Did you know that Beverly Cleary recently passed away, on March 25, 2021? She passed less than a month shy of turning 105. Her birthday was this past Monday, April 12. Wow! In honor of her recent passing and birthday, I’m featuring this picture book bio of her this week. She certainly brought me many happy moments with her Ramona books. I discovered them in second grade and read almost the whole series. I just loved the emotional realism and family life. Beverly made the everyday life of an ordinary little girl heroic. Isn’t that something we all need? To see the Hero Journey in everyday people? You might be scoffing at the idea of Ramona being heroic, but it’s true! Getting her dad to quit smoking, being a good sport when her mom goes to college and she has to be babysat at the neighbors, and learning how not to be a pest are all heroic deeds!
Image Credit: goodreads.coom
This book’s main message is that if you never try, you are sure to fail. But if you make an effort and persist, you are sure to win. Just like Beverly. She sat down and wrote, didn’t give up, and fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming a writer. I love the message and the illustrations, plus the timeline and lengthy bio at the end for older readers. It’s all lovely!
I absolutely love, love the truths shared in this podcast. It involves one of my favorite homeschooling mama authors, Sally Clarkson, interviewing author and mama, Jennifer Dukes Lee. They talk about Jennifer’s new book, pictured above. You can listen to the podcast here and see the show notes here. I love the story given as an example of Growing Slow. Jennifer tells of some friends who would spend every Saturday morning making a list of friends, calling them up one by one until they could find some friends who accepted a dinner invitation for Saturday night dinner. I love that!
I know Easter 2021 is over, but I just have to share and celebrate! I’m sharing about these Empty Tomb/Resurrection Rolls I made for this most recent Easter that fell on General Conference. See the pic above? Doesn’t it look just like an empty tomb? I made it out of sourdough, aka naturally yeasted whole wheat dough. Yesss, success, with real food, and digestible whole grains! This roll doesn’t look as pretty and puffy as its white flour counterpart, but it’s much better for you. I usually make cinnamon rolls for General Conference to eat on Sunday. I wan’t going to make them this year, just because of the work involved on top of everything I’m doing. I didn’t say anything, but two of my boys asked if I was going to do it, so I decided to continue with my attempt to establish a tradition with puristy food, even though it’s late in the game in my establishing-traditions- mothering career and I’m still perfecting my purist recipe.
Last year’s attempt was a fail, but this year it worked! The difference was two fold: instead of homemade marshmallows, I abandoned my purist foody principles and used commercial marshmallows. The other different factor was that I let the dough rise for 6 hours before I shaped the rolls.
Here’s the recipe: just go over here and use my natural yeast breadmachine bread recipe. Use the dough setting and let it rise at least 6 hours. Set out some butter to soften at room temperature, if you don’t have it out already. Then divide the dough into two halves. Roll out each half into a big circle until it’s about 1/4 inch thick, or thinner if you like a thinner doughed-roll. Spread butter with a butter knife onto the circle of dough to the edge. Fill up a little bowl with equal parts cinnamon and sucanat or coconut sugar. Then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over the butter. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut each circle into 8 triangle pieces, as if you were cutting a pizza. Take marshmallow and roll it in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Put the marshmallow on the wide end and roll up. Place your rolled up rolls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Roll up all the rolls and then bake for at least 30 minutes or until golden brown. Eat warm if you like the taste of warm cinnamon-y sugary, yeasted rolls. I do! Or wait until cool. Add frosting made out of cream cheese and sugar thinned with water to desired consistency if you prefer. The marshmallows will have melted and will leave an empty space inside the roll.
Here’s how one of the rolls looked before I cut it open.
Here’s what it looked like after I cut it open. So cool! If you can’t be there to see the real empty tomb, it’s great to make your own, especially to make it more real for you and your kiddos.
This is my new tradition to do every spring General Conference, since that event is always close to Easter or on Easter. Then for fall General Conference I’ll stick to my regular natural yeast cinnamon rolls.
Wow, pictured above is is my grandson’s play kitchen. What I would have given for something like this when I was a kid! He’s only 2! It’s inspired by my daughter’s desire to give him a Montessori education. Check out her blog here.
Here’s what she says about the kitchen (copied and pasted with her permission from Instagram):
“I posted Clark’s play kitchen with running water a long time ago, but it didn’t end up working out very well. Basically Clark would fill the sink up very quickly and then put things in it that weren’t supposed to get wet. It took a few iterations to find something that is child proofed in the ways we needed it to be. I also didn’t get around to revamping this latest edition until being on maternity leave, so Clark’s been without a water source for quite a while.
