Read with Me

I am always on the lookout for holiday themed books that my kids and I can enjoy together. I was excited to receive a board book to review! That meant that my little boy and I could read the story together without my fearing that he was about to rip out the pages. My Happy Pumpkin: God's Love Shining Through Me by Crystal Bowman was an adorable little tale that any kid will enjoy. The story was beautifully illustrated and filled with brightly colored pictures. The rhyming stanzas made it a fun book to read aloud. Many books today emphasize the relationship of the child with Mommy, while this book focused on Daddy. It told of picking, harvesting, cleaning and carving a pumpkin. Halloween was never mentioned, but this book would be perfect to read during the fall activities of the year. It gave a Biblical analogy of how, like the pumpkin, Jesus picks us out, cleans us up and lets His light shine through us. Some pages were a little wordy for my 21 month old's attention span, but I foresee this being a book that we will read again and again in the future.

I received My Happy Pumpkin from BookLook Bloggers in exchange for an honest review.


The Life: Seek, Find, Give is a great resource to have on hand. In the form of a mini magazine, glossy, colorful pages help the reader understand how God's story (Jesus) can intersect with our story. It also shows how it is then our responsibility to share that story (salvation) with others. In less than 100 small pages, the reader is taken through the Gospel of John. The pages are laid out like a well designed magazine/booklet, filled with quotes and explanations. This is the perfect booklet to give to someone with questions about the Christian life. I also love that it is written in the New Living Translation - making it easy for the non-believer to understand. I am praying about who the Lord may have me to pass this booklet on to.

I received The Life from the Tyndale Blog Network in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited to receive and learn from the book Your Family in Pictures by Me Ra Koh. The Parent's Guide to Photographing Holidays, Family Portraits, and Everyday Life. I own a DSLR and I try to capture memories of our family and life through pictures. Each year, I do a big photo book to remember the events. I was starting to feel like all my pictures were looking the same. This book was super helpful. I don't know much about shooting manually, but this book made me experiement with some of the settings on my camera. I now try to shoot in natural light (so I don't have to use a flash). And I have also started trying to take pictures from Hudson's eye level. The perspective of him playing, etc is so much better when I don't just take all the images standing above him. Different family events are laid out in this book along with examples of photos and instructions of how you can capture similar images. I enjoyed the full color, glossy pages. The authors instructions were easy to follow and made me feel that I could learn a few things from her descriptions. If you are a parent like me, hoping to capture the everyday life of your family in photos, this books would be an excellent resource for you! I am hoping to look through other instructional books by this author.

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I received Your Family in Pictures from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

Miracle in a Dry Season by Sarah Loudin Thomas was a fun novel to get lost in. These days while nine months pregnant, I am either exhausted or I can't sleep. During my sleepless moments, I was eager to pull out this story and get to know the characters. I had never read anything by this author, but her character descriptions and story development were entertaining. I was confused with the time period - I think I read several chapters before I realized it was set in the 1950's. For some reason, I kept thinking that it took place in the 1800's. Each time a character would get into a car or turn on the radio, I was a little thrown off. The story was refreshing. and an easy read. It wasn't filled with the suspense element that I usually look for in a book, but I still enjoyed it. I also loved that the cover had a real picture on it and was not the typical cartoon drawing of main characters. I like when I am able to come up with my own picture of the characters. Plus, I keep craving peaches during this pregnancy...maybe this book cover contributed to that. ha.

I received Miracle in a Dry Season from Bethany Publishers in exchange for an honest review. I look forward to reading more by this author.