Free Book!!!

I've been really busy lately, but I wanted to jump on here just a second to share a review of one of my favorite books. Also notice that the prequel is free on Kindle today! ;)

http://breezytulip.com/2015/book-review-the-green-ember/

Have you read it?

Last Week's Adventures

In my last post, I practically promised to tell you all about what I've been doing when I got the time. Last week was all about autumn cleaning and writing for me, but when the weekend started the adventures got closer together. So, I'll tell you about them. ; )

On Friday, my littlest sisters made this amazing autumn-y banner for our family (as well as two others to give away). They were so adorable doing the apple printing, painting seeds and stems onto them, arranging the pieces to make a banner, etc... Mom was the brains behind the operation, and she gave the little girls such a great experience! ; ) We hung it near our front door, so we can see it whenever we come and go.

Later that day, the three middle girls went to a birthday party; so it was just us two oldest girls, our brother, and our littlest sister at home. That's when she was reading "Alice Through the Looking Glass" after she beat me at cards several times. ; ) After she went to bed, Aimee read some of the original Sherlock Holmes stories aloud; and Dad gave us a hilarious lesson in accents of the world complete with demonstrations. ; ) Fun times.

Saturday, after an awesome library trip (although I didn't bring home anything worth reporting on, and I still have the last batch to tell about), Perry and Tyler and the awesome nephews dropped by. Do you like my buddy? His ears are just the best. ; ) And, oh, the tickling of his brothers! We had a ton of fun with them! ; ) Chum "helped" me make sugar cookies for church the next day. ; )

Our church meets in the afternoon now, so Sunday morning we went on a family hike. That's us on top of a mountain I don't know the name of, but it was sure fun hiking there! ; ) Dad and our littlest sister drove us up there and stayed in the van to wait for us, and Mom babysat the awesome nephews. (Chap tricked her into thinking that Chum's crib was his, so we heard about a wild naptime when we got back.) ; ) It was so much fun hiking together, then having lunch (complete with Studio C) afterwards. There are no friends like family. ; )

The sermon that day was taken from the beginning of James chapter 1. The part that I remember the best is that trials are designed to show us the areas where we need to ask God for wisdom in so we can grow. Definitely super applicable right now!

And Monday, (which believe it or not happens to be today) has been just mostly just a regular-do-the-dishes-do-the-laundry-catch-up-to-start-the-week day. Except that I made cards which is something pretty unusual for me. I don't have a great eye for design, so it always surprises when I come up with something pleasing. I'm all caught up on October birthdays now, so I'm really excited for November. Hmm... what shall I make next? ; )

Now my family and I are getting ready to watch a movie together. ; )

How was your week?

Explanations

Well, it's that posting time again. This week has been really busy for me with autumn cleaning, baking, writing, and some other fantastic things I'd love to tell you all about--when I have the time. :) For now, here are two fantastic memes that have really explained everything for me...

In my house we do have some smartphones,  but 99% of the time it's books. ;)

You too? ;)

Oh, and FYI, my littlest sister is reading herself "Alice Through the Looking Glass" and ranting about how weird Alice is. "She talks to her cat, and she thinks it can talk. She's just--weird." She's reading a whole year before I was able to. O.o.

Until Monday!

Chap & Chum

Look at these hilarious little people! Aren't they awesome? And their baby (or I guess the word would be baby-er) brother is trying to grow up fast to join the craziness. ; ) (He looks very regal, doesn't he?)

Thanking God today for my precious little friends! ; )

Book Series Review: Aggie's Inheritance

"From Book 1: Fresh out of college, Aggie Milliken thinks she's prepared for anything life can throw her way. Think again, Aggie!

After the abrupt loss of her sister and brother-in-law, Aggie is stunned to find herself the sole guardian of their eight lively children. If learning basic parenting skills wasn't complicated enough, she must also battle the children's half-crazed grandmother, survive a massive remodeling project, and navigate the waters of new friendships-alone.

