Oh the Memories

We first played the boardgame Settlers of Catan several years ago with our friends.  Our group enjoyed the game so much we even had regular tournaments. When our kids were old enough, we could not wait to introduce them to this game, and it soon became a favorite of our family game nights. You get resources and resource tiles that you can settle on.  It's tied to the roll of the dice, and you can build with your resources and get points.  There are several ways to get points actually.  You get to trade resources with other players to help you along your way but it's competitive because the first with the needed number of points wins.  You need 3 -4 players and say it's best for ages 10 and up.  You can buy expansion sets that add other features and even expand the number of players.   

Catan

Catan Expansion Pack 5-6 players

Catan Seafarers

Catan Seafarers Expansion Set to 5-6 players

Catan Cities and Knights

Catan Cities and Knights Expansion Set 5-6 Players

Sandra Boyton Board Books - An absolute favorite of ours

Sandra Boyton board books were a favorite of ours when the kids were little.  We read them on repeat. We read them so much my kids even when they couldn't read could 'read' them from memory.  They are catchy and simple.  So much humor and fun!  They now come in box sets to easily collect them for your home library! Grab the yellow, blue and green boxes!  

Box Set Includes:  

The Going to Bed Book; Horns to Toes; Opposites; But Not the Hippopotamus

Box Set Includes:

Moo, Baa, La La La!; A to Z; Doggies; Blue Hat, Green Hat

Box Set includes:

Happy Hippo, Angry Duck; But Not the Armadillo; Dinosaur Dance!, Are You A Cow?

Other box sets include:

Box Set includes:

Snuggle Puppy!; Belly Button Book!; Your Nose!

Box Set includes:

Perfect Piggies!; Fifteen Animals!; Barnyard Dance!

Box Set includes:

Peekaboo Rex!; Dinosnores; Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs!

Box Set includes:

Night-Night, Little Pookie; What's Wrong, Little Pookie?; Let's Dance, Little Pookie; Little Pookie; Happy Birthday, Little Pookie

Hello Friends! It has been a minute...

 The years have flown, and the kids have grown! Entering a phase of life where I have time to sit and ponder over the fun times the kids and I have had throughout the special time of childhood.  The bookshelves are packed with the reads we have enjoyed along the way. Here's just a small glimpse of our ever-growing collection. I am picking up right where I left off and would love for you to join me on this journey.  I will share memories, favorite reads, fun activities and more!  For now, I'll close with letting you know I'm thrilled to be back!

 

  

Family Game Night!

Salutations!  I wanted to share just a bit again about why I blogged and why I am back to it now.  I love sharing my passion for children's books but it is also to have a catalog of all our favorite reads from over the years for my own memory all in one place.  So I have a lot of work to do!  We are BIG library fans so many of the fantastic books that we have found do not grace our personal shelves.  Also well loved favorites become well worn, or get lost or donated when out grown over time. 

Today I have a little different of a focus for my subject for this post and am going to be more broad then just books going forward.  I may include a favorite games, toys, activities, crafts, trips and all sorts of great memories that I want to save here. 

So often I see on the mommy pages I frequent request for favorite games so I thought I'd start a fun little post series aptly titled Family Game Night.  I plan to go back to the younger ages and of course share those that frequent our game time picks right now.   I wanted to start with the new hot game of the moment in our house.  We got it last summer for my daughter's birthday and it is still going strong.  It's called Sleeping Queens, and is a Gamewright game.

It's a card game played with two decks of specialty cards.  The goal is to wake up queens until someone collects 5 queens or reaches 50 points.  Each queen collected has a point value.  There's lots of fun twists to the play such as stealing a queen from another player or putting someone else's
queen back to sleep.  Game play is fairly quick and easy.  It's recommended 8 and up for 2-5 players.  Younger players could play if they have a grasp of simple addition as there is some adding beyond totaling the points of your queens that helps with your game play strategy.

Another fun note is that it was created youngpreneur who at the age of 6 invented this game! There's note in the instruction explaining all about her and how she came up with the idea.  I love this!

