***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.

Check back tomorrow! I’m planning to upload photos of 17 mile drive, a scenic route that hugs the coast from Pacific Grove to Carmel! Or maybe I’ll do the seal pup photos next…

The post 42 Beautiful Photos of Monterey, California appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

When I started college in 1999, the computer world looked absolutely nothing as it looks today. We barely used email, let alone websites. Books were purchased at stores that sold coffee, notes were written on paper, and Facebook, WordPress, and Twitter were not even thoughts in anyone’s heads.

On top of that, as an easily bored 18 year old, I swore off anything computer or business world related. I made my home in the school of Arts and Sciences. The only contact I had with computer geeks were the engineers that I flirted with at the library. I will say that for me. I did study a lot. Let me tell you, pre-med studies are hard!

Therefore, my computer skills were seriously lacking when I started this whole blogging thing in 2007, with my private blog. It has been QUITE the learning curve for me, but I now feel so confident in website building.  I can’t tell you what a high it gives this non-computer-chic to tell you this:

Thanks to DaddyO and Nonna being here this weekend, I’ve had a little more time to work on the blog, and …….I moved the email subscriptions from the old blog to the new blog……..ALL BY MYSELF!!

One day, I’m going to take some computer classes, and then I’m really going to be out of control. 😉

Blogging friends, if you are thinking of taking the leap to a self hosted website in order to make income with your blog, go for it!!! It’s not nearly as hard as they make it sound. I went with Bluehost, and so far I’m as pleased as punch.

Meanwhile, the blog platform is still WordPress, so I don’t have to re-learn how to design my blog. It’s mostly the same as before.

Thank you so much for listening to my celebrating about my blogging education. Here are a few photos of what else has been going on around here:

JD has become attached to this puppy.

Oh, and I have had homeschool breakthrough after home school breakthrough!!!  So exciting!

We’ve been struggling with the skip-counting, so this week I used Caleb as guinea pig, and taught him only 3-4 numbers per day. This week we were on the 15s. That boy can roll out 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 like NOBODY’S BUSINESS now.  WhooT!!!  So no, he never got all the way to 225 like I’d hoped, BUT knowing 15-135 SOLIDLY is better than not knowing 15-225 at all.

It may be hard to tell in the photo, but we finally got the garage cleaned out to the point that you can actually park a car inside it.  This is us partying in the garage. It is now part storage, part playroom.

Daniel was so proud of this power wheel (doesn’t work) that we commandeered from the neighborhood dumpster. He sat in it for hours. It’s a firetruck, and the siren still works.

Daniel told Alan, “See your truck, Daddy. (pointing to Alan’s truck) This my truck. (pointing to power wheel) My truck have ladder. Your truck no have ladder.”

🙂

I found a new way to entertain JD. I gave him empty sippy cups and lids. He did whatever he did with them, all while studying his coin chart. Haaaaaa

Sometimes you have to work with what you have. The boys were doing great at matching states to capitals, but not so great with matching those capitals and states to the state shape on the map.

Then I went to my friend Joy’s house, and she had these awesome flash cards. I couldn’t find any to purchase, so I worked with what I had.

The dollar store had state “flash cards” that had so much information on both sides, they were completely useless…..until now. I cut out some bolder, less congested state images from the maps Amy sent me, blacked out the city/state names, and voila! Flash cards! These helped us BIG time this week.

I’m running out of time, so let me share this one last thing!!!  Character lessons! Here’s the link so that you can purchase them yourself:

http://thecharactercorner.com/lads-ladies-character/

I love these. The ones in the picture are just the ones we’ve been through this year. You spend a week on each character trait. Next week’s is “forgiveness.” I just think this is such a great way to start out the school day. What is more important than having godly character?

So I’m off to watch the Bama/MSU game. We recorded it, so don’t tell me what happens!  🙂

Roll Tide!

“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves.” Zephaniah 3:17

The post A Week of Serious Breakthroughs appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

*********

“I can’t sleep. I’m just so excited about Granddaddy and Nana!”

You might say this was a really big deal! Here is their visit, according to Granddaddy’s phone. Dad let me email myself all the pictures I wanted. Thanks, Dad!!  🙂

Alan took the boys wet suit shopping. Oh my goodness. Have you ever put on a wetsuit? Well, let me tell ya, it’s like putting on full body panty-hose–not an easy accomplishment for little boys! Caleb was having none of it, so we settled for a spring surfer suit.

He didn’t last in the water for as long as the rest of us, but it was thick enough to let him play for a little while. The boys keep calling it their “safety suit.” We finally had to explain that it isn’t exactly a safety suit, lest they develop some sort of false security in their suit. You never know what a little one might believe will make him invincible!!

Now this is Big Sur. Endless miles of land that look like this.

Believe it or not, Daniel was standing INSIDE of a redwood tree. yep.

