30 minutes. Then, inspired, they go off and pretend to be kids in the book we just read. They may make a wax face and pretend to be a waxworks boy like Rufus Moffat or have a cat that can type like Pinky Pye. There is no end to their adventures when we read books together!”
I will add, that advice works if your children aren’t addicted to screens. If they are, reading aloud for long stretches of time might not work. If you’ve never read aloud to your children before, you might have to build up your children’s attention spans to listening to read-alouds. Especially if they are used to flashy fast-paced and easy screen entertainment. Try five minutes at a time of reading aloud, involving food, something simple like popcorn, to make reading aloud more delightful. Gradually add more time. Use quiet activities mentioned below if needed. End your session on a cliff-hanger so they eagerly await the next session.
It’s great if the kiddos just sit and listen, but rather unrealistic to expect that if they aren’t used to it. It’s OK if they are doing something quiet with their hands, like drawing, paint by sticker books, jigsaw puzzles, play doh, thinking putty, fidget toys, or things like that. So I’m showing images from readloudaloudrevival.com of quiet activities to accompany read-aloud time. Make those things special and only let them play with them during read-aloud time. See more about that here with lots of quiet activity suggestions. Some people are OK with Legos. Some aren’t. They can be rather noisy if the Legos are all bunched together, causing the kiddos to have to sort through them, making a rustly noise.
I absolutely love Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright. I blogged a lot about it over here. It combines two of my favorite themes: summer and cousins.
Check out all of Marcie’s list of summer read alouds here, and be sure to watch her video above.
You can get Marcie’s study guides for some of the books on her list here. Each guide has questions and enrichment activities.
If you want help with limiting screen time for your children, learn about that here.
It’s also OK if you don’t do all the reading aloud with you as the narrator! Mama’s voice gets breaks for sure! Use audiobooks! Lots of books are available for free in LibriVox and YouTube, and for a small monthly fee (<$20) in Audible and Everand.
Audiobooks are super great for car trips. We listened to a bunch on a road trip to Nauvoo IL in 2015.
You can also just bypass the recordings in the car and use your own voice, of course. It can just be hard on your voice if you have a bunch of kids spread out in a big car, like a 15-passenger van. So audioboooks to the rescue with the speakers turned on in the back of the car too.
Some of the Betsy-Tacy books are on audio over here. Learn all about the author and her books over here.
All the Little House Books are in everand.com. Learn more about everand here.
It’s also totally OK to read aloud while your children are doing household chores. For years we had a ritual of me reading aloud while my children did the dishes and folded clean laundry. Those days are gone but still a happy memory.
Happy reading aloud! May it create many magical summer memories for your family.
We listened to Johnny Tremain on our trip to Nauvoo. Such a classic!
It was almost 150 years ago this month, 117 to be exact, in June 1908, that Lucy Maud Montgomery’s book Anne of Green Gables was published. Let’s have a birthday party for the Anne book! Anne’s birthday is in March, and Lucy Maud’s is November 30, but the book’s birthday is in June, so let’s celebrate!
I read the whole series of 8 Anne books in my teen years, plus almost all of the other books that Lucy Maud wrote, such as Emily of New Moon (3 books), Chronicles of Avonlea (1 and 2), Kilmeny of the Orchard, Jane of Lantern Hill, The Story Girl, and Magic for Marigold. I also enjoyed watching some of the episodes of “The Road to Avonlea,” based on The Story Girl, on the old Disney channel. So yes, I’m a huge fan of Lucy Maud and all her works.
(Nothing like those ’80s book covers with the titles in the swoopy font to bring back memories of my jr. high and high school years! I used my babysitting money to buy these from the BYU Bookstore.)
L.M. was offered a flat rate of $500 to get her AOGG book published, with no royalties. She decided she couldn’t sell Anne for that price. She negotiated with the publisher, agreeing to the terms of a lower fee upfront, with L.M. getting 9 cents per copy sold. For generations, millions of fans around the world are so grateful that she finally found a publisher for the book.
I count myself as one of those fans. Anne of Green Gables is my absolute favorite book outside of scripture. The reason I love it so much is because it shows the life of a young woman growing from an orphan seeking love, endearing herself to her newfound family, developing her talents, overcoming her character flaws, and pursuing scholar phase. I resonated with her scholar phase, loving the fact that it showed a teen girl winning a college scholarship. Few novels show a girl doing that! In the series, Anne goes on to get married, have children, and a full, loving family life. She also becomes a community influencer as she mingles with so many different neighbors, encountering stories of joy and sorrow. Her story is just such a great tale of lovely feminine ordinary life. I have just found so much joy in reading these books and relating to them.
With that introduction, now here are some ideas to help you celebrate the birthday of the book!
Get the above book from your public library or order online and dive in! It has recipes, Anne’s family tree, crafts, maps, and descriptions of all things Anne!
Have a party to celebrate!
Set the right mood for the party by playing the soundtrack from the 1980s miniseries video here.
Make some food from the recipes in the book above or below. The cookbook below is by Maud’s granddaughter, Kate.
If you don’t want to find a book to get recipes, this website here has recipes for some food, whether you have Anne’s Golden picnic, or just a party, these foods listed below all look fun! They are all mentioned in the AOGG book. They are written by two Anne fan librarians who did research to make the recipes as authentic as possible.
–Anne’s Buttercup Cake (see the authors’ note at the bottom of the second recipe, the modern one, where they realize they used too much flour, so that’s why it tasted too dry and dense!)
So that’s the food you can have at the party. What about activities?
-Run a 3 legged race, just like Anne and her bestie Diana did in the book at the Sunday School picnic
-Play “Guess Who Said What?” Grab your copy of the book, take turns reading aloud quotes from the book, and guess which character said it.
-Take the “Which Anne of Green Gables Character Are You?” quiz, online, or print one out.
-have a book exchange, since Anne loved books and became an English teacher. Ask everyone to bring a used book, especially one that is classic fiction, and then swap books. Ben Hur anyone? That’s the book she’s caught reading at school instead of doing math.
