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Crown of Souls – Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

Crown of Souls – Ronie Kendig

This book is the 3rd in Ronnie Kendig’s Tox Files series and is my favorite of the three. Gripping from beginning to end, this book was fun and entertaining to read.

The book starts with Tox being shot and the action just continues from there. Tox is forced to face his personal conflicts all while hunting down a deranged killer and keeping his team alive.

When an old army friend goes rogue, Tox and his team have to find him and stop him. Can Tox find him in time, can the team stop what he’s doing?

As they pursue, Tox learns more about himself than he really wanted to know. And he has to make hard decisions about how to protect his team and those he loves without becoming the monster that he is trying to stop.

I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading number four of the Tox Files when it comes out.

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Jeremy Camp – The Answer – Review and Giveaway

I received this CD free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

Jeremy Camp – The Answer

I love “Word of Life” by Jeremy Camp so I was super excited to review his new CD. Word of Life is the cover song for this CD, so I figured I would probably like the rest of the CD as well.

I love how his music is upbeat and fun to listen to and sing along with. With songs like “My Father’s Arms” and “Love so Great”, this CD is full of great music that me and my kids have been enjoying.

My 4yr old son is excited to have a new CD with a male singer. He has two older sisters who prefer female musicians because they’re easier for them to sing along with. I told him that the CD is his and he listens to it as much as he can. He’s so excited to have his own CD and I love that he has some new music that’s not only fun and child appropriate but that also has a great message.

And check out Jeremy Camp’s music video for Word of Life. It’s so much fun!

And, thanks to FlyBy I get to give away one copy of this new CD. It was released today, Oct. 6th so it’s super new! Enter below for a chance to win.

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Matt Redman – Glory Song – Review and Giveaway

I received this CD free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

Matt Redman – Glory Song

My 4yr old son was so excited to get a CD with a boy singer, as he puts it. I like Matt Redman so I was excited about reviewing this CD.

Matt Redman teamed up with several of his worship-artist friends for this album, first releasing the track “Gracefully Broken (feat. Tasha Cobbs Leonard).” Tasha Cobbs Leonard also released her own version of this song on the same day!

The album also features Kierra Sheard, Guvna B, Madison Cunningham, and Kim Walker-Smith.

I put this in the car and we’re all enjoying listening to it while we run errands, drop off kids, pick up kids, etc. It’s so much fun to have new music that everyone likes. The music on this CD is upbeat but not too loud and really a great CD for in the car. My favorite song one “Greatest Hallelujah” the music and the words just go together so well in this song!

And Gracefully Broken with Tasha Cobbs Leonard is just beautiful!

You can download the music from iTunes.

And, enter below for a chance to win a copy of the new Matt Redman – Glory Song CD.

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What’s Different With Baby 4?

I like to think of myself as a pretty confident mom. I’m the oldest of 8 kids so when my first came along I already had a lot of baby experience. For me, becoming a mom wasn’t nearly as difficult as it was for many of my peers. Even adding my second child wasn’t really a problem. It’s the third child that got me. As my husband says, we went from man to man coverage to zone defense. A 5yr old starting kindergarten (we homeschool), a toddler who was just potty trained, and an infant made for a really interesting couple of years.

I wanted to have my 4th another 2.5 years after my 3rd but it just didn’t happen. Now, my 4th has arrived 4 years later and I’ll be honest, he’s not nearly as difficult as my 3rd. So, what’s different?

