Looking back, I encountered some good books, songs, and activities over the past month. I hope you all are having a cozy and enjoyable winter too.

Read

I finished both The Last of the Mohicans and The Wind in the Willows. Mohicans was not my favourite though I’m glad I read it; The Wind in the Willows is priceless!

My sister, cousin, and I have a tradition of reading and discussing a Liane Moriarty novel in January. Last week we talked over Here One Moment and agreed that it was classic Moriarty — quick to read, funny, and interesting to discuss, even if the theme of death was unappealing at the beginning.

And for two new-to-me children’s classics: The Lion in the Box is such a sweet Christmas chapter book and Lentil is a picture book by Robert McCloskey with his amazing illustrations.

Eat

• I’m proud of the train cake we made for Ralph’s seventh birthday.
• It’s still soup season, so golden get well soup continues to appear on our table, but we also made Italian wedding soup (with half sausage and half ground chicken since they were both on sale) and chicken tortilla soup.
• We got back into Smitten Kitchen Keepers and made spaghetti and meatballs, broccoli quiche, green garlic pasta, creamy coconut rice, carrot cake, lemon poppy seed cake, and chocolate peanut butter cup cookies.

Do

• We went to the annual White Elephant Party at the beginning of the month — very entertaining.
• Andrew and I went on an overnight getaway. We did a little shopping, ate out, stayed at an Airbnb (where I had a hot bubble bath), and the next day we went snowmobiling for four hours! It was a bucket list item and so much fun; the weather was perfect with picturesque snowy woods.
• The boys did a woodworking project and now have an elevated bin for their books.
• We finally got the four oldest kids to the dentist and it went very well.
• We had some people over for Sunday lunch and had supper with an elderly lady from church; I hope we have the energy to host more often!
• We visited the Waddington Library for a change; the kids enjoyed the crafts and I got lots of book suggestions from the librarian.
• We had a church skating party at the local arena and everyone did better than expected attempting to skate and staying up past bedtime.

Listen

Meditate

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
– Philippians 1:9-11

What were your January favourites?