A letter with advice on every subject

This book is just lovely!  No matter what kind of problem you think of, there is a letter in this book filled with the perfect advice.  Henri kept up an amazing amount of correspondence during his life and his letters are just filled with love, acceptance, prayer, and advice.  I took it slow with this book, savoring a few letters at a time.  I feel that I will refer to this book frequently - when I'm have a problem and need advice or when I need to offer advice to a friend in trouble.  I highly recommend this book as it will fill you with love and faith and comfort.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

The Green Ember series- S.D. Smith

The Green Ember is our favorite read aloud from this year.  And that is saying a lot.  We read tons of books together.  But there is something extra special about this one.  Heather and Picket are like old friends now. We refer to them  when a situation comes up and we need to be brave.  We repeat the oath to each other. This book is filled with adventure that will grab and keep your kids attention (and yours) throughout the entire story.  It is filled with love, friendship, beauty, truth, and goodness.  It really resonated with my family for many reasons - the characters have many chances to be brave, courageous, and make good, difficult choices. But another reason we love it is because these two characters have their entire world changed and they have to keep moving on and dealing with life as it comes at them. We have lived on three continents since my daughter was born seven years ago. We currently live in Africa. We know and deal with life changing moves and being put in situations which are entirely new to us. I love that we have this brilliant story that shows us how these two courageous rabbits handle big, scary events. This book is wonderful!!

And guess what?!!  There is going to be a second book!  

Ember Falls is in production right now!  And you can be a part of it.  Join this amazing author and support the kickstarter campaign.  There are so many wonderful items at each level that the hard part will be deciding which one to support.  Did I mention there are swords?  And necklaces?  And a gorgeous, hand-made coffee cup with rabbit ears?

To support and learn more about this awesome series, visit the Kickstarter campaign.

Little Paris Bookshop

This was a good book. It was not what I was originally expecting. I thought it would be more about books and less about the characters. But that is ok, because I ended up enjoying it for what it was. So what was it? A moving story about love and loss and grieving and finding yourself. The characters are all very human and relatable, intact with human faults and flaws.

One of my favorite parts is that there is a lot of discussions about food. And guess what?!! There are recipes frim the story in the back of the book!! So fun!!

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.


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Catholic Catalogue - Musick and Keating

This book is going to be so helpful for me!  Styled as a field guide for Catholic life, it is truly a gem for converts! It discusses seasons of the church, prayers, holy relics, blessings, medals, different feast days and ways to celebrate them, and different experiences at every stage of growing up (baptism, FHC, confirmation, marriage, death, etc).  It is so helpful to me, a convert, that didn't grown up with the richness of a catholic upbringing.  As I struggle to be a good catholic mom and incorporate all the loveliness of our faith that I missed, this book is so helpful!  I have been looking for something like this for many years and I'm so thankful to the authors for giving me this 'how to' book!  

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

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Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook

I've been hearing about Trim Healthy Mama so decided to try their cookbook.  I was happy to find that the book is filled with lots of good, healthy recipes! I have several recipes that I want to try (especially the salmon patties, the mayonnaise recipe, several of the dressings, and so many more) but I'm happy to report that I did try the Cajun Cream Chicken.  It was delicious! And did I mention easy?  It's a crockpot recipe so I just had to throw the ingredients (only four ingredients by the way) into the crockpot and let it cook all day.  Now, I did add some sautéed veggies to it at the end just to make it more to my families liking but that took all of ten minutes.  It was easy, healthy, and a hit with the whole family!  I look forward to trying more of the recipes soon.

I really like the cookbook but I will mention three things to consider before buying the book.
1. I don't have the Trim Healthy Mama plan and it isn't really covered in the cookbook. There is a short summary in an appendix at the end which was enough for me.  But if you truly want to follow their eating plan, you will need to buy their book Trim Healthy Mama Plan also.
2. Most of their recipes include ingredients that they sell on their website.  They give regular substitutions so you don't have to buy from them but they do highly recommend you use their products.
3.  There are lots of ingredients that regular people may not already have in their pantry such as golden flaxseed flour, oat fiber, unsweetened powder gelatin, integral collagen, etc). They do provide information on where to find most of the ingredients (usually from their website) but still it's a point to consider.

Overall, I really like the book and think I'll use it often.  But I will need to purchase some specialty ingredients in order to fully use the cookbook.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review. If you would like to learn more about the book,  click here.