Hope you enjoy as much as we do should you decide to add it to your family game night line up!  

Snowflakes ❆❅❄

I love snowflakes...well at least looking at them.  Making snowflakes has always been a favorite activity for my kids.  We've made so many over the years and they are simple and fun to do.  Though as the kids get older making more elaborate snowflakes keeps this activity still going.    You can find some great templates for imaginative designs in Cindy Higham's two snowflake books. 

Snowflakes:Creative Paper Cutouts and Snowflakes for All Seasons which keeps the snowflake making fun continuing year round!

 

If you'd rather sit back and enjoy the beauty of snowflakes without all the mess and work these are two of my favorites.

First up is a beautiful pop up book of paper snowflake art titled Snowflakes by Jennifer Preston Chushcoff and Yevgeniya Yeretskaya



Then I also love enjoying the snowflake photography of Kenneth Libbrecht.  I have this book of his, The Little Book of Snowflakes.



Hope you enjoy the beauty of this season! ❆❅❄

Interactive Stories

Hello Friends!  I wanted to share about interactive story book apps and add some of our favorites to our growing lists of good reads we've found along our way.  The kids are a bit older since my last post but recently we were remembering favorite stories together.  My daughter noted some interactive story book apps that we used to enjoy.  We downloaded them again to our Kindle.  They were still fun to listen to and click around on that we looked to see if our favorite had any new storybooks to download.  If you are looking for entertaining and interactive story book apps here's what we have liked best. 

First up is IckyPen's Mr. Icky Fox stories were an instant favorite.  The story lines are short and simple but the art work and the ways to interactive are fantastically fun!  There are four available but their Facebook page indicated a little bit ago that they have been working on something new.  The first we downloaded was The Icky Mr. Fox and quickly wanted more.  We have since added Icky Mr. Fox's Rainbow, Missing Friend, and Icky Animal Alphabet.  They range in price from free to $1.99.

 



















































The Trip Little Critter Reading Adventure, was another favorite.  Sadly it looks like it is no longer available.  Many of the other 'Little Critter' storybooks by Mercer Mayer are available to download but they are not very interactive, more just read along.  The Trip, had route decisions you could make, you searched for and collected items.  This is what we are looking for in interactive storybooks.

I took sometime and did a quick search and tested out a few books that came up when I did a search for interactive storybooks.  I continued to not find many options but I did like were Sandra Boyton's book apps.  There's a fair amount of animation that you can create with a tap on the different pages.  They have that whimsical, and engaging quality that we are looking for.  I downloaded the free collection of books to try out.  You can download a couple different individual stories too.



I think interactive storybooks are a fun way to enjoy a story.  I really wish there were more readily available and easy to find.

If you have found any that you love please add in the comments below!

It's been awhile but I just had to share

Well, as the title says it's been awhile but I just had to share a recent book find, I love it so much!
It's titled ' Mother Bruce' and is written and illustrated by Ryan T. Higgins.   It's a book about a bear, a bear that happens to become the proud parent of some baby geese.  Besides Higgins humor I love that the book has a fresh modern feel and references in it.  It takes our modern day lives to the woods.  There are fun surprises to find on each page through illustrations and subtext.  I can't wait to check out Ryan T. Higgins other books now and may just be back to post about those here soon.

Hunt for the Devil's Dragon

The Hunt for the Devil's Dragon by Marianne Hering, Wayne Thomas Batson and illustrated by David Hohn is the 11th in the Imagination Station series.  I've got to repeat once again how much I really enjoy this series.  I can't believe there is only one more to go!  This is simply a refreshing series for young readers.  These books are filled with learning, history, values and excitement.  This one has a real dragon in the story; I know my kids are excited about that.  The Hunt for the Devil’s Dragon deals with the topic of bullying and more specifically standing up to bullies.  It's a tough subject and too many of our children face bullying in schools.  This would be a great read to share with a child that is dealing with this issue. It would be a great starting point to open up the discussion with your child.   It gives many examples of bullies/bullying and reinforces that you should always stand up for yourself, your friends and for what if right.  This series keeps surprising me.  I love the wealth of time periods and cultures that we’ve traveled.  The books are filled with Biblical truths.  All this packed into the adventure of a good read! 

