***When you purchase through links on my website, I do collect advertising fees from the Amazon.***

Best of all, these books each have a different character-building lesson in them. They are beautifully illustrated too.

When you shop online, it is hard to know what exactly is in any book you have never read before. That can be problematic as a parent, with so many weird, competing messages being blasted out to our children.

So I’m here to tell you exactly what you will find in these new books for kids!

All opinions here are my own. I did read each book, and I even asked the authors to provide a giveaway copy for my readers! So I am extra excited about that. Giving fun stuff away is my favorite.

Now let’s see the new books!

I have read every page of each of these, from digital proof copies, supplied to me by the authors.

#1. Lincoln’s Big Adventure

There is so much to tell you about this one! I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

In Lincoln’s Big Adventure, you follow a $5 bill on his way through life, changing hands many times. In fact, we begin the story with Lincoln (the $5 bill) hanging out with some other money in a piggy bank. So cute.

What is great about this book is that it teaches giving, kindness, saving up money, charity, and helping others in a way that is a story and isn’t preachy at all. In the end, Lincoln gets to feel like he made a big difference.

It’s a heart warming story with a good message, and your kids will definitely learn a lot from this book.

Plus, I have noticed kids often have a fascination with money and how it works. This book will teach them more about that too.

A neat bonus here is that the book includes both English and Spanish. The Spanish is right below the English on the page. You can practice your Spanish while reading this book.

I also like that it is written by a Christian author and school teacher, Jordan Saez. You can find more of her books here.

#2. Fred The Oversized Watermelon

This is a super sweet, deep, and emotional book. It has an awesome, rarely heard message in children’s literature these days.

Fred is larger than all of the other watermelons. No one will befriend him, not the watermelons nor the other animals and fruits. For a minute, things are looking real bleak for Fred.

Children’s books do not often go this sad either, but life does, and that’s just facts. But do NOT despair!! That is one of the key themes of the book, the not despairing.

I hesitate to tell you the ending because it is a total spoiler to the story, but I know as parents you need to know the message.

So here’s the spoiler. Scroll fast to the next book if you don’t want to know. Ha!

This completely took me by surprise because books so rarely mention this aspect of God, the not being alone because you have someone watching over you.

Towards the end, Fred meets Duck. Duck represents God in the story. He shows up with a message of pure HOPE and love.

Duck has been watching Fred all along. He brings up the little good things that happened amongst the sad times and how he sent those. He reassures and loves Fred when no one else will. It is excellent. It reminds me of a Max Lucado book.

This book is written by Kendal Clawson. In the front of the book, Kendal dedicates the book to her nieces or nephews and reminds them that there is always a God in heaven watching over them. That is a vital thing to teach our children.

#3. Swinging for Joy

This is a sweet, heart warming story about a little girl and her dog and how they help a little boy in distress.

The dog is named Joy, and he is sort of a magic dog. Well, maybe he is magic, and maybe he isn’t. What he does are all things dogs do. He finds things with his nose, he comforts his girl, London, and he is her best friend.

Our dog does that too. In fact, that is the reason I insisted on buying our boys a dog even though I have never been a dog person. (Yeah, I know, crazy cat person here.)

I LOVE how in this story London sees a boy crying at the playground and heads straight over to help him.

This is EXACTLY the sort of behavior I want my kids to display, caring about other people and acting on it. It is also what we want others to do for us in our time of need.

This is a story of faith. You can use the way she believes in her wishes to her dog to encourage your kids to look to God to help them with their problems.

Another thing I liked about this story is this line, “All you have to do is believe..”

Kids are often not taught to believe in anything. This book teaches believing in something bigger than yourself. Just make sure they know the thing to believe in is God. If he can create a world, he can help you find your keys.

There is also a cool reference to some historical heroes from Alabama in the book, that I especially enjoyed. But since I’ve already let out so many story spoilers, I will let you discover that one for yourself.

The author of this book, Aishah Hight, focuses on writing on themes of kindness, hope, and overcoming challenges. That is exactly what kids need.

Now let’s give away some new books!

Our winner will receive one copy of each of these three books, in the mail, directly from the author. If you’d like, the author will even sign your copy!

To register for the giveaway, click on the tabs in the Rafflecopter below. You can comment below, or you can visit my new Facebook page and click like.

You have two weeks to enter the giveaway. I will let you know via email if you win, so you must provide a good email address that you check regularly.