The wetsuits in action–By the end of the day, Joshua was in up to his neck too. These suits really amazed me. The arms/legs are thinner than the body part. For the body part, you literally cannot even tell you’re getting wet. We can swim all year!

Daniel was sort of a beach sensation, looking so adorable in his little bitty wet suit.

“Mom, you’re so big. To be as deep as me, you need to go further out.”

“No, thanks, Joshua. I do not actually want to swim WITH the seals and the sea lions–kind of freaks me out a little bit.”

This whole area also has a large homelessness problem.

Granted, this is by FAR the most expensive place we’ve ever lived, and we lived in Washington, DC. What makes it so expensive? We’re not just talking real estate. These people hand taxes out like Halloween candy. Our renter’s insurance went up. Car insurance went up for both vehicles. Our gas–oh my goodness the gasoline–the whole state voted itself a tax increase on gasoline.

Oh! Milk seems to have gone down a little, though! That’s a big deal with four children.

For a second I thought, “Ha ha, they won’t get us with that gasoline tax. Alan rides his bike to work, and I’m working at home.”

….Then I realized that that’s exactly what they’re trying to accomplish. Ugh. I did not stick it to the man. Haaaa!

Ya’ll. Not even kidding–I got a mail-out from a local politician that went on and on and on about all the taxes he supports. He supports more sales tax, more property tax, etc. etc.

You can’t make this stuff up. Now anywhere else, they might support the tax hikes, but they’d keep that on the down-low–not brag about it.

So if there is any culture shock, it’s that which is hitting my wallet.

Oh, also they charge you a quarter for plastic bags. But let me tell you. Once you move here, you totally get why they’re so serious about protecting the environment and the ocean. I’d be pretty ticked at anyone that messed this up too. I have no problem at all with the re-use- your- bag movement.

Now wait a minute. Where was I going with all that? I had a point. I said all this to tell a humorous quote from my parents.

Mom mentioned all the beggars–really there are so many–and she said, “One of them had a sign that said,’Not even going to lie. Need money for beer.”

Dad cut in, “So I gave him a dollar!”

heeeeheehhehe Well, we do all appreciate a little honesty.

We had a great visit with my parents. They had never been to California before. Visiting places this new and different from the South is exciting.

We are adjusting well to our gorgeous new environment, even if we do have a little California culture shock.

The post The Truth About Moving to California & Culture Shock appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

When Alan and I were getting ready to move here, people just went on and on, telling us how beautiful it is here. Everyone seemed completely in awe of the place, describing the weather as “perfect, though cool, all year round”, mosquitos non-existent, perfect, perfect, perfect.

“Okay.” Alan told me, “This place has been so built up. I’m going to be completely disappointed if this isn’t paradise itself. I am fully expecting there to be a tree in the middle that you aren’t allowed to eat from.”

As we drove here, across the country, through the California desert, we began to have our doubts….

But I have to admit, it really is pretty amazing. We’ve been too busy to enjoy it much until this past week.

This morning my parents left, and they are now on their way back to sweet home Alabama. We were so sad to see them go that every single boy, except JD, got up at 6:30am, just to say good-bye.

JD would have, but the thing is that he was awful tired from waking up constantly between 8pm and 12am. Awful tired. I can’t imagine how that feels..

We had such a FUN visit. The eight of us really took on the adventures. Not only did we see the whales and the sea lions, but we also traveled Big Sur, ate clam chowder in Monterey, tried out our new wetsuits, and took a couple days off from work and school. It was a much needed vacation. We’re having just a little trouble now getting back into the swing of things. I finally gave up at 2pm and let all little boys run free.

Oh, and by the way, every single restaurant in Monterey boasts that it has “the #1 award winning clam chowder from this contest or that contest”. I guess you can’t go wrong.

My parents even made time to see the redwood forrest in Santa Cruz. Daniel got to go with them. The boys and I had to go back to school. (Boo fun.)  We live here though, so we have plenty of weekends to go see the redwoods. Some of those trees were truly, impressively large! Exciting!

More photos of that on the next post!

Of course, Alan and I took advantage of the babysitter situation and went kayaking. Oh wow, that was a surreal experience, with seals and sea otters popping out of the water to check us out. Alan took those pictures on his phone, so I have to wait until I can get my hands on his phone to share those!

And now it’s back to work. My goals this week:

1. Find better projects to keep Daniel busy during instructional times.

2. Assess Caleb’s new reading level. (He has DEFINITELY risen above the 1st grade level that I assessed him at before school started. His progress will knock the socks right off ya.)

3. Finish reading Preteen Wise,  complete with all the best points underlined for Alan.

4. Go to bed by 10:30pm every night.

5. Dig into Classical Conversations Connected.

6. Buy cornmeal and make cornbread. I NEED cornbread.

7. Blog at least 4 times.

8. Cook a real dinner every night, except Friday.

9. Remember to teach the children the character lessons I downloaded from http://thecharactercorner.com/lads-ladies-character/   (Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Shannon at ihavenogreaterjoy.wordpress.com.)