-host an Anne of Green Gables movie marathon! Watch Kevin Sullivan’s rendition of Anne of Green Gableshere with or without the sequel, Anne of Avonlea. That’s the only Anne movie/video series worth watching, IMHO. It’s a made -for-TV- miniseries from 1985. My sisters and I watched it over and over. None of the other versions come even close! It’s just so beautiful and classy with the best cast. Megan Follows = the perfect Anne, plus Jonathan Crombie = the perfect Gilbert. I also wouldn’t bother with the latter two movies on that site, as they don’t follow the storyline of the original books. I will dispense with my rant on that and move on…
Here are more fun things to do regardless of whether or not you have a party:
Watch this behind-the-scenes video of the Kevin Sullivan production below.
Watch the biography of Lucy Maud below. (Trigger warning for any time you dive into any of her biographies: tragically, Maud died by suicide. Her granddaughter revealed this family secret in 2008. Just a heads up for watching any of her biographies with young people or anyone affected by suicide.)
Take a video tour of the real Green Gables. Yes, Anne’s story is fiction, but GG was based on a real home! This was the home of Maud’s cousins, the Macneills. You can also see the site where L.M. wrote the book. That home is gone but the land remains. The video also shows the post office where L.M. worked, and from where she mailed her manuscript one last time and finally struck gold with getting it published.
A new book just came out all about Green Gables, including the diary of Maud’s cousin, Myrtle Macneill Webb, detailing life in the home as it became a tourist attraction.
Listen to Megan Follows read aloud some of the book below. She shaped my teenagehood so much with her magnificent portrayal of Anne. I think every ’80s girl probably feels the same way.
Play with some Anne of Green Gables paper dolls here, here on etsy or here in amazon. When/if I get granddaughters, we’ll be playing with these!
Read all the books in the series, for the first time, or all over again! You can read them all here or listen to at least the first three volumes here. This page over here is a great guide as to how to read the books, with summaries of each one.
Discover the world before Anne came to Green Gables, with fan fiction. What was Marilla like as a little girl? What wounds did she carry from childhood which made her so austere as Anne’s foster mother? How did Marilla meet Gilbert Blythe’s father? What were Anne’s parents like? Where did Katie Maurice come from? How did Anne know how to get Minnie May through the dark night of whooping cough? How did Anne get such an active imagination? Get all the answers from these books!
Image Credit Above and Below: amazon.com
I thought I had read everything there is relating to Anne. Then I discovered Before Green Gables. I got it on CD from my local public library. If you can find it, snatch it up! The narrator, Rene Raudman, does a beautiful job bringing Anne to life. I love all the voices she has for the different characters of the story.
It is the story of Anne Shirley before she comes to live with Marilla and Matthew on Prince Edward Island. It is written by a Canadian author, Budge Wilson, who was authorized by the heirs of L.M. Montgomery to write the book. It is just as delightful as L.M.’s books! If you love the Anne books, you will probably love this one too. The book starts before Anne’s birth and goes right up to the day when Matthew picks her up at the Bright River station, which is where AOGG starts.
After I read BGG I found Marilla of Green Gables. I started it and haven’t finished it. On my TBR list for this summer!
Happy reading and celebrating! I hope you have fun with these resources and strengthen your kindred spirit relationships with those who love Anne.
“We can miss so much out of life if we don’t love, the more we love, the richer life is.” as Anne Shirley Blythe says, in Anne’s House of Dreams, #4 in the series.
Happy Father’s Day! Today we gathered with some family for barbecued steak. Eating steak reminds me of a story about my dear old dad. Since it’s Father’s Day, and his birthday is coming up this week, and he is about to retire from his job as college professor for 45 years(!), I will share this memory of him.
When I was 9 years old my family traveled to Massachusetts from upstate New York to celebrate Thanksgiving. I can’t remember exactly what we did on Thanksgiving Day, but it didn’t involve sitting at home eating turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and pumpkin pie. We spent that week touring Plimoth Plantation and Boston and NYC on the way in or out, or both, I don’t really remember.
What I do distinctly remember about that trip is being in downtown Boston. We toured Lexington and Concord Greens, the Boston aquarium and the Boston Children’s Museum. It was now time for dinner. My dad offered to take the 5 of us children to any restaurant we wanted. I’m sad to say that all we wanted to do was to go to McDonald’s. He was offering us steak, or Chinese food, or fish and chips, or Italian, or whatever else the fine eating establishments of Beantown had to offer. What did we do? We declined any of those wonderful opportunities and instead picked the same fast food that we could have had at home.
It was years later that I realized that we sorely missed out because of our childish immaturity. I’m so sorry about that. I don’t want to ever make the same mistake again. I think that’s how Heavenly Father feels sometimes. Like my dad, he is offering us steak, and we want to settle for chain food hamburgers. He is offering the riches of eternity, and we sometimes turn Him down and settle for less. He offers all that He us, which we can receive if we make and keep covenants with Him through the intermediary power of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. On this Father’s Day, it gives me pause to wonder what I can do differently to receive the best that my Father has to offer.
One of my latest and greatest thrifting finds: a Jane Austen board game! Plus, sparkly golden frames that seem like they were meant to be bought together with the game!
I love, love, love to shop at thrift stores, commonly called “thrifting.”
Here are the 10+ greatest treasures I’ve found thrifting. I’m showing these to inspire you to go find some useful and beautiful items for your family, friends, and yourself. It’s so fun! plus, it saves money.
So here not in any particular order are my favorite things found from thrifting. Some are particular items and others are categories.
1. Rotating Spice Rack
My first treasure is the spice rack in the photo above. It lacked the jars and was maybe $3 at the Provo UT Deseret Industries (DI). I don’t remember exactly as this was a year ago right after we moved. I’ve always wanted a revolving spice rack, so I was thrilled to find this. I measured the holes, found the jars on amazon and made sure they would fit the holes of the rack, bought the jars, and filled them up with my herbs. So, I’ve upgraded from my cardboard spice risers I show over here. I just love how I can have this rack on the shelf in my kitchen just to the upper right of my stove and quickly grab what I want to add while cooking. I also wanted my daughter to be able to reach spices while she’s cooking, and the cupboard above the stove is unreachable for her. It doesn’t fit all my spices, just the most used. I have the rest of the spices in a cupboard right above the stove. (I’m not a 100% crunchy mom concerned about light going through the glass affecting the spices, but if you are, you can get amber glass jars.)