Rules: You must live in the United States and have a valid email address so I can notify you if you win.

Your kids will love this! Good luck!!

The post 3 New Children’s Books for Summer & A Giveaway! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I am up to my neck in home school work at the moment. Two are reading contentedly. One just finished Dog Man and is choosing to whine rather than pick his next book to read. The other one is begrudgingly beginning Hunger Games. His teacher has outlawed many of the books that he would rather read. Since school here is only cancelled through April, we still have to follow the guidelines they gave us. Fun, fun, fun.

But I wanted to take a second and let you all know the exciting news!

For today and tomorrow only, my new book, Tour Israel in Pictures and Stories, is FREE for your Kindle app on Amazon!

Since you guys are my readers who have stuck with me through seven years of blogging, I know some of you want to help me and not get it for free. However, it actually DOES help me when you buy the book for free. It raises my number of books sold, which pulls me up in the search order and places me back on the best seller lists for my category.

So yes! You are helping me big time when you download my book for free.

Here’s a snippet from the book. The book has around 280 full color photos of Israel:

THIS is the Mount of Olives, also referred to as Mount Olivet.

There was so much I did not get to see, because Jerusalem is huge, and you cannot see it all in one day.

Thankfully, our tour’s very first stop was on the Mount of Olives.

I stepped out of our little bus and breathed in the holy air. Wow! The Mount of Olives! Wow! This is where Jesus hung out! This is where he came to pray. I think this was his quiet, sanity place.

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.⁴⁰ On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” ⁴¹ He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ⁴² “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” ⁴³ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.⁴⁴ And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.^[a]                                                       

Luke 22:39-44

Would you like to see the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed that blood-sweating prayer?

They built this Church of all Nations in the midst of it, which makes it much easier to locate.

If you look in the very front of this picture, and also to the right of the church, you can see the olive trees and stones. This is the Garden of Gethsemane, located on the Mount of Olives. When I took this photo, I was just snapping. I had no idea what I was photographing, except I knew I wanted these beautiful churches. I went online and did my research to find the garden.

The oldest trees in the garden are much larger than the ones in the photo above. That’s only a sliver of it.

By the way, they built the church on THE ROCK they believe Jesus knelt on to pray.

According to this article, among many others, this site is proven to be the actual Garden of Gethsemane. These olive trees planted here are the oldest in the world. While most of them are not quite old enough to have been there when Jesus was, they were all carefully grown from the same tree, according to DNA research, to preserve a lineage of trees that was there when Jesus was.

Some sources report that there are 3,000 year-old trees in that grove that are not much more than stumps now, but still, pretty amazing.

I would have loved to have walked through that garden, but alas, it was not on the standard tour.

4In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east;and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south.

Zechariah 14:4

The Bible tells us that in the end times the Messiah, Jesus, will return on the Mount of Olives.

Jesus wept and lamented the future, “set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side . . . crush you to the ground . . . and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognise the time of your visitation from God.” (Luke 19:37-44)

Not 40 years later, the prophecy was fulfilled when the Romans burned the temple and destroyed Jerusalem.

Jesus wasn’t the only one to weep on the Mount of Olives.

David also went up the mountain weeping with his followers in 2 Samuel 15:30.

I went into this whole thing expecting a moving, spiritual experience.

The thing was that there was an excellent tour guide to listen to, pictures to be taken, you are pouring sweat in June, and you have to stay with the group. Therefore, pausing for reflection or prayer? That did not happen much, I am sorry to tell you. We all piled back into our bus, made a stop by a souvenir shop, and then headed on over to Old Jerusalem.

Our group was a hodgepodge of folks from Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, and the States. Who knows where all we were from? Thankfully, everyone seemed to understand English.

We have been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., which I am told is similar to this one, but I bet in Israel it is even more powerful.

It was actually awesome to be in the Holy Land on the Sabbath day.

In Hebrew, it is not “sabbath”, it is “shabbat.” Shabbat is not just a nod to the law of Moses, either. They take this thing seriously. Everywhere you went, everyone would joyfully greet each other with, “Shabbat shalom!”

Shabbat is their day of rest, which is important, because they work hard the other 6 days of the week. On Shabbat, they are supposed to do no work at all, according to their tradition, not even to push a button. Therefore, there was always one elevator in “shabbat mode”, which means that it automatically stops at all the floors.

