Sunday, January 3, 2010

The Sweet By and By, by Sara Evans and Rachel Hauck

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 The Sweet By and By tells the intertwined stories of Jade, a young woman on the brink of marriage who needs to make peace with her past and her mother, Beryl, a member of the “flower child” generation whose ideals, morals, and selfish behavior wreaked havoc on her children’s lives. Jade seeks to leave the past behind, but when her mother shows up to her wedding, she realizes the necessity of being honest with both herself and her fiancĂ© and of learning to forgive.

I liked the way the author told this tale through flashbacks, gradually revealing the characters’ stories and motivations. The characters were believable and engaging, exhibiting both virtues and flaws.  The Sweet By and By is a story of hope and new beginnings and an enjoyable read!

I received this item free from the Thomas Nelson Book Blogger Program in exchange for my honest review.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Goals for the New Year

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This is still a work in progress :), but here are some goals I have for the coming year:

1. Get up earlier to begin my Bible/prayer time. I am consistent about doing this nearly every day, but I would like to start about 30 minutes earlier, so that I can finish before Emily is up. I tend to let her oversleep or make her wait for breakfast and school because I am still having my quiet time.

2. Smile more. Make an effort to have and be more fun with the kids. Take time to stop and enjoy the moment instead of worrying so much about checking the next item off my mental list.

3. Relax and trust God. My life in in upheaval right now, and has been for the past couple of years, but I spend way too much time worrying about what might happen and trying to “fix” things myself rather than trusting God to work everything out for good in His own time.

4. Put more time and effort into preparing good and nutritious meals instead of throwing something together at the last minute. Reminder to self: It really doesn’t take that much longer to plan ahead!

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Molly’s Money-Saving Digest (January 2010)

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Molly’s Money-Saving Digest is an e-book series published by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. Each monthly issue is packed with money-saving tips for shopping, organization, decorating, and more.

  1. The focus of the January 2010 issue is “evaluate, prioritize, organize”—a great theme for those of us who are eager to turn over a new leaf for the start of 2010!

This issue includes dozens of tips and tools to help you organize your money, time, and stuff. Numerous record-keeping and organizational forms are included to get the new year off to a good start. Each issue of Molly’s Digest this year will have additional forms to add to your household organizer notebook.

The “Begin With the Basics” column for this month features a pie-baking tutorial, complete with several crust recipes, including one that freezes well. I love the idea of having  up to 8 pie crusts ready to use in the freezer! Learn how to avoid runny pie fillings, how to roll out a perfect crust,  how to make special pie crust toppers, and how to make turnovers. The recipes for Mother’s Strawberry Pie and German Chocolate Pie sound delicious as well. I can’t wait to try out the recipes!

Another monthly regular feature is decorating ideas—my favorite idea this month is using a kitchen cooling rack as a jewelry organizer. Easy, cute, and practical!

Molly’s Money-Saving Digest sells for $4.95 at the Schoolhouse Store. The January issue can also be purchased in a bundle with “Molly Gets Organized,” a compilation of all of the organization related articles from Molly’s Digest 2009 for $9.95.

imageFor additional tips, freebies and frugal decorating ideas, visit Molly’s blog at www.econosavers.com. I have it bookmarked and visit regularly!

I received a free review copy of Molly’s Money-Saving Digest as my only compensation for this review.

Kinderbach

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Kinderbach is an online music and piano instruction program for 2 to 7 year olds. Emily is 9, so she is outside of the recommended age range, but I had her go through the program to check it out. The entire program, which costs $95.88   for a one year subscription or $19.99 per month, includes 60 lessons. Throughout the 22 hours of video and interactive coloring pages, children will learn about the Grand Staff clefs, play simple songs, rhythm notes and their beat value, hand and finger position and staff note reading by pattern.

I found Kinderbach to be very child friendly and fun. I loved the way concepts were explained and practiced in a pressure-free manner. The lessons were very short—Emily typically did a week’s worth in one sitting. Of course, a younger child would go through the material more slowly, possibly doing each lesson more than one time. The presentation reminded me of Blue’s Clues or Dora the Explorer, so if your kids enjoy these shows, then they are probably just the right age to benefit from Kinderbach.

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As children watch the brief videos in each lesson, the children  are encouraged to play along, using rhythm instruments, a keyboard, and coloring pages that are printed from the site.

Emily enjoyed using Kinderbach and I think that it reinforced her beginning piano skills. It was obviously geared toward preschoolers, though, so I would not recommend it for children over 7. I would have LOVED access to this when she was three or four, though! I think the annual subscription is an excellent value and would be a great introduction to music for any preschooler as well as providing a nice head start for future piano lessons. 

