Four-Year-Old Nehemiah

Where do I even begin with this little man. He came into this world with a bang and he still keeps us on our toes.

Nehemiah is so full of life and energy. He loves to go and to play with his siblings. He also loves a good book, puzzle or movie. No matter what he's doing he loves to laugh. Everything is funny to him and his laugh is contagious.

He might be small in size, but do not let him fool you. Nehemiah is a force to be reckoned with. Stubborn and strong-willed, he will fight with anyone about anything. He's also wicked smart. Smarter than me at times, but he keeps me always learning. He knows how to get what he wants if you're not paying attention, so always listen carefully to him. How I pray God will take that drive and gusto and use it for His Kingdom! Nehemiah will be a strong evangelist when he comes to faith.

This boy also loves to sing! He will sing anything and everything and has begun making up his own songs, which I love! He plays all kinds of instruments too. He excels at all of them! That's easy to do when it's all air. But anything music he loves and wants it around him. He loves to perform also and you will certainly get a dance with the song he sings, unless he is too busy with his microphone. Shy is not in his vocabulary.

Nehemiah is getting good at memorizing and is working on Scripture they we pray God uses to grow his heart for the Lord. Right now he is also working in a junior kindergarten curriculum at home and is learning phonics, numbers, writing, shapes, colors and increasing his love of learning. He is very good at puzzles and problem solving as well as reading people. He always blows me away with his clarity of speech. Coloring and drawing are also part of his repertoire.

Nehemiah loves life. He has a spirit that radiates.

Father, thank You for Nehemiah's life. He is such a joy. Please show him that true life and joy only comes from you. Please save Nehemiah by your grace and bring him to You. Let him know Your comfort and help that he might be Your comfort and help to others. In Jesus Name. Amen!

The House at Pooh Corner

This classic book is part of our Core A curriculum with Sonlight, and our second time reading it as a family.

Is you're familiar with Winnie the Pooh as most are, this book was one of the inspirations for the cartoon that many know and love. This book contains ten of those stories and are written exactly the way the characters speak. This makes reading this book out loud a bit of a challenge and personally I don't care for it. The stories are cute with good teaching points but it gets lost in all of the confusion of the writing. By the time I finish reading a section my brain has lost the point of what I'm reading.

As I already said the stories are cute and have good teaching points if you don't get lost in the wording like I do. Being able to see these a little better this time helped me to enjoy the book better than last time, but I still dislike reading this book.

My kids in the other hand enjoyed this book and found it funny. They were able to catch some of the points in the midst of the garbled English and thought the garbled language was part of the fun. They liked the poems that Pooh and the others came up with especially. This does allow for teaching poetry skills and how to evaluate poetry.

I will say it is clean and has lessons in it making it a great family read for those who like the type of nonsense that they speak. For me it's simply a matter of preference.

I would give this book 2 Stars for personal reading enjoyment. My kids give it 4 stars so I will split the difference and give it 3 on the whole.

This book is part of the Tim Challies reading challenge and is a book about friendship since that is the overarching theme of the book. This category is located in the committed section of the challenge.

The Cricket in Times Square

This charming book is part of our Core C with Sonlight and it was a fun book for our family read aloud.

The Bellini family has a newsstand in the Times Square subway station and are struggling to make ends meet, when Mario finds a cricket and a side by side adventure begins. Chester Cricket was carried to the Big Apple in a basket and ended up lost far from his Connecticut home and is found by Mario who makes him a pet. In the newsstand Chester meets Tucker and Harry that welcome him to New York City and quickly befriend him.

A boy's love for a cricket and the friendship of three unlikely creatures leads to a parallel story of the human world and the animal world and how they intertwine. This story made us laugh often and also feel deeply. It opened up conversations about responsibility, caring for others, helping others and selflessness.

While a level of it is silly with the animals, it is a great way to teach emotions and Biblical character traits as well as learning to recognize worldly character traits as you deal with the personalities the animals portray.

Fun and engaging story, great characters, deep emotion, funny mishaps, excellently written, and relatable at any age, I highly recommend this book.

5 stars for this family read.

I'm using this in the Tim Challies 2019 Reading Challenge for a book about Music or a Musician because of the focus on Chester's Musical Ability! Call it a stretch but sometimes stretches are necessary to make what you're reading fit!

Theology of the Reformers

Theology of the Reformers by Timothy George looks at five men who contributed to the important Reformation of the church in Europe during the sixteenth century. Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, Menno Simons and William Tyndale are all explored in this important work. This book shows the beginning of protestantism and the theology that drove the divide between Protestants and Catholics and is very needed during this time in our Western culture.