We entered Jerusalem through the Zion gate. Our first stop was King David’s Tomb and the Upper Room, where Jesus and his disciples had the last supper.

And here is the part that surprised us: the upper room is above David’s tomb.

My jaw dropped open when she told us that.

David’s tomb has rules. Men visit it on one side, women on the other, not together.

Remember, Jerusalem has been sacked many times over the years, so these are not the same buildings as the ones standing during Bible times. You see these beautiful buildings? They were built by the Crusaders around 1099.

People were leaning everywhere, praying, in groups and out loud. It was so noisy, I could not carry a thought in my head. Our tour guide couldn’t either, and she chased them all out.  Yep. It reminded me of Jesus chasing the money changers out of the temple, only she didn’t turn over any tables, and these people were only praying, though they were terribly noisy.

Our tour guide had a name that sounded like Molly. She was a former officer in the Israeli Army, and she was quite likable. Molly was sharp and quick, with an answer for any question about the Holy Land, past or present. She knew her stuff.

Notice my wardrobe.

If you are touring holy sites, be sure you have your knees and shoulders covered. It’s a matter of respect, but also rules. They will give you a shaw if your shoulders are uncovered, or a long skirt thing if you are showing too much leg.

In Jerusalem, the only place we went that was strict about it was the Wailing Wall. In Capernaum, only the monastery said anything to women with bare shoulders.

Also, this white tile is so prevalent because it is found in Israel. Therefore, they are able to build large cities with all matching buildings. It has a lovely effect.

So exciting! We don’t have buildings in America that are that old! You can even arrange a tour to go through these tunnels that run under Jerusalem to see way more of the ancient ruins.

I hope you all have a good week with what I have been calling “living underground”. Thankfully, we have a beautiful day here in Maryland. Don’t put too much pressure on yourselves with the home-schooling. Reading and writing with outdoor play make for perfectly successful days in times like these. No one expects you to become a one-room schoolhouse expert overnight.

²⁸ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Matthew 11:28-29

The post Exciting Announcement– My Israel Book is Free for Two Days! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Hurray! It is finished!

I feel like everyone already knows this, but I forget that not everyone is a Facebook junkie like me. Many of you may have no idea. How could I have forgotten to ALSO let my blog readers know something that I am this excited about??

Have you ever done something so new and exciting to you that you almost don’t even know what to do next? I mean between the book publishing and the earth-shattering news that I have to suddenly home school my children again, my mind is a jumbled mess.

You can bet I will be home-school blogging again on future posts.

But today let’s talk about my new book on touring Israel!

Going to Israel was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. Other than my wedding day and the births of my children, this was the BEST!!!!!

I wrote, and wrote, and wrote about it, but I had yet to put all of that information into one source, so that’s what I am announcing today. All of the articles I wrote about Israel bring more people to my website than any of my motherhood, humor, recipes, or military wife posts put together.

It was not my plan to release this book in the middle of the Coronavirus madness and my kids having no school for at least two weeks, but life is funny like that…

Now onto Israel!!!

I am beyond excited to Introduce my new ebook: Tour Israel in Pictures & Stories!

Every single article I ever wrote about our trip to Israel is put together in this ebook. It has tons of beautiful, full color photos and stories from every city and Holy Land site that we visited.

Jump at the chance to go see Israel from your sofa. Tour the backdrop of the Bible. Visit Jerusalem, Capernaum, Tel Aviv, Joppa, Tabgha, Sea of Galilee, Mediterranean Sea, Nazareth, and more. See where Jesus performed miracles, was baptized, walked on the water, and was crucified and buried. I will take you along on the trip of a lifetime with over 275 photos, so you will feel like you are actually traveling right along with the group.

Tour Israel in Pictures and Stories was written just as much for someone who will never get to visit the Holy Land as it is for the traveler. I wanted you to see what I saw and learn things that we learned which you just cannot get from only reading the Bible or thumbing through a travel guide. I felt like I learned a billion things on this trip. We were constantly saying, “Oh wow, I didn’t know that,” and “What? Really? Is that right?”

And if you are planning a trip to Israel, this book will go a long way in helping you know what to expect and give you some ideas for places to look for.

A paperback version?