“Here’s what this version incorporates:
“The sink basin has drainage holes that we drilled into the plastic. I did the first two manually with a screw driver. It took a little longer but honestly the plastic is pretty soft. So no drill required.
“Under the sink basin there is a shoe box sized plastic bin to catch the drainage. This is a 99 cent Sterilite bin from Target.
“The door to the cupboard with the drainage reservoir has a child cabinet lock on it.
“The water dispenser has two separate cords tying it to the side post to keep it much more stationary than I could configure it to be with one cord.
“Next to the sink there’s a plastic tray. I just added this and I haven’t seen Clark use it yet, but I’m hoping he can do his pouring transfer work here instead of on the wood counter and that that will minimize mess.
“I put a tiny bit of apple cider vinegar in the water to keep microbes from growing if the water sits for a while.
——————
“What it still needs:
“Lacquer to prevent the counter top surface from further water damage. The water consistently gets splashed out of the sink and has started cracking the wood.
“I wish the dispenser was shorter and could sit on top of a stand so that he could put his mop bucket and watering can under the faucet.” . #montessorikitchen
So there you have it, just in case any of you were hankering to make a play kitchen that has a functional running water sink. Not something I will ever do but it’s nice to know that my daughter has created something so wonderful for my grandson. I love it!
If you haven’t watched the above video of a woman named Calyann telling her story story of discovering Jesus through the Book of Mormon you are missing out! Watch it and get inspired to go read the Book of Mormon on your own.
This post has been years in the making. I’m excited to get it out at last! After blogging that I was going to engage with it, I finally feel qualified to share my review of the above product, which you can buy here. (That is not an affiliate link. I receive no money if you buy it.) It’s the Trim Healthy Mama Workins’ exercise kit by the creators of the Trim Healthy Mama diet books, sisters Serene Allison and Pearl Barrett.
I asked for this kit for Mother’s Day about 3 years ago from my older kiddos who live out of the nest. I’ve exercised with the kit on and off ever since then. It’s only been for the past six months though that I have been 80% consistent. What is consistent? It’s doing the recommended time of one DVD session (20 minutes) four days a week. So about 20% of the time I have missed a day or two in the week. Then over Christmas break I didn’t exercise at all or last week when I felt swamped.
Photo Credit: store.trimealthymama.com
Anyway, here’s what I love about this kit:
-the affordable price, only $60! It’s a great price for a set of 9 DVDs (8 with exercise routines, then 1 that has introductory instructions from Serene and Pearl and a demo of a protein shake recipe (FP) ), plus the equipment, see next point
-the equipment that comes with it (different strength resistance bands and a door stop). The routines do require a few more things that you will probably have in your home, like hand weights or milk jugs, a baby blanket or a towel, a toy ball, and an exercise ball (if you don’t have balls you can find them cheaply at any big box store)
-the 8 exercise sessions, 1 per DVD, for a total of 8 exercise DVDs. I can cycle through the 8 DVDs in two weeks so there’s no chance I’ll get bored. The 8th DVD actually teaches you how to mix and match the Workins’ elements so you can create your own routines
-that each session is only 20 minutes, and at the end, I’m huffing and puffing. I definitely always feel that I got a great workout! I get more bang for my buck this way! four times 20 minutes a session is so doable! If I were a mom of young children and a nursing baby, I can totally see me doing these routines because I could easily squeeze a DVD into my day in 20 minutes while the baby napped
-that each session involves some stretching, some calisthenics, and some high-intensity cardio
-that I can do these at home and don’t have to get dressed up to go work out in the gym and feel on display or that I’m comparing myself with others. I love that Serene and Pearl do some of the sessions in their pajamas or their grungies! So I do too!
-that each session has three different levels: Gentle Fit, Steady Fit, and Thrill Fit. So that gives the whole thing another “boredom-buster” factor. I still haven’t mastered doing every session at the Thrill Fit level. I’m not sure if I ever will, and I’m OK with that.
-that if I don’t want to hear Serene and Pearl’s voices I can mute them but still hear the music (I’m still not tired of their jokes but I might eventually get there, LOL!)
-that each set of moves has a countdown timer in the corner of the screen so you can see how much longer you have to do it
-that Serene and Pearl tailor the exercises to the feminine form. They talk about how to adjust them to pregnancy, and how to properly do Kegels.
