Eat Your Peas-Daughter

Eat Your Peas-Daughter is such a cute and inspirational book. The binding is sturdy and the pages are made from a sturdy high quality paper. The book has beautiful, whimsical illustrations that enhance the sweetness of the words.

Eat Your Peas-Daugher is a compilation of quotes, verses, and simple advice that a mother can say/read to her daughter. I think it is geared toward an older daughter, but younger ones will enjoy it. I have a 3-year old daughter and she loves "reading" this book.

I really enjoyed this book and will read it to my daughter for many years to come!

A Christmas Prayer

A Christmas Prayer
by: Amy Parker

A Christmas Prayer is a simple book with a more profound message. The book follows a child through the house as he/she collects items, such as stuffed animals, and recreates the nativity scene. He/She also thanks each member of the nativity scene, from Mary and Joseph, to the Angel Gabriel, to the little sheep. The repeating line for each character, "Thank you, God, for Joseph (or whichever character he/she is on). Your precious Christmas Gift" is a good way for children to hear over and over that Christmas is really Jesus's birthday and we need to be thankful for the gift God has given all of us. It's a great book to be able to read to kids ages 4 and under during the Christmas season when the message of presents, presents, presents is everywhere. The book is a sturdy board book that has a soft, squishy cover. My kids (1 1/2 year old and 3 year old) enjoyed reading this book during the Christmas season. The illustrations are soft and colorful, they kept my kids engaged while I read the story.



Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

My love for Shutterfly

We have been LLLOOOONNNNGGGG time users of Shutterfly. After our wedding we ordered ALL of our wedding pictures through Shutterfly. We have also used shutterfly to keep family caught up with our growing family along with printing several family pictures to place on our walls at home. I have made 4 photobooks with 2 in the works and have ordered our holiday cards every year for the past 4 years. Like I said in the title, I have a SERIOUS love for Shutterfly. Their site is super easy and I love all the special offers they offer, which makes making long memories of our family that much more affordable. This year shutterfly is offering 50 free Holiday cards if you blog about the offer. I couldn't pass up this awesome deal! My favorite type of holiday card is a card that shows off our beautiful family in a few pictures. I am always pleased with the quality of prints we get and I LOVE showing it all off to other family members! I know we will be using shutterfly for many many more years, our kids are growing like weeds and I love being able to look back at our photobooks to see how they have grown.

Here are some of the amazing things that I LOVE on shutterfly...a couple of my favs

-Their awesome photobooks: I have 2 in progress....http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-books

-Their cards (holiday and other stationary): http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery

-Their calendars: I haven't made one yet, but I'm thinking of making one for mother's day this year! http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

Definitely go check out shutterfly, I'm sure they have something that would make a wonderful gift for the Holidays!!

The Story of Easter

The Story of Easter
by: Gwen Ellis

The Story of Easter is about exactly what the title is. It starts with Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and the town people putting down palm branches. It goes through the Last Supper and when Jesus prays for help in the garden. It tells how Jesus was arrested and then questioned by Pontius
Pilate and then how Jesus died on the cross. It tells the stone was moved from Jesus' tomb and the angel telling them that He has risen.
This is a very good book for kids to learn about Easter. It uses very simple words and the print is larger. At the beginning of each section or chapter it gives the Bible verses of where the that part of the story comes from. What I really like is that is has simple questions throughout the story and little notes that give a little more information. I have a 2 year old and it's a little to advanced for her age, but it's good to expose her at an early age of such an important story. I know one day she will be reading this book on her own and learning about the whole Easter story. The book also comes with a DVD, which my daughter loves. The illustrations are colorful and fun and I would highly recommend this book to any child.

The Gospel According to LOST

The Gospel According to Lost
by Chris Seay
When I requested this book I didn't really realized it was about the TV show. I haven't seen a single episode of LOST, yet, so I thought I was going to be lost (no pun intended) when I started reading this book. It did take me awhile to get into, but I soon realized that it wasn't completely about the TV show, but it was more of reference point. I have a couple friends that are die-hard LOST fans so I did ask them questions from time to time about the characters since this book does do character studies and highlighting the ways faith, doubt, fear, pain, insecurity, and history are seen in a certain Lost character.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I did get me curious about the show so I will be borrowing the seasons on DVD from friends. I would highly recommend this book to anyone especially to LOST fans.

Redefining Beautiful by Jenna Lucado

Redefining Beautiful is a life lesson type of book for teenage girls. Jenna Lucado is the daughter of the author Max Lucado and she uses some of her experiences growing up with her dad. Jenna Lucado talks about the hormones, boys, friends, and self-images that teenage girls deal with on a daily basis. Jenna uses scripture to teach that we can turn to God and his word to get through any situation. She points out that God is the perfect dad and we can turn to him for absolutely anything.

I really enjoyed the book, even though I’m not a teenage girl anymore it got me thinking about how God sees me especially when I’m not having a “pretty” day. I think any woman can relate to what Jenna talks about in this book. I have a 2 year old daughter and I will definitely be keeping this book on my shelf until she’s a teenager and have her read it. It didn’t really make me think since it’s she puts it all out there, but it definitely kept my attention. I would highly recommend this book to any teenage girl or to moms of teenage girls.

Lonestar Secrets by Colleen Coble

Lonestar Secrets

Colleen Coble

Thomas Nelson Publishing

Lonestar Secrets is about a girl, Shannon, who has moved back to her hometown in Texas to be the town’s Veterinarian. One day she runs into an old classmate’s daughter, who looks very similar to her own daughter. Shannon takes a trip down memory lane and makes a serious discovery. Could this little girl be her daughter’s twin that she thought had died after childbirth? It’s a love story and a semi-thriller! She falls in love with her old classmate and has to learn to trust him again after he betrayed her in their high school years. They make their marriage last and learn that they can’t live without each other

To me Lonestar Secrets was a pretty predictable book, well the love story side of it anyway. Once the story was laid out in the first 20 pages I pretty much knew how the book was going to end and sure enough it ended the exact way I thought. There is a sub-story that is more of a thriller that keeps the book going, but overall it was only okay. This really wasn’t one of my favorite books to read and the dialogue was kind of cheesy; it reminded me of a Quentin Tarentino movie, way overdone!