I love childrens’ books. In fact, when I go to weed out items and declutter my kids’ rooms, the only things I can never bring myself to get rid of are books. I especially love books with good illustrations, as my littles are still very much in the picture book phase. (They’re 1.5 and 4 years old.)

Thankful is a beautifully illustrated book with short but engaging poetic text. Here’s a sample from a couple of my favorite pages: 

“The artist is thankful for color and light.

The clown, for her costume silly and bright."

Author Eileen Spinelli has a beautiful way with words that make this book interesting for older kids while keeping it simple enough for younger children to enjoy it as well. The recommended age for this book is 4-8 years old, but my one and a half year old enjoyed it just as much as her older sister. 

I love the way illustrator Archie Preston chose to depict each phrase of the book.  The pictures have a lot going on in them, and I can draw an entire conversation out of every single different page. There are a lot of different elements to her illustrations, so while the text is simple and short, it is possible to spend many minutes on one page, just talking about the pictures.

The overall message of the book is excellent: everyone is thankful for many different things, and most of all, I (the reader) and thankful for you (my kids!)! This is a great book to get for this upcoming Fall season. I’m always looking for good books that relate to the upcoming and current seasons. This one is definitely a great book to add to your shelf for Thanksgiving— and all year- round!

This book comes out in September but you can preorder it on Amazon and other retailers now!

I really enjoyed this book (and my kids did too!). 5/5 stars. 

***Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.***

So August 19th was the day we went FBO (Facebook Official) with our cooking bun in the oven. Ironically, I had no idea that August 19th is also the Day of Hope. A day set aside to remember babies of all ages and gestation who have died. Six years ago, with a little Whitney-bean growing in my tummy, I had no idea how much the act of remembering would feed my Mommy Heart and Soul. Obviously, someone who had walked the road before me did know, and thus we have the Day of Hope.

I spent all of last year studying the Life of Moses in Bible Study Fellowship. This was an extraordinary study that basically took us through the entire Pentateuch. One point that has stuck with me from the study was all of the festivals and feasts that the Lord designed for his people as a means of remembering what He had done for them. Most notably was the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, where they remembered God’s deliverance from his plague of death to all of the firstborn sons in Egypt. We carry on this time of Passover remembrance in present-day Christianity as well, when we take communion and remember Christ as our Passover lamb, our redemption and salvation from sin. Studying all of the occasions for remembrance has greatly increased the awareness with which I remember God’s goodness in my life.

At various times in the Old Testament, God’s people set up an altar of remembrance at a place where God did an especially powerful miracle, at a place where God dramatically rescued His people, at a place where God taught them an important lesson. These altars of remembrance- constructed of simple, local & uncut stones (so no man could get the glory for the creation)- would serve to remind future generations of God’s past faithfulness in order to give them the strength to continue trusting the Lord in their present trials. While we may not build altars of stone today, I believe that remembering ways in which God has moved mightily in our personal lives is crucial to our faith. I can (and probably will!) write a whole separate post about the altars of remembrance in my life, where God has shown his goodness & faithfulness to me. But one of the greatest times when I have seen God’s presence and mercy was when I was pregnant with Whitney. I am thankful for days like today, the Day of Hope, when I can remember the goodness of God. There are a few other days throughout the year when I also reflect on this same time in my life and am simply overwhelmed with the way all of the events unfolded and how miraculously God’s hand can be seen in every detail. (October is infant loss awareness month, as well as her birthdate (2/11/10) and her would-have-been due date (4/16/10).)

As I thought about sitting down to write all of this, to remember and reflect on our time with Whitney and the journey we’ve been on since her death, there was a great part of me that wanted to shrug it off. To ignore it. I was putting Joanna down for her nap so that I could get some quiet time to myself, and as I was walking towards my writing desk in my bedroom, the couch looked might cozy. I thought about forgetting all of this, and just vegging out in front of the t.v.  Something about that felt much safer. Much more enjoyable. But I forced my feet on down the hall and sat at my desk for a few minutes. What was it inside of me that didn’t want to remember? That didn’t want to take the time to reflect on this day?

