The Family Trifecta

Amy's bookshelf: 2024

The Weekend Away

by Sarah Alderson

So so good! Orla and Kate are long-time best friends off on a girls' weekend away. Kate is a bit of a player who is trying to get back at her soon-to-be-ex, causing her to spend frivolously and do drugs and hook-ups. Orla is a new mom ex...

tagged: 2024, audible-books, five-stars, thriller, and thoughtful

Written Off

by E.J. Copperman

tagged: 2024, cozy, easy, and four-stars

Maybe Next Time

by Cesca Major

Parts were a screaming 5 and parts were like “what?” And just irritated me. It is a Groundhog Day premise about a family of four - the mom is caught up in her own life and missing all that is going on around her with her kids and then he...

tagged: 2024, audible-books, fiction, four-stars, and thoughtful

book reviewsbook club

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

For some reason this post is being very difficult for me to write. I’m not sure if it is because Thanksgiving just feels different this year or if it is because I’m overwhelmed by all that we have been blessed with.

Last week, my sister-in-law had a PET scan. She learned that her treatment, as brutal as it has been, is working. There was no new growth and the doctors are more hopeful because of the results. This is the best news we could have received and has made a huge impact on our gratitude and faith.

I am truly grateful for my sweet little family. I love being married to my best friend and partner. I am grateful that we can play together and work on projects together. I am blessed to be married to a man that is a playful dad. A dad that loves making his little girls giggle. My girls are the light of my life.

My life is filled with fun and I look forward to the end of my work day when I get to spend time with my girls and the love of my life.

I have wonderful parents and in-laws. My siblings and Scott’s are the greatest. I always know that they will be there whenever I am in need.

So much to be thankful for.

I asked my girls what Thanksgiving means to them. Rather than writing their answers, I’ve decided to let you watch them. (My girls don’t usually wear tank tops and short sleeved shirts in the middle of winter but Scott pulled out the old Dance Dance Revolution on the original PlayStation. Both girls had been dancing their hearts out before I filmed these).

This Thanksgiving we are going to be dining at Prairie Schooner in Ogden. I have incredible mixed feelings about it. I love cooking Thanksgiving dinner but Scott doesn’t think it is worth all of the work. I’m already feeling sad that I’m not baking a pie, mashing up potatoes, basting a turkey and sweetening yams. Sure, the girls will have a blast eating in a covered wagon (don’t worry, it is inside). Plus I won’t have to hear complaints about my cooking. But I still feel pretty sad. I still bought a turkey so that I can have the left overs.

Stop by Mama Kat’s for other interviews with kids and Thanksgiving stories.

Happy Thanksgiving and have a great weekend off!!

Let the Reviews begin...

During the summer, I mentioned a few times that we went camping. This summer I learned that Scott had never had a true S’more until this year. Having finally introducing him to the camping favorite, I loved spending time at the “S’more Suite” during Blogher.

Continue reading Let the Reviews begin…

Winter has arrived

Tonight we are curled up in blankets eating popcorn while we watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Outside the wind is howling and snow is falling. We’ve had a blizzard warning in affect for the whole evening and it expires at 8 in the morning. So far, it has been snowing and howling for couple of hours but we don’t have very much snow to warrant a “winter storm warning”.

On Sunday, we had enough snow on the ground to welcome in winter.

The girls were anxious to go play in it. Luckily we have church in the afternoon so they were able to play for a little while and I worked on my lesson. It was so much fun looking out to see them giggling and playing happily together.

Church and Kids - not always easy

I love that our church has a meeting when the whole family gets to sit together and pray together. But I also love that there is a time for the adults to meet together and finally a time for just the women to meet together. (Okay, the men meet together as well).

Having time to worship with the family in tow presents many challenges. When you are parents to a newborn you spend your time holding her and keeping her happy. Once she’s a little bit older you are still holding her and trying to keep her happy but you now have to entertain her (quietly). Then she gets a touch older and you have to wrestle with her and give her cheerios to keep her quiet. Once she’s about 1, you still have to entertain her but you can give her a toy that she might care enough about for a couple of minutes and you just might hear a bit of the sermon. You get to deal with the constant wrestle for all three hours until they are 18 months old. At which point you get to hand her off to the compassionate and sweet nursery teacher after the first hour.

Then for the next 6-7 years you still have to help them be quiet, have them not play with the baby behind you, not kick the row in front of you and help them learn to listen to the person speaking from the podium. All of this while you are trying to take something from the sermon as well.

With each child that comes into your family, you can expect to get less and less out of your church attendance. And then suddenly, the kids are old enough to sit quietly and listen to the speakers. I fear I still have a few more years until that happens.

Luckily I have found a few things that help ease the chaos and help both me and Scott listen to a bit more of the lesson or sermon. (The first two are very “LDS” focused.)

First – at Deseret Book they have a book called “The Big Book of Sacrament Activities” and the junior addition is great for those that are 6-8 year olds. It has proven to be a very good tool to keep Jade focused on gospel topics while staying quiet. It is a little old for Ivy, mostly because we have to read the directions to her for each activity and she wants our constant help.

Second – I was introduced to a website Scriptures4Kids that I am really enjoying. I downloaded and printed their sacrament activities for church on Sunday. Both of the kids loved doing them. Ivy still wanted Scott to look at every line she drew and asked several questions. But it was better than it has been.

Third – Both girls have a sketch pad (one of the good ones with thick paper and the spiral binding). These books are meant as journals and I ask them to draw something that they are thankful for, or something that happened during the week, or something that the speaker is talking about. These drawing will keep them both busy for quite a while. Plus we have a great documentation of how they are growing and improving.

Fourth – Coloring Books. I would like to say that they have coloring books that have pictures of the Nativity, or Noah’s Ark, or Jonah and the Whale, but those aren’t always so easy to find. So each girl has a Mickey Mouse coloring book or a Strawberry Shortcake book. Sometimes you just can’t force them to focus on the gospel for the whole meeting.

Fifth – Always have a few small treats because you KNOW they are going to get hungry or need a treat at some point.

How do you keep your kids quiet in church? Does the noise from other’s kids drive you nuts?

I Heart Faces - Paper

This week at I Heart Faces, they are focusing on “Paper”. My two girls love drawing and writing. Both of them constantly have a pad of paper with them or they are stealing paper from my printer. On Ivy’s first day at “Apple School” she immediately sat down and focused on the assignment on her desk. I am so glad I stuck around for an extra minute to capture her sweet and studious face.

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