Book Review--Prague Winter

Photo retrieved from Goodreads

Impressive. Educational. Emotional. Well written. These are the kinds of things that come to mind when I think of Prague Winter by Madeleine Albright.

 Albright. Photo retrieved from Makers

The book details the history of World War II with a special emphasis on the experiences of Czechoslovakia and its citizens because, as it turns out, this is where the author's family is from. Albright's father was in that nations government in exile in London. He personally knew many key political figures of the time so that, through this memoir, the reader is able to grasp not only perhaps the reasoning behind some of the decisions that were made before, during, and after the war, but also the personalities of the men who made them.

Josef Korbel: Photo retrieved from DU Magazine

Jan Masaryk: Photo retrieved from Sunnyside Kitchen

Eduard Benes: Photo retrieved from Wikipedia

Several semesters ago I took a history class on WWII and I learned more in the first 100 pages of this book than I learned in that entire class. I was able to see and understand what the era was like on a personal level. Albright did her research and presents not only a history lessons but an entire world in which to become lost.

Prague: Photo retrieved from The Explorer

Book Review--Allegiant

I finished the final book in Veronica Roth's Divergent series last night and, honestly, I'm torn. I wanted so badly to be in love with this series but it just didn't happen. Divergent was great. It was suspenseful and had great character development and left me wanting more. But somehow the other two books in the series simply didn't have those things, or at least to the extent that I could lose myself in the story. This final installment held me in little to no suspense, even in the times when there should have been a lot of action. There were so many plot holes and it seemed like the author was just trying to find ways to keep the story going. And it's not that I think that what she came up with was bad; just that it needed more revision so that the story was tight knit and made sense when you looked at the whole picture. Because now, looking back on the series, so many things just seem forced. So for those who have read it, what did you think? Did Allegiant meet the expectations that you had for the series?

The Special Day

I kept my son home from school today. He needed a personal day and I wanted to give him all the love and attention I could provide on my day off. So I brainstormed some good ways for us to spend some time together.

When I woke the kids up this morning I told them we were going to have a special day. We started off the day by each choosing the comfiest outfit we had in our closets which, for Mazz, included an enormous pajama shirt. Then, after we did their YogaKids video, we got started on my plan for our special day.

A couple of months ago, I had a TON of errands to run and I knew there was no way I was going to get them all done in just one day. So I made it into a game. I wrote each errand on a piece of paper, stuck them in a cup and then let my kids take turns picking the next errand. They loved it! With that in mind, I came up with a list of fun activities that we could all do together and really enjoy being with one another.

 

 The kids each took turns drawing the next activity and it was another huge hit. One of the first things we did was to make Vanilla Banana Smoothies. They were super simple, just vanilla bean yogurt, a banana and some ice, and everybody loved 'em.

We also got to spend some time reading some of the books we picked up at the library a couple of days ago: Clifford's First Easter, LEGO Batman Visual Dictionary, and Sadako (which, incidentally, sparked some very serious discussion about the dangers of atomic bombs. I'm always surprised at the things Noah becomes passionate about).

So I had this grand plan to make some little jack o'lanterns out of beverage container lids and then Halloween came and went and none of that happened. I did, however, have a whole bunch of lids saved so we improvised and tried to make them Christmas-y.

The plan is to make them into ornaments later. They're not beautiful but they were a lot of fun for the kids. We followed that project up with making Christmas lists. (FYI: little boys like remote-controlled everything...and LEGOs).

The last thing we did, and the one that they were most excited about, was snowflake painting. I found this idea on Pinterest (where else?) and I wish I would have actually opened the link before planning on making them because hers are awesome! Oh well :) The biggest mistake was that I didn't think about the need to use canvas to peel the masking tape snowflake shape off because it's not going to peel off of paper. So instead I had the kids make their snowflake shapes with the tape on paper and then I cut them out to make stencils. Then they used the stencils to paint their snowflakes.

And the finished results!

Alright so they're not what they were intended to be but my babies are so incredibly proud of them and they had so much fun doing it!!

So really, all in all we did have a great day. Noah told everyone he talked to, with a great big grin on his face, that he was having a special day which made my heart swell up like the Grinch's. And to top it all off, my husband got to come home from work early and we had an incredibly nice walk to the park where Mazzy made a friend all by herself for the first time EVER. Then I made a delicious ham and some mashed potatoes.

It really was a special day and I am beyond grateful that I had the opportunity to spend that time with them.