Remembering often involves a certain degree of pain. Sure, there are the “golden memories”… the Christmases where everything was perfect. The vacations or college years that were carefree and fun. But as we remember good times, we also remember bad times. And more often than not, the two are irrevocably entwined. This can cause us to shy away from the simple act of remembering. To remember a time, a place, a person or situation that has changed us, we don’t have to do anything special. Sometimes its a song on the radio. The back of a stranger walking down the street. The whiff of something familiar in the air. And suddenly we are back in that place… that place where the joy mingled with sorrow in an impossible dance we could not stop. Its important to remember that even though memories may carry a heaviness, the goodness of God can be seen in all of them if we only look for it. 

The great compassion of our loving Father can be seen ALL OVER Whitney’s story. I could talk for hours of the ways in which God lavished his love in the midst of our pain. From tiny details such as dates, or people I met years before, to the big parts of her story, like my mom arriving in the US from Egypt on the very day Whitney passed away, God’s goodness is everywhere. I could choose to remember only the pain— the ignorant nurse who checked me in on my delivery day, telling me “You don’t look very pregnant!” (its because my baby is sick and died and now I have to deliver her thankyouverymuch), the hours of labor, the emptiness and loneliness when she was taken away, etc, etc. But in doing that, I miss the point of suffering… sharing with other the goodness of God and the HOPE we have in Christ. The acts of God’s goodness that I remember when I think about by far outweigh the pain of our earthly loss. Like the fact that Whitney was born 21 years to the day that I was baptized into Christ. Talk about new life! Or the fact that both my mom and my sister were able to be in the delivery room with us. Or how about the HUGE part of the story where God had been preparing me my whole life to carry Whitney when, as a college student he impassioned me to advocate for the unborn, learning about the sanctity of human life—in every situation!  

You see, we can choose to remember only the good- ignoring our humanity, our pain and the people or places precious enough to evoke such emotion. We can choose to remember only the bad- forgetting the faithfulness of a loving Father, compassionate gifts of His presence that pop up at the most desperate of times. Or we can choose to remember both, embracing with one arm our longing for wholeness in a broken world while also clinging desperately with the other arm to glimpses of His glory revealed to us while we’re still on this earth. 

Today, this is my altar of remembrance to the Lord. What does your altar of remembrance look like today? What places in your past are you thankful for and remembering that faithfulness of our Great God?

The Believe Storybook: Think, Act, Be Like Jesus fits the bill! This is a beautifully illustrated book with 256 pages, 60 stories and 30 chapters that convey with great accuracy and conviction high points of the Bible. Unlike other Bible Storybooks that chronologically follow the Bible, this storybook is divided into three main sections full of chapters, with each chapter covering a different theme. The main sections are THINK, ACT, BE. It covers a multitude of material— everything from who God is, to Biblical community, eternity, fruit of the Spirit and the church.  

I love the way this book is laid out. For instance, under the main section of THINK, Chapter 3 is Salvation. The Key question is: How do I have a relationship with God? It is followed by a (beautifully illustrated, full-color) synopsis of Genesis 2-3 from the Old Testament when Adam & Eve disobey God. It then has a “Jump to Jesus” page where the OT story is connected to Jesus and the following pages take us to the New Testament with a story from Luke of Jesus’ resurrection. Each chapter carefully and brilliantly weaves the Old and the New Testaments together with the common thread of Jesus. Reading this book with my 4 year old has really helped me understand (and hopefully her too!) how the Bible is truly connected and all things point to Christ!

This is a great book for gifting. It is full-color, glossy pages and has a dust jacket with the cover. The size of this book (I’ve had to include a picture at the end so you can gauge the size of it— it was surprising to me at first!) is large, almost coffee table sized. In fact, leaving it out on your coffee table might not be a bad idea. That way you will always have it close at hand to read! 

I highly recommend this book: 5/5.

***Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.***

Messy Grace: How A Pastor With Gay Parents Learned to Love Others Without Sacrificing Conviction by Caleb Kaltenbach is by far the most poignant, relevant book on practical Christianity that I have read this year. Specifically, Messy Grace is a book that shows us how to live in the tension between grace and truth when it comes to embracing members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) community. It may seem like there are a plethora of books on Christian bookshelves today dealing with this issue (as its such a hot button right now) but I can think of no other author who writes/speaks with as much authority and authenticity on the issue. 