She has little experience with children and none with housekeeping, and it shows. What she has going for her is grit, a double dose of determination, and the confidence that this is exactly where the Lord wants her to be. With an unlimited P-mail account and enough hymns to keep her spirits bolstered, she tackles one catastrophe after another.
                                                                
It seems like nothing Aggie does is right, but ready or not, here she comes!"
                                                                                                                         ~Amazon description

I try to avoid reading very many romance novels in the first place (they either send my head into the clouds with the delightfulness or into the wall with the drama), so it’s very unusual to find me recommending a series of them. Savor this moment, dear readers, this is a rare bit of history. ; ) These books by Christian author, Chautona Havig, are the best “romance novels” I’ve ever read; but they are also much more than that.

The Setting:

Set at first in an expensive, Victorian era town home and later in an ramshackle, rural farmhouse, these books really come to life. Not too much description, but enough to give you the perfect feel of everything. (And remodeling sounds really fun…)

The Story (make that “Stories”):

From reading the synopsis, you’ve probably already guessed that the story is a bit of a ride. : ) Funny moments (like accidentally feeding the baby coffee instead of formula, oh horrors!); Spiritual lessons on trusting God, dealing with grief, and leaning on Him every day; lots of day to day life; and, yes, some healthy, God-centered romance combine to make these books awesome!

The Characters:

I just loved Aggie. She’s realistic down to her meltdowns over nothing, but she had an encouraging faith in God. She was such an inspiring and spunky character! The children were awesome—always full of surprises. ; ) I also really enjoyed their friends neighbors including William, Luke, Tina (Go, Tina!!), Uncle Zeke, and Libby. (One downside though, was that the Love Interest was a leeetle too perfect, but don’t let me get ranting about writing. We’ve got a review to do, folks!)

The Concerns:

Sigh. Parents should have caution in considering these books for younger readers because, well, they are technically romance novels. (Though I am happy to say there are no bedroom scenes or kissing before marriage except a light kiss between two side characters.) Other concerns include crazy, scary grandmother-in-law who SPOILER ALERT! engineers a kidnapping of one of the children (child is found unhurt and returns home safely!); discussion of death; and SPOILER ALERT! backstory of a side character and his baby sister being beaten as children by a drunken mother. Potential readers may also want to note discussion of lingerie as bridal shower gifts; short discussion of adult themes in movies (particularly sexual immorality); and passing mention of a background character having a child out of wedlock. Also, there is a view of pants vs. skirts that some families may not agree with.

How in the world do I explain how awesome these books are??!! Well, try this. Take a freshly graduated college student dealing with grief; add eight kids (ages 12 to a baby!) for her to feed, clothe, homeschool, disciple (remember, they are dealing with grief too!), and take to the ER a few times; mix in two suitors—an imposing police officer and a very handy handyman; remember the aforesaid crazy, scary, loopy, controlling, nuts grandmother-in-law; and stir in a seven bedroom farmhouse to remodel. Now you have what I’m talkin’ about!! (And they are really long books too! Delightfully so!!)

So, if you’re looking for more of a sensible, God-centered “romance novel” with a good story that isn’t just filler between the mushy parts (Lorna and the picture frame is really cute!); I suggest you read these books! ; ) Enjoy!!

They are available on Amazon…

Joys and Adventures 2.0

This blog post has that strange title; because, well, this is the second time I've written a post like this. ; ) I particularly like the word “adventure” to describe things that are less than comfortable or kinda’ quirky because of G.K. Chesterton’s awesome quote, “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” So, here it is—what’s been happening in my life.

Joy:

Starting the week out by witnessing the baptism and covenanting of several children and families! The ever growing circle! : ) The testimonies were so encouraging as they reminded us all of the Good News once again. I was particularly blessed to hear the testimonies of an older couple who came to the Lord late in life and the testimony of a young boy whose faith is very real despite all he has gone through. (His father is AWOL, so he knocked the socks off a Christian family friend by asking him to stand in and baptize him. So amazing!)

Adventure:

Doing the famous take-two-trips-to-go-somewhere-because-Dad-took-the-van-to-work. This time the car was my aunt’s and the destination was DQ to celebrate her birthday. Only problem—just as the second ice cream expedition was starting out, the car decided to quit moving and start smoking. We jumped out and were very grateful that it had broken right in front of our house.

Joy:

Salvaging the party!! The first expedition took a cab home bringing a DELICIOUS ice cream cake with them, and we gave her the gifts we had made to show our appreciation for her. Betsy Bea and I had so much fun making this card together. ; ) I think our aunt really enjoyed her day!

