This winner will receive a copy of each of the three recently published books for their kids.

Congratulations are in order to……….

Linda Jackson!!!

Hurray, Linda!! I hope your children will love these books.

To read more about each of these 3 books, see my full review here.

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

And here is a link to each of these 3 darlin’ newly published books on Amazon:

Your kids will love these.

Lincoln’s Big Adventure is also available free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

EXTRA big thank you to the authors of these three books for supplying our giveaway!

We closed April off on a happy note here at our house too. My oldest son is playing basketball, and they came in second place in this weekend’s tournament. That was exciting.

Plus, Alan took the boys to bring-your-kids-to work day this past week, and that was a hit.

And now my nine-year-old is here, and he wants me to get him registered for football, so I will stop here. I wish you all a wonderful May!

And be sure to check out my first successful YouTube video ever. ha! Yes, I’ve made many YouTube videos before to use on my blogs, but this is the first one to ever have over 1,300 views.

It is all about how to keep your clothes organized and decluttered when you have a small closet. My system will also make sure you vary your wardrobe and don’t get stuck wearing the same five shirts over and over again while the others just sit there.

Have a great week, y’all!! Congratulations again to our giveaway winner, Linda!

The post Let’s Start May with a Sprinkle of Joy: Announcing the Giveaway Winner! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

***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.

These are all quotes about being a boy mom that anyone raising a boy, or two, or seven, will enjoy. I created fun pictures for some of them too so you can save them on Pinterest. I tend to save more funny quotes than I do helpful articles. Ha!

Or I save the helpful content on Pinterest, but I do not actually ever get around to doing them… So these are just for fun and encouragement.

#1. Mark Twain and his struggling mother….I guarantee you he was right, and she enjoyed it very much. I know I adore raising these children, no matter how hard it is.

#2. No one is as indestructible as a boy in a Batman costume.

Who knew Plato had jokes?

#3. This one sounds exactly like my life and is from a fellow mom blogger:

You’re going to miss this someday – I whisper to myself as I’m shot in the butt with a Nerf Gun while unclogging the toilet.”

~Lauren @https://simply-well-balanced.com

#4. Princess Diana:

#5. I actually said this one, and I stand by this statement:

But “somewhat?” No. I feel seriously accomplished!

#6. Embrace the messy. This one came from a blogger friend named Julie, who actually has five sons.

#7. I get to focus all of my fashion efforts on my OWN wardrobe

You can read more about the benefits of boy momhood here.

#8. Okay. THIS one from Kenny Rogers is one of my ALL time favorites, and it sums up most of my problems from the past seventeen years. Ha!

#9. I found my son skateboarding on the trampoline, and I feel like that sums up how dangerous raising boys actually is.

#10. Pure wisdom from Proverbs:

#11. This next one!!! I mean because it is like shoveling snow in a blizzard sometimes, especially when they are little.

#12. “Raising boys is a lot like raising lion cubs.”

I said that when I took all of them out in public together one time when they were all little.

This was the whole story:

The manager gave us a tour (of a rec center). Of course, the boys couldn’t keep their hands off each other, not in a mean way. It’s just that boys are very physical.  Raising boys is a lot like raising lion cubs.  At one point, all three hunched over JD, making googly faces at him. They were all smiling, and JD was whacking them in the face, just as happy as he could be. They loved it!

Don’t worry. I don’t condone toddlers smacking people in their faces…

#13. The sand, the kids running in opposite directions, the exhaustion, the safety concerns, I will never forget, one does not simply take four little boys to the beach by yourself.

#14. I left him alone for five minutes to run upstairs and grab something. When I came back downstairs, he was covered in chocolate and was laying upside down, asleep, half on the floor, feet in his chair.

That carpet never stood a chance.

#15. This one is so sweet, and it is the truest of true boy mom quotes. They will be heroes in our eyes!

“You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out to be heroes, even if it’s just in your own eyes.” – Wally Schirra

#16. Amen to this:

“I used to give my friends who have kids advice all the time, and they would look at me like I had three heads. And then, when I had two, I literally apologized to all my friends.”

-Jennifer Lopez

#17. I found this quote on Pinterest from another present day writer. It is such a good reminder!!

“The only part of their childhood that lasts forever are the memories, so we better not be too busy to make them.” –Casey Huff in this post at Her View from Home

#18. Being a boy mom is all about wrestling, cookies, video games, and endless energy. The endless energy is theirs. You will gradually have less and less.

#19. You have boys. Congratulations! Your toilet will never be clean again.

#20. I will end on this one because it sums up my life from 2005-2013, when I was having one baby boy after another. My oldest son, around age seven, actually said to me, “Wait. If we go inside, we have to stand still and be quiet? Oh, I can’t go then. I am not made to stand still.”