It’s been a year since we moved from our cozy cottage on the corner into our cozy little bungalow two blocks away. It’s a tiny cube house, whereas the previous home was kind of like a tiny Dr. Seuss house with a weird layout because it had been added on to. It also had a cramped loft that couldn’t accommodate bookshelves because of a sloped ceiling. This “new” house we moved into is a starter home from the 1940s. It’s the same type of home that some of my relatives lived in the 1970s-1990s. Whenever I visited them, I always thought it was such a small house. I never thought I would actually live in such a home but here I am! Just goes to show that sometimes life is full of surprises!
When we moved, I got rid of about 10-trips-of-the-minivan-worth of stuff to the thrift store plus more stuff. Since moving, I’ve added things from the thrift store. I gave away a full upright freezer to a friend, two chairs to a friend, a refrigerator to a friend, a rocking chair to a friend, a couch to a stranger, and bags of clothes and shoes and toys and games to DI. Since then, I’ve added a spice rack, baskets, couch, a desk and chair, books, games and clothes. Cue the music, “The Circle of Life” from Lion King, LOL. Give stuff away, bring stuff in, give stuff away…it’s how God meant it to be! The Give and Receive Cycle, to bless us all! As it says in Doctrine and Covenants 104:17, “The earth is full and there is enough and to spare.”
Some examples of great thrifting finds, all in the categories listed below: books, games, and clothes.
This house has a different configuration so we had stuff that wouldn’t fit, hence I gave stuff away, like the rocking chair I bought when I was pregnant with child #1. I gave it to a friend, so I didn’t feel bad about that. I also gave away two amazingly beautiful white leather chairs that were sleek and contemporary, so they looked so glamorous. I just didn’t have room for them here. I threw stuff away too. Because of the different configuration I needed and wanted different things that fit. So that’s part of why I have been thrifting this past year, on top of my natural desire to do it. I also thrift because I love to find interesting books and games for our family homeschooling library that I want to benefit not just my children, but my grandchildren. Then I also thrift to find inexpensive clothing and shoes, kitchen gadgets, housewares, and even gifts. It’s just so much fun!
If you are a human, especially a mom, homemaker, and/or homeschooler, and don’t have unlimited money, then you could benefit from thrifting too! It just feels so fun to find unusual or even common items that fit a need or a want and cost so little. As I’ve said before, it’s like going hunting without killing anything. It helps you create a beautiful home culture with less money. So, I hope by sharing these photos and videos you will want to go thrifting too! If you want a quick summary of reasons watch the video below. The woman in the video is Toni, of Our Thrifty Homeschool. She loves homeschooling and loves thrifting just as much as I do!
See that cute turquoise basket in the photo with the spice rack, also shown just above? I found it thrifting recently. Yes, it’s plastic so it’s not crunchy mom natural wicker but I love it anyway. I love it because I love turquoise/teal and it totally fits in with the Pioneer Woman theme of my kitchen with the color and the perforated lacey design. I like putting mail on that shelf and needed something pretty to contain the mail. It looks beautiful and hides the clutter. So this works perfectly! Score! The stickered label on the bottom shows it’s from Dollar Tree (Greenbrier International) so it was $1.25 new. I think I got it for $1 so not a huge savings over retail but I think this pattern at Dollar Tree has been discontinued so I count it as a score.
Above is one of my grandsons looking at one of the board books I keep in a basket I found thrifting. His first visit to our home was last Thanksgiving when my son and his little family came from TX. I was so excited to pull out this basket for him! Most of the books are from his dad’s childhood, with a few that I’ve found thrifting since then. I adore the polka dot lining! Sometimes baskets come with lining and sometimes they don’t. If they do, just wash it. Be sure to do it on cold so it doesn’t shrink and make it hard to put back on.
I didn’t really get turned on to using baskets for storage until moving back to Utah from AZ. I wish I had started this a lot sooner. They just look so pretty, holding dry good foods, books or toys. I even found a heart-shaped basket! I also like having baskets for my desk to stash office supplies and random stuff.
When we moved into the bungalow I had fewer usable cupboards than the cottage. There are some above the fridge but who wants to use those? They are so out of the way, even though we did buy a stool. Anyway, what to do? Baskets on top of a hutch! I found these baskets on a few different thrifting trips to fit the bill. I love square baskets because they utilize space better. I keep napkins in the smaller square basket on the upper right in the photo above so that they don’t get squashed amidst the other stuff. I’m totally OK that they all don’t match.
Baskets are just such a great pretty way to contain stuff, after you’ve dejunked, so that even though it’s stuff you want for sure, your space doesn’t look cluttered. Below is my latest round of basket buying. I almost got another one that was flat and square, which had been painted. I decided it wasn’t worth paying over $5 for it. I got these at Savers and used my 20% off coupon so these were all less than $5 each. I prefer to spend $3 or less on a basket, which they are usually are when I get them at D.I.
I feel like I’m getting a bonus when I find a basket that has divisions in it. Such is the case with the basket in the upper left of the above photo. See it down below? I love that it’s divided in half. I’m going to fill it with books for my grandsons and me to tote out to the hammock in the backyard this summer to read aloud together in the shade.
Then this basket has dividers for utensils (the small divisions) and paper plates (the large division) to use for my potlucks and picnics. It’s just like one my mom has used for decades for extended family dinners. It was $2 at the Provo D.I.
3. Pretty Picture Frames
So that’s baskets, now on to picture frames! I was so excited to find this multi-stripe and multi-colored flower frame above at Savers. I knew the purple in it would match the purple dress I’m wearing in the photo with my husband. It was $3, looked brand-new, and had a Target label. It just makes me happy every time I see it in my kitchen!