10. Finish reading Isaiah. Begin Jeremiah.

11. Spend at least 1 hour each day cleaning house. (I got that tip from my friend Barbara, back in Virginia. Thank you, Barb!)

12. Put all the laundry AWAY before going to bed–hardest thing ever for me. No me gusta el laundry.

A beautiful thought for today– Jesus will return again to Earth, and the Bible tells us that ALL will be at PEACE.

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”   Isaiah 11:6

“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain:  for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek:  and his rest shall be glorious.”  Isaiah 11:9-10

The post The California Coast: Just don’t eat from that tree in the middle. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

JD, checking out the dining room on move in day

I am thrilled to report that I am back in action. The House of Many Little Men is 90% unpacked, 5% decorated, and today the cable man paid us a visit, so I can now finally be a blogger again!  Yahoo!

Thank you, Nonna, for making this possible!!!  If Alan’s mom had not come to help with the unpacking, I’d still be more like 40% unpacked. I cannot describe to you how much work goes into unpacking a family of 6 with too much stuff!!!

I just put JD down for a nap, the boys are playing in their room, and Daniel is playing cars.  This is the perfect opportunity to ignore the laundry and assembling my house, and update my blog.  I know you are all DYING to see photos of my new place. Ok. Well, I know my family is anyway. So without further ado, let me tell you a little about our new place! More pictures to come tomorrow!

We have been so fortunate with the wonderful places we’ve been sent to live! We are always being “tourists in our own town.”

This is the nicest house we’ve ever had, and I love it. It’s a little smaller than my last house, as there is no basement, but it has way way more space upstairs, which is actually so much better. It’s easier to keep up with where everyone is too, and that’s a very good thing.  I also have a balcony off of my bedroom, which is just the neatest thing. I can go out there and peek at the ocean and watch the cars drive by. At least, I could do all of that, if I’m ever less busy. So far I have had no time to sit, or peek, or watch anything!

I mentioned on my personal Facebook page that I can see the Pacific Ocean from my front porch. What I mean is that I can see it, through this one clearing in the trees, because of the elevation of my neighborhood. I don’t actually live on the sand.  It’s still a nice little view though, and there is something extremely therapeutic about seeing the ocean every single day. I just can’t explain it. It has greatly helped me to cope with my homesickness.

Homesick? Me? I can’t believe it, but it’s true. Yesterday I dusted off the “Virginia” souvenir plate that used to belong to my great-grandmother and set it out on my china cabinet. It has little pictures of Virginia landmarks all over it. An hour later, I sat down for a little snack break, and when I stopped and actually looked at what we will refer to as THE PLATE, I just burst into tears.

What in the world? It was the photos of the Natural bridge and Mount Vernon that did me in. Strangest thing. We’ve lived all over the country. I’ve never had so much trouble leaving a place.

The good news is that things are really looking up here. The weather is amazing. I’ve met a few people, and there are just subtle hugs from God that I find in nature each and every day.  I just know that very soon I will no longer be so emotional!

I’ve also been uncertain and nervous about this homeschooling experiment. I still have a lot of work to do, and I’m opening school on MONDAY!!! I was going to start on the 20th, but Caleb just keeps begging me to start sooner, so I think I can do Monday. The neighborhood school is already in session, so I have felt seriously ashamed that mine aren’t in school yet. With the move, it just hasn’t been possible.

Today when I realized the cable man was coming and would wonder why my kids were not in school, I was a little concerned. I was fully intending to explain that my kids were starting school on Monday, but then Alan came upstairs. Alan had already talked to him, and Alan said, “The cable man’s wife is homeschooling their children too, and they are also starting on Monday.”

Relief. For today I do not have to feel like a weird-o. I suppose it is time for me to just embrace weird-o-dom.

Guess what else. AT&T gave us a free DVR. We haven’t had DVR in 10 years, so this is exciting. He also showed me how to block half of the channels I’m paying for. Funny huh? I also blocked everything R rated and all purchases.

Why do I even bother with cable? Two words: Alabama football. It’s a big thing, ya’ll!!!

Okay. What you really want is pictures, right? Tonight I will upload pictures of the new house, and since most of my readers, according to my statistics, live in the Eastern time zone, they will be up and ready for viewing when you wake up in the morning………That is….IF John David cooperates. He has kind of been TERROR Baby at night. I don’t get it. He sleeps really well for nap, but he goes into torture mode at night. He knows how to put himself to sleep, so that’s not it. I’m feeding him plenty of solid food during the day, now that we are out of the hotel. He doesn’t appear to be sick. I just don’t get it.

Funnies from the move:

Caleb: “Do we ever have to go back to the hotel again?”