“If it requires my child to sit still and be quiet, I can’t come.” -Unknown

This was also how we picked churches in the earlier years. No nursery for church service? Then we will have to attend a different church. Sanity matters, y’all.

I hope you enjoyed these boy mom quotes.

There is nothing that has brought more joy to my adulthood than being a boy mom to my sons. Now listen, I would also have LOVED to have daughters. I tried to do so, in fact. So please don’t troll me about that because I wanted a daughter very badly. Who knows? Maybe someday God will still give me one.

But I would not trade a single boy in this house for any daughters, puppies, or quiet time. Raising these boys is the greatest blessing we have ever had, and I know you feel the say way about your own, both daughters and sons.

“Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

Psalm 106:1

The post 20 Boy Mom Quotes That Will Make You Smile appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I have another Guest post for you! We have Amanda Wilson, author of Heading into Homeschool: A Faith-Based Step-by-Step Plan for Beginning to Homeschool . You can also find Amanda at www.maestramom.com. She blogs about home schooling and parenting, and she has many helpful resources on her website too.

Amanda’s book is all about getting started with your home school. She is here to share her journey with us.

It was the last week of May, and I was staring at my classroom wondering how in the world I was going to be able to teach again for another year. 

I loved teaching.  Kids were my life, but two of my own were at home struggling and really needed me.  I rubbed my big, 8-month pregnant belly, knowing I had to get my act together fast – before this little one made an appearance. 

The truth was my heart wasn’t in the classroom anymore.  It was at home – with my daughter who had been struggling in school last year and my little son.  But my school principal had to know – this week! – if I was coming back to school next year.  And I had no idea.

Honestly, I desperately wanted to stay home and homeschool my kids. 

My daughter had just gone through a terrible school year in 2^nd grade, and she had already decided she hated math forever.  My son was slated to begin kindergarten, but he was a firecracker and I wondered if he’d be able to even make it in a classroom.  I didn’t love what I was seeing from the inside at public schools, and I knew I didn’t want my kids in that environment.

So, after a whirlwind, impulsive we-have-to-make-a-change conversation with my hubby, we decided to totally upend our lives and homeschool the kids.   What?!?  Now, I had 3 days to completely pack my classroom and get out – and don’t forget I was big, fat pregnant!  Then only a few weeks until baby girl was born.  Then a few more weeks and – poof!  Time to start homeschooling. 

The trouble was, I was completely lost and overwhelmed. 

How in the world do you just start homeschooling?  I felt completely unprepared but with my typical knock-it-out attitude, I jumped in with both feet, determined to conquer and slay!

This was My Homeschool Prep Plan of Attack:

1.       Talk to friends

The first thing I did was make a phone call to a friend in another state who I knew homeschooled. I begged her to tell me everything she knew about homeschooling.  She was a dear and helped me create a daily routine as well as explaining how she scheduled out the lessons.  More than anything, she was super encouraging and my biggest cheerleader during this huge change.  I was doubting myself and spinning in circles, so her support at that time was a tremendous blessing.

2.       Hit the internet

Second, I started googling.  I had a thousand questions, and the internet was a wealth of information!  I spent many hours looking up curriculum, diving into legal requirements for homeschooling, and figuring out the nitty-gritty how-to to make it happen.  The problem with the internet is that there are so many voices and often conflicting information.  I still struggled to make sense of all the homeschooling advice and siphon out what was the most important.

3.       Learn from the pros

I knew a few families who had homeschooled in the past and now had older kids.  I figured they already had this whole homeschooling thing figured out so I picked their brains, too, and tried to glean all the wisdom I could.  They were helpful to recommend books, curricula, and practical tips.  One of the ladies even enlisted her entire family to come help me pack up my school classroom and move everything home (elementary teachers have a LOT of stuff).

4.       Join a co-op

I thought my kids might need a community – and knew I definitely needed some mom support – so I started researching about homeschool co-ops in my area.  The challenge here, I learned, is that many homeschool co-ops are sort of under-ground.  What I mean is, that many co-op groups operate without any kind of online presence or even official organization, making them very hard to find except by word-of-mouth.  The first group we found and joined didn’t really work out, but after a few years we finally found a fabulous co-op that is a good fit for our family.  Being around like-minded mommas is a huge win!

5.        Read homeschooling books

The other thing I did was get a list from homeschooling moms about the books they had used to help them and inspire them as homeschooling mommas.  I bought a few and dove into summer reading!  While several of the books were truly inspirational and foundational in helping me establish my own homeschooling philosophy, none of them really got down to the actual how-to of homeschooling.  I felt sort of helpless in that area and rather on-my-own.  But I buckled down, leaned into my teacher know-how, and put together a plan for how we were going to homeschool.

