I hadn’t heard of Jud Wilhite before reading Eyes Wide Open, but that didn’t detract at all from my enjoyment of this short, encouraging reading.  Written accessibly, Eyes Wide Open isn’t the deepest theological treatise you’ll ever read, but it is easy to dig into, filled with illustrations from the lives of real believers, and explores the believer’s identity in Christ.

The short chapters and fresh writing make me recommend this title to anyone looking for a sound, realistic, and transparent look at the Christian life.  A life filled with grace, forgiveness, and love but not devoid of challenges, pain, and shortcomings (this is a fallen world after all).  After exploring our standing in God’s eyes as His redeemed children, Wilhite then goes on to touch upon the impact that believers can have on the individuals (and culture) around them as they reach out and touch others with the love of Christ.

I enjoyed this book so much!  It was inspiring, on-target, and to the point.  This is a great place to start for believers who are struggling with condemnation, false-guilt, or feeling like they must earn God’s love through performance.  I highly recommend it!

CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW AT CHRISTIANBOOK.COM OR AT AMAZON.COM (ONLY $3.99 RIGHT NOW!)

The term “forensic accountant” seems rather ominous.  Visions of crime scene investigation and dead bodies seem to pop to mind when I hear the term.  However, a forensic accountant is actually someone who examines financial records in cases where auditing is required in states of fraud, matrimonial disputes, any kind of auditing where someone really needs to dig into the nitty-gritty of financial documents to make sure there isn’t any fishy business going on.

If you are looking for an “Accountant London“, Forths Online is a London, UK based practice where you can find the scary-sounding forensic accountants.  In truth, most forensic accountants are likely fairly harmless, but I hope I don’t need one, because things need to get fairly serious financially before they are called in.  I definitely won’t be needing an Accountant in London, because I’m in Canada.  We do discuss moving during the winter – EVERY year – because it gets so cold here, but London has never made it to the top of our list.  Too wet!

Yesterday we took our children out for a few hours to a local McDonald’s, and I have to say – I’m thankful for their play parks!  The McDonald’s website is excellent!  You can search ONLY for those restaurants that contain play parks, and you can search by geographical area.  When it’s cold outside, and your children are stir crazy it’s a lot cheaper to take them out for a snack than it is to hit, say…the Galaxy Land at West Edmonton Mall.

They had a great time, and proved to me once again that – yes, homeschooled children CAN socialize, and do it well!  Our girls are so confident and love to take initiative when it comes to meeting new friends and engaging them in creative play.  Of course, having lots of siblings to practice with helps as well .

Hewlett Packard (HP) is one of the major brand names when it comes to consumer-level personal computers, printers etc.  While we don’ t personally own an HP computer we DO own a couple of HP printers.  Their 8000 series wireless inkjet printers really do a dandy job and work so well with our little laptop.  I am a BIG fan of wireless printing!

The one downside we’ve found with our HP is that refilling ink has proven to be MUCH more complicated than we initially expected.  If you are an ink refilling family you may want to do further research on this.  My husband is in charge of ink supplies at our house, so that’s really his territory, but there’s my not entirely well informed warning for you!

If your family is in the market for an HP model printer or computer, check out these HP coupons. There are savings on smaller items as well, like digital camcorders, photo development, pocket media drives, ink, headphones, and more.

I’d love to add a Flip UltraHD 120-minute Camcorder, like the one in the HP coupons section to our collection of electronic gadgets, but I’m afraid there are a few on the waiting list ahead of an addition like that (like an iPod with a display screen!)

Well, today is December 06th, 2010 – this is our official due date for Tiny Baby!  No baby is in sight yet though .

I’m staying positive though .  Because my menstrual cycles were definitely longer than 28 days when we conceived, we could be looking at up to another week or so before baby arrives.  *Deep breath. Stay calm.*

No worries.

“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”

Phillipians 4:6

So, I’m praying for baby to come in God’s perfect timing, not in my own, flawed timing based on my own desires.  After all – He knows it all, and I certainly don’t!

Grady is a lost boy.  Cut off from his past and origins by a deceiving huckster, he has spent his life wondering about where he really came from, and if he’ll ever find a place in the world.  Traveling across Corenwald with his handler Floyd, his fondest memories are of his performances as “The Wild Man of the Feechiefen Swamp”.  The Feechies are a nearly mythical race of Corenwald, but when belief in them wanes Floyd and Grady’s tactics change.

