All Moms go to Heaven - This was a cute collection of stories about motherhood by Dean Hughes. It was fun to read, and had several little stories that I stopped to share with Jordan.
Magnolia Story - I loved this! I'd only ever watched fixer upper once or twice, but reading this I just loved those two! So many fun, real life stories from two just very likable people!
Call the Midwife - We read this for bookgroup and I really liked it. The story I remember most was a woman with something like 25 children... who was just completely happy in her role, and almost a queen of her little (full!) home.
Getting to Yum - Hmm.. I can't remember the details of this, but seeing the title again I have a vague thought of 'good ideas' and also a vague feeling of 'things that won't work for me'... Sometimes when one of my kids does something really well, or one of my parenting tricks works so great, I think 'wow! I've got the answer!' Except that with five children I know that isn't actually true because what worked so perfectly for one is a complete flop for another... So I think maybe this book was one of those kinds of books, great if your child happens to be the child who will try broccoli 12 times and then learn to love it... (or maybe I'm remembering completely wrong and this was actually really great!)
Love Warrior - I almost burned down our house reading this book! Porter had stood on a stool stirring the dinner on the stove, and set down a spatula too close to the burner before going on to play. I was sitting in the next room (about 8 feet away) with tears streaming down my face reading this, completely oblivious, until finally the smell of smoke registered and I went to find the spatula on fire almost reaching over the the items next to it on the counter. I couldn't recommend this book because of the language and paragraphs/pages that I had to skip over. But - I was so glad I read it. It was amazing to see this woman, whose life history was as different from mine as could possibly be (eating disorders, alcoholism, promiscuity, abortion...) and yet, the truths she was learning through her own completely different experiences were still true for me, and important and real and necessary.
The War that Saved my Life - I had this on my list of books to read for a year or more, and (if I remember right, it's been a while!) it was sweet and tender, as a girl and an older woman were kind of thrown together and each helped the other so well.
Counting by 7s - Another book group pick, and one that I really liked. I loved how this sweet girl had all of these in-her-head coping strategies and after a tragedy and as she rebuilds her life, she starts to find ways to cope through the help and support and love of other people too.
Falling Free - Shannan Martin has been one of my favorite bloggers for a long time. I've loved reading her blog and learning from her unique perspectives and this was great too. My favorite was her story of a loving sacrifice given at the jail where her husband works, as the men saved up their rations and joined together all their little sweet cakes and candy bars -- all the best things they could come up with -- to celebrate a friend. And even where her thoughts or ideas are different from mine, I still loved reading about how hard she works to live what she believes.