I was thrilled to find both of these Pioneer Woman picture frames at Savers at the same time. I think they were $3 each? I can’t remember. Now they are on my piano with a family photo in each. They retail for around $14 at walmart.com. (Credit for images goes to walmart.com)
I just love them so much!
4. All the Narnia Books on CD
When I lived in Arizona, I found this full set of all the Chronicles of Narnia books on CD by Focus on the Family at a thrift store in Phoenix. Thrift stores in Phoenix are amazing. They abound and they are full of great stuff! This was still in the shrink-wrap, brand-new, for only $7! This is probably my favorite find of all! The stories on CD are fully dramatized with different voice actors and orchestral music. We listened to these in the car as we drove back and forth to our homeschooling co-op held once a week, that was in Tucson. The drive was 90 minutes one way. I have such fond memories of this! It probably took us a year to get through all the CDs. It looks like Focus on the Family doesn’t even sell this anymore, just digital files, shown over here, for $70! What a major thrifting find!!! I bought it in October after my visit to see my first new grandbaby, and then saved it for a Christmas gift for the family. Finding this treasure just made my heart so happy!
I started out with one Narnia hard copy book that I bought new, early in my homeschooling journey, decades ago. We borrowed the rest from the public library until I eventually found the rest while thrifting. My children have all read and love these books. You can tell they are well-loved! More on books to come in this post!
5. Beautiful Clothes and Shoes, including Designer Boots that Retail for Over $100!
The picture above shows the very first outfit of clothes I found after moving back to Utah in August of 2020. Thrift stores had been closed for months because of the plandemic. At a moms’ class for my homeschooling co-op, a new Katie, Katie C., shared her thrifting tips.
D.I. had just opened up again in October or November that year with limited hours. I was so excited to go and try out Katie’s thrifting tips, and this is what I found. It was such a fun fall outfit for me!
As you can see, I love stripes, florals, gingham, and polka dots, in spring colors, and black and white, with the occasional paisley. It’s time to cull some of the clothes though as they are getting too squashed and wrinkly. My cup overfloweth!
Tops, Dresses and Skirts
This one above was brand-new, still with the sticker, and only $3, Croft and Barrow brand!
Photo Credit: ebay.com
In this photo above we see a Pioneer Woman top. I’m always on the lookout for PW clothes. The tops are sized generously (meaning they are for us middle-aged moms as they go long to cover mummy tummies), are super comfy and high quality. I love that this top goes with so many of my different cardigan sweaters: red, green, yellow, tan, white, and turquoise.
This skirt below looks like the Pioneer Woman design but it’s not. One of my recent finds! It looks so summery! It’s Croft and Barrow brand, only $5. I view it as a consolation prize for volunteering at the Provo DI on the last day it closed for remodeling this summer. It was still there when I was done with my shift so I got it. Yes, I’m going through withdrawals with the Provo DI closed.
This dress below I just found this week. It kind of looks like Pioneer Woman too. On sale with 30% off coupon at Savers for $5. It’s not the best quality as it’s Shein but hey at $5 I will enjoy it.
Then here’s my favorite thrifted item of clothing I’ve ever found, this dress below. Only $5 at the Provo D.I.
Sweaters are in their own category, see below.
Pants
I’m not showing all the pants I’ve bought thrifting, just know that I have bought a lot of them and love them. My favorite are the white capris I got at the Provo D.I. right before my second honeymoon trip to Key West. They still had their Nordstrom tag on saying they were $60 retail, and I got them for $6!
Boots, Shoes, Sandals
Last winter I found one of my greatest deals! A pair of brand-new Franco Sarto black ankle boots. They looked never worn and were $17! They retail for over $100. I was so happy about this! It was time to replace my black boots (bought at the Odgen D.I. in the fall of 2020) for something more stylish and this pair fit the bill!
Last week, I bought these super high-quality sandals for my son at Savers for only $12! They are Chacos, so they retail around $80-$100 or upwards. Such a tremendous bargain! My son found them! For years, every summer, I’ve asked him if he would like some sandals instead of athletic shoes to wear in the summer. Athletic shoes with socks look so hot for summer! I’m so glad we finally found some that he liked that are so high-quality and so affordable!
Speaking of sandals, I have found some super cute sandals at D.I. on a regular basis. Born on Concept is my favorite brand. A few years ago I found a pair exactly like these below that looked brand new for only $5. They are just so cute and comfy and go with so many of my summer outfits! Last summer I found a similar pair in black. This brand is also very high-quality. The soles are thick and sturdy.
6.Books, Books, and More Books!Hooray!
I have found so many delicious books at thrift stores that it’s too hard to pick one that is my favorite. So I’m lumping them all in the category of books. How can I be a homeschooler and not love books?
I have a bunch of collections of books I like to add to: family traditions books, holiday picture books, Little Golden Books, Pioneer Woman cookbooks, Uncle John Bathroom Readers and other trivia books, Dummies books, Bit Fat Notebooks, and songbooks, among others.
I love holiday-themed books, either books that detail family traditions, like the Christmas ones above, or holiday picture books. All three shown above came from the thrift store for less than $3 each! Here we have different faith traditions represented. The far left is written by a member of my church (a short review is here), then the middle one is by Ann Voskamp, who believes in a different flavor of Christianity, and then the far-right one is by Susan Branch, who seems to be neutral towards any one particular religion but maybe believes in God, I’m not sure. It’s actually part cookbook and part memoir of her family life growing up as the oldest of 8 children, with little stories and memories of family traditions sprinkled amongst the recipes.
Here is my “family traditions books” collection.
I bought Gathering Home by Emily Belle Freeman brand new at Deseret Book but everything else above, except for A Christ-centered Easter, is thrifted.
I was so delighted to discover Roots and Wings, seen below. I checked that book out from the American Fork UT public library as a teen, read it, and loved it! It’s a lovely book by Helen Bateman about LDS Christian-based family traditions, which she wrote in the 1980s. You can read it for free here. The Christ-centered Easter book is written by one of my husband’s cousins, Janet Hilton Hales.
