The illustrations by Laura J. Bryant (of the “God Gave Us” series) in this book are colorful and endearing, each one featuring a mother with her son and young daughter. My oldest child is 4 years old (recommended age for this book is 4-8 years old) and she absolutely loved this book. There is enough going on in each illlustrated page that gives us more to talk about than just what is written. The rhyming stanzas on each page are long enough to convey a message but short enough that my 4 year old doesn’t lose interest. 

I love this book and am delighted to have it in our home library. It would make an excellent addition to your’s as well. Perfect for a birthday present, to tell your child that they are loved and unique!

You can purchase this book here. You can also read more about the author and illustrator on their webpages. 

*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.***

I love cookbooks! But I only buy and hold onto cookbooks that I actually use. I have no room for collectors’ items on my bookshelf. So when I sat down to read my newest cookbook, Trisha’s Table, I was almost giddy. I love Trisha Yearwood. I read the cookbook cover to cover in one sitting, and have a few impressions from that first read-through. 

Pros: 

The photographs in this cookbook are beautiful. They are wonderfully styled and evoke the down-home Southern style that Trisha exudes. 

The recipes are thoughtfully explained and most all of the ingredients seem easy enough to find. I also love the stories that accompany her recipes… from friends, from family, Trisha’s Table is truly a scrapbook of her nearest and dearest. 

The cookbook is artfully arranged by the common breakdown of breakfast, snacks/appetizers, soups & salads, beef & pork, chicken turkey & fish, pasta, sides, cakes cupcakes & pies, and cookies brownies bars & more. There is also a wide range of food styles— from Basil Pesto Pizza to Pad Thai, with everything in between. 

One other major highlight from this cookbook is the inclusion of several allergy-friendly recipes. Trisha explains how to make cashew cream that is easily exchanged to make several recipes dairy-free. 

Cons: 

I have only one grievance with Trisha’s Table, and that is, there are not enough pictures to accompany the recipes. A dish only tastes as good as it looks, and there were quite a few recipes that sounded good when reading through them, but there was no picture to put with it. 

So as to whether or not this cookbook will stay on my shelf (and in my kitchen), its a yes. Not having pictures with recipes is a big deal to me (I especially love Pioneer Woman’s picture-filled step-by-step cookbooks) but the big “pro” that saved this one is the inclusion of some dairy-free recipes. I can’t wait to try them! If you love Trisha Yearwood, or are a fan of Southern style comfort food, this is a great cookbook for you!!

Though I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for the purposes of this review, the opinions are my own.

John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.

1 Peter 1:3 
 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..

 February 11, 1989

Fast-forward 21 years.  February 11, 2010.  The day my daughter was born.  I do not think it was any coincidence that Whitney was born on this day-- my 21st re-birthday.  For years I've celebrated that as my re-birthday, and from now on, I will also celebrate it as my daughter's birthday.  How can anyone see this situation and not see God's incredible goodness in all of this?  Of the 365 days my daughter could be born, God allowed her to be born on the anniversary of the day I gave my life to him.  And my mom and sister were also able to be with me!  A reminder that in every situation, no matter what the circumstance, God is still with me.  And I have promised to give him all the glory in every situation.  So you see, that's why Easter is so much more than just bunnies and eggs to me.  Easter is life!  And praise!  And HOPE!

February 11, 2010

Romans 6:8-11 
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Matthew 28:1-10
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

I have recently discovered something that has been a total game changer in our household. After a long, cold winter of being cooped up inside for way too long, Spring signifies a time to adopt some good habits that we'd let slide through the colder months. For us, the biggest one is grocery shopping. Not only do I really dislike the cold, I especially dislike grocery shopping when its cold. Let me tell you about my relationship with grocery shopping: I hate it. Everything about planning our weekly menus, I hate. I despise menu-planning, then list-making then grocery shopping. Because after all that exhausting work is done, guess what?? I still have to cook! And when the cooking is done and everything is eaten, guess what??? I'm still not done-- there's the clean up! It is all just such a process.

But I am off on a little rant. All that to simply say, I'm not a fan of what is arguably one of the biggest parts of my stay-at-home job. A while ago, my sister-in-law suggested a podcast to me called "Inspired to Action" with Kat Lee. I would absolutely suggest this podcast to anyone and everyone! I usually listen to it at nap time when I am cleaning the kitchen. It makes an often-loathed tasked into a not so lame one. (See rant above.) On her podcast, Kat recommends this thing called "Plan To Eat." She even offered a free 30-Day trial. We'd just had one of those weeks where we had nothing in the fridge for days, and resorted to eating out way too much. I had to try it-- and I LOVE IT! It is so simple to use and has cut my meal planning time to almost nothing.

Here's briefly how it works (there are videos on the website that explain it all really well): You can import recipes from any website, and you can even manually enter any recipes you can't find online. I started by going through all my Pinterest food boards and importing those recipes into my Plan To Eat (PTE). I worked on it in the evening when I was watching TV or a movie with Sean. Super easy and it didn't take long. Here's how some of my Recipes look right now:




You can see that some of the items are in blue. That indicates that it is a recipe. The menu items in white (like in the second week) are items that I don't use a recipe for, I just know what's in them or I know that we have everything on hand.

You can make a menu for all your meals and snacks or just for dinner. What I like to do is put our basic breakfast, lunch and snack items in the calendar so I know what we have on hand. But we don't necessarily eat the breakfast that is on that particular day.



