20 hours ago
I typically like books that are light-hearted, quick reads on vacation - the typical beach read, but I went a slightly different direction this year. This time I chose books that I knew would probably not disappoint me. After spending last year's vacation on a book that ended with a not-great message, I wanted to skip over moral depravity and choose something a little more likely to contribute to my intellectual growth. And of course something that I'd enjoy reading. So here we go!
(I hope you don't mind that I used affiliate links below. Trying to up my chances of recouping some book costs, since I spent too much on vacation books...yikes!)
Fiction/Non-Fiction Books
The last time we took this particular trip, I made it through five books on my vacation. That's alot, even for me! However, I chose five books for this trip as well. I highly doubt I'l get through all of these since they are all a bit more meaty than the books I brought with my the last time we went to Arizona, but still, it's best to be prepared when it comes to books.
Persuasion - Ever since I finished my third Jane Austen book in high school, I've been hesitant to pick up another one. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but because I had precious few Jane Austen books left, and if I read them all I would never again have a new Jane Austen book to read. I realize now how silly this was, since I've been itching to pick up Emma as a re-read. I am not a re-reader, but I will re-read Jane Austen and probably enjoy it every bit as much as the first time. Still, Persuasion is one of her books that I haven't read yet. I've decided I need to just go ahead and read all of Austen's works instead of trying to spread them out.
Deal Alert!! You can actually get the kindle version of Persuasion for free and add the Audible narration for $0.49, as of the last time I checked! Get yourself over there and grab it if you are a fellow Austen fan!
My Cousin Rachel - I picked this up because I read Rebecca last year. And despite that book ending rather horribly (it's not really a spoiler because you kind of get that sense of impending doom from the start), I somehow weirdly really liked it. I feel like maybe it's not a great book for a Christian girl to enjoy, but I kind of did. Even the ending was a weird sort of poetic justice that was weirdly satisfying. In a weird way. Anyway, Du Maurier's writing is just fun to me because in Rebecca there was just the right amount of creepy, so I decided to just go for it and try My Cousin Rachel. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
The Big Four - You just cannot go wrong with Agatha Christie.
The Choir Immortal - This book was still in the mail when I took the picture above. Several years ago I read House Of Living Stones, and I loved it and then forgot about it...until I realized that Schuermann's third book in the series was coming out and I hadn't read the second! I remember liking the characters and small-church-in-a-small-town atmosphere in the first book, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next. This is just my happy book, in case I get tired of the potential tragedy and crime from the other books on this list.
The Life-Giving Home - Two different people recommended this book to me recently, and then I saw that Elizabeth was reading it too...so I decided to go for it! I've read a bit by Clarkson, but this will be my first full book by her.
Activity Books
And of course, no road trip is complete without some fun activity books, right?
Wipe-Clean Usborne Books (this is my blog friend's consultant link, just FYI) - I wanted something for the kids to do in the car that wouldn't get too messy or complicated, and I thought these books looked fun! They include a bunch of mazes, tracing, etc, with a dry erase marker that wipes clean. I think the kids will love them. I got four, even though I'll probably confiscate Clarice's pen...or give her a washable marker that matches her shirt. But she would be indignant if I left her out.
True North Guide To The Grand Canyon - We're going to Arizona this year, and I remembered these guides from the homeschool conference I went to last year. I hold to a young earth creationist perspective, and was excited to see these guides from Ken Ham's publishing company (I'm a Ken Ham fan). I'm excited to take these along as we tour the Grand Canyon on vacation! It'll also give me some interesting things to tell the kids about what we're looking at (since I don't think they'll be as awed by the Grand Canyon as we are.)
Audubon's North America Field Guide To Wildflowers: Western Region - This one is me trying to sneak a little more nerdy nature study/science in on this trip, for me and the kids. Plus, I've been dying to have this guide for a while, and I figured this was a good chance for me to use it!
Sodoku - I haven't done a Sudoku puzzle in forever, and I'm horrible at them, so I'm not sure what possessed me when I picked up this book. I am hoping I won't get quite as carsick with this, as opposed to regular book in which I will be sick for an entire day if I dare read a chapter. We shall see. I am also packing pencils and erasers.
Brain Games - Unlike me, Derek is the Sudoku master, and whizzed right through the extra-super-hard puzzle book I bought him last time, so I'm hoping some of these will stump him.
What kind of books do you like to bring on vacation?
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I really enjoyed this book, and thought the author did an excellent job with some of the internal struggles with the characters. Even the character that I didn't want to like, a drug addict with an attitude, I couldn't help but sympathize with. She made the characters really believable and at the same time likable.
I listened to the audio of this book, and I think they picked a great narrator. I thought she really brought out the characters emotions well. Often with women narrators I think it sounds creepy when they read the male characters' lines, but this narrator did an excellent job at reading male characters. She did a different voice for each character, but in such a natural way that it didn't feel ridiculous or weird at all.