My biggest holiday picture book collections are Christmas and Easter. Then I have a handful of Thanksgiving and Independence Day books.
I was so happy to find the book above, To Witness Easter, written by another one of my husband’s cousins, Lynne Hilton Wilson, Janet’s sister. For $2 at the Springville DI! The illustrations are gorgeous!
One of my books I display during June and July for Independence Day. For Morning Basket I read aloud about one signer a day. After years of checking this book out every year from the public library I found this at Savers!
I have lots of fun displaying and rotating the books on a certain shelf in my home, to create my “shrine to beautiful holiday and seasonal picture books and children’s chapter books.” All of these books I got from thrift stores. I finally got the Easter ones down, weeks after Easter, and will get up my patriotic, Independence Day books soon.
After so many years of thrifting, I now have more than 25 days of Christmas picture books to do a Christmas Picture Book Advent, and most of these books came from thrifting.
I don’t go much for the cartoony Christmas picture books. Mr. Willoughby’s Christmas and Santa Are You For Real? are as cartoony as I get. I mostly go for the classic Christmas stories with beautifully realistic illustrations. They usually come one at a time on my thrifting trips, all through the year. I also look for classic Christmas chapter books, like The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I know I have a copy somewhere else, but last year I saw the one above for 75 cents at DI and got it.
This particular haul shown below was grand because I added to my trivia books collection, my Christmas picture book collection, my Little Golden Book collection, and my games collection.
(By the way, the pretty white background above holding the thrifted treasures is one of the chairs I gave away to my friend Katie. It always made a great stage for my thrifting haul photos.)
This haul of books above included Hinds’ Feet on High Places. My longtime girlfriend Katie H. of foundationbuilderguide.org had us (some friends and me) read it for her moms’ book club. I was so happy to find this and give it to her for a birthday present! It has such a beautiful cover and beautiful illustrations inside. It was only $2 and looked new! It’s around $14 on amazon.com.
Little Golden Books
I have one Little Golden book from my childhood, plus two from when my oldest was little that were gifted to him. Just about ten years ago, I discovered that my mom, a former kindergarten teacher, loves LGB and collects them. She has about three wide shelves on a bookcase full of them in one of the basement guest rooms of my childhood home. Then I found out that one of my Veggie Gals girlfriends collects them too. So, then I decided to join the party. Above and below is part of my collection, with all of those shown coming from thrift stores, where I pay 50 cents to a $1. I especially love vintage ones, with artwork from Eloise Wilkin. I love it when my grandsons come over and ask me to read from these books! I have them on a low shelf and they can just pick whatever one they want.
Susan Branch Cookbooks
These are so lovely!!! If you want to know more about Susan Branch books, go here and here. They are just so fun to read.
Pioneer Woman Cookbooks
Ree Drummond’s cookbooks are also so fun to read with gorgeous full-color photos accompanying step-by-step instructions. I don’t eat food mad from these recipes because they aren’t keto. I keep them to inspire the children left at home for when it’s their night to fix dinner because my children don’t eat keto. They all love her lasagna recipe.
Random Fun Books
I also love to get random fun books. These include trivia books, Usborne books, and books about pop culture, including Legos and Star Wars. It was so fun to find the Disney Who’s Who book at the Provo DI for only $2, after seeing it for retail for over $12. The Marvel Avengers book was $2 at a DI as well. If I’m ever going to win on Jeopardy!, I’ve got to increase my pop culture knowledge with books like these, LOL.
Below is the haul that included the Disney Who’s Who.
My husband loves Car Talk so I’m saving that one for Christmas. My son-in-law was just telling me he wants to learn more about making bread with his breadmachine so I excitedly gave that to him. The Narnia book replaced a different one that didn’t match my Narnia collection. Now they all match with the same kind of cover and spine. I got the cross-sections book because I just love books like that, for the whole family, including the grandchildren.
7. Cozy Yummy Sweaters
Above and below, you see some of the sweaters I’ve found. Fun sweaters make Utah winter so much more bearable for me. I love finding cute combinations with cardigans and tops.
I don’t often find piano music because I forget to look for it. When I do remember I occasionally find some gems. Over a decade ago I found the Dr. Seuss songbook above at the Layton UT DI. It has so many fun songs like “The Super Supper March” and “Let Us All Sing.” Then just a few years ago I found the LDS Songbook for All Occasions at an estate sale for 50 cents. Most of the songs I’ve already seen but it had a few new ones that are so delightful.
The orange book below was the children’s songbook for my church when I was little. It’s old but the copy still looked new, hardly used. I have a ton of fond memories singing the songs in that book as a child in Primary (the children’s organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The Good Shepherd was 75 cents and has original songs about Jesus, new to me, including a few Easter ones. All written by Kristen Randle. The Versatile Pianist is full of popular, familiar songs. I play the piano and occasionally sit down and play songs and just love it.
9. Unique Board Games, including Gardening Scrabble
I love board games and I love thrifting so the fact that I can find board games at thrift stores just doubles the pleasure! I’m always on the lookout for unique board games. I pass up on common boring, chance-based ones like Aggravation and Sorry! to find unique ones, especially educational ones. I use these for gameschooling. Here is a sampling of what I’ve found. (If you want to learn all about gameschooling, go here.)
Gardening Scrabble is so much better than regular Scrabble. It has cards that give you special powers, like the ability to “fertilize” your word and triple the score, or “rototill” your garden and get rid of all your tiles and get new ones. The game below is when one of my adult sons played the game with me over Christmas break. He was such a great sport to play with me when everyone else wanted to play Catan, which is not my favorite but another son’s favorite. I got it for $4! The seed packet cards with special powers fit in the pockets of this adorable gardening tools basket. Then you draw the tiles from the inside of the basket. So fun! Now I want to find Cooking Scrabble when thrifting!
Moods is such a fun game! If you ever find it a thrift store, grab it! It’s out of print. We played it at one of my girlfriend cabin retreats and had so many laughs. It impressed my sister-in-law so much when she and my brother-in-law and niece visited from North Carolina when we played it with two of my married children, that she bought it on ebay when she got home. It’s a great way to hone drama skills! My miracle of finding the game is detailed here. You have to have the right crowd to enjoy it though, with people who are willing to act and be good sports.