I received a copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Tyndale Publishing. 

Humble Heart: A Book of Virtues

Humble Bumbles' Humble Heart a Book of Virtues by Amy Meyer Allen is a collection of nine stories that teach children about the Biblical virtues of: humility, love, thoughtfulness, faithfulness, mercy, encouragement, comfort, courage and joy.  The stories are bright and simple, and the illustrations follow suit.  They are understandable and relatable for young children.  They are also charming and enduring for older children to enjoy and learn from as well.  There is a definition of each term at the beginning of each story and an applicable scripture verse at the end.  My children loved going through this book of virtues with me.  We read one a night during our devotion time.  There are fun features too that many children books have.  Humble honeybee can be found on each page and there is a highlighted item from the illustration on the opposite page of text like a hat or a flower which can then also be found in the illustration.  They loved playing this game as we went through the stories.  This is definitely a book we will read time and time again. 

I received a copy of this book from Tyndale Publishing for the purpose of this review.

Challenge on the Hill of Fire, Book 10

 Book 10, Challenge on the Hill of Fire from the Imagination Station series is out!  Authors Marianne Hering, Nancy I. Sanders and illustrator David Hohn have given us an suspense filled story focusing on a bit of the history of St. Patrick's Day.  Personally, I love that they are covering the Holidays in this series.  This is the second time they have focused on a Holiday, the first was with Book 6, Problems in Plymouth.  I have not started reading this series to my children as I think they are still a little young for fully understanding some of the historical context of these stories but when I do, I will plan the reads to correspond with the right Holiday.  I am very excited to be able to add a fun story, with Historical context and Biblical truths to help us celebrate the different seasons!  This book has been one of my favorites so far.  I've never really studied this time period and am intrigued to learn more about Bishop Patrick.  I also appreciated the tie in with the St. Patrick's tradition of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and comparing/relating it to something that's even more valuable to a pot of gold, the knowledge of God.  I hope you'll check out this fun series!   

I received a copy of this book from Tyndale publishing for the purpose of this review.

Imagination Station - Books 8 & 9

The Imagination Station series is back! Battle for Cannibal Island by Marianne Hering, Wayne Thomas Batson and Escape to the Hiding Place by Marianne Hering and Marshal Younger both illustrated by David Hohn are books 8 and 9 of this 12 book series. These books are part of what I consider the second part of the series. Books 1-6 follow a continuation of a plot line working to return a lost ring to Mr. Whittaker. Books 8 & 9 while they continue the familiar framework of cousins Patrick and Beth going on adventures with the Imagination Station are written so each book can stand alone and could be read in any order. The authors continue to work through history picking pinnacle times and people for Patrick and Beth to travel to and encounter. In Battle for Cannibal Island the cousins travel back in time and meet the missionary James Calvert who ministered to cannibal tribes in Fiji in the 1850s. The cousins find themselves aboard one of the Queens ships just off an island inhabited by cannibals. This story has a strong message of missions and gladly following God's will for your life. In Escape to the Hiding Place Patrick and Becky find themselves in Holland during World War II. The cousins get to help out in a big way and learn that there are lots of ways to help God's kingdom. These are quality books for young readers. They are filled with adventure, danger and lots of learning moments. They show character, humility, bravery and many other redeeming qualities. I'm very happy to have fun and positive books to share with my two emerging readers. I received copies of these books from Tyndale publishing for the purpose of this review.

Adventures in Odyssey Devotional

Adventures in Odyssey: 90 Devotions for Kids is a wonderful new devotional for kids. The familiar characters from the Adventures in Odyssey series fill this book sharing story examples that reinforce the devotional topic. There are 13 themes each with 6-7 devotions per theme. The devotions are short, about two pages which is a perfect length for this age, but they are packed with information and Biblical truths. There's a daily challenge with each lesson and a memory versus. I'm planning on using this for our next family devotional. The themes covered include Salvation, Learning about Jesus, Discipleship, Prayer, The Bible, Exercising Faith, Forgiveness, Giving, Witnessing, Worship, Going to Church, Serving Others and Overcoming Sin. It's a great line-up that I can't wait to share with my kids. I received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review.