More and more protestant denominations are getting farther and farther from the doctrine handed down to us from our fathers during the reformation as well as from the Bible itself. George does an excellent job of giving an overview of each reformer and the Scriptures that drove their doctrinal view as well as comparing and contrasting each of their stances. I thouroughly enjoyed reading about each of these men and where their theology landed. It greatly helped me in honing in on my theological thoughts and understanding where the different schools of thought have come from. It drove me to the Scriptures to understand and solidified my stands even more.

When I first started this book, I did feel like it was a little over the head. You really do need a dictionary to read it. Thankfully there is one for theological terms in the back of the book. As I read, however, I found it easier to understand as George brought the ideas together.

I thoroughly enjoyed the conclusion section where George summarized the main points on which the reformers focused. He made his own conclusions from them but also left it open for you to make your own.

I think anyone that considers themselves a Christian should read this book, especially if you are in a protestant denomination to hear where things started for us in dividing from the Catholic church. I particularly enjoyed reading the brief section on Tyndale and how he ran from the law to translate the Bible into English and provide the Scripture for the common people.

I give this work 4.5 stars only because of some of the confusion in his writing.

Reading Challenges:
Tim Challies's: A book about theology in the avid section
2019 Christian Reading Challenge for Women: Theology in level 1

Getting Back to Reading

I never realize how much I miss books until I get out of the reading habit. Being in a state of transition for two years as a family meant time was filed with paperwork, childrearing, job finding, house hunting, packing and unpacking, schooling, nursing, and wondering what the next step was. There were a lot of ups and downs. I read my Bible, because I needed that. I read to my kids, but usually simple children's books. I would try to read, but the overload often sent me to the TV because, let's face it, it's easier to watch a screen to than to read a book and take it in.

As we are now getting settled and getting into a more normal routine, I have begun reading multiple books for myself and also reading much more to the kids. Between my books and books of length we're reading with the kids I have ten books going.

And I love it!!!

I recently saw a statement that said that reading for 6 minutes can reduce stress by 60%. Right now I believe it. Since greatly reducing the amount of screen time and increasing both reading and outside time I have noticed a significant change in the house.

Why?

I'm not really sure. Maybe because we're really spending time together. Maybe because we're talking more. Maybe because we're reducing the amount of blue light we're exposed to everyday. Maybe all of this and more.

It doesn't really matter why, though my inquisitive mind would like to know and understand. All I know is it is making a difference.

I'm thankful that God has given us the gift of reading. I'm thankful to have access to books and a vast variety at that. And I'm thankful that God has brought me back to this lost love yet again to remind me of the blessing it is.

Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess

This book is part of our Core C with Sonlight.

This was a fun short read that followed a boy as he learned to be a page in a Knight's castle. It is his diary from his first year in this position. Because it is written in diary form you only see glimpses which leaves some feeling of incompleteness, but because it is a year long there is a little bit of a circle.

This book does allow you to see the class dispute but on a much milder level than "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!" did. It's also interesting to see it from a young man's perspective. The historical information was interesting and my boys enjoyed learning about knights and warfare. We compared what we were reading about to battles from "Lord of the Rings" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" which made it even more fun and helped them to understand what was being talked about in the book.

I'd personally give this book three stars but my boys really enjoyed it so they would likely give it four or five.

Wife No. 19

I have finally finished my first classic for the year!!! I am using this one for a Very Long Classic.

This book was an incredible eye-opener to the beginning of Mormonism and the wretched lies that kept thousands of people in bondage to the whims of their prophet, Brigham Young.

Ann Eliza wast 19th wife of the prophet and was raised completely in the bonds of Mormonism. The book begins with a little history of her family and how they came to become Mormon and then follows the history of this people and her family until she becomes free from the system.

This book is full of intrigue, horror and great sadness. You learn how Joseph Smith began to collect followers and established the system. You will learn of his death and the rise of Brigham Young. You will learn how polygamy came to be a part of this religion and the incredible detriment it had in everyone. You will learn of the cruelty of many of the men in power. You will learn of the courage of the women who were subjected to this system and crumbled under the weight. You will learn what the religion if Mormonism is at the very core and likely wonder at how it ever came to be.

As I read I consistently had to remind myself I'm reading a true story, not a bad soap opera. Truth being stranger than fiction most certainly applies here. You will feel for these people pulled around at the whims of an egotistical mad man, for I have no better description of him, and cry with them as they tried to live under an extremely oppressive religion that was their life.

Being written in the 1800s it can be a bit difficult to read, but it is still a good read.

I highly recommend this book if you want a true inside look to the world of Mormonism.

5 stars for this important historical work.