Several people have asked me about a paperback version. I did not seek out getting this book published in hard copy format. It is my first book, so I have much to learn. I did not want to go through all the waiting and trying to find a publisher to produce the book for me. Honestly, I do not even know where to begin with that sort of thing.

You can easily publish a paperback through Amazon, but I decided not to pursue it because this is not a paperback type of book. With this many full color photos it would have to be made with photo-weight paper, and I am still familiarizing myself with the process. I knew how to get an ebook published, so we are sticking with that for now.

I hope you will enjoy it too!

Here are 5 of my favorite photos from this adventure. All of these are also in the book:

These columns remain from the ancient Roman road through Jerusalem.

As a thank you to my readers, I am also giving away a copy of my new book. Please enter below!

The post My New Book, Tour Israel in Pictures & Stories, with a Giveaway appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Middle Schoolers Can Be Super Picky

But then, aren’t most people picky about what they read? I will deliberate for 5 minutes, put a book down, pick up another, change my mind, go back to book A, put it down, and then finally decide on a different book altogether. The older I get the pickier I seem to be.

When I go to the library to pick out books for my middle school boys, I am always overwhelmed by the choices. It seems like endless stacks of Rick Riordan wannabe books. My oldest son was a big fan of the Percy Jackson series, but that does not mean that he wants to continue to read endless books about dragons or fighting mythological gods and creatures. He has sort of a been there/done that attitude, and now he would rather read new things. I cannot for the life of me pick out a book for him from the middle schooler section of the library because it seems to be all about monsters and such, and that is not his interest.

I have one son who likes compilation-type books about sports facts. My other middle school son likes books that are funny and relatable. Neither of them are that into fantasy, and the whole middle school section is fantasy galore. It is a challenge.

The books in this list are all books that the boys read willingly, with no coercion from Mom.

#1. The Action Bible

This Bible is written in full graphic novel form, like a comic book for the Bible. It is written for readers ages 9 and up. One of my boys has already read through the whole thing twice, and I only bought it a month ago. This one was a big hit.

#2. A Dog Like Daisy, by Kristin O’Donnell Tubb

This book is told through the eyes of a shelter dog who is adopted and is training to become a service dog. There is only one word for this book: HILARIOUS. The boys laughed so hard at this one.

#3. I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919 by Lauren Tarshis

Believe it or not, the molasses flood was a real thing that happened, and people actually died. It was in Boston in 1919, and this was even better than some of the other I Survived books. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

#4. Spider-Man The Lifeline Tablet Saga

This is a thick book-form collection of Spiderman comic books written by Stan Lee and Fabian Nicieza, published as a compilation in 2017. The comics in it were originally written in 1963. This puts together Amazing Spider-man #68-75 and Spider-Man: Lifeline #1-3.

I did not read it, but I did consult with the clerk at the comic book store about which ones were appropriate for middle school boys, as opposed to older teen/ adult comics. Spiderman has a wholesome “friendly neighborhood spiderman” feel to it. I did not read the book, but the boys seemed to enjoy it.

#5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid Wrecking Ball, by Jeff Kinney

Wrecking Ball is the most recent installment of the famous series. When I worked at the library I noticed that almost every child reads these at least once. My kids have read them over and over again. When they run out of reading material, they revisit these funny tales of the ever-relatable Greg Heffley.

#6. Year in Sports 2020, by James Buckley, Jr.

One funny thing about these books is that the title is misleading, the year part that is. The very fact that 2020’s year is already published shows you that the facts cannot actually be the best of 2020. This whole series is a year ahead in title as opposed to material. The facts inside reflect the happenings of 2018 and 2019. My sons that follow sports LOVE these. My other sons do not, so like all books, it definitely depends on the interests of your children.

The boys have owned each year of these for as long as I can remember, and I just opened it up and read some of it for the first time. It was surprisingly interesting.

#7. The Far Side Gallery 3, by Gary Larson

My husband’s parents own the whole series of Far Side Galleries. Every summer and Christmas when we are visiting them, the boys dive into these classic comic collections. The boys managed to sneak #3 home, I think, unless we actually owned one. I am not sure.. Sorry Nonna! We may owe you a Far Side book. Check and see if you have #3. This is another one they have read over and over again because obviously The Far Side was always enjoyable.

They also get a kick out of Calvin and Hobbes collections, though they have not read any recently.