Just last week I found the deal of the year! It’s the Jane Game shown above. It’s a Jane Austen-themed game! I also found two new matching pretty sparkly golden picture frames, on the same trip, at Savers. They all look like they go together, especially with the gold beige blanket, don’t they? This game looks similar to the Marrying Mr. Darcy game one of my sons gave me for Christmas a few years ago, but even better, because it combines trivia involving Jane Austen’s books, plus the role-playing of the characters in courtship, like in MMD.
Not found thrifting, but given to me by my oldest. It was a perfect Christmas gift for me. I love it! Credit for image here.
The Jane Game is just so pretty!!! I might give it to my married daughter for her birthday. With a 30% coupon at Savers and then my rewards discount it was only $2.90! Her birthday isn’t until November so I don’t know if I can wait that long!
I opened it up to make sure it wasn’t empty. It had the board and instructions, but I didn’t count all the pawns or cards because I was in a hurry. I’m pretty sure it has all the pieces. I just love the gold and aqua coloring! It’s just so gorgeous! I feel so blessed!
I’ve also found LOTS of other fun games while thrifting, for $1 to $6 each. Some of my favorite educational ones are Call to Adventure (storytelling), Funglish, Huggermugger, Code Names (which I got for only $1.50, brand new in the shrink wrap, story is here), Taboo (also new in shrink wrap), Periodic, Into the Forest, Spontuneous, Encore, and lots of history and geography games.
10.Mini-Games, Quiz Cards and Puzzles for Mealtime Learning and Connection
I love finding quiz decks of trivia, or flash cards, to review basic subjects, cards with conversation starter questions, and puzzle books or tiny games to break out at the dinner table. These are all to beef up our cultural literacy and help us connect. First, we start out dinner with each person sharing a highlight and lowlight for the day, then if we have time I pull out these cards. I keep these in baskets on shelves right by the dining room table. I found all of these items shown below while thrifting, and all were $1-3.
11. Small Portable Toys and Games for Travel and/or Read Aloud Time
I love finding little toys suitable for fidgeting/keeping hands busy during read aloud time or traveling. These are also for use for my grandsons to play with on the couch by the dining room table when they finish eating Sunday dinner before the rest of us. That Bananagrams book above was completely unused, looked brand new, for only $1! I’ve loved using it on my last few airplane trips. It’s perfect for slipping into my carry-on bag with a small pencil and fits perfectly on the airplane seat table. The Swish Jr. game came with a little bag to make it easily packable for travel. I found most of these goodies right before my trip to NYC/Boston/Maine last summer. I also found a Kanoodle puzzle a few years ago for $1.
I also sometimes get basic phonics based readers for my grandchildren. I found the Rainbow Valley book from the Anne of Green Gables series so now my collection is complete again. Balance is restored!
12. Beautiful Tablecloths
The background fabric in the photo above and below are some of my tablecloths from the thrift store. (I got the books and games thrifting too, now my Anne of Green Gables series is almost complete again. I’m still looking for #3. I used to have all of them, having bought them in my teens, but somehow two went missing in all of my moves.)
Anyway, aren’t these tablecloths beautiful? They are actually bedsheets! Yes, my secret for finding beautiful tablecloths when thrifting is to look at the twin bedsheets at the thrift store in my favorite colors and prints, then reuse them as tablecloths. This works as long as you have a rectangular table that seats 8. No one will ever know the difference! I learned this trick from my dear mother. Not the thrifting part, just using a twin bedsheet for a rectangular tablecloth. Growing up, whenever we went on picnics or camping, she would pull out a cute Raggedy Anne and Andy bedsheet/tablecloth.
The bundle of fabric in the upper right is a flat twin bedsheet. Down below you see it as a tablecloth. I’m sorry/not sorry it’s not ironed.
Talking about tablecloths leads me to the next category of home furnishings. Tablecloths are part of that I suppose but I don’t want to change what I already put above.
13.Other Home Furnishings
Shelves
After moving into the Bungalow, I needed more shelves. The Cottage had built-in book shelves that I couldn’t take with me. Last summer, I found two basic brown tall shelves for $15 each at the Springville DI. I also found a black Ikea Kallax 2×2 for $15. Then I was able to find a 3X4 Kallax on ksl classifieds for $50. So combined with a brand new Kallax 2×2 I have put these all in our downstairs office to organize my homeschool supplies, and arts and crafts. Combined together they make a uniform set with beige Ikea fabric bins and drawer inserts.
Desk and Chair
Right after we moved to the Bungalow, I decided I really wanted a desk. After 50+ years of life, being a dutiful scholar as a teenaged daughter of a college professor, passing lots of AP classes in high school, getting a scholarship at and graduating from BYU, getting my children desks whenever they asked, seeing them use desks, blogging and writing books, and never having my own desk through all of that, I decided it was high time for me to have one! In high school I used the dining room table, and in college I studied on my bed or at the university’s library. I found this pretty one below on ksl classifieds, but it didn’t come with a chair. I purposely went to the Provo D.I. with the intention to find a beautiful white chair to go with it. I was so ecstatic to find the one in the photo below as soon as I waltzed over to the chair section. It matches the desk perfectly with the curved back and legs. It has a Pier 1 imports label and was only $10. It was one of those moments where I felt like angels were singing and bells were ringing! (Ignore the plastic magazine holders on top. Soon I will be painting those white.)
(That yellow basket in the photo in the lower right is what I use for Morning Basket. I keep all the read-aloud books of what I’m currently wanting to share with my son of what’s good, true and beautiful in the world, to read from every morning for our homeschooling. If you want to learn more about the Morning Basket, go here.)