The Charlatan’s Boy is the first Jonathan Rogers novel that I’ve read; it is apparently set in the same world as his Wilderking series, and I’m sure there are tie-ins that previous readers will readily recognize.  However, if you are a first-timer like myself, there is no problem at all starting with The Charlatan’s Boy as a read-alone (it does seem there are follow-up titles planned for this book as well, though it satisfies as a self-contained story.)

Written in the first person from Grady’s point of view, the story is enthralling, and written in a southern-style dialect that lends a unique cadence to the writing style.  This is a brisk read, and only took me an evening or so to read through.  Intended for young adults, the quick-moving story and involving plot are a great fit for this age group.

Published by Random House’s Christian publishing branch (Waterbrook), there are definitely parallels and allegorical connections that can be drawn between Grady’s experiences as a lost, orphaned boy and life as a lost individual in a fallen world where true love seems so hard to find.  These are subtle however, and really need to be dug out.  Because of this subtlety this book can easily be read by believers and non-believers alike, many younger readers will totally miss out on these ties without them being explicitly pointed out to them.

Parents looking for an explicitly Christian young adult title likely won’t find that The Charlatan’s Boy fits the bill, but it is a clean, wholesome, and adventure-filled read that is filled with adventurous hi-jinks and heartwarming discovery.  That in itself marks The Charlatan’s Boy as a title to check out for tween and teen readers in a marketplace saturated with questionable content for youth.

CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW AT CHRISTIANBOOK.COM OR AMAZON.COM!

Don’t forget to visit the other CSFF tour participants to see what they thought!

Sally Apokedak
Amy Bissell
Red Bissell
Jennifer Bogart
Thomas Clayton Booher
Keanan Brand
Beckie Burnham
Jeff Chapman
Christian Fiction Book Reviews
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
April Erwin
Andrea Graham
Tori Greene
Katie Hart
Bruce Hennigan
Christopher Hopper
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Shannon McDermott
Allen McGraw
Matt Mikalatos
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
Donita K. Paul
SarahFlan
Sarah Sawyer
Chawna Schroeder
Tammy Shelnut
Kathleen Smith
James Somers
Donna Swanson
Robert Treskillard
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
Nicole White
Elizabeth Williams
Dave Wilson

As time goes by and our family accumulates more ‘stuff’, I’m becoming a huge fan of experience-based gifts.  This year my grandparents gave our family the gift/field trip of a trip to the local science center, and the children really enjoyed it!  Giving experience-based gifts can result in life-long memories when there aren’t any pressing material needs that must be filled.

If you are from Australia and are looking for some exciting ideas for Christmas Presents, there are some amazing Gift Ideas for men ranging from tank rides, to aerobatic airplane rides, race car experiences, paintball, parasailing – you name it!  They have SO many hands-on, exciting experiences available for you to gift the man in your life with!  You can even go along for the ride in a hot air balloon, or tandem sky-diving!

Whew, the sky-diving would be a bit extreme for me, but I might go along for the hot air balloon trip!  If you have a tough time thinking of experienced based gifts for adults, these links are a great place to shop for ideas!

We have been in the city waiting for our new tiny baby to be born for over a week now, and I’m so thankful to have a husband who is SO supportive of my birth choices .  Because our midwife doesn’t travel outside of the city for births, and because our home doesn’t yet have running water, or a ready source of heated water (apart from our wood stove), we are waiting to deliver our baby here at my grandparents house.  Larry is busy playing with our three children who are already on the ground upstairs while I put my very fat feet up (ah, water retention) and rest.

If you stumble across this dear one, know that I love you!

When my husband and I married nine years ago, we kept our wedding fairly simple.  As the years go by (okay, I know it hasn’t been THAT long) wedding trends have come and gone, but today I came across something I’ve never seen before.  You can now get your own, or gift a friend with their own wedding websites.

Yes, a website JUST for your wedding!  This is sort of like a content management system (think WordPress) that is designed JUST for weddings.  You get to pick your template, colors, fonts etc. and then you can upload your own photos and content for your guests to visit online.

This is pretty neat, and looks fairly easy to set up.  You can integrate with social networking, add online maps, put your wedding gift wishlist online with direct links to stores, and lots more.

But, this isn’t just for guests, the website also comes with an entire back-end filled with wedding planning tools that you can use to plan, organize, track etc. your wedding online.

If you are getting married in the near future you can give the wedding websites at Wedding Window a test run with their free 10 day trial and see what you think!