Me: Nope!

Caleb: Phew! Thank goodness!

*******

Before our flight West, Nonna and I took the boys by Walmart to get a portable charger for my cell phone.  As we were walking in the parking lot, I went to grab Dan’s hand.

Dan: Can’t!  (He had one hand closed as if he were holding something in that hand.)

Me: Dan, what do you have in your hand?
Dan:  My ball.

Me: Oh! (I thought this was adorable. He had an imaginary ball in his hand.) Just switch hands, Dan, and I will hold this hand, and you can hold your ball in the other hand.

Dan: *carefully switched hands*

…..walking peacefully into Walmart…..until……..I go to get a buggy and hear all heck breaking lose from Caleb and Daniel….

Me: Daniel! What in the world!

Dan: *crying/whining* Caleb has my ball!!!!  (imaginary ball)

Me: I turn to see Caleb dribbling an imaginary ball. “Caleb, you’d better throw that ball back to Daniel!”

Caleb threw the ball in the opposite direction of Daniel, and Daniel took off after it.

Seriously, Caleb????

*****

Photos of us, exploring beautiful California:

Yes, it feels really great to be together as a family again!!!

Mom and I at the aquarium.  We could not have done this move without both sets of our parents!

If only I’d had my real camera!!

It’s a horrible photo of me, but JD looks so cute I just had to use it!

I was a little disappointed in this aquarium, but I’m spoiled by the Baltimore Aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, and the gulfarium in Fort Walton Beach.  However, there was one great thing about this one that the others could never have: watching sea animals in the wild! I actually saw a sea lion swimming around, looking for a rock, while we were standing out on the aquarium deck.

Everyone who visits us must go to Point Lobos.

Hiking with rocks is a dream come true for these two and a total nightmare with Daniel and JD. I can officially only go to Point Lobos with another adult in tow.

One more observation from this whole moving experience: It has brought Joshua and Caleb much, much closer. In Virginia, they had their own best friends, but this summer they’ve only had each other. It’s been precious to watch them renew their bond.

Okay. More photos next time! The natives are getting restless….

The post Moving to California with 4 Kids appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Of course, before he was the greatest granddaddy, he was the greatest dad, and he still is.

My dad did a lot of saving the day this year. He went to Virginia and picked up my van when every other plan had failed us. He helped my mom maintain order and take care of the children on my 2 week vacation with Alan out West. You don’t find too many folks that can take on a baby, a preschooler, and 2 ‘big’ boys for 2 whole weeks. Ya’ll did a great job. THANK YOU!!!!!

Dad and Alan got totally overlooked on Father’s Day, since we were traveling that day. This week is my dad’s birthday, and I just can’t overlook him this time!!!

There was this one day, while we were staying at my parents’ house, that Joshua walked outside, after having gotten in trouble for his attitude, and I saw that Dad was already out there. I told Mom, “Good. I hope Dad gives Joshua one of those lectures about life.” 🙂 I used to hate those!!!  But I’m so thankful you gave them to us, Dad!

I’m thankful for so many things that you did. I’m thankful you knew how to do that whole “tough love” thing. Of course, we learned early on that your bark was much worse than your bite (there was no bite). My dad just has this air of authority. You can’t fake that. When Dad enters the room, he’s in charge, and everyone knows it, but I can’t explain it at all. When he says ‘go,’ you go, and that’s all there is to it. Of course, I pushed and prodded and tested him anyway. I can’t imagine where Joshua gets it from…..

There are so many things I learned from my dad. My favorite? I love that you taught me to love boating, Dad. You let me ride on your ski boat to my heart’s content, and you never made me fish. I just liked to ride. Alan and I once took one of these “marriage surveys” to see what activities we both enjoy. We had a grand total of ONE activity in common: boating!

That’s me driving a pontoon boat, Spring Break, my senior year of high school.

….And you prepared me for my life as an Army wife. Saying ‘good-bye’ and “welcome home” were not foreign concepts to me. I made this sign for my dad when I was a child. He was coming home from the Panama Conflict.

Dad has always been fun too. This is me getting tickled, I’m sure. We used to have a running game of “last lick”, and I just can’t explain how much fun that was.

I’m amazed at how much we’ve all changed over the years, and we had the greatest joy when Dad accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior about six years ago.

I think it’s important to not wish your life away, and that’s been really hard not to do this particular summer!! Even though things have dragged out much, much longer than we had hoped, at least my children got to go spend time with the people that matter the most to us. I hope some Granddaddy wisdom and leadership rubbed off on them. I hope some Nana sweetness and affection got poured in there too–and perhaps some Nonna industriousness and stick-to-it-iveness and a little DaddyO calm and humor.

Happy Birthday, Dad!!  I love you so much, and I hope you get to come and visit very very very soon!!

The post My Dad appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.