I hope this list gives you some ideas for books for your middle schoolers. If you are anything like me, I am always looking for new books that they will actually read. Sadly, I cannot tell you how many times we have bought them or checked out books that they would not read. Feel free to add more suggestions for good books in the comments below!

The post 7 Books for Middle Schoolers We Enjoyed this Year appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Have any of you watched The Great British Baking Competition on Netflix?

It may not sound like much, but it is addictive. Alan even watched it with me sometimes. I’ve seen every single episode of all the seasons, so we don’t watch it anymore, but I watched it around the clock last year.

On the show, there are 2 judges. Well, really there’s 3. For the first few years you have Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. Then for the last few seasons you have Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith. I enjoy them all, of course.

So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered this gem while shopping at Target!

Yes!!!! I DO want to bake with Mary Berry! I DO I DO I DO! So much. I was supposed to be Christmas shopping, but that book went straight home with me, and I’ve already baked around 7 different things.

I cannot share the recipes with you. Obviously, that’d be copyright infringement, but I will tell you a little about what I’ve made from the book so far.

Oh, there are several different categories of things to bake in this book: breakfast fare, cakes, puddings, cookies, pies, British favorites, etc.

I have this weird OCD-like quirk though.

I have to read every book from cover to cover. That means I cannot simply get a new cook book and skip around in it. No. Instead, I must forge straight through from first recipe to last in trying them out. And if the first few recipes don’t turn out well. It also means I will toss the book and not ever bake the things in the back.

Yes, I do realize this makes no sense at all. Why not just choose what I want to make most and make that thing? Well, now see, the reason is simple. I spend as little time in a day making decisions as possible. Even my clothes are kept in an order so that I don’t have to decide what to wear everyday. Okay, enough about me….

Here are a few things I baked from chapter 1: Breakfasts.

Yes, most of them turned out well, so I am continuing on in baking my way through this book. Yay!

#1. The first thing I made was a baked oatmeal dish called flapjacks.

These would’ve been delicious……IF they hadn’t completely stuck to the pan. I watched YouTube videos of other people making them too, so I’d have a clue as to what they were, and still…not enough grease on the pan led to disaster.

Best advice: parchment paper next time.

Sorry I didn’t get a photo! I’m bad about forgetting, especially when I fail. Ha!

#2. My Personal Favorite: French Pancakes

No, I’d never heard of it either, but the instructions were very clear. I gotta say, of all the things I’ve made from this book, this one was my favorite by far. These are DELICIOUS. There’s no other word for it.

The only thing about mine were that it was supposed to be made in 3 inch muffin cups, and I don’t have a muffin pan that size, so ours were extra small, but that’s okay. They still tasted the same.

#3. Blueberry & Vanilla Muffins

These were the sweetest, yummiest muffins ever. I called them cupcake muffins.

#4. White Chocolate & Strawberry Muffins

No photo of these. Sorry! These were not popular at our house with the kids because they have jam in the middle, which I think is actually their saving grace. Mine were overcooked and dry, so they were a disappointment. I now realize that my oven works a little faster than Mary Berry’s.

#5. Double Chocolate Muffins

Again I forgot to take photos, but at least the kids did eat these without any coercion. Big surprise, eh? They’ll eat anything chocolate.

#6. Zucchini Loaf

I didn’t bother trying to feed this to the boys because I only ate one bite. It was SO dry! My super-fast oven strikes again. Plus, maybe I drained the zucchini too much.

Alan, on the other hand, seemed to like it and ate half of the loaf by himself!

#7. I skipped the Date and Walnut loaf because I had no dates in my pantry.

#8. I skipped the Fruity Banana Bread because I was also out of bananas.

#9. Apricot & Cherry Loaf Cakes

I LOVED this. First, I feel healthy because it has dried apricots as well as cherries. Second, it’s just yumm-o.

Alan liked the zucchini one better. The boys are so finicky about trying new things like fruity breads that I didn’t even bother them with offering these last two breads. The apricot and cherry loaves make 2 loaves, so I froze one for later.

And I must confess, I ate half of one of them by myself…in one sitting. Apricots are so good! Plus, Alan chopped them up super tiny for me, so it isn’t overwhelming at all.

#10. Next Up: Danish Pastries

This is what I’m planning to make next!! I’m shaking in my black flat shoes over these. I’ve never made anything like this before. Feel free to send any tips you may have!

“The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:

The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.”