I didn't realize this book was part of a trilogy until I got close to the end and couldn't figure out how the author was going to wrap everything up! Now I want to pick up the next book to see what happens! This was not your typical Amish fiction, because it brought in both worlds in such an interesting way, and I really enjoyed it!
Note: I received the audiobook for Fraying At The Edge for free from christianaudio in exchange for a review. This is my honest opinion.
Note: I partnered with/received compensation from Babywise.Life to write this post. Although this is a sponsored post, all opinions are my own.
When you have a baby, there will always be a period of time when the baby won’t sleep. Looking ahead to when this baby is born, I am expecting the typical new-parent sleep deprivation. But I’m also strategizing on what we can do to help this baby learn to sleep through the night, because I know with five kids I’m going to need as much sleep as I can get!
Now, I think some kids naturally fall into better sleep patterns than others, and I’ve definitely noticed that with my four kids so far. But I do think that there are certain ways that parents can gently encourage their kids to develop good sleeping habits. With some guidelines to help, Derek and I must have hit on the right combination for our kids because all four started sleeping through the night consistently (I define that as sleeping for at least an 8-hour stretch at night) by around two months old. I'm tentatively confident that this baby will do the same!
So for the sake of review for myself, and maybe some extra strategies for those of you in a current sleep-deprived baby stage, I wanted to share a few things that worked for us.
I make sure baby is getting a full feeding every time.
What I mean by a “full feeding” is making sure your baby eats until they don’t want to eat anymore. Newborns love to fall asleep while nursing, but I did everything I could to make sure my babies stayed awake until they were done eating. If you let them, babies may fall asleep before getting their stomach full, or before getting the more satisfying hindmilk. If they don’t get a full feeding, they are going to want to eat again sooner. That’s not helpful for a good night's sleep! Especially for the last feeding before bed, I make sure they stay awake and get as much milk as possible.
I try to avoid bad falling-asleep habits.
I try to make sure my baby doesn’t fall into a habit where they need something to fall asleep. To be clear, there have been many times when I nursed my baby to sleep, or let them fall asleep in a swing, etc, but I just try to avoid letting these things become a habit. It’s better for nighttime sleep if babies also learn to go to sleep on their own from an awake state, so I try to give my babies a chance to practice that.
I don’t let them nap (at all) in the last stretch before bed.
During the day we loosely follow an eat-awake-sleep pattern for baby, but between the second-to-last and the last feeding of the day, I do everything I can to keep my baby awake the whole time. This is pretty much common sense. Can you fall asleep easily if you take a nap an hour before bedtime? I want my baby to feel good and tired by the time bedtime rolls around. After the last feeding, they go straight to bed.
I recognize that I might have to be creative in figuring out my individual, unique baby.
One of our kiddos would not fall asleep by himself for weeks, until we figured out that a night light and a white noise machine were what helped him feel comfortable. With two older siblings constantly around during the day, he just didn’t like to feel like he was all alone at night! Another kiddo needed the thermostat at exactly 72 degrees for him to get good sleep at night. With all my babies I did the things listed above and also had to figure out what would help them individually to sleep better, and every kid was a little different.
If some of you have read Babywise, you may recognize a couple of the ideas above from that book! My mom gave me the book that came before Babywise when I was pregnant with Wyatt - and I’m so thankful she did, because as a new mom I had no idea what a day with a baby would look like, and that book gave me a good idea of what to expect. Some of the overall principles from Babywise for helping develop good sleep habits obviously stuck, and they have worked really well for our family!
What Do you Mean By "Gently"?
The reason I say that these are ways I gently helped my babies sleep through the night is because as a mom you need to work around your babies' needs. After all these years of practice I’ve had with my babies, I’ve learned it’s up to me as their mom to do what I can to help my baby learn how to sleep, while also being flexible when unique situations arise. There are going to be days where you break all the "rules", and that's okay! To me, the ideas I got from Babywise and other sources, including some of the ideas I listed here, were a great jumping-off point as guidelines for me to encourage my babies to sleep. But part of finding confidence as a mom is learning when you need to do something a little differently, and feeling good about following your instincts. That's the spirit in which I share these tips, as things to keep in mind as you help your baby figure out how to sleep well!
Did you try anything specific to help you baby sleep through the night? When did your kiddo start sleeping through the night?
For more ideas, I really loved this article on encouraging newborns to sleep at night - it included some things I’ve done with my babies, and some things I didn’t think of (like using a different nighttime swaddle)!
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Overall, I thought the book was good. It was hard to get past the initial "this is not what I was expecting", but once I did get over it I started to enjoy it. Since each chapter is written by a different author/blogger, it was more like reading a collection of blog posts than a book...and with that came a lot of variety. Some of the chapters I really enjoyed and felt challenged by, and some were just okay.