For your young naturalists!

Jim Arnosky an author of many wonderful nature books has an absolute gem of a series with his lovable character, Crinkleroot. These books are sure to awaken the naturalist in all readers both young and old alike. Join the jolly nature lover Crinkleroot as he shares all about the great outdoors. There are all kinds of guides like knowing trees or birds or a guide to tracking. There's even a nature almanac in this series which all books offer an engaging overview of nature. The detailed illustrations are charming and my two enjoy looking for Crinkleroot’s pet snake sassafras on each page. My two have learned so much from this series and even more they have retained so much of that information. Sadly, several of these books are out of print but hopefully your library has a good selection available to choose from as ours does. Join Crinkleroot on one of his walks through nature and let him show you all the treasures there are to be found. Some of the titles in this series include: I was Born in a Tree and Raised by Bees, Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing the Trees, Crinkleroot's Nature Almanac, Crinkleroot's Guide to Walking in Wild Places, Crinkleroot's Guide to Giving Back to Nature, Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing the Birds, Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing Animal Habitats, Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing Butterflies and Moths, Crinkleroot's Guide to Animal Tracking, Crinkleroot's 25 Birds Every Child Should Know, Crinkleroot's 25 Mammals Every Child Should Know, and several more.

Hope For Parents of Troubled Teens by Connie Rae. This is an informative read for anyone with kid's teen years and younger. It is very comprehensive about different struggles that you and your teen might go through and how to handle them. It also is a great proactive resource helping you build a relationship with your children and prepare you for what teens may go through as they grow. I know I will reference this book in throughout the years as it is packed with useful advice and ideas. It's centered on Christian teachings and truths. There are scripture references and prayers as well as lots of ideas on actions you can do to help take a look at the bigger picture during these sometimes-trying adolescent years. It's well written, very conversational. The author, Connie Rae is counselor, mom and also a parent that went through a tough time with her own son as a teenager. She openly shares and draws from her own personal experience. This book is a great resource and help. I received a copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers for the purpose of this review.

K5 Learning

We've just completed our free blogger trial with K5 Learning and I'm excited to share about this great site. I let both my children, preschool and early elementary ages, try out this site. Both were engaged with the activities and both would ask if they could play on the site without my prompting. I think that speaks volumes when the kids actually enjoy doing educational games and activities. For those not familiar with K5 Learning it's an online site that offers reading, spelling and math skill building for levels K-5 though I must say my preschooler also found lots to do while on the site. I can see so many applications that this site could help with like; for kids that might be struggling in these areas, for keeping learning activities going throughout the summer months, for a fun but educational outlet for kids to enjoy some computer time after school and as a supplemental to a homeschool curriculum. They also offer an assessment which both of my kids took. It was great to see where they are excelling, on target or where they need a little more help in an area. You can sign up for a free trial to see if it's right for your family and there is also lots of information and resources for parents on their blog.

I Couldn't Love You More & a Giveaway!

I Couldn't Love You More by Jason Ingram and Matt Hammitt with illustrations by Polona Lovsin is a simple read to share with your little ones. There's very little text on each page but there's a powerful message in those words. This story shares two amazing truths of how God is always with us and while we parents couldn't love our children more Jesus loves them even more. It's a wonderful reassuring read, a perfect way to wind down the day with these promises from God. The illustrations are of sweet animals playing or cuddling with their parents. They are vibrant and fun. Matt Hammitt is the lead singer of the band Sanctus Real and wrote these words originally as part of song with the same title that can be found on the album, Every Falling Tear. Here's a link to a video of Bowen and his children sharing about the inspiration behind this book.


I received a copy of this book from Tyndale Publishing for the purpose of this review.