Numbers 6:24-26

The post My Attempt at Baking with Mary Berry appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Yesterday was my volunteer day. That’s the one day per week where I basically go into work like most American adults. Ha! I put on my grown-up clothes–things like trousers instead of yoga pants–and I work for someone besides my family. I mean, I’m a mom, so of course I do work everyday, but on volunteer day I do a different kind of work.

I love it. I re-shelf books at the boys’ school library, and I help Mrs. Dubose with her current project. And once all that is done, I do my favorite part of all. I catalog, label, dot, stamp, and tape new books to go on our library shelves, all while being available to check out books for kids.

These are a few of my favorites for early readers, all on a 1st grade reading level.

This is the best job I’ve had in ages, and I do it all for free. Volunteering or trying out different jobs has been the only way for me to figure out what I enjoy doing and what I don’t.

Don’t wait around for someone to ask you to do a volunteer job. Figure out what you’d like to try and go ask to do that thing.

Otherwise, I’ve always found that if you don’t busy yourself with what you enjoy doing, other people will find work that you may NOT enjoy doing for you to do!

That’s happened to me a few times too. Nursery duty, anyone?? Aughhhhh!!! Every time I’ve ever been given church nursery duty, I lived in dread that week of Sunday because I didn’t want to do it. We all do a better job and help more people when we do what we’re good at, not what we just couldn’t say no to.

You may think it’s ironic that I love working in the library since I wrote this post: How We Got Banned From the Library, but my inability to return things I borrow on time actually doesn’t at all affect how much I love books and cataloging new ones and bringing order to shelves ransacked by tiny hands. How I love it!

I wish I could love restoring order to my house as much as I love tidying up the library. What is that? Why is it that it’s more fun to do things away from home? I got nothing. I can’t explain that phenomenon.

My VBS class made this this summer, and that’s when I realized I could totally be okay with teaching Sunday school. This was fun too! The older I get the more things I find that I enjoy.

So you know what I fell in love with this year? The library. Again. It’s a love I’ve had since childhood, though it worked so much better when I had my ever-responsible mother to make me return the books on time.

This time I’m loving being on the other side of the desk. I even have my own account at the school library now. You know why? You’ll laugh–I hope. See, I checked out a book on Caleb’s account, without his knowledge, and then I lost that book. I know. I still can’t find it!!

Well, my boys, believe it or not, never lose books and rarely acquire fines, so when Caleb went to check out a book and discovered that he couldn’t because he had a way overdue book, he was pretty upset with me…..So Mrs. Dubose did us a solid, and switched that book to my account.

Working in the library has also helped me find more ideas of good books to share with my boys.

That was a month ago. I still can’t find that book. It won’t be the first time I’ve bought a book that I’ve lost. Life will go on. The library is still a great privilege. It’s still saving us money to check out most of our books rather than buying most of our books.

Remember when I was a young adult, and I tried job after job, and felt like such a flake because I couldn’t find one that fit? Well, I’m 36 now, and I’m happy to report that I’ve found several.

Mom. Blogger. Writer. Librarian. Sunday School teacher.

I officially love all of these jobs. How blessed am I!? Sometimes you just have to give things time and trial and error, right?

How about you? Have you ever found your passion through volunteering? What jobs do you love?

The post The Job I Fell in Love with this Year appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I love Christmas break. Time off from spelling tests, chauffeur duties, graded papers, packing lunches, and best of all I’m not desperately rushing everyone to not be late…..oh how I love time off.

We always spend a few days at my parent’s house and a few days at Alan’s parents’ house, and it’s such a blessing to spend time with them and soak up the rest and good conversation.

With people you see on a daily basis, it can be easy to fall prey to simply talking about your shared problems and the annoying people you have to deal with. Ha! We all have them.

But when we get together with family at Christmas, we can re-focus on what matters and gain wisdom from others. We can always do that during the everyday too, of course, but I get the best ideas when I have some time and space to read and think!

Daniel and his favorite cousin at Christmas. They were born only a month apart.

I am reading 2 books and taking 1 online course that I’m gaining immensely from. One is on grocery budgeting and the other is on marriage. The course is about planning.

Alan even found an app for us to use for grocery shopping that has also been hugely helpful. I wanted to pass those along to y’all.

The Books

1.) How to Win the Grocery Game

I’m including an eBay link above for that one, which I do not make any money from. I just found the eBay price to be slightly better than Amazon.