After each chapter are a couple quotes and some short "challenges" to help you get started in connecting with your community. I liked those sections, but found myself skipping past them a bit toward the end of the book, but mostly because the format was different in the version I read. I'd love to see how pretty everything looks in the print and finished Kindle versions of this book!
This is more of a devotion type book, so if you pick it up I'd say to expect to read it in short sections. It's not the type of book you can sit down and read several chapters at once, at least for me. However, I enjoyed it overall!
Note: I received a digital galley of this book for free in exchange for a review. This is my honest opinion.
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Each chapter is short and to-the-point, but every page is also full of great ideas for ways to use teachable moments with your kids, fun stuff to do together, creative discipline ideas, and encouragement to use every opportunity to train your child in the way they should go. I found myself not necessarily wanting to skip to the next chapter, because I wanted to remember some of the things he had just shared! Not all of the chapters pertained to me (a lot of them included school/teacher-realted tips, which I probably won't need since we're homeschooling), but I still got a lot out of this book.
This definitely isn't a book to read once and put forever on the shelf, it's a book that could be a reference when you need a quick shot of encouragement or creativity in parenting. I really enjoyed it!
Note: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for a review. This is my honest opinion.
I think it's natural to moms of more than one child to worry about how their older child will handle the new addition. I am really blessed in the so far, my kids have ha a fairly easy transition!
However, I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit that I'm still worried about how Clarice will handle this new baby. I've been worried each time, so this is nothing unusual, but I'm particularly concerned for my youngest darling this time because she seems to be currently thriving in her role as the youngest. She thinks my lap is her spot, and gets upset if even one of the older kids sits in my lap. She likes to be carried as often as she can get away with it. She is a ham and loves being the center of attention.
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These are my strategies for making the transition on Clarice as easy as it can be, but I'd love to hear more ideas if anyone has some!
1. Talk to her about the baby as much as possible.
This is always easier when my belly gets bigger, but I will point to my stomach and say "Baby in there!" It was surprising with my other kids how much this helped it sink in.
This is always easier when my belly gets bigger, but I will point to my stomach and say "Baby in there!" It was surprising with my other kids how much this helped it sink in.
2. Read books about new babies.
Tommy Nelson just came out with a book called God Bless Our Baby and as soon as I saw it, I snagged it! It's super-cute, and details all the fun and sweet things that come with a having a new baby - like making them laugh, helping with bathtime, and having a new friend. It also has pages that talk about things like mama's growing belly, feeling kicks, and staying quiet while baby sleeps to help little kids know what to expect. I also LOVE that they have one page that includes adopted families. I think this will be a fun book to get my younger kids excited about having a new baby around!
Tommy Nelson just came out with a book called God Bless Our Baby and as soon as I saw it, I snagged it! It's super-cute, and details all the fun and sweet things that come with a having a new baby - like making them laugh, helping with bathtime, and having a new friend. It also has pages that talk about things like mama's growing belly, feeling kicks, and staying quiet while baby sleeps to help little kids know what to expect. I also LOVE that they have one page that includes adopted families. I think this will be a fun book to get my younger kids excited about having a new baby around!
3. Work on being "gentle".
Lots of practice with baby dolls, stuffed animals, and people, and excessive praise when she succeeds.
Lots of practice with baby dolls, stuffed animals, and people, and excessive praise when she succeeds.
4. Put the baby down sometimes for lots of snuggles after baby arrives.
I always try to be aware that all my older kiddos need some extra attention and love after the new baby comes home, especially the child that was just ousted from the youngest position. I will get as much snuggles in with my new munchkin as I can, but I also want to make sure to intentionally put the baby down so I can hold or play with my other kids. They need to know they are still just as important to me, even though babies take more time in the beginning.
I always try to be aware that all my older kiddos need some extra attention and love after the new baby comes home, especially the child that was just ousted from the youngest position. I will get as much snuggles in with my new munchkin as I can, but I also want to make sure to intentionally put the baby down so I can hold or play with my other kids. They need to know they are still just as important to me, even though babies take more time in the beginning.
5. Ask the big kids for help.
My kids feel so useful and proud of themselves when they are able to help me - and a little praise goes a long way in making them feel loved and needed! For Clarice, I'll ask her to bring me a diaper or wipes so that she can feel a part of taking care of the new baby.
My kids feel so useful and proud of themselves when they are able to help me - and a little praise goes a long way in making them feel loved and needed! For Clarice, I'll ask her to bring me a diaper or wipes so that she can feel a part of taking care of the new baby.
What am I missing? Were any of you worried about one of your kiddos with a new baby on the way? How did it play out?