Adventure:

Scurrying to finish dinner in time so my sisters and I could visit with friends during Dad and Paul’s Bible Study.

Joy:

The amazing fellowship of sisters in Christ! We talked, did some handwork, and laughed a lot. We only got shushed about twice, which is banner for a lot of wound up girls. ; ) On our way home, Dad and Paul informed us of their tradition for after Bible Study—shakes. A very good tradition indeed.

Adventure and Joy:

The library!!!! It’s a mixed blessing but a blessing indeed! Here’s a picture of my latest finds. I’ll be sure to report back on them later. ; )

There have also been some other great movies that aren’t pictured here, mostly because I didn’t bring them home myself. We got to see the 1950s version of the movie “Anastasia” starring Yule Brenner and Igrid Bergman. Fascinating!! (My sister is now researching the Romanovs. Good ol’ Aimee.) ; ) My younger sisters brought home “Big Hero 6”. What a fun movie! (Does anyone else think Tadashi Hamada is just the best?)

Joy:

Getting some editing done! The next three parts of “The Twin Arrows” are nearly ready to go up on Noble Novels! (Speaking of that story…would anyone like to read more on here?)

Adventure:

Getting blood drawn for the first time ever! Pearl’s doctor offers free testing for T1D since we’re close relatives of a patient, so all of us kids got tested on the same day. I didn’t watch any of them, since I was really scared of it. It didn’t hurt at all; but for some reason I almost passed out, almost threw up, and could barely walk out of the doctor’s office. Yeah, that was scary.

Joy:

The Goodwill trip afterwards! That was really, really fun! I found Aimee the world’s best linen skirt and the world’s best denim shirt. Yours truly is an awesome shopper. *crows like Peter Pan does when he’s super proud of himself* *head-cuffs herself for being so weird*

Adventure:

Trying on autumn boots. There were two pairs—brown suede for $10 and brown leather for $6. I had to try. I never knew boots could be so hard to get on and off!! (Cinderella’s shoe was actually a glass boot, FYI.) Yours truly cannot, at this time, walk in heels. It was hilarious; but hey, I tried! ; )

Joy:

Making deviled eggs with my “baby sister”. She is awesome at peeling eggs!!

Adventure:

Dropping one of said eggs and calling our dog Ella over to eat it. She haunted me for the rest of the cooking time, and I had to make sure that the plate of finished eggs was beyond her reach on the table. ; ) She has good taste.

Joy:

Doing “baby” sister’s hair. We had a funny time to start with—I did it like Anne Shirley’s just for fun. It was amazing how poufy I could get it! Then after some calming down time, I tied a pink scarf-headbandy-thingy around her head and secured it with bobby pins. It took two tries, but she was such a princess the rest of the day.

Adventure:

Going outside to finish my sweeping job (just a teeny bit of the porch left to do!) and discovering that a neighborhood cat had decided to kill a pigeon in front of our front door. Fortunately, no carcass but lots of feathers everywhere! I felt like a Pixar character.

Joy:

The clean porch!!! So beautiful!!! Why don’t I do this more often?!!!

Adventure:

Discovering that on my regular posting day there was again no time to write a tome of a blog post. Sigh. So, I’ll be honest—I’m writing this on a Saturday and scheduling it for Monday so I can at least look like I’m on top of things. ; )

Joy:

Banana cake with chocolate drizzle this morning. Wow. Yum. (I get more creative when we haven’t grocery shopped in a bit.) ; )

And One More JOY:

Psalm 71:14-16. “But I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness and Your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits. I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only."

A Camping We Did Go

Last weekend, my family and I had the awesome adventure of going to our church's family camp together! Since it was an hour or so north of here, we got to enjoy a taste of greenness once again. The best parts, though, were sharing a cabin duplex with Perry and Tyler (and the BABIES!!!!!!) and getting to know our church family better.

After packing way too much clothing; gathering card games; baking and popping food (I made these cookies and popped four huge batches of popcorn. I even used up all the coconut oil and melted the lid just to make it more fun.); finishing up the sermon (Dad did that part. We only pack things and melt things.); collecting random forgotten things; and smashing it into the back of the van (Paul saying his typical, "Hey guys, don't open that one door. Everything will come out.), we started off on our adventure. Wow, that was a run-on sentence if ever I saw one!