This is an extremely practical book about saving money on grocery shopping. However, it was written in the 1970s and is extremely outdated. I’ve had to look for more modern ways to implement some of the strategies in this book, but it’s the strategies and the meal planning tips that make the book worth while…..if you can look past the insane price amounts on everything. You have to ignore those since this book is from the 70s!!

I’ll share with you a modern app I’ve used to help me do one thing from the book later in this post.

2.) Created to Be His Helpmeet

The above link is to the Amazon Kindle edition, but it is available in paperback on Amazon and other sellers as well. I do earn a small percentage when you buy through this link.

This book doesn’t even attempt political correctness with words like “hillbilly ugly” and “submit”. Ha! You have been warned.

But I’ve found it to be practical and helpful, a solid reminder. It has also helped me understand my husband better, as she divides men up into three groups: command types, visionaries, and steady men.

The book is about becoming a kinder, more helpful wife, and by doing that, you can’t help but improve your marriage, even if you’re married to the Grinch himself. I’m only 1/3 the way through it, but so far it has helped me to straight up be a nicer person at home with my husband.

I also love that it’s written by an older woman. She has walked through all the phases of life, and she’s sharing what she has learned.

Us with Alan’s side of the fam. Greg was MIA this year due to food poisoning. You were missed, Greg!

The App

As I mentioned above, I’ve found a more modern way to implement the grocery strategy, but it isn’t foolproof. I’m not sure if the database is leaving out all the goods from stores like Aldi and the Pig because they came up less frequently than I expected. Some work may still need to be done there.

But if you want an easy way to compare everyday prices at one store with sale prices from the circulars, this is an awesome app.

It’s called Basket.

You type in your grocery list. It gives you options for brands and lines them up by price. Try it out. You may end up spending hours on it like Alan and I have.

We put in our entire grocery list, and then we hit “compare prices”. It showed us that the cheapest way to get all our groceries at one store was to go to Walmart. However, the real issue was that Walmart was the only store that carried every item on our list.

To get the best savings, you can tell it to break it up into 2 stores. That gave us Walmart and Food Depot. In the list, it breaks down which items we should buy at Food Depot and which ones we should purchase at Walmart.

Wow, huh?

It was funny how it would switch stores as we put more groceries in!

However, Alan found that not all of the prices and sizes were available at Walmart, so checking your weekly circulars is still important.

I think this is a good tool, but it doesn’t truly replace searching through the weekly grocery ads.

Christmas morning

Chore Looping

Another exciting tip I got this Christmas is “chore looping,” which my sister-in-law, Amy, told me about.

For those of us who have trouble with other methods of keeping up with house cleaning schedules, chore looping is the way to go.

You make a list of tasks, like this:

• Scrub hall bathroom.
• Clean the kitchen.
• Sweep and mop the floors.
• Scrub master bath.

etc., etc. Add whatever rooms you have.

Then you work through it until you reach the end and start over, and it doesn’t have to be all in one day, all in one week, or even all in one month. You just work through the list as you are able.

Some tasks you have to write on your list more than once, like scrubbing that bathroom that all 4 boys use…bleh…

For Example:

• Scrub hall bathroom.
• Clean the kitchen.
• Sweep and mop the floors.
• Scrub master bath.
• Vacuum.
• Scrub hall bathroom.
• Tidy up dining room.
• Clean the kitchen.
• Tidy up living room.
• Dust the house.
• Scrub hall bathroom….lol…again and again and again…

…And the list goes on until you’ve covered all the tasks you can think of.

Some days you do 3 or 4 of them. Other days you do 1 or none at all. It just depends on when you have the time!

If you do marathon clean, then you skip the repeats. I almost never marathon clean. Why? Because it’s exhausting, and I was always hoping I’d be affording a maid by now….lol

Daniel helping with the Men’s Pancake Breakfast at church

I’ll save my excitement of my new Brilliant Life Planner and accompanying online planning course for another day. I can’t wait to show it to you. In fact, I’m definitely going to do a Facebook Live all about this planner this week, on my Stories of Our Boys Facebook page.

I hope you all had an absolutely fabulous Christmas and are as excited about the new year as I am! Actually, I’m pretty nervous about 2018. Moving…deep breaths…deep breaths…I’m going to need all the organization I can accomplish!

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”    Jeremiah 29:11

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