Thursday, April 17, 2014

Ground Breaking

Our church is about to start a building project to add on a fellowship hall. Sunday was supposed to be the official ground breaking ceremony and my kids were really looking forward to it and getting the chance to "ground break".

Sunday morning, we drove out to church to find the parking lot empty and a note on the door saying that services were cancelled for the day due to a power outage. The kids were so disappointed and wondered if they'd do the ground breaking next week instead.

The power ended up coming back on during the afternoon, so we ended up having evening church. The kids had high hopes for being able to do the ground breaking after all. The weather had other plans as it started raining! By the time church was done, it was only sprinkling, but we just had a prayer of dedication inside and called it good.

Needless to say, I had some disappointed kids, so we found a dust pan to use as a shovel and the kids each got a turn to "ground break".

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Book Review: At the Edge of a Dark Forest: A Modern-retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Connie Almony

Through CrossRead Reviewers, I was able to get a free ecopy of "At the Edge of a Dark Forest: A modern-day retelling of Beauty and the Beast (Fairwilde Reflections)" from the author so I would be able to review it.

Cole Harrison is an Iraqi war veteran who came back broken and disfigured. He hides behind his ugliness believing it now shows the true man he has always been inside.

Carly Rose comes to live with Cole to fit and train Cole in the use of her new line of prosthetics, hoping he will invest in a new start up company.

Carly soon sees that there is a kind and generous man, who she finds herself having feelings for, hidden under the layers of pain and alcoholism. Can she help Cole realize that the only one who can save him is God Himself?

I enjoyed reading "At the Edge of a Dark Forest". I chuckled how the characters joked about themselves being a "Beauty and the Beast" story and how Cole even gave Carly the nickname "Beauty". Cole also discounts himself as a good romance novel hero, when he is the hero in a romance novel! It was just a little twist that I enjoyed. The book wasn't overly long, but I didn't feel that detracted from the story at all. (Just made it easier to read in a quicker amount of time!)

"At the Edge of a Dark Forest" is available on Amazon for 99¢.

File Size: 1222 KB
Print Length: 210 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1495464350
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00IIVIYH4

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Chatterbox Review: LEGO Juniors

I was given the opportunity through House Party to be a "Chatterbox" for LEGO Juniors. They sent us some LEGO sets to try out and review. There was a smaller set and a larger set. I decided to let Andy put the smaller set together while the older kids were at school so I could get a better picture of how easy it was for him to do on his own with out assistance (interference) from his siblings.

Andy was excited to be able to "read" the directions by himself and figure out how to put the digger together. After he was finished, he kept taking it apart so he could put it back together again! The car has a base that you put the other parts onto so it is faster and easier to get to the finished product. I thought this was a really nice feature as it gave him a stable base to start with.

Once the other kids returned from school, I let them work on the Police station together. The walls are preformed in one piece so that the set came together really quickly. One thing that I found as a drawback to the floor base was that there weren't "bumps" in many places so the walls couldn't get put in very many places and they also tended to come off easily. Playing on a non carpeted surface may have helped with this, too. Overall, the kids LOVED the LEGO Juniors sets!

My Easter Dress

I didn't get a chance to post about my dresses since our Charter line was taken out by the neighbor's tree on Saturday evening and it took 69 hours to be restored. I ended up with a trial dress also to see what size(s) I needed.