Some of my lovely road-trip buddies. (My angel mother is in the passenger seat, but since she is shining like the sun you can't tell she's there.) We are veteran road-trippers now from our move down here last winter, so an hour doesn't feel like much. ; ) Dad had an awesome time pointing out real and imagined landmarks to us, and we kept ourselves clapping and bouncing with the PianoGuys.

The rest of my lovely (????) buddies. Weird angle because I'm sharing a seat with them, but you get the idea that it was pretty fun. ; ) (Oh, is Paul an angel too? I'll leave that for you to decide... No, he is an angel for sharing a seat with all the copious amounts of bedding we brought.)

 A little while later (we used to drive this far to go grocery shopping). we arrived at Friendly Pines just in time to throw everything into the cabin and run off to the cafeteria for dinner. After that came a chapel session, organizing our cabiny-messy-thingy, and games in the cafeteria until the wee hours of the morning.

Next morning we all walked to church. (It should always be this way, shouldn't it?) It was beautiful outside!!! At just about every session of chapel our family enjoyed mixing with Perry and Tyler's little family and the H. family as well.

Our fantastic little neighbors. They were the best thing about the weekend!! Unfortunately, they were so cute that we had a really hard time not laughing out loud during the sermon.

Especially when this one sneezed so hard he almost fell over...or when his older brother dumped a toy dump truck load of dirt into my lap...or when the camp cat startled one of them out of their wits when it came scampering by. Yeah, pretty cute. ; ) Don't you just love those funny eyes???

The theme of the weekend was revival, and Dad chose a really amazing aspect of the whole topic for his sermon Saturday morning. I HIGHLY suggest you listen to his sermon "Don't Lose Heart". It was very encouraging!!! (Special thanks to Anna for taking the picture because I couldn't see Dad very well through some people's heads.)

Saturday is probably everyone's hands-down favorite day of camp. That's because of....

FIELD GAMES!!!! I watched the first few games from the sidelines, but after a while I wished I had joined in. ; ) This game was a crazy relay race of trying to bat a balloon down the field without popping it. Add to that an ornery breeze and some surprisingly sharp grass--you get the picture. ; )

Another great one was passing a hula hoop around a circle of people without letting go of each other's hands. That was pretty crazy, but a high-five to everyone who managed it especially those wearing skirts.

We didn't get pictures of my favorite relay race (also the first game I played), but it was pretty fun/funny! All of us players threw our shoes in a huge, stinky pile at one end of the field and lined up on the other. You've probably guessed the objective--run across the field, find your shoes, cram them on, and make it back to your team without them falling off. There were some pretty hilarious stunts too, like my brother-in-law throwing his best friends' shoes out of the pile so they would have to go farther to find them. Thumbs up, Tyler! It was pretty hard to find my shoes (since apparently brown is the most common color); and I found myself wishing for one of the first times ever that I had flip-flops. ; ) I'm not sure how the scoring came out, but my team was awesome!! ; )

The tug-o'-wars were awesome!! This picture is kids against adults. You'll find me on the kids' side because this was taken before a couple of older girls and I realized that we belonged on the other team. ; P We lost the first one since our church is mostly children, but we won the second! ; )

That's my little buddy!

The rest of the weekend consisted of more hanging out (I did a little exploring with my friend Hannah and chatted some with her older sister), chapel sessions (I loved the history of the laymen's revival), an amazing bonfire (S'mores. That's what we exist for.), and amazing games in the cafeteria. (Some of my family members brought crafts to do with everyone, but I never got around to doing them.) Those times of all sitting around together laughing and talking or trying to beat each other at Dutch Blitz were my favorite times of all. That's when I got to know people (and sometimes got to beat them too!). ; )

Hanging out with the H. girls was my younger sisters' favorite thing about their first family camp (that they can remember, at least). I got to hang out with them a lot of the time which was so much fun! We visited their favorite spot at camp (nicknamed "the L tree"  for it's unusual shape), visited each  other's cabins (this picture was taken in ours), and sat together during church and the group picture. ;)

Altogether, it was an amazing time of fellowship and learning from God's word! And I highly suggest you all check out my Dad's sermon. ;)