For Busy Moms

Paul C. Reisser, M.D. has put together three guide books for busy moms. They are Busy Mom's Guide to Parenting Young Children, Busy Mom's Guide to Parenting Teens and Busy Mom's Guide to Family Nutrition. I'll start and focus primarily with the one I enjoyed the most which was the Guide to Parenting Teens. I think I enjoyed this one the most as we are not anywhere near the teen years so much of this was new information for me to consider as my own teen years seem far behind me. I thought the book did a great job covering a wide range of topics that will impact our teens at various levels. I am certainly glad I read through this book and feel that I am more equipped with information for those teenage years and the best part is I have all that information at my fingertips to reference again and again as needed. It covers the topics of potential teenage struggles from trying to assert their independence to teen sexuality, to drugs and alcohol to the ever-imposing technological world of internet and social media. It is a Christian world view to these issues which is what I am seeking. I appreciated the organization and breakdown of each section and new topic making it an easy to access quick reference guide. Key concepts/questions are highlighted throughout the text as it moves from one area to the next. The other two guides follow the same suit and are equally packed with useful information. They also have the same organizational breakdown making them quick easy reference guides as well.

The Guide to Family Nutrition was a little bit too nuts and bolts for me though. It looks at the science and nutritional side of foods and their makeups which was interesting and informative but not something I think I'll pick up again and again to reread. In chapter 4 it delves into the matter of controlling our weight and problems that may be faced with eating and diet. This chapter and chapter 6 on diet for children that weren't so scientific in their presentation. As a mom I was most hoping to get more of the practical application of all these facts, maybe in the form of recipes, or a list format of foods to avoid, what to look out for on labels, substitutions you could make. The information is in there, but it is presented in such a way that I feel this book is probably the least successful in being a quick and easy go to reference. I feel like I would have to read through parts to find just what I was looking for or to even figure out what it is I'm looking for.

I received a copy of this book from Tyndale Publishing for the purpose of this review.

Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site

I know it's been a while since I've slowed down to take the time to share one of our favorite picture books, but I've finally have got one to share with you all today. It's called Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld. If you happen to know my little guy you probably know he's all about things that go so this was the perfect read for him. We see different rough and tough construction trucks as they work during the day but then each one settles down at the end of the day for a good night's rest. The story is just a few lines of rhyming text on each page just the perfect length for little ones. The illustrations are so charming, and you'll find some surprising bedtime favorites that you might not expect being part of rough and tough construction trucks' bedtime routine. It's a very fun read but also a great wind down read to a busy day. I'm sure this will become a bedtime favorite for many!

My Own Worst Enemy

My Own Worst Enemy by Janet Davis caught my attention because I'm sure like many of you I hear those discouraging voices in my head when I'm about to embark on a new direction, adventure, goal, job whatever it may be. This book offers many insights into this occurrence of self-doubt, lack of self-worth, self-sabotage or whatever it is that holds you back. But we were created for a purpose and to ‘shine’ as Davis puts it. We've been given talents and abilities to use and to succeed. Davis shares many examples from her life and those that she has met as well as Biblical looks at women in the Bible. Each chapter in fact has at least one real life experience to share, then moves into a Biblical example, and then summary. Some chapters share multiple examples from each. It was for these reasons that I begin to find this read somewhat formula drives, I knew the basic framework to expect. This book also became overwhelming at times especially when multiple examples were used to illustrate the same point. While there is a lot of great and useful insight to be found in this book it really could have benefited from better editing. I got the point of the chapter and then found myself not pulled back in to continue through more of the same. It was not a book I couldn't put down or wait to get back to, but I did want to complete it because there were moments which I knew I was getting something for my efforts. If you do struggle with self-doubt, it is probably worth the read, I just wish it would have been more concise in its presentation. I received a copy of this book from Bethany House Publishing for the purpose of this review.

K5 Learning

K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students. I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program. If you are a blogger, you many want to check out their open invitation to write an online learning review of their program. I've heard buzz about this site before from some of my homeschooling friends and I can't wait to check them out!