"I lost my toof mom!"

Look who recently lost TWO teeth!


All Ally wants for Easter is her two front teeth!

She lost them both within a week of each other. On the evening that she lost her 2nd one she wanted to eat an apple. She usually likes to eat the apple without slicing it but I suggested that we slice it since she currently didn't have any front teeth. She insisted that she could still eat her apple without her teeth. It was hilarious to watch her try. After a few attempts she agreed that we should slice her apple. :-)

We have two favorite "teeth" books that we always like to read whenever anyone in our home looses a "toof".


The throw your tooth on the roof book is great! My mom bought it for the kids when the older kids were younger and first started loosing their teeth. It shares the traditions that children all around the world have when they lose their teeth. It's such a fun book! Ally got really tickled to learn that many children throw their tooth on the roof of their house after loosing it. She did not want to do that with her teeth however!

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."
~ Emilie Buchwald

Groom Your Room

Emmy loves the American Girl Books under Be Your Best, Just for Fun, & Body and Mind. I bought her the Care and Keeping of You last year and she loved it! In fact, I need to share more about it in another post. It's a wonderful book about the changes that girls go through during their pre-teen and teen years. For Christmas she received several others and just recently I found her the Groom Your Room book for a few dollars at Homeschool Library Builder.


She has reached that age where having her own space is important to her. With the size of our family she doesn't get a room to herself but we have been working on getting her set up so that her "space" is more private and "hers". She was excited to get her hands on this book. It is full of ways to decorate or "groom" your room and even has some patterns in it to use.

Here are a few of the projects she has done for her room so far.




This is a cereal box that she cut up and decorated to store her current school books in. She is working on making another for her current reading books and one for her school binders as well.




She is storing her letters from her pen pals in this box that she made into a "mailbox".


This is a piece of cardboard from a box that she covered with cloth to make a bulletin board. The picture on it is her pen-pal/fiar friend Kara. :-)


The book suggested decorating hangers to hang your jewelry and hair accessories on.

She is having loads of fun with the ideas in the book!

Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.

What's on your Nightstand~ February

It's the 4th Tuesday of the month which means it's once again time for What's on Your Nightstand over at 5 Minutes for Books.

One of my favorite books that I read this month was....


I shared in this post in December my thoughts on the first in this series which I really loved. Menu for Romance is the 2nd title in the Brides of Bonneterre series. This book is well-written and, though predictable at times, is enjoyable within its genre. I loved this 2nd one just as much as the first. I am hooked on the family members in this series. Next up is the 3rd in the series- A Case for Love. I can't wait to read it! I LOVE Kaye Dacus!


I am currently reading through the following titles.....


The Yada Yada Prayer Group by Neta Jackson. Here's the summary- A group of 12 extremely diverse women, assigned to a prayer group at a women's conference, become the best of friends as they support each other through the challenges and crises in their lives.


The Country House Courtship by Linore Rose Burkard. I am reading this for a blog tour at the start of March. I love Linores books and was so excited for the opportunity to read this new title of hers. This is a lovely Regency Romance.

Here's the summary-

Set in the early 1800's, Beatrice Forsythe is on a mission. A mission to gain a wealthy husband. She is sure her sister Ariana Forsythe Mornay, who has married into wealth herself, can launch her into a London Season. Visiting her sister, Beatrice is trying to convince her sister a Season is a must, when things take a unexpected turn.

First a gentleman, now a clergy man from her sister's past is in the neighborhood in view of a call to a position on her sister's husband property. A young man who did NOT leave a good impression on Mr. Mornay. Secondly a young man from the city has taken up a residency nearby and is wooing Beatrice, convinced that a match with her, will put him in good graces with Mr. Mornay, and further him in his position in life.

However a dire illness befalls Ariana, nearly taking her life. And it opens young Beatrice's eyes to the important things of life. Will she fall for the correct gentleman? Will a wealthy man offer her marriage?


Into the Mud: True Stories of Africa by Christine Jeske. I received this title in the mail yesterday from Moody Publishers. It is true stories from South Africa. I opened it last night planning to read one chapter and ended up almost finishing the book. Wow! I have LOVED it! I will be sharing more about it in a book review very soon. But for now I will just say it again...Wow!

To see what others are currently reading hop on over to 5 Minutes for Books today.