Caleb was raised by LGBT parents and marched in many gay pride events as a young person. He was raised in the LGBT community and witnessed firsthand the hurt that many Christians inflicted upon his mom and her partner as well as their friends. He saw people who proclaimed to be Christians ostracize their own family member who was dying of AIDs because he was gay. Over and over, Caleb’s mom and her partner told him that Christians were mean, hurtful people who hated them and their lifestyle. From the examples of real-life events that happened to Caleb & his family, it is no wonder they felt this way. We all have to admit that Christians are often viewed as hateful and judgmental when it comes to confronting sexual identity issues. 

I won’t give away the entire book, but when Caleb was 16, he set out to expose Christianity for the farce that he thought it was. After all, how could such a hateful group of people really follow a true God? He began to attend a Bible study and church, all the time with the motive to be an “undercover” whistleblower to a false belief system. But what he found was the complete opposite. Much to his surprise, the truth of God’s grace and love grabbed ahold of him and changed his heart forever. Soon after he felt God calling him to become a full-time vocational minister!

In the months and years that followed, Caleb deeply sought out the tough questions that so many of us are dealing with today… Is homosexuality wrong? Why is it wrong? How can we love someone who is LGBT? How can we remain true to our convictions about sexual identity but genuinely love someone who doesn’t agree with us? These and many more questions are fleshed out through Caleb’s own experiences. He writes extensively about learning to walk the fine line where we have grace and extend grace to those with whom we disagree, while also remaining true to our convictions and speaking the truth. This tension between grace and truth is called LOVE. Caleb does an excellent job of setting aside his personal feelings on the issue and really searching what GOD has to say about it all. As he writes in this book, there was no one on earth who wanted the scriptures to match what he wanted to believe. But as he found out, God’s word is unwavering on the issue. 

The Christian stance against homosexuality should not put us at war with people who disagree. In fact, if we have a true love for Christ, we should be all the more compelled to love those in the LGBT community. In following the example of Christ, we should be seeking to love those who feel outcast by society, who are searching to belong and to find love and meaning. After all, we have all been in that place of searching and feeling lost. Our journey just looks a little different that theirs might. 

Messy Grace is full of solid, Biblical study as well as compelling stories from Caleb’s real life that will hopefully make every reader realize that it is not an Us vs. Them battle. If you are uncertain on where you stand regarding certain issues (as I was), this book is for you. If you are a firm believer in gay rights, this book is for you. If you  solidly believe the Bible is completely against homosexuality, this book is for you. It is written in such a way, with so much grace and truth, that it truly can speak to a variety of audiences. Additionally, this book has applications far beyond the LGBT community... it is a book about truly loving your neighbors as God has called us to love them, no matter our differences. 

His book releases October 20th, 2015 and trust me- you don’t want to miss it!! Preorder it now on Amazon (not an affiliate link, just making it easy for you because I loved this book so much.) so you don't forget. It will be like Christmas when it releases. :) I cannot recommend this book enough!

**Edited to add** If you want to get some great excerpts from the book to get you thinking while you wait for the book's release, follow @MessyGraceBook on twitter. Good stuff.

This book was sent to me by Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.

Here's a rundown of the Busy Bags that I made. I have ideas for several more, but I only bought 10 pencil bags. I totally thought that would be plenty but once I started looking up ideas, they just didn't stop coming! I'll try to take some pictures when I get to Arizona in a few days and add them here, but for the mean time, I will link to the sites I printed from. 

Art Dice- This was SO FUN! I bought a package of wooden cubes from Hobby Lobby ($3.99) and painted three of them. One dice has different colors on each side. A second die has different patterns (like dots, squiggle lines, crosshatch, etc). The third die has different artistic prompts like nature, people, animals, letters, etc. The gist of this bag is to roll the dice then create a picture using whatever the dice tell you to use. This could also be used for a multi-player "game" to do the same kind of thing. I got the idea from here but did my own dice a little bit differently. 

Build A Dinosaur- I bought some glittered foam sheets from the Dollar Tree. From that, I cut out different shapes. I also created pattern cards in Photoshop that were the same as the pictures in the link. Kids can build their own dinosaur or use the pattern cards to get their creative juices flowing. 