Seriously, I know I sound like an infomercial but PTE has revolutionized my life. And no, I"m not just being dramatic. This is real life, friends! So here's the deal: you can also get a free 30-day trial of Plan To Eat. They don't take any credit card or bank information. It really is no-strings-attached-FREE. Then after your trial, you decide if you like it. If you do-- awesome! It is $4.95/month or you can pay a year upfront for $39.95 (saving you some cash). But what do I get out of all this?? Aside from sharing my newfound love with you friends, for each person who uses this referral link to sign up, I will get a dollar. So its not much, but its something- and as I hope you will soon be able to tell, it is such an awesome website, you will be telling all of YOUR friends about it!!!

One more thing: this past Monday night, Sean and I took a much-needed overnight date. We stayed at an amazing hotel downtown and planned to go grocery shopping on our way home the next day. Well, I didn't get our menu planned before we left, so I had to do it Tuesday morning, just before we were checking out of our hotel. I set up the entire week's menu AND shopping list in less than 5 minutes on our iPad!!!  It was wonderful!

So tell me... do you hate meal planning/list making/grocery  shopping as much as I do? What is your method for this daily task? Have you tried Plan To Eat? Will you try it?????  Click HERE to sign up for your free 30 day trial! And let me know what you think. :)

Courtney DeFeo’s In This House, We Giggle is exactly what I have been looking for to inject some fun yet intentional teaching moments into our family life. The prevalent idea that serving and loving God should be fun and exciting is something that I strive for in my family but often find it difficult to put into practice with a one and four-year-old. Courtney provides excellent ideas on how to show kids of all ages that faith is about who we are and not what we do. Its about how we live our lives. 

Courtney writes that she has found what she believes to be a vital piece of the puzzle that makes up our Christian homes: it is the serious business of laughter. I couldn’t agree more!  The book is divided into twelve chapters, each focusing on one specific virtue. She defines the virtues as what we are teaching, and the Love & Laughter sections of each chapter tell how we are teaching. The breakdown of each chapter and its virtue is super simple to follow and pretty easy to implement. Meaning, minimal prep work is required for most of the activities that each month/virtues uses to drive home the point. 

Because the book is divided into 12 chapter and 12 virtues, it is really easy to assign each chapter a month and just get started!  Another thing I love about this book is that sprinkled throughout the pages are 60 ways to bring out the giggles. This was a rough winter, having to be inside for months on end with two littles, and some days, we just needed more to laugh at! The ideas that are dotted throughout each chapter are simple and guaranteed to bring giggles. Some examples of the laughs are: Sing the menu of dinner in a operatic style, see who can sit still the longest with a feather being rubbed under her nose or chin, and have a puppet show. 

This book is lighthearted and yet deeply rooted in Biblical truths and has a myriad of fun & delightful means to drive home important Christian values. I’ve already recommended to at least one friend who has also bought it!

Though I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for the purposes of this review, the opinions are my own. 

Tiny Bear’s Bible is a sweet & furry Bible with a handful of notable Bible stories, told specifically for children ages 6 and under. I have a 4 year old and a 1 year old, and they both love the short stories in this book! It is written by Sally Lloyd-Jones, author of the best-selling Jesus Storybook Bible. I am a HUGE fan of that Bible for little kids, but some of the stories are a little too long to hold the interest of my babies. The short stories in Tiny Bear’s Bible are written in poem form, while conveying in every stanza that God loves every one of us, deeply! 

The illustrations in the Bible are colorful and filled with interesting things for kids to look at and point out. The cover of the Bible is soft and fuzzy, and my youngest loves to hug it to her chest when she carries it around! Its the cutest thing ever! This is a sweet little Bible, and while there aren’t very many stories in it, the ones that are included are told wonderfully well. 

***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.***

Little Seed was perfectly content in his cozy seed packet on a rickety shelf in the Farmer’s dusty shed. Farmer kept promising Little Seed that he had something great planned for him. Little Seed was turned upside down when Little Fox stumbled into the shed one night. Though Little Seed had been shaken from his comfy home in the the cozy seed packet, he became close friends with Little Fox. Until one day, everything changed. Farmer took Little Seed somewhere completely new. And though Farmer promised he was watching over Little Seed, he was still scared. But through a series of changes and through his enduring friendship with Little Fox, Little Seed learned that indeed, the Farmer is very good and he has been watching over him all along. He and Little Fox both learned that change, while sometimes scary, can be fun and good in the end! 

My Thoughts-

This is a great book for kids who are facing new situations, or who may have difficulty dealing with anxieties and fears. It seems to me that I know of more and more young kids who are struggling with issues like these, and this book addresses them in an endearing, light-hearted way that still manages to drive home the message: God is good, He loves you and is working everything out for your good. The pictures in this book are beautiful- I’ve never seen illustrations in a style quite like this, and they really fit the “feel” of the book. This is a great book that I would highly recommend!

About the Author- 

Lysa TerKeurst is the New York Times bestselling author of Made to Crave and Unglued. She isn't shy about admitting what a mess she can be. But she's been learning God's lessons and sharing them on her blog (www.LysaTerKeurst.com) and in her books. Lysa is president of Proverbs 31 Ministries and writes from her sticky farm table in North Carolina where she lives with her husband, Art, five kids, three dogs, and mouse that refuses to leave her kitchen.

You can purchase this book here!

***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.***