No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Author Interview & Book Giveaway

Today I have the privilege of welcoming author Cerella Sechrist to my blog for an interview. Cerellas first novel, Love Finds You in Hershey Pennsylvania was recently published.



Hi Cerella, could you tell us a little bit about yourself for those who are meeting you for the first time?
I live in southern Pennsylvania, just under an hour’s drive from my book’s setting of Hershey. I work full time for my family’s general construction business (I’m the office manager), and I’m also taking college courses in holistic health. I love coffee, history, reading and the television show, Lost. I was a homeschooled student – my mom began homeschooling me in the middle of fifth grade, and we pursued that the whole way through to my high school graduation. Love Finds You in Hershey, Pennsylvania is my first published novel.

At what age did you realize that you wanted to be a writer?

Like most children, I had a long list of career possibilities for when I ‘grew up’. At the top of the list were: singing, nursing, law, archeology and marine biology.

Then, when I was ten years old, I watched a movie in which the main character was an author. It was the first time it dawned on me that this was, possibly, something I could do as a grownup.

I immediately went to my mother and told her this was it – my life’s ambition. She smiled indulgently but decided it was a phase. From that moment forward, however, I never wavered. Throughout the rest of my childhood, my teens and my twenties, I read every genre imaginable and spent a lot of time studying how the publishing industry operates. After several years of this, Mom realized I wasn’t giving up on this dream.

I wrote my first novel at 16 years of age and began submitting the manuscript in hopes of publication at age 17. It took me thirteen more years, at the age of 30, before seeing a novel in print.

My mom, of course, cried when she heard the news. =)


Which author has had the most influence in your life?

It’s so hard to narrow it down to just one! I was a big believer, early on, in rounding myself out as a writer. To me, this meant reading a variety of authors and genres. You can learn a lot from studying techniques that are specific to certain genres. Fantasy, mystery, contemporary, classics, historical – they each have individual merit in what they can teach you.

I would say my teen years really helped me develop a sense of writing style, and this was the period in my life where I was really focusing on reading more than writing in order to establish a voice. In my teens, I loved Christian fiction authors like Francine Rivers (Mark of the Lion trilogy, Redeeming Love) for her ability to convey such powerful emotion through her stories. My goal, however, has always been to read a broad spectrum of stories and absorb a wide range of influence.

Tell us a little about Love Finds You in Hershey, Pennsylvania. What inspired the story?

Love Finds You in Hershey, Pennsylvania is the story of Sadie, a single mom and chef who has worked hard to make a success of the restaurant she’s opened in her hometown. Sadie is very good at the culinary arts with the exception of one thing: she cannot create desserts – it’s a skill she does not possess, and one that gnaws on her sense of self worth. Enter in Dmitri, a newly arrived Russian entrepreneur who is opening a competing restaurant next door to Sadie’s and possesses an exceptional talent at her one Achilles heel: desserts. Throw into the mix her precocious 5-year-old daughter’s antics, her best friend who is falling in love with her and the return of the father who abandoned her as a child, and she’s got the makings of a recipe for disaster. She has to learn to balance the sweet with the sour in life and hopefully find love in the process. =)

I wrote Love Finds You in Hershey after several years of unsuccessfully struggling to get one of my historical novels published. Frustrated with the process, I decided to try something completely different from what I’d written up to that point – so instead of a historical, I thought I’d try my hand at a modern-day romantic comedy. Being a bit of a foodie, I thought desserts would be a fun theme for the story. From there, it was relatively easy to choose the setting of the nearby town of Hershey – especially with desserts and chocolate being involved.

Did homeschooling play a role in you becoming a writer?

Definitely. Homeschooling teaches you to become disciplined in your studies – you have your assignments, and you’re responsible each day to sit down and complete them. Of course, I had my mom enforcing this, but still, it became a habit to motivate myself to sit down and accomplish something every day. This is invaluable in the writing life since the greatest obstacle to the craft is sitting down on a daily basis and simply putting the words on paper. There are constant distractions to keep you from writing, but having been homeschooled, I feel I have somewhat of an edge there – I’m used to the self-discipline of daily motivation. It’s not always easy for me, but I’m accustomed to it.


What was your favorite thing about being homeschooled?