-that it comes with a poster and booklet to teach proper posture, with repeated emphasis during the routines of proper posture, which the two sisters call “secure.” The illustrations are a little crazy but they get the point across.
The only thing I don’t like is that one of the pieces of equipment, the door stop, came with no instructions, on paper or a DVD. I had no clue how to use it! Pearl mentions it but never explains how to attach it. They never use it in the DVDs, just talk about it.
I Googled it and finally figured it out. So, I’m here to explain it. You take the strap between the loop and the doughnut shaped thing and put it in the crack between the door jamb and the door, while the door opens, above the top hinge. You then close the door over the strap. It’s so thin that you can do that. Then you attach the blue band to the door stop. The strap is held in place above the hinge with the door closed on it.
Because of that lack of instructions, I give the whole kit 4.75 out of 5 stars. This system really does increase your strength and stamina, in a powerfully short amount of time. On top of that, it’s fun! (For the most part, some of the exercises are not fun, unless you are like Serene, LOL!) It didn’t, however, ever help me lose weight. I had to tweak the THM diet, as explained here, to do that. Years ago I gave up on the idea that working out allows me to lose weight. That may work for some people, but not me. I use exercise as a wellness tool to get stronger, increase my bone density and stamina, and to look better with more toned muscles.
How do I know it has increased my strength? I just went on a sunrise hike this past Monday with my family. The last time I went hiking with my family, my knees ached the whole time! But this time, they only ached on the way down, not the way up. So I chalk that change to doing the THM Workins so much this past school year. My knees are definitely stronger. Yay!!! I’m making progress!
Since I got the kit, Serene and Pearl created a version where you can stream the videos with an annual subscription fee. So that makes the whole thing even more affordable! Go here to get that. You can also just get the DVDs separately here, and the equipment separately here (scroll all the way down to the bottom). Happy huffing and puffing on your way to fitness!
This is one amazing picture book! It’s by Rita Lorraine Hubbard with pictures by John Holyfield. It tells the inspiring true story of William “Bill” Lewis. I didn’t mean to pick it as an Easter book, but it turns out it is, in a way. I’m so glad that I happened to find it and read it aloud to my two youngest kiddos the week before Easter. How positively Providential! I saw it at the public library and it just drew me in so I checked it out.
It tells the story of a black man who was a slave in Tennessee. He is definitely a Christ-like figure. He was so enterprising that he asked his master to “rent” him out so he could make his master more money. He then asked the master if he could have some of this extra money. He saved and saved his earnings and eventually bought the freedom of his wife, his child, himself, his parents, and his siblings. I thought of how amazingly loving and selfless this man was. It almost brings tears to my eyes. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. The story is fabulous and the pictures are lovely.
The author probably didn’t intend it to be interpreted with a Christian worldview but I immediately thought of the Christian symbolism. If you or your children are having a hard time feeling Christ’s love maybe this book will help if you read it and then realize that what Bill did gives a glimpse of how much our Savior Jesus Christ loves us. Jesus “hammered out his soul,” so to speak, both body and spirit, to overcome sin and death, so that we can have our liberty. May we always praise His name and receive this gift with full eternal gratitude and fierce intention to become all that God wants us to be.
Wow, Easter was especially meaningful this year. We got to have a full house with my three big boys who don’t normally live here. Really they are my adult sons. They will always be my boys though. One is going on a mission to Texas soon, as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is my third son to serve a mission. He’s been doing home-based MTC (missionary training center) at his cousins’ house but came home for the weekend to do it here. He brought his TX flag with him for the weekend so we hung it up on the front door as a backdrop for watching General Conference over the two days.
The night before we had a hilarious game night with these games. Poetry for Neanderthals was especially a hit!
My oldest child flew in to visit and say goodbye to his brother. He actually lives in TX and will just be one mission away from his brother, but their paths will probably not cross. Then we had my third adult son come visit as well to see the brother from TX. I love these happy family times! Every moment was full of memory-making times. All my kiddos were here but my married daughter. We definitely missed her, so to ease the ache we FaceTimed over Easter dinner.
These are a few pictures of our time together. It’s interesting that because of the times, with the MTC closed, and home-MTC in place (the training is done online) my son got to be with us on his breaks.
He did all this fun stuff with us: a family game night, football with his brothers, watching Conference with us, going out to eat, having s’mores with my new fire pit outside, an Easter egg hunt, Easter dinner, and going on a family hike.
