What we have read...

So we have been really, really disappointed in some of the books that we have tried this summer...

The American Story by Jennifer Armstrong.  I checked this out from the library with great hopes, it started off ok, but then I arrived at the story of the Salem Witch Trials and the story of Jonathan Edwards.  The book took an anti-Christian bias that I was not prepared for.  I was really, really disappointed in how they handled the Salem Witch Trials and even more so in how the author portrayed Jonathan Edwards.  With that said we did giggle over The Great Molasses Flood, but all in all, I am really, really glad we checked this book out of the library and did not purchase it.

North! or Be Eaten (Book 2 Wingfeather Saga) by Andrew Peterson.  We are currently reading this one, and we have shed more than a few tears!

Sundar Singh - Footprints Over the Mountains - Christian Heroes Now and Then.  LOVE LOVE LOVE this story, we are about halfway through it.

Nelly Bly - Fairness.  When I was a little girl my mom bought a book series she collected book by book, each is a biography about someone who demonstrated a character trait worth emulating.  I am now reading these to my youngest (many are re-reads for my oldest two).

Cilla Lee Jenkins: This Book is a Classic by Susan Tan.  My girls received book one for Christmas this past year and it was one of our favorite, favorite books that I have read aloud to them.  So, of course, when I saw book two on the shelf at our library I snatched it up and we excitedly dove right in.  This book was SUCH a disappointment.  Seriously, such a let down.

Squirrel in the Museum (Twitch the Squirrel) by Vivian Vande Velde.  OK, we absolutely LOVE this series.  My husband is currently reading this book aloud to our girls and me.

Bible in 90 Days.  I am trying to make my way through the Bible in 90 days again.  I am currently behind.

Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz.  My oldest is reading this to my youngest.

Portraits of Little Women series by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  My middle daughter loves this series of books.  She says if you love the book Little Women, you will love these!

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.  My middle girl and I are reading this together, next up? ...Little Women of course :).

Something Needs to Change by David Platt.  I read this book in a few days, it is an advanced copy, and I am going to do a blog post soon about it.  It is, in short,...AMAZING!!!

My kids have discovered the wonderful world of choose your own adventures and have devoured several such stories.  I remember loving these when I was about their age.

I am re-reading Lori Wick's series The Californians.  I last read this series when I was in my late teens, early twenties.  It is fun to reread it now, as a wife and mom.

Speaking of being a wife, my husband and I just celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary.  I am SO excited that we have been married for nineteen years.  He is, quite literally, my very favorite person on earth (outside of our kids of course:)!

so this weekend was interesting...

A few years ago my husband and I bought one of our kids a puggle puppy to replace a service dog.  He was sick almost from the moment we brought him home until it culminated in his having emergency surgery one cold Sunday night in February (2018).  For the past year, he has been healthy and happy - we were very relieved and ready for years and years of happiness and health.  Well, this past weekend this little guy started having seizures. 

It was a long, scary weekend.  

The child that we bought him for also suffers from epilepsy so it seems cruelly ironic that this dog would be the one to be diagnosed with epilepsy.  On Saturday night I literally walked the floors holding this little guy, it was a very, very, VERY long night.  We started a new med yesterday and I 'think' we are on the right track.  

I don't know what else to say, except for I hope the rest of the summer is quieter and less dramatic.

Belated Birthday Wishes

So May somehow slipped by, during which my middle child turned fifteen - HOW in the world is that possible?

I still remember waddling down the hospital hallway early, early one morning for her birth.  I still remember holding her for the first time, she was so tiny, sweet, and swaddled so tightly in those blue and pink hospital blankets.  I remember her first pacifiers, her sleeping in the moses basket, tucking her into her little carrier in the car and trying to wrestle my (then) two-year old into a car seat next to her.  I remember her crawling for the first time (she scooted backward a lot 😃 ), I remember her walking and potty training.  I remember when we moved several states away the weekend after she had turned two, her blond curly pigtails barely visible if you looked in the side window 😍).  I remember she couldn't see over the counters of doctor offices and bathroom vanities when we first got here and now, thirteen years after that move, she stands taller than me by a few inches.  Where did the time go?

She has turned into a beautiful young lady who someday dreams of adopting and rescuing a little girl or boy who needs a mommy to love them.  Happy birthday beautiful girl, we all love you SO deeply❣