The freedom and variety. It made learning an engaging experience for me. If there was something I wanted to study, I could run with it. My mom encouraged my siblings and me in all our interests, including the languages. When I went through a phase of Native American culture, she even went so far as to procure a Comanche dictionary so I could learn some of the language.
What is your favorite type of chocolate?
There are three options here:

Dark Chocolate, as in Lindor’s Lindt Dark Chocolate Truffles.
Milk or dark chocolate paired with peanut butter, as in Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Or milk or dark chocolate paired with mint, as in York Peppermint Patties or Peppermint Bark.

The only chocolate I won’t go in for is white chocolate. Because it’s faux chocolate. LOL
Did you read a lot as a young girl?
Absolutely! Reading was my number one hobby growing up. It started at a very young age, when my mom would read aloud to me every night before bed. She has a gift for acting out stories, so each storybook was dramatized with theatrical character voices and sensational sound effects. You really haven’t heard Dr. Seuss until you’ve heard my mom read it. LOL

But it made stories magical for me. I became impatient to read for myself, and as soon as I could, I was devouring chapter books like the Little House books, Scholastic titles, the Mandie series by Lois Gladys Leppard, etc.
Who are your top three favorite authors?
In the realm of Christian fiction, my top three favorites are:

Francine Rivers: Because the Mark of the Lion trilogy absolutely changed my life. It’s a bit of a slow start, but once you’re into that story, it makes you view your faith (and those who formed a foundation for the Christian church) in a whole new light.

Ted Dekker: Because even though I don’t love every book he’s ever written, I love the man’s creativity. He’s one-of-a-kind in his ability to construct elaborate plots and theories and then pull out one single, defining message. My favorite books by him are the Circle Trilogy.

Melanie Wells: She’s newer on the scene, but I was pleasantly surprised by her Dylan Foster trilogy. The books deal with the supernatural: a demon with the very normal name of Terry is Dylan’s arch-nemesis. Her first book isn’t anything spectacular, but by the second one, I was hooked. These thrillers had me on the edge of my seat – I couldn’t put them down. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

What are your top three favorite books of all time?
Ooooh. You really want me to try and narrow this down? This is going to be tough! LOL Let me try narrowing it to my favorite Christian historical fiction titles.

1. The Mark of the Lion trilogy by Francine Rivers
2. The Lowlands of Scotland series by Liz Curtis Higgs
3. The Cheney Duvall, M.D. series by Gilbert Morris and Lynn Morris

I know there’s like a total of twenty books right there, but it’s so hard for me to choose favorites!
How has being published changed your life?
It’s been a terrific experience – going from the knowledge of a thing to the actual living of it. Because of the necessary promotion, it’s been a lot of fun setting up my web presence: my author website and its content; my blog and personal site, and trying my hand at social networking.

I’ve been inordinately blessed to have Summerside Press as my publisher – they have been absolutely charming and patient with all the questions a first-time author has.

And it’s been so exciting to meet and get to know a lot of authors who were only names before – now I can call them friends, as well. It’s an exciting time, because I only ever get one debut novel. I’m trying to make the most of that. =)
When not writing, how do you enjoy spending your time?
I love chillin’ with my pug dog, Bronte (named after the classic Charlotte and Emily), spending time in the mountains (especially in the autumn!), watching Lost on TV, enjoying a good cup of coffee (I’m addicted), and of course, reading (especially on my Kindle, which I LOVE.)
What are you working on now or going to write next?
I’ve completed the first book in a series that my agent is shopping around. It’s about three sisters and the betrayals and issues in their pasts. I’m really hoping it gets picked up because I’m just loving the layers in the character relationships. Here’s hoping!
Tell us something about yourself that readers may not know?
I’m a fan of the Olympics. I’ve always enjoyed them, but especially since I got to attend the summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, I’ve been hooked. There was something amazing about actually being there and witnessing some of my favorite events (like swimming and diving.) I find myself looking forward to it years in advance! And while the summer events are my favorites, I really love that the winter ones are happening this year!

How can readers get in contact with you?
I love to hear from readers! You can send me an email through the contact page of my website: www.cerelladsechrist.com/contact
In closing, is there anything else you would like to share with us?
Be sure to check out my author website at www.cerelladsechrist.com. I try to keep it interesting – there are some pages with facts and trivia about me personally and a lot of fun content relating to the book: soundtrack recommendations, a photo gallery, Sadie’s blog, merchandise, and lots more.

