Book Review - The Shanghai Girls and Finding Joy

I read both of these books by Lisa See recently. While the fictional story is captivating and entertaining, the factual Chinese history in the novels is eye opening. I have not studied Chinese history or culture... Just that they have a communist government and that they celebrate Chinese New Year and use chop sticks. But these novels brought up and shed light on many Chinese traditions and some interesting history. I've never been able to understand communism and why people would allow for that kind of life, but through the experience of The Shanghai sisters, I understood how extreme poverty and class separation led them to accept it.
See did an exceptional job at showing Chinese history and culture in both China and in the United States through the World War II era and afterward.
Shanghai Girls and its sequel Finding Joy are both great reads with themes of perseverance, love, sacrifice, motherhood and family relationships. I would recommend it to anybody interested in Chinese history or not! So, go ahead, dive in, and tell me what you think!

Science Fair

I am not a huge fan of science fair projects. In fact, they stress me out. It's not that I don't love science and discovery and learning with my kids. It's just that the project always ends up being more of my project than the kid's!

We did have fun with this one though, and we finished before the copy shop closed so we could print some color pictures for her poster. Thankfully only one child wanted to (was required to) participate. Jenika (I) explored the surface tension on different kinds of milk and the effect of dish soap on them. She had fun with the stop watch and the food coloring, and she managed to learn some science in between.

Book Review - Letters for Emily

Letters for Emily is the second novel written by Cameron Wright.  I love the way he writes, and he is a clean and thoughtful author.  I really enjoyed this novel.  Letters for Emily is fiction, but based upon a real person who wrote letters and poetry for his children and grandchildren.  It's about an old, grouchy man, diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, who writes letters for his granddaughter, Emily about life, finance, love, flossing, and everything in between.  The story addresses marriage, divorce, growing old, death, mental illness, respect, children, and honesty.  It's kind of a page turner, and keeps the reader guessing.  You'll find that in the end,  after all the puzzles are pieced together, you will want to read it again... now that you understand all the background and details.  Letter's to Emily is a good, fast, worthwhile read for young adults and adults.  I give it 4 stars.    

Walking!!!

I can't believe that this girl is walking already!  Besides getting into everything, and keeping her mother up all. night. long., Brielle is a perfect and happy baby.  She is 10 months now, and we just love her.  And when I say we, I mean everyone.  She is never alone, and always has an audience and someone to entertain her.  We all just adore her, and can't imagine life without her!

Birthday Girls!

The first birthdays of the year are the best!  Jenika was the best birthday present I've ever gotten, and I'm thrilled that I get to share my birthiday with her every year!  It really is a great thing to have a birthday buddy.  She certainly feels pretty special that she gets to share a day with her mom.  This year, we went ice skating!  Mel and Jo and their family came with us, and then they came to our house for some birthday pie. (That's right.. Jenika LOVES pie, so we had birthday pie instead of cake.)  It was a great day, and we are now both one year older.  Looking for many more birthdays to celebrate together!

Becoming a record keeper

Wow!  It's been a long time!  It's the time of year for resolutions, and of coarse, I plan to write on my blog more often.  My family is growing before my eyes, and I haven't been diligent in taking time to reflect upon our days and record the small and big things that we do and accomplish.  I know that this is important, and that it is an important service that I need to provide for my family, so, I want to become a record keeper, like Nephi, and I know that the steps to becoming something are to first believe (I totally believe in record keeping), do (that's my plan), and then become.    Feel free to read along and make comments as I go. :)