Rugs
When we moved into the Cottage on the Corner, our master bedroom had a tile floor. Ugh. That’s not what I want to kneel on at my bedside when I say my morning and evening prayers. It’s so uncomfortable for my old knees. So I went to the Provo DI with the purpose of finding “prayer rugs” for my husband’s side of the bed and my side. Once again, the Lord provided right away! He doesn’t always do that, but this time He did! Right after entering in the store, I immediately found a matching pair of thick heavy-duty rugs, with a beautiful floral pattern, yet still kind of neutral. See above. They were new with the tags on, never used. I felt so incredibly blessed. They looked like they were meant to furnish the temple! I think I paid $5 for each. They served us well for almost 5 years in that home. Then when we moved to the Bungalow, I didn’t need them for kneeling on, as my bedroom has carpet, but I repurposed them for a bathroom rug and a front door rug. I love how the gray in the rug matches the gray of my bathroom floor.
This overstuffed chair below was for sale at the Springville D.I. If I had room in my home I would have bought it! Alas, I had to just take a photo of it. It looks straight out of Strawberry Shortcake’s home! I texted a photo of it to my married daughter to see if she wanted it as she has a sofa and chair that look similar. She liked it but said no, probably because she doesn’t have room. I hope it went to a great home that will enjoy it! That’s just another example of the darling stuff you can find thrifting!
That leads me to my next point…here are some treasures I’ve seen thrifting that I haven’t bought, but almost. Just for the record, I don’t buy everything I see. I don’t buy everything I want. Sometimes I feel the Holy Spirit telling me to leave the item for someone else, probably because there’s someone else out there who could benefit more from it than I would. Here are some examples:
I came really close to buying a collector’s edition Etch -a-Sketch. It was brand new in the box still sealed like the one above, for $5. It was so tempting as I loved this as a child, but I just felt like it was a no, so I walked away from it.
At the Saratoga Springs DI, I almost got a super cute navy and white polka dotted rain jacket. Then I saw my friend Katie wearing one the next week. That would have been fun to be twinners with her. I hope someone bought who loves it!
At the Provo DI I found a remote-controlled meat thermometer, still brand new, in the box and sealed. I guess it’s to use when you want to leave your meat on the BBQ grill and go inside your home for a bit and monitor the temperature. If my one son who loves to grill were home and not on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I would have bought it for him. I just wasn’t sure if my husband would like it if I bought it for him, so I left it for someone who for sure would love it. I didn’t even know there was such a thing! When you go thrifting, you find all sorts of cool gadgets! Thrifting
14.Gifts
Almost last, but not least of my categories, is gifts! Here are some wonderful things I’ve found that I’ve gifted away, in addition to the Hinds Feet on High Places for Katie that I mentioned above.
I found a like new, Book of Mormon Journal edition, just like the one above, completely unwritten in, for only $2! It’s so pretty! I gave it to my mom for her birthday. I found it in the spring or summer and saved it until her December birthday. It’s extra big and has wide margins with lines for the reader’s journaling notes that relate to the scriptures. Such a treasure! It retails for around $25.
Decades ago my husband and I stumbled upon the Curly Girl book. Since we both have wavy/curly hair, we both read it and loved it. It inspired us to stop using shampoo and use conditioner for washing. That made a huge difference for his hair. Then a few years ago I found the revised, expanded second edition at Savers and got it for his birthday. Of course it was for me to enjoy too. I’ m still figuring out the best way to enhance my waves.
My husband is an attorney so I was excited to find the above game at Savers for his birthday one year. It’s based on Ruth Bader Ginsberg, an attorney who was a Supreme Court Justice.
Then for this coming Father’s Day I got the books below. He never reads my blog so he won’t know!
Just last week, the same day I got the Jane Game, I found the above books. I went with the intention to find books for my husband for Father’s Day. I had the 30% coupon, which I got in my email (tip- sign up for Savers’ Super Savers rewards program so you can get coupons emailed to you). Plus, I took advantage of the “buy 4 books, get 1 book free” policy of Savers. I really wanted to find some kind of book on BBQ/grilling. I didn’t find it right away and just kept looking and looking and finally found it! See above. I wanted to find a funny book too and The Prehistory of the Far Side was so perfect! He loves the Far Side. He was into listening Garrison Keillor before we got married so it was so fun to find the Garrison Keillor novel. It turned out to be half off! The Great American Bathroom Book II I’ve seen off and on for years at thrift stores, along with Volume I. I’m pretty sure I got the Vol. I years ago for Father’s Day but haven’t found it. So, I might eventually get that one too if I confer with DH and decide that it’s lost. I see it all the time at thrift stores.
I know finding a birthday gift at a thrift store doesn’t always work. You can’t always find stuff that the birthday person would like in good enough condition. But when you do, it’s so satisfying! If the birthday person likes books, you can often find books in great like-new condition that match the person’s interest. A few years ago, I wanted to find some books for my second son’s birthday. I had just heard a podcast highlighting the book above, so I was tickled, as my grandma would say, to then find it at a thrift store, like new. It seemed like a great gift for a soon-to-be college grad who loves learning about time management and success. I do buy most birthday gifts for my people not at the thrift store. If I got wish lists from all of them, kept it with me on my phone, and put more effort into looking for them at thrift stores, I’d probably find more gifts while thrifting.
We did find this cool electric guitar for another son at a pawn shop, which is kind of like a thrift store. It looked like new and was only $100 instead of hundreds of dollars. That was a happy day! I had a jam session with me on the piano, that son on the guitar, and my other son on the drums. So fun!
Then for my dad for Father’s Day, I got this book above, for only $3. My son-in-law asked for the same book a year ago for Christmas. It was on amazon but took over two weeks to be delivered even though I had prime, so when I found some copies when thrifting I snatched them up. I also got the Eric Dowdle camping puzzle below. We often put together jigsaw puzzles at his and my mom’s cabin on a mountain, and he loves camping. Next time we go I hope to do it with him.
