I also watched the movie version of The Help, after I finished the book. It was good but not great. In some ways it fell a bit flat, in my opinion. I think it's always hard to really capture a book in a movie, when the book let's you see inside people's heads and has more time to really lay things out. I feel that a lot of the nuance was lost in the movie, and thus it was not as deep or fulfilling.
This week I read Water for Elephants. Ugh, I do not recommend it. The author set out to write a book about old-school circuses, the type that traveled by train (circa 1930). The author did a great job portraying that rich, varied, wild world of the train circus. The premise of the story that overlays the setting is good; the actual story, however, is... well... at times, it's abruptly, needlessly and uncomfortably sexual. There's really only one "sex scene" in the book, but there are a lot of sudden references to sex or sexual things. I think if that trash were stripped (no pun intended) from the story, it would be a really good book. As is, I can't give it my recommendation.
We got a new cookbook last month, Slow Cooker Revolution (by America's Test Kitchen). Like most normal people, we love slow-cooker recipes because you throw a bunch of food in a pot, ignore it for 4-8 hours, then eat. It's easy. Unfortunately, that is NOT the case with these recipes. They frequently require you to mix, cook, brown, microwave, etc. ingredients before they go in the slow cooker. Some of them have a bunch of steps after the hours of slow cooking. So far we've cooked four recipes. They have all been pretty tasty, but they are not especially quick or easy.
I was just flipping through old posts, and apparently I haven't mentioned that we had the tree in our backyard chopped down! After going round and round about it, we finally hired a tree service. It's not too expensive if they just lop off all of the branches and leave them in the yard. (The expensive part is if you make them grind out the stump, chop up the limbs, and haul away the mess. That takes awhile and they charge by the hour.)
The final picture is weird -- there's a tree directly behind our old tree and it's about the same size, so in some ways it feels like the tree isn't even missing!
Now there are a few big piles of slash that need to go to the in-laws' house for burning. Nate took two truckloads over there today; there's probably three or four loads to go.
The old tree was a pine tree, yuck! In case you're not familiar with pine trees, they are very messy (constantly dropping tons of pine needles, which cover everything, and they are sticky) and they are not very attractive. They are gnarly and difficult. So for those reasons, I am happy the tree is gone. It also blocked part of our view on the back side of the house -- now that it's down, we can see a little bit more of the skyline, the city lights, and the mountains. What's more, Ugly Tree was right next to the area where we want to plant our garden this summer, and it blocked nearly all of the sunlight from reaching that area. After we get the slash moved we can till the ground, then put in some nice top soil. I still need to go a lot of planning before we can plant. There are a lot of things I would like to can next fall, and a lot of things I want to grow so we can eat them fresh, but I have to figure out how much time I will have for canning, then how much I will need to grow in order to can it, and so forth. My mom offered to help by giving us seeds and getting some of the seedlings started, so that will be awesome. Hopefully they will move to the area by the summer time and we can garden together.
Moving on to the wee little babe: She is crawling!!! She started crawling last Saturday, a week ago today. We went to the grocery store early in the morning, came home and sat down to watch General Conference, and ta-da! She took her first shuffly little crawls. It was amazing. I posted a video on Facebook that shows one of her first crawls. During the last week she's improved significantly and is really starting to travel around the house. It's awesome! I'm glad we took time last month to make our house safer for the baby, although I see now there's more work to do. Then again, my neighbor reminded me last week that it's also important to teach the baby no to go into certain places or do certain things. She recommended that we make the house baby safe but not baby proof, and use the opportunity to teach our daughter. Good point. Will do.
Baby Girl also has two top teeth! I know I mentioned them three weeks ago, after an awful night of teething-related suffering for the whole family, but now they are really starting to show and it's neat. Of course, her face seems less babyish with four teeth in her mouth, so that's a little sad. The front teeth look to be big and are gapped.... so she's not getting the best of our genetics. (Sorry kiddo :o)
Yesterday (Friday) we went to Darling's nine month checkup (yes, I realize that she's closer to 10 months now... wow!). She is 75th percentile for her height, weight, and head circumference. It's the first time she's been totally in proportion -- usually some part of her is up at at the 90th and another part is average. She got one shot at the appointment. We thought she wasn't going to have any, so we didn't pre-drug her with Infant's Advil. Nevertheless, she did great. Amazing, really. I was very proud! She let out one big scream and started to cry, but I scooped her up and she stopped. And apparently she was fine. Wow. An unexpected blessing. Maybe we won't pre-drug her for her next appointment? Hmm. I think she has to get three or so shots at the 12 month checkup, so then again, maybe I will give her a little dose.
At the appointment, our pediatrician asked if she's sleeping through the night. As you already know, she's not! He said that we should start to let her cry it out at night when we first put her down, and that if we do she will sleep better at night. But we don't have to start until until we're (I'm) ready. Ha. I don't think I will ever be ready. He also said she needs to be having more solid food; she should be eating three little solid meals a day, and getting as much as half of her calories from solids. We're trying, have been trying. She's only just decided that she's willing to drink from a cup, so we have a couple of starter sippy cups including one with a straw and she will take one or two ounces from the cup, and maybe as much as a tablespoon of solid food. She's pretty good about eating dinner with us, but refuses solids at breakfast. I've been trying for weeks, and I will keep trying. At the same time, I don't mind that she's still nursing. Sure it's not always the most convenient, and biting has been a problem with the new teeth, but I like the cuddle time and the bonding. I also like that I can eat large portions of food and not worry very much about my weight. :o)
This morning we took Darling to the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt. She's too little to participate, so we helped her grab one egg and then said goodbye (it was right at naptime). There were actually only a couple of neighborhood families at the hunt; the other families were all friends of the couple who hosted the event. It was a tad awkward, since we didn't know anyone but they all seemed to know each other.
Finally, a lovely reminder of the joy we celebrate at Easter:
P.S. I've switched to the new version of Blogger, and for the most part it's good. There are some really great features -- it's easier to upload, size and organize pictures, for one thing. The layout is much cleaner. But it also has some glitches. For instance, I think it dropped a blog post...? I wrote a couple of paragraphs earlier this week then saved the draft, but now I can't find the draft! I'm sure the issues will get worked out, and I think the improvements are worth the cost, but I am a little disappointed about those missing paragraphs.
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