I thought a lot about how much more Easter means to me now. Just like Christmas, the Easter holiday becomes more precious to me each year. I have a dear friend who had a granddaughter die back in January of SIDS. The grand baby was only 2 months old. My girlfriend lives several states away form her son and daughter-in-law, the baby’s parents, so she never got to see her granddaughter, what with all the restrictions going on. So I’ve been mourning with her. I know that because of Jesus Christ’s suffering, that He paid the price for this tiny baby to come alive again. Because of Him, this baby won’t be gone from her family’s arms forever. My friend will someday get to hold this baby and bond with her. This baby is part of her eternal family. Elder Dale G. Renlund’s talk in General Conference about the unfairness of life being made up by Jesus rang true to her.
Doing puzzles during General Conference has become a tradition. I wish I had started doing it sooner! We did our world puzzle plus this Eric Dowdle one of Noah’s Ark below. I just picked it up from the thrift store for only $2!
I also thought of this book I just read to my two youngest children, pictured below. I didn’t mean to pick it as an Easter book, but it turns out it is, in a way. The main character is a Christ-like figure. I saw it at the public library and it just drew me in. It tells the story of a black man, a real person, William “Bill” Lewis, who was a slave in Tennessee. He was so enterprising that he asked his master to “rent” him out so he could make his master more money. He then asked the master if he could have some of this extra money. He saved and saved his earnings and eventually bought the freedom of his wife, his child, himself, his parents, and his siblings. I thought of how amazingly loving and selfless this man was. It almost brings tears to my eyes. That, my friends, is just a glimpse of how much our Savior Jesus Christ loves us. He hammered out his soul, both body and spirit, to overcome sin and death, so that we can have our freedom. May we always praise His name and receive this gift with full eternal gratitude and fierce intention to become all that God wants us to be.
Happy Good Friday everyone! Oh how I love springtime and Easter! I’ve compiled a few of my favorite pieces of Easter-themed speeches and music here. They remind me of my new favorite recent scripture I found in the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ:
“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved. Wherefore, may God raise you from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from everlasting death by the power of the atonement, that ye may be received into the eternal kingdom of God, that ye may praise him through grace divine. Amen.” – 2 Nephi 10:24-25
I’m so excited to teach this class written by Paola Brown! It harmonizes with my belief in what Dr. Christopher once said, “There are no incurable diseases, just incurable minds.”
He taught that in order to heal, it’s important to cleanse and nourish the area that is ill. This is in line with terrain theory.
Did you know that Louis Pasteur, creator of the germ theory, stated on his deathbed, that his opponent, Michael Beauchamp, was right? Beauchamp was the creator of the terrain theory. Beauchamp came up with the terrain theory, which was in opposition to Pasteur. Joel Salatin tells the story this way in his book, Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer:
“Terrain encompasses many things: hygiene, stress, immune response. The two scientists argued throughout their careers, but Pasteur was handsome, flamboyant, and did better Good Morning America interviews. Besides, Pasteur’s germ theory was more acceptable because all of us would rather be victims. Beauchamp’s terrain idea meant the responsibility was ours to create an immunological terrain to keep the bad guys at bay.”
Interesting!!!!
But like I just said, on his deathbed, Pasteur recanted. His last statement before his last breath was ,”Beauchamp was right. It is all about the terrain. “
Here’s a great video Paola made about that! Go here to watch! She takes you right into her family’s garden and shows what she did to nourish the terrain of the garden to overcome the bad bugs.
Then here’s a video here she did on how healing works. I watched it and understand more how true, real healing works, on a deeper level, and how we can help it happen.
If these videos resonate with you, you will love this class!
I’ve extended the regular registration deadline to April 1! Register by tonight midnight April 1!
If you register after tonight, a late fee of $100 is charged. Pay $200 instead of $300 for this 16 week class for your whole family to take online. The first 8 weeks is this spring, then after the summer break, the next 8 week cycle is in the fall.
This curriculum is inspired by Classical Conversations and Charlotte Mason principles. Paola Brown, a homeschooling mom of 3, loves both those philosophies. She designed the curriculum to involve the whole brain. Here are some of the features::
-nature journaling (each student buys own blank journal, not part of the bundle)
-art activities
-science experiments
-read aloud stories, in print and audiobook format (audiobook format extra cost)
-catchy music (bought separately)
-flash cards
-fun games
Please go here to read all the details and then sign up by tonight, midnight April 1! Classes begin online next Tues. April 6 and Thursday April 8! You choose which day works best for you!
Tree of Life Mothering 