15. Puzzles
So that leads me to my last category, jigsaw puzzles. I never did puzzles as a young mom, but now that my children are all pretty much grown, I have found puzzles much easier to do. I don’t have to worry about little fingers messing them up. I keep them under a plastic tablecloth on my dining room table. Then I put fabric tablecloths on top of that. Jigsaw puzzles are vehicles for conversation with other people who work on it with you, like after Sunday dinner, or when I go to the cabin with extended family, or for listening to audiobooks or watching some enlightening YouTube videos, especially gospel-centered ones, or Relative Race, on the Sabbath. They are great for relaxation. I’ve found tons of Dowdle puzzles at thrift stores, usually around $4-5. They retail for $20 or more. I like to get those as well as Norman Rockwell puzzles.
If you have made it this far to the end of this long post, you get a bonus prize for reading so long by getting to watch these videos below!
These are by Toni of Our Thrifty Homeschool showing that you really can find cool stuff good enough for birthday gifts at a thrift store.
Happy thrifting!!! It’s so fun to find beautiful, useful, and educational items to create your family culture that embraces the good, the true, and the beautiful, while saving money at the same time (as long as you aren’t spending recklessly on things you don’t really need or want).
This photo shows one of my latest hauls. I was excited to find the Jewish holidays books. I can’t wait to show it to Katie H. because she loves all things Hebrew.
Wow!!! I had the most amazing Sabbath Day experience last Sunday listening to this devotional talk below by Dr. Lili De Hoyos Anderson. I listened while I worked on an Eric Dowdle 1000 piece puzzle (Salt Lake City in the winter, which I started in January and haven’t finished and here it is summer now!). Then I kept listening as I prepped Sunday dinner after church. Lili is one of the Come Follow Christ vloggers I follow. The video below is her sharing the talk she gave to the Weber State Institute students of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ogden Utah. This talk is so wonderful!!! It’s just the best!!! She calls it “(Some of the) Things I Want My Grandchildren to Know.” She covers 10 truths.
These are also things I want my grandchildren to know, as well as my children, my siblings, my parents, and everyone! After almost every sentence of Lili’s, I felt like clapping, cheering, and saying, “Amen, amen! Preach it sistah, preach it! Go Lili go!”
Today’s post involves Part 1, which has 4 truths. Watch below, learn, love, and live it! I’ve posted excerpts from it below the video with the 4 truths/messages with some of her quotes.
She has a gift of putting into words what I have felt for decades about motherhood. She says she was so honored to be a stay-at-home mom for her 8 children. She loved being their first teacher. (There’s actually a book about that, over here, which I bought when my oldest was a baby and devoured.) I love how she says that God doesn’t work in win-lose situations when he offers the riches of eternity to us. In my words, he doesn’t ask women to be mothers at home, through His prophet, with words here, and then have the result be crumbs. Being a stay-at-home mother does not mean you are relegated to a lower class doing menial labor and brainless work, and that you are forgotten, alone, and ignored. She says being a SAHM was very fulfilling, an honor, way harder than getting her PhD and the most soul-expanding experience she’s ever had. As a mother myself, of 7, who has been at home, homeschooling, since my oldest was born, almost 32 years ago, this just resonated so much with me! (She didn’t homeschool but was she as a SAHM until her children were raised and she went back to school to get her master’s, then a PhD.) Now she is a licensed clinical social worker and marriage and family therapist.
She says when she taught the above message at BYU and then at the Weber State devotional people gasped. The natural reaction is “Shouldn’t we marry a celestial person?” She answers, “Good luck finding a celestial person!” She goes on to say that that is impossible. She says that a temple recommend is the threshold for a person being Terrestrial. It’s not a guarantee but a guide. People don’t always stay on that path because of agency. But generally, they do, with exceptions.
Wow, this part about the body being the test is so fabulous!!! She says that it used to be that the church handbook said “No treats should be given at Primary.” She followed that rule when she was Primary President. She says she is dismayed that the rule got taken out of the handbook, because it was ignored, and that people give treats at Primary. This always bugged me too when my children were in Primary. Once I was attempting to heal my son’s cavity and then I found out he was being given sugary food at Primary! You can bet I complained. I agree with her that we have to learn how to master our bodies. It starts as parents, teaching our children that they can get through church without having something in their mouth every ten minutes.
She also says that fasting is the way to increase mastery over the body, and that fasting is a “spiritual weight room.”
Sister Lili came up with this chart above. Isn’t it genius at explaining life???? We get to choose which glory we live in, now on earth and eventually after earth life.
She explains what it is like to live in each of the realms of glory, shown below.
The favorite false doctrine of members of the Church, she says, is “Don’t judge.” She explains that the scripture, Matthew 7:1, has a Joseph Smith Translation footnote that says that what Jesus actually said was, “Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged; but judge righteous judgment.” We have to judge righteously to succeed in life. Not judging, as well as judging unrighteously, leads to moral relativism which leads to evil and misery.
I highly recommend you watch her video above and share it! Stay tuned for Part 2 starting with Message #5.
Want more of Dr. Lili?
I blogged about her here where she talks about Jesus being the greatest alchemist.
Her book is shown below, with the summary of it copied and pasted from her website.
“Choosing Glory considers the doctrine of celestial, terrestrial and telestial realms, suggesting that here on earth we deal with all three kinds of individuals, behaviors, institutions, and ways of life. Dr. Anderson applies a three realm perspective to daily choices, dating, marriage, parenting, stress and progression. She offers concrete tools to help us find safety from telestial elements that threaten our peace and reminds us that we were meant for more than a good terrestrial life. This book invites us to recognize that every day we are in fact choosing glory.”
Father’s Day is soon! I focused a bit on mothers last month with some gift ideas here and here and highlights of some different moms who I admire. (Go here, here, and here for those.)
Now I’ll share about dads.
First for my 2025 dads series is this video from Dr. Jordan Peterson. Watch and learn!
I love how he says that the most challenging and rewarding thing you can do in your whole life is to be a parent. I agree! He also says that moms tend to focus on the present needs of children and dads focus on the future. I overall agree with that too.
Want more of Dr. Peterson? Go here to hear him talk about diet with Dr. Bikman.
Want some great dad stories and songs and poetry about dads? Go here to my Celestial Family Devotionals Ebook, and turn to the June section.
Tree of Life Mothering 