I also have a personal site and blog at www.thecerellalife.com

And don’t forget to join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thecerellalife

Thanks so much for having me over for an interview, Jennifer! And to everyone: sweet reading! =)



Thank you Cerella for joining us today. Cerella has graciously offered a signed copy of Love Finds You in Hershey Pennsylvania for me to give away to one of my lucky readers. I have read it and enjoyed the main characters spunky personality. Just leave me a comment sharing what your favorite chocolate is and you will be entered to win. Be sure and leave me a way to contact you if you do win. Contest is open to US and Canada residents only and will end 2 weeks from today on March 8th, at midnight. Winner will be drawn by random.org.

Oh... and by the way... I love all chocolate but dark chocolate & chocolate mint are my two favorite types of chocolate.

All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt!
~Lucy Van Pelt in Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz

Valentines Fun

I have always enjoyed decorating our dining room area for holidays and special occasions. I LOVE table cloths but have had a hard time finding cloth table cloths for various occasions. This year my very sweet mother-in-law sewed us a Valentines one.


I was sooooo excited to receive this in the mail! Isn't it adorable! Thank you MeMe!


I found these Valentine decorations on super clearance at Tender Heart Treasures during their New Year Winter Sale. I love Tender Heart Treasures, especially their sales!


The kids woke up on Valentines morning to some special treats.


Annie made these adorable Valentines for each of her siblings.

Emmys gift to her sisters for Valentines Day was to paint their nails. Natalie surprised everyone with a Hershey Kiss. She had saved them from her own stash of candy at Christmas to give to everyone on Valentines Day! I loved that!



A Valentine from my Valentine. Red roses were the flower in our wedding. I made Tacos for dinner because they are one of Bryans favorites meals.


Ally & Camden planted some "love beans" for Valentines Day. When they sprout and grow they will have "I love you" messages on them. We watched Jack and the Beanstalk afterwards.

I don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon. ~Author Unknown

A Few Pics From Annies Birthday!

We all had a wonderful time celebrating Annies 10th Birthday. She asked for a "horse cake" to celebrate with.










Annies our jewelry lover! She also loves frogs so when I saw this necklace and charms I knew it was for her! The middle charm is a frog. She was thrilled with it.


She also loves ice cream cones and especially loves rings. This ice cream cone necklace came with 3 rings.


Lip-gloss and hair accessories


Bracelets


Marshmallow Frogs!



This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

Giving Thanks for Gods Gifts- week 7

This week I want to thank God for....

100. a beautiful snow on Friday.

It was only a dusting but it was snow, nonetheless. I know I have shared before that when Houston, Emmy, and Annie were very young we moved to Tennessee. When we moved their everyone told us, "it never snows here", yet it snowed every single year that we lived their. When we moved to North Carolina everyone told us, "it never snows here", yet it snowed every single year we lived their. In fact, our very first day after moving to NC is snowed 17 inches!! That was the most snow our kids had ever seen and a wonderful welcome to the state. So at the end of 2007 when we moved back down here to Alabama WE warned the kids that it never snows in Alabama so that they would not expect it too, and yet in February AND March of 2008 it snowed a light snow for us and last March it snowed 2 1/2 inches here at our place! Really unheard of to get snow 2 years in a row in the deep south. Emmy labeled us the "snow family" because she said everywhere we go, it snows! ;-) Sooo...this year I had once again reminded the kids that it would probably not snow this winter because it just doesn't do that here in the deep south like other places and yet on Friday, it snowed!

Of course, the kids were thrilled! It actually started that morning and continued until after dark. It was so beautiful to watch it fall all day long. Even though it snowed all day the ground was too warm and wet for it to stick and build up much but the kids were still able to play in it. It was plenty for snowball fights and small snowmen. They sure had fun!

So thank you God that despite my human tendency to think *I* know what is going to happen, you always remind me that YOU are the one in control......and anything can happen because of that......even snow in the deep south!


Our backyard












Our dog Duke loved the snow. He ran around with the kids and wore himself out in it.



































Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
-- Isaiah 1: 18-20 (KJV)