Note: I received a copy of "God Bless Our Baby" from the Tommy Mommy program in exchange for the review in this post. This is my honest opinion! Also don't miss my giveaway of this book on Instagram! Double entries if you enter on both my accounts! @CallieNicole7 and @ThroughCloudedGlass
Note: I received a copy of "God Bless Our Baby" from the Tommy Mommy program in exchange for the review in this post. This is my honest opinion! Also don't miss my giveaway of this book on Instagram! Double entries if you enter on both my accounts! @CallieNicole7 and @ThroughCloudedGlass
Don’t you sometimes wish as a mom that you could just keep your car clean? What is it about carting around kids that gets the car so messy? And if you are like me, it’s hard to find the time (or motivation) to do a full wash and wax, getting out the bucket and hose and big vacuum for a deep clean of the car.
However, ever since we got our new car in December, I’ve been determined to keep it looking spiffy.
Isn’t it pretty? This, my friends, is the newest vehicle I have ever owned.
Derek always teases me about my inability to keep a car clean with the kids, but I am happy to report that I have been doing a pretty good job with our new van! I’ve come up with a few tips for keeping a car clean, on the inside and out, even as a busy mom with four (soon to be five) kids to drive around.
Don’t leave unnecessary items in the car.
This should be obvious, but if you are a mom of young kids you probably know that they tend to sneak toys, sippy cups, and books into the car without your noticing. I like to do a quick sweep of the car every time we get home. It’s much easier to bring in a few things each time than it is to let it go and have to haul out a trash bag to empty out the car later!
Minimize food eaten in the car (or be picky about the kinds of foods).
Some people don’t let their kids eat in the car, which is probably the only surefire way to avoid crumbs. We are not those people. We live in a rural area, so we spend a lot of time in our car, and my kids are hungry all the time (I don’t think my children are the only ones). So instead of restricting all food consumption when in the vehicle, I just try to be aware of what kinds of foods I let them eat. Small crackers (like goldfish) cause less mess than big crackers that you have to bite into to eat (graham). Sandwiches and chicken nuggets are pretty clean-car-friendly. Above all we avoid sticky substances and condiments in the car, because those will get ground into the carpet and take a lot more effort to clean.
Buy a handheld vacuum.
I used to drag our big floor vacuum out to the car each time I wanted to clean it - no wonder it happened so rarely! My grandma gave us a handheld vacuum last year, and it has changed my car-cleaning life. As I mentioned above, I don’t restrict all eating in the car, so there are often a fair amount of crumbs on the floor. The handheld vacuum lets me do a quick cleaning job when the crumbs just get to be too much, and it works really well.
Keep a trash bag handy on the go.
Somehow we end up having a pile of trash in our car every time we go somewhere. I’ve learned to keep a trash bag tucked into the back of the seats, so when we produce trash from food wrappers, etc, I can just gather them all up right there and through them away in the nearest trash can. It’s less for me to do when I come home, and makes it nicer to ride around in the car all afternoon when there is no visible trash.
Find easy and convenient cleaning supplies for the outside of your car.
One thing I’ve realized is that the inside of a car can look great, but if the outside of the car looks like you’ve been four-wheeling it doesn’t really matter what the inside looks like. I’m married to a man who really appreciates a well-washed car, and his appreciation has rubbed off on me. However…we just don’t usually have that much time for a full bucket-and-sponge wash. I was thrilled when I found out that the car can still look clean on the outside without all that effort.
I had used Armor All wipes previously for the interior of my car, and loved how convenient they were. I was excited when I saw that Armor All had created wipes and tire sponges that bring that same convenience to cleaning the exterior of our cars.
The Armor All Ultra Shine Wash Wipes are pre-moistened and treated so all you need to remove grime is the wipes! Then the Ultra Shine Wax Wipes can be used to add a protective layer once you get all the dirt off. The Ultra Shine Tire And Trim Shine Sponges are especially convenient and are really the icing on the cake to make your car look freshly washed, without having to go through all the hassle of a bucket and hose!
The bonus is that these wipes are perfect for handing to your kids as well - then they can be involved in keeping the car cleaned too! And yes, I cleaned the car in my dress! This was by car the easiest, least messy way that I've ever cleaned the outside of the car.
These wipes are so easy to use and the 3-step system covers every area of the exterior of your car. I found all three products at Walmart in the automotive section, and I really recommend trying all three! I even have a coupon for you - $2 off an one of the Armor All Ultra Shine Wipes line, while supplies last!
I am so happy to have these on hand so I can quickly give the car some extra shine when it needs it. Derek won’t be able to tease me anymore about how dirty the car gets, because these wipes will let me keep it cleaner with so much less effort!
How do you keep your car clean, especially with young kids? I’d love to hear your ideas!
This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and Armor All, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #LessTimeMoreShine http://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV
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