Silhouette Matching- This one looked like a lot of fun for the little kids, especially. I thought my nephew Titus would really like it. Just print and laminate the pictures! I will say that I had a very difficult time printing this. I don't know if it was my computer/internet/server or if the problem was with the host site. I had to take a very round about approach to get it to print. I hope its easier for you!

Colored Craft Stick Patterning- I printed off the pattern cards and laminated them. Then I bought a package of colored craft sticks at HL ($2.99 for 150). 

Roll A Robot- Cut up the pieces for the robot, along with a couple of instruction cards. Laminate and include a die in the bag. 

Number Matching Game- Print, Cut, Laminate!

There are four more, but I don't remember what two of them are. The last two are games that I got from the dollar spot at Target. A time-telling game and a number matching domino card game. I printed out instructions for each of them then put the game pieces in bags. Super easy!

The way I would suggest using busy bags are one bag at a time, per kid. And the only rule is that they must put away one bag before they get out another. These are great for self-guided play, quiet time, on plane rides, or when your kids stop taking naps! 

It could have been the catchy title. Or the fact that there are warring cake pops on the cover. It could have been the funny reviews I read before reading this book myself or the forwards written by some of my other favorite female authors (What up Boo Mama? Shout out to Melanie Shankle, too! And don’t forget Lisa-Jo Baker.) But what really made me love this book was the content itself. I’ll say it again upfront: I LOVE THIS BOOK! Women Are Scary, by Melanie Dale is definitely going at the top of my 2015 reads. 

With the turn of every page, every new chapter, every new “base” around the diamond of mom relationships (momlationships) I found myself nodding “yes!” But I’m getting ahead of myself just a bit. 

If you’ve ever been new in town, or new to church or new to any other kind of public setting, you know that it can be intimidating. The idea of making new friends in addition to making sure you don’t have lipstick on your teeth is just flat out overwhelming. (Wait- lipstick? Who wears that? Ok, you caught me- it was just an example. I’m definitely more they type who wears peanut butter on my shirt than lipstick on my mouth.)

From chapter one, Melanie (I feel like we should be on a first-name basis) makes the argument that we are better together. “We make each other better moms, better humans. We need each other, because mothering is just too darn hard.” Can I get an amen? This is the jumping off point for Women Are Scary. Its about breaking down the things she calls momlationships. “You know, those relationships that come with car pools and cupcakes, friendships borne at T-ball games and in quiet corners feeding babies.” Yes, Yes, and Yes.

If finding new mom friends is like a dating relationship, then the progressive stages of those relationships are the “bases” we must pass before a relationship is truly legit— the coveted homerun friend. Melanie breaks down the bases like this:

1st Base: Hanging out while your kids are in activities together

2nd Base: A park playdate outside of scheduled activities

3rd Base: A playdate at one of your houses

4th Base: Hanging out without the kids

I won’t elaborate on each of these bases (the trickiness of each, the beauty of each stage, the elation when you finally find a fourth-base friend!) as that is what the rest of the book is for. I’ll just tell you that you need to read Women Are Scary. If you’re a mom and you have friends, you want friends, you need friends or you’re living in denial about any of those things, this is the book for you. Go buy it on your Kindle and devour it tonight. Then call me and let’s hang out. 

I was given a copy of this book from BookLook Bloggers in exchange for my honest review.

I really appreciated that this is not a book filled with one-size-fits-all formulas as to how to raise a child. Rather, it encourages parents to really get to know their baby/toddler and to appropriately tailor discipline towards that child’s needs. It is not harsh in its suggestions of punishment. Instead, it exemplifies ways in which situations that need discipline can also be used as teaching moments to train our children in behaviors that will positively benefit them for the rest of their lives.

It is difficult to know how to effectively and positively discipline such little children. But as time and studies (and personal experiences) have shown, you can’t just sit idly by and hope that they turn out alright. Parenting and discipline are active, often exhausting, parts of life. However, when followed through with appropriately and lovingly, it can make all the difference in the life of your child.

As a mother who has read a wide range of parenting and discipline books, I would highly recommend Positive Discipline: The First Three Years. It is reasonable, loving and can be tailored to suit your parenting style as well as your child’s temperament. A definitely good read if you are looking for some new ways to incorporate constructive discipline into your parenting ways. 

This book was sent to me by Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.