Heading into Homeschool

Now, eight years later, we’re still homeschooling and loving the adventure!  My oldest is now in high school, the second one is in middle school, that little baby is now in elementary, plus God sent another tiny bundle to the family who is just beginning preschool this year. 

Along the way, I started blogging about my journey at www.maestramom.com and wrote the book I wish I could’ve read at the time.  Yes!  I actually wrote a book about homeschooling!  It’s called Heading into Homeschool: A Faith-Based Step-by-Step Plan for Beginning to Homeschool.  It dives into both the philosophical, inspirational side of homeschooling like finding your teaching style and your kid’s learning style AND goes into all the nitty-gritty how-to homeschool questions. 

This book answers every possible question that’s likely to come up!

 Heading into Homeschool totally covers all your bases and is the perfect book for anyone who’s even considering homeschooling.  Grab a copy on Amazon and share! 

Pro tip:  get the eBook Kindle version of Heading into Homeschool because it contains over 70 links to online resources so you don’t have to find them all yourself!

The post Where to Begin When You are New to Home Schooling appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

You can now find me at my new blog: gettingmyacttogether.com.

It’s still the same me, talking about many of the same things, just less “stories of our boys” and more stories of organizing, decluttering, moving, Army life, and always learning. I hope you’ll join me over there!

I’ve also started a YouTube series about getting the house ready to sell and moving. So far all of the videos have been about decluttering and organizing. We are moving again this summer. I thought if I have any expertise in ANYTHING, it is definitely about all things related to moving. So I’m doing my best to share my years of moving/PCS/home selling knowledge in this video series.

Thank you for all your support over my years on Stories Of Our Boys!

I have left up all of the resourceful posts and taken down most of the really personal ones about the kids, per their request.

So many of you stuck with me through all these years of blogging and figuring out what in the world I was doing and learning how to create a website. I cannot tell you how much your support means to me!!

Thank you so much! Please head on over to my new website and check it out.

The post A New Blog for a New Phase appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I have written about my goals on this website many, many times. Usually I dream moderately big. I mean, I’m not over here trying to be a movie star or anything like that, but I do tend to think I can accomplish a respectable amount of things, and really that isn’t always the case. Truth be told, I usually fall well short of my published goals.

Anyway, so I thought it would be fun to share my list of PURELY REALISTIC daily goals.

1. Shower today. No need to wash my hair since I did that yesterday. Just shower.

……Now this is the part where I start enumerating things I have actually ALREADY done. This is, I am quite certain, the absolute only way to make a truly successful to do list.

2. Help younger boys get ready for school and to the bus on time.

3. Walk the dog.

4. Buy a birthday present.

5. Help the neighbor watch for her FedEx truck. (The package needed a signature, and she had to run an errand.)

6. Weed the garden. (And by garden, I mean that bare spot by the cactus that’s full of weeds and in need of new mulch and an actual plant.)

7. Empty the dishwasher.

8. Put away laundry.

9. Start more laundry.

10. Cook lunch. (Frozen gluten free ziti. It was so yummy.)

11. Play Township on my phone.

12. Read rubbish on the internet.

……Okay, now that I have covered everything I’ve actually done today, I can add a couple of things I may or may not still accomplish today:

13. Greet the kids as they come home from school. Annoy them with questions about their day. haha

14. Move the laundry to the dryer.

15. Make chili for dinner.

16. I really should do SOME vacuuming and/or dusting today.

17. Pick up younger boys from school.

18. Probably play Township app on my phone again.

19. Probably read more rubbish. I need a new book to read….

I wish you all a most productive day. May you not beat yourselves up over what you haven’t done, may the sun shine on you from above, and may all your meals be yummy. God bless!

…..

The post What My Realistic List of Daily Goals Actually Looks Like appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

It was 9pm, just two nights before my son’s tenth birthday when he said, “I’m so excited about my Revolutionary War cake!”

Pause the world. What was he talking about??? I had not plans for a Revolutionary War cake! But as he talked about it, I began to vaguely recall him mentioning wanting one. The thing is he seemed to want something different every two days, so I had not married myself to any one particular plan. I did not want this to be a total failure, though. He was already not having a party. I could not mess up his cake too!!

So I took to Pinterest. I found very little there. Apparently, this is not a popular cake to bake.

Fellow parents of history buffs, teachers of Revolutionary War, or whoever else may want an American Independence themed cake, allow me to present my creation.

I made this as easily as I could think to make it. And yes, I took several short-cuts, and I’m going to explain exactly how I did it.

Step 1: Bake any two layer round cake from a boxed cake mix.