I am also using this in my other challenges:
A book with 400 pages in the Light section of Tim Challies's challenge
A Book Published Befoer You Were Born on Modern Mrs. Darcy's Reading Challenge

Year 15 of Marriage

It's been 15 years since we said "I do."

15!

It completely blows my mind when I think of that number. It seems impossible in a way, but at the same time more than possible. Everyday is a new adventure in life and learning what it means to follow God as one flesh. 15 years of being one according to the Word, yet the first one where it has hit a level of depth we have never had before.


This year God has been teaching us to trust Him for everything, especially our marriage and the depth we have. But also what it means to be one flesh in everything. It doesn't mean we are the same. Far from it! But it is that we use all of who we are to work together for the glory of God and bringing His Kingdom in little ways to earth though raising children, serving His church, and portraying Christ and His Church to the world in our marriage.

15 years to learn that!

And yet, by God's grace, there will be many more years with even greater depth of learning these things and more.

Is that possible? I know the answer is yes! How exciting it is to see where God will take us in the years to come.

The Excellent Wife

What's an appropriate book for me to share and review the week of our 15th wedding anniversary!

This book by Martha Peace is a convicting and poignant read. She does not mince words and gets right to the point on what it means Biblically to be an excellent wife. Scripture is at the center of everything that she writes and she is always ready with practical examples alongside Scripture. I really appreciate the directness as it is always frustrating when people dance around a subject instead of saying exactly what they mean.

For me this was a great review of much I had learned at seminary wives and other marriage conferences while in Louisville. It also showed me some areas where I am still struggling or failing miserably! I really appreciated the end chapters that speak to wives own sin issues that needs to be dealt with. I also appreciate that she acknowledges there are difficult situations out there yet we are still to handle them in a Scriptural way with specific examples to encourage women in these situations.

There were a few things that frustrated me like several instances of proof texting. There were some conclusions in a few chapters that I also did not completely agree with but that is more on a personal opinion and not necessarily her being wrong.

On the whole I would recommend this book and give it 4 maybe 4 and 1/2 Stars.

For my reading challenges this will be under a book on marriage from Tim Challies's 2019 challenge and one of the Biblical Womanhood/Marriage category from the 2019 Christian challenge for women with Jami Balmet

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village

This book was part of our Core C reading with Sonlight as part of our study of medieval times.

It was a very interesting and eye-opening read. Through poetry, prose and little snippets of history, you gain an understanding of how people in different statuses lived and thought during this time period. It was challenging, at times, to see how people of the lower classes were treated, but it was also convicting to be reminded that it is often how people are still treated today.

Academically, it great for vocabulary building and literature comparison as well as the historical value it offers. It is a good way to talk about difficult subjects, especially dealing with how people treat each other affording natural conversations about how God tells us to treat one another and follow His commands.

I give this book 4.5 stars on the whole.

Not sure if it falls into a reading category for my challenges.

Mary on Horseback

This was my second time reading "Mary on Horseback" with our Core A reading from Sonlight. From what I remember, I like it as well as I did the first time.

This book tells a few stories about Mary Breckinridge who was a frontier nurse in the Appalachian Mountains. As a nurse who is married to a nurse and lives in Kentucky, I really enjoyed hearing these stories of how nursing came into this region. They are hard stories to read but are good for giving kids a basic understanding of how differently some people live and the hardships they face. It is well written and easy to understand and easy to talk through with kids as long as they are not squeamish and you're not squeamish.

It is also interesting to see a tiny bit of the history of nursing. I also appreciated learning a little bit of Mary's background as she is from a prominent family in Kentucky.it holds great lessons on what it means to look out for other people and to fight for what you believe.

I would give us book four stars.

I am using this book in the Tim Challies 2019 reading challenge for a book of a hundred pages or less in the avid section of the challenge.

The School Story

This book is part of our Core C with Sonlight and it was so much fun to read!

Natalie had written a book and her friend Zoe wants to see this amazing story published. This story follows the ups and downs as these two girls plot, scheme and learn about what it takes to get a book published. You watch great ingenuity and it really teaches you to think outside the box.

There are many great themes in this book including perseverance, friendship and hard work. You also see family bonds, hardship and grief. The characters come alive and you feel like you really know them. We laughed, cried, and wondered as we read through this book. We never wanted to put it down and the kids always asked to read more. I always wanted to read more!

James and I also loved this book as writers who desire to write and get our work out there. We greatly identified with Natalie and connected even deeper with her emotions on the journey.

I cannot recommend this book enough! Excellent writing, great themes, identifiable characters, perfect pace. This book is five stars all the way.

I am using this book for Tim Challies reading challenge in the category of a book that looks easy to read in the committed section.