If you are interested in Kinderbach, you may use the code, “KBFriends” for a 10% discount.

 I received a three month subscription to Kinderbach in return for my honest review. Also, I just joined the Kinderbach affiliate program, but that in no way affected my review.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas Cruise Photos

We are back from our Christmas cruise. Chris chose not to join us, but we had a great time with all the rest of the family. It was wonderful to escape the cold weather for a week and to spend time with my sisters and their families.DSC07764

 

 

All the cousins (except baby Lydia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Playing at Fort San Cristobel in San Juan.

 

 

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Katie has one day of cell phone service in San Juan!

 

 

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At the beach in St. John, Antigua.

 

 

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Friday, December 18, 2009

Cruising for Christmas

image We are leaving Saturday morning for a Christmas cruise with my parents, in-laws, and my three sisters and their families—a big family reunion! We have always been home for Christmas and I know we will miss our Christmas traditions, from the candlelight Christmas Eve service to our annual photo on the stairs to stockings, but we’re all excited about the trip and eager for a week of warm weather!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Wordless Wednesday—Alabama Snow

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Our first (and maybe only!) snowy day of the year—a couple of weeks ago. We get excited here over a 1/2 inch of snow!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Instant Challenge—Leaning Tower

Emily attempted another of Delightful Learning’s Instant Challenges today. Her task was to build a tower that leans against the wall within the 5 minute time limit.  Her leaning tower had to be as high and as far from the wall as possible. The materials she was allowed to used were:

20 toothpicks

3 mailing labels

6 straws

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First, she made a basic structure of straws, using the mailing labels as tape.

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Then she tried to lengthen the tower.

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She discovered that she could stuff toothpicks into the straws to attach two straws together.

DSC07672She took 8 minutes to complete the project.  The tower was 19 inches from the floor (38 points) and 7.5 inches from the wall (13 points). She gave herself 15/30 points for “creative use of materials” for a total of 66 points.

If you visit Delightful Learning, you can see how others completed this project and try it for yourself!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Tektoma

image Do your kids love video games? Tektoma is an online tutorial  that teaches kids ages 7 to 17 to program video games using GameMaker, a free download.

The Tektoma tutorial consists of online videos that teach, step by step, the process of adding game elements using GameMaker. The videos can be paused as often as needed, allowing the child to go back and forth between GameMaker and the Tektoma video. I found the instructions to be very clear, although I wouldn’t expect most 7 to 9 year olds to able to create the games without adult assistance.

GameMaker is a stand alone program, but I can see, especially for children, teens, and those of us who don’t grasp technology intuitively that the Tektoma tutorials could be valuable for getting started in video game programming.

Programming video games isn’t something that Emily has a great deal of interest in—she hasn’t yet completed her first racing game, so we won’t be continuing with Tektoma, but I think it would be wonderful for a child who had interest in this area. I also think that the skills that are gained in the process will carry over to general computer literacy.

Membership to Tektoma costs $14.95 a month or $140 a year. They also offer a free 14 day trial membership.

I received a free  3 month membership to the Tektoma site for review purposes.

Visit the TOS Crew site to read more opinions about Tektoma.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Instant Challenge—Cup Holder

Emily attempted another of Delightful Learning’s Instant Challenges this week.  Her task was to design and build a structure that would hold 2 cups off the table as high and as far apart as possible in seven minutes.

The materials she had to work with were:

2 chenille stems

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1 piece of paper

3 mailing labels

6 straws

2 paper clips

1 piece of foil

1 envelope

 

She eagerly set to work…DSC07647

She made a framework from the straws, using the mailing labels to hold them to the foil, wedged an upside down cup over them, then balanced the second cup on top.

Ta da!!

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She scored herself:

0/10 points for finishing on time (It took her 10 minutes.)

10/20 points for creative use of materials

16 points for inches off the table (one cup was 6 inches and one was 10 inches high)

0 points for separation of cups

  0/10 teamwork N/A

If you visit Delightful Learning, you can see how others completed this project and try it for yourself!

Favorite Ornaments

I meant to post this on a Blog Hop and missed the deadline! Oh, well. I thought it was a fun topic anyway….

I had a hard time choosing a favorite ornament—we have a LOT of them! This is one of a set of 6 glass angels that I love.  Chris gave me them to me early in our marriage.  I think it was the year that Allison was almost 2 because I remember that she got to them before they even made it to the tree and broke one. Getting into things and breaking them was uncharacteristic for her, even at that age, which is why I remember the incident. The other five are still intact 20 years later, though!

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I really love angel ornaments. One year, we put up a second tree in the family room with only angels on it.  This is another favorite—one of a collection of beautiful ornaments made by my sister from shells.

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