I don’t even remember which one I used. He wanted chocolate, so I used whatever moist boxed cake mix was a good deal at the store that week.

Step 2: Cool your cake.

Step 3: Make buttercream frosting, or used canned frosting.

I actually covered the cake in chocolate ganache, per Daniel’s request, but that is not required. You can frost the cake in a layer of whichever kind of frosting you like because you are just going to cover it up with fondant anyway.

If you want to make chocolate ganache like I did, this is a delicious and easy recipe on Sally’s Baking Addiction.

HOWEVER, you do have to have white icing also on hand for the decorating part. I made buttercream frosting from a family recipe. It is delicious. You will use it to make the stars and the white stripes and any writing you want to do on the cake.

Now y’all, I know people knock canned icing all the time, but it is also a huge time saver, and my family loves it too. Feel free to also use that shortcut.

Here’s my buttercream frosting recipe, courtesy of my aunt, Pat Smith:

Buttercream Frosting:

1/2 C butter 3 T Milk

1/2 C coconut oil 1 t vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt 1 box confectioner’s sugar

Cream butter and oil in mixer. Add vanilla and salt. Beat in 1 cup sugar at a time. Add milk and beat at high speed until light and fluffy. Makes 3 cups.

Pat Smith. (Original recipe uses Crisco instead of coconut oil.)

Step 4: Ice your cake with whatever you chose to make or buy.

Step 5: Prepare your fondant. I totally used boxed fondant. You need both red and blue.

This was my very FIRST time using fondant, but Daniel had requested it, so I decided to take the plunge.

No, I did not make my fondant from scratch. No way was I about to add that to this long process. Instead, I went to partycity.com, and I bought both red and blue fondants. Then I selected curbside pick-up and picked it up without ever having to get out of my car. This all took less than an hour. Our store was so quick, but give yourself more time than that, of course.

You can also order it on Amazon.

(I do collect advertising fees when you order through my Amazon links.)

Step 6: Knead your fondant, and then roll it out.

Basically, just follow the fondant box directions. If you have extra time and want to make your own, go for it.

I do not own a “fondant roller” like the box directions said, so I just used a good old fashioned roller.

Yeah, I made a mess. For the blue one, I used way too much powdered sugar, so my fondant was all blue/white by the time I was done. Thankfully, I realized by accident that if you rub tiny drops of water on it, the white comes off. I just used a slightly damp paper towel to remove white smudges that were too obvious, but be careful about it.

I did a much better job on the second try, with the red fondant.

Step 7: Ever so carefully, cover the cake in the blue fondant like a sheet.

You may want to watch a tutorial on how to do this. Roll the blue fondant over the rolling pin loosely. Have your cake like right next to where you’re working so you don’t have to go far. I made my fondant way bigger than my cake. That way I could just trim off the excess rather than be horrified by its not meeting the bottom of the cake. That worked well.

Step 8: Trim and Smooth the Blue Fondant

Yes, my fondant had a few wrinkles on the sides. It was my first time. I did smooth over it, but I let a few wrinkles be honestly. The boxed directions said to use some special fondant tool I don’t own, so I just rubbed the cake all over with a large spoon. Ha! Basically you want to make sure it’s all stuck to the icing good. It really did not require too much smoothing.

Here’s a video presentation of covering the cake with fondant for my fellow newbies.

Step 9: Cut and apply the red fondant trim.

Your buttercream frosting is your glue. Put it under all your fondant decorations and little Risk soldiers to hold them in place.

I just made long rectangles of the red fondant. Then I piped my buttercream frosting on top of the blue fondant in all the places I wanted to stick the red stripes. It was a lot like making a gingerbread house, where the white icing is your glue.

I did a long strip of red around the bottom of the cake. Then I cut another long strip that I tuck folded near the ends to lay on top of the cake like a ribbon. See the picture:

I put buttercream frosting under the strip on top of the cake too, to hold it in place.

Step 10: Trim cake in white buttercream frosting in a piping bag.

I did icing on the bottom and then a thick stripe of icing around the middle, to give it the red, white, and blue look.

Then I used that same icing to make the circle of stars on top of the cake and to write Daniel’s name.

I also used the white frosting to hold down all the Risk soldiers.

Step 11: Place on the little Risk soldiers.

I guess if you don’t already own a game of Risk, this would be the most expensive part. It just worked so perfectly because it is the right time period. Most toy soldiers have more of a World War II helmet/ green uniform vibe. These Risk soldiers come in different colors, are tinier, and have cannons and horses. They are just so perfect for the 1776 theme! Plus, red for the British and blue for the Americans! So perfect!

This cake might work well for a Hamilton fan as well, come to think of it….

The post How to Make a Revolutionary War Cake appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.