  1. I have help – My other kids are older. They’re 9, 6, and 4. All of them old enough to help and old enough to not injure the baby. I can send people for diapers, have them load the dishwasher, get me a glass of water, play with the baby, etc. I didn’t have this many assistants with the first 3.
  2. Nap schedule? What’s that? – With the older kids having activities and such, our weekly schedule is the same, but our daily schedule is different. So there’s a lot of napping on the go. Luckily, my little guy likes the car. I remember with the others we were actually home most of the day and we had this nice nap schedule. That’s just not happening this time around. Baby sleeps well pretty much wherever so he’s getting his naps. Just not in his bed.
  3. Baby can sleep through anything…except silence – The first week I tried to tell my older kids to be quiet. Then I gave up. The baby sleeps right through it. But, send everyone away with Daddy for a few hours and the baby doesn’t know what to do with himself.
  4. Baby is well entertained – And I don’t have to do all the entertaining. Yay! Older siblings are great for playing with baby and as the baby gets older, there’s more they’ll be able to do.
  5. I follow the advice to “sleep when the baby sleeps” – with the first one you can sleep whenever so I didn’t worry about this. This time around. I have a baby who goes to bed at midnight, who also likes to play between 2 and 4 am and then kid’s schedules which require me to be up before 8. So, guess what, if I have the chance to take a nap while the baby’s sleeping, I take it. And I don’t feel one bit bad about taking a nap instead of cleaning my house. Because I’ve figured out, if I’m too tired, nothing goes well in my house.
  6. I do actually get to shower alone – My kids are older, old enough to survive without me for 20 minutes. Plus, think of all the snacks you can consume while Mommy’s in the shower. Who wants to pass that up by asking for permission first? I can shower when the baby’s sleeping or playing and the kids will leave me along unless the baby’s crying. I remember with my first it being so hard to shower when she was awake because she didn’t want to be “alone” in her bouncer by the shower door. With 3 entertainers for the baby, this isn’t a problem.
  7. I don’t need a baby monitor – I have a baby monitor. But with 3 live baby monitors running around, I don’t actually need it. I’m alerted if the baby sneezes in his sleep.
  8. Zone Defense – and last but not least, I’m already on zone defense so what’s one more? It’s not like I was keeping up with everything anyways.

What’s been different for you as you’ve added multiple kids?

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How to Listen so People Will Talk – Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

How to Listen so People will Talk – Becky Harling

I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with not listening to people and then being frustrated when people aren’t listening to me. I have a couple of friends who are really good listeners and I’ve really been observing this year and trying to figure out what makes them people that I want to talk to.

I was excited that I got to review this book, because I really wanted to know. How do I listen so people will talk to me. My friends, my kids, my husband, even the random lady at the grocery checkout. Yes, all my life, random people will literally tell me their life story. Though, these past couple of years, having multiple kids seems to slow that down a little. And I started wondering if it was actually the kids, or is it me. Have I just gotten bad at listening?

I picked up several really good tips from this book. Though, my favorite was the section on “listen to another’s story”. Just thinking about how I listen and framing it around listening as they tell their story – because everything in life is a story – has really helped me actually stop trying to talk and just listen. It’s all about developing better listening habits. Want to know more about what it means to listen to someone’s story, you should buy the book.

There were several other really great tips in this book, and combining them with my focus of listening to another’s story is working really well for me. I’m not sure if my kids and husband are comfortable talking more, or if they’re talking the same and I’m just paying better attention, but I do feel like I’m hearing more of what they say, more of their story. And I’m happy to be hearing more from the people that I love.

This post contains affiliate links.

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The Assault – Book Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

The Assault: Cycle Two of the Harbingers Series by Bill Myers, Frank Peretti, Angela Hunt, and Alton Gansky.

This is Book two of the Harbingers Series. A while back I reviewed book one and liked it so I was excited to receive book two to review as well.

This book was much like the first, with each author writing a section from their person’s point of view. I do find it a bit jolting at times when I switch authors. Mainly because the book is more like 4 mini stories and not one large story, but also the switch between characters when I switch authors always takes me a second. I have to re-orient myself to whom is telling the story – since the stories are told in the first person, and each author writes for a different person.

As the darkness grows with these 4 gifted people be able to stay ahead of it or will it overtake them? The continuing story line is interesting and exciting to read. Because of the 4 different authors it’s a bit unpredictable what will happen to the 4 friends next and what the outcome will be, so it keeps me guessing. Which is always great for this type of book.

This book is easy and quick to read and very entertaining. I enjoyed reading it, and plan to read cycle three as well.

 

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My Crazy, Busy, Too Short, Summer

So, I honestly had planned to write more over the summer. But, it was simply a crazy summer and there was no time. I’ll go into more details in later posts but here’s the highlights:

  1. Hubby was traveling, a lot. He has customers out of state and had to do quite a bit of traveling for work this year. I don’t mind the short trips, but there was this one trip where he was gone for a week, back for a day, and gone for another week. That was tough on the kids especially. We actually settle into a different routine before he gets back and then we have to create a new routine all over again.
  2. We sold our rental house. With 3, soon to be 4 kids and hubby traveling, it was simply too difficult for me to manage a rental on my own. Plus, it’s just not my thing. So we sold it – to a very picky buyer. It’s a sellers market around here and I literally spent two months of my summer tracking down contractors, plumbers, electricians, termite inspectors, etc. Not exactly how I planned to spend my summer. Also, fun story, we had our first buyer fall through and while I thought it was going to be a few days before the house went back on the market, it went back on right away, so I’m driving with the kids (hubby was out of town and my sister was working at the beach for the summer) to the beach and I’m getting all these e-mails from my realtor with all these offers (remember, it’s a seller’s market) for the house. I actually let one offer go without even looking at it because I was driving and had no way to actually read it and then talk to hubby (because he’s in a different time zone working) before the deadline for the offer expired. Frustrating!
  3. I had a baby, actually, I had a baby last week, so at the end of summer. Which means that I was pregnant all summer. Talk about hormones and just being pregnant being in the way a bit. Luckily after the first trimester my pregnancies are about as good as a pregnancy can be, but still, I wouldn’t have planned all this to go along with a pregnancy. I had visions of sitting in the pool all summer…
  4. We actually did join a community pool this summer. My 6yr old learned how to jump off the diving board, and my 9yr old is all about the handstands. The 4yr old just paddles around in his puddle jumper, and life is great.
  5. My mom was diagnosed with lung and thyroid cancer. Back to very busy summer with lots going on at once. I did manage to go up there and visit, around all the existing craziness. She has some great doctors who are optimistic about her recovery. Of course, she’s getting ready to start isotopes treatments right before the holidays this year, which is kind of sad. Once she starts those she won’t be able to be around kids for a while (because she’s radioactive enough to hurt the kids).
  6. Speaking of visits, I did take all 3 kids to the beach by myself. At 8, 6, and 4 they weren’t that hard to manage at the beach, but an 8hr car ride with me being the only driver is rather tiresome. Throw in some construction, mountains, and a few storms and let’s say I’m not really wanting to do that drive again any time soon. I also managed to get them all sunburnt the first day – whoops – and loose my son at a strip mall. And we ate lots of ice cream and I introduced the kids to putt putt golf for the first time. So much fun!

All in all. It was a summer way more packed with emotions, events, travel, and family things than I had planned. And there’s lots of things about this summer that I hope to never repeat. However, we did still have a great summer, and I learned lots of things about myself and my family.

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Praying for Girls – Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review, all opinions are my own.

Praying for Girls by Teri Lynne Underwood – Asking God for the Things they Need Most.

If you have daughters and don’t really know how to pray for them, this book is perfect for you. The author has suggestions for praying for your daughters both young and older across 5 different areas of her life.

Each section has several chapters that break down the topic, and each chapter has suggested verses, prayers, and activities for you and your daughter so that you can pray and press into these topics with your daughter and pray some more.

The ideas for engaging with your daughter are simple, practical, and great conversation starters for pressing into some of the more difficult areas of growing up.

For my girls, they’re young, so I think just now beginning to think about their purposes – which is one of the areas covered. There are some great prayers and conversation starters for me to use to begin digging into this a little bit now and then I can add on as they get older.

Praying for Girls was easy to read and is a great book for me to continue to refer to as my girls get older.

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3Doodler Party and Review

This is a sponsored post. Thanks to Tryazon for this awesome party pack!

In our party pack we received:

I’d seen the 3Doodler sets advertised and really wanted to get one for the kids but hadn’t done it yet. I was super excited to get picked for this party. And the product didn’t let me down!

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My 8yr old loves the pen and had no trouble figuring out how to use it. Basically, you have a battery operated pen (rechargeable) that you feed plastic sticks into. The plastic is melted by the pen and you use it to create 3D objects. The melted plastic is warm to the touch but not hot enough to burn or harm you or your kids. And it solidifies completely in about 10 seconds. Even my 4yr old enjoys using the 3Doodler.

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At 4 he doesn’t quite have the fine motor skills to create anything very impressive but he has a blast doing what his older sisters are doing and crafting with them.

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I did make him a helicopter and he just loves it! It was actually way easier to make than I expected. The 3Doodler Start kit has templates included and it makes it so easy to create some fun 3D plastic items!

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Though, sharing is hard, but they managed! We’ve had so much fun with our 3Doodler both at the party and after. And the kids just love experimenting and discovering what new things they can create!

I enjoy crafting and I just love any product that gets my kids creating different things in different ways. This 3Doodler is awesome and so much fun for both kids and adults!

Check out these tips here for getting started with your own 3Doodler.

Or take a look at this YouTube video to help you get started on your first project. It’s so easy and fun!