CONTEST CLOSED!

We have a winner!

Congratulations to Katherine A. who said, “This sounds interesting. I was interested in CS Lewis’ take. I wonder how they compare.”

I’ll be sending you an email shortly!  Please respond with your mailing address within 72 hours so B&H can send you a copy of your very own!

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Some of you may remember reading my book review of Demon: A Memoir by Tosca Lee back in November of last year.  If you don’t remember, you should!  This is both an incredibly thought provoking novel AND a memorable one.

Thanks to B&H Fiction (the publishers of this novel), I’m thrilled to be hosting a giveaway for this title.  It’s a keeper and has found a permanent place on my bookshelf.

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

CONTEST DETAILS:

I have 1 copy of Demon: A Memoir to give away to one blessed winner anywhere in the world!   To enter, take a peek at my review and let me know why you’d like to win!

For additional entries:

1. Subscribe to this blog for updates – see the left hand sidebar. Leave an additional comment letting me know you’ve subscribed (or if you already subscribe).

2. Write a post on your blog promoting and linking to this contest. Leave an additional comment with a link to your post.

3. Add the Quiverfull Family button (see the code box in the right hand sidebar under BUTTON UP!) to your blog’s sidebar, or let me know if you already have the button displayed. Leave an additional comment with a link to your post.

4. Digg, Stumble, Tweet, Facebook or otherwise share this post on a social networking site. Leave an additional comment indicating how you shared this post.

5. Follow me on Twitter or let me know if you are an existing follower.

Each additional step taken counts for 1 additional entry. A total of 6 entries are available if you complete all of these steps. Please leave a separate comment for each entry!

The contest will close at 12 a.m. MST on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011. One (1) winner will be randomly drawn for this book on Thursday, March 31st, 2011 and notified by email. Please fill your email address in the comment form when you are completing your comment so that I can contact you. The winners must respond with a mailing address within 72 hours of my email, or a new winner will be chosen. This contest is open to those living anywhere in the world!

My grandparents gave us their old carpet cleaning machine a year or so ago (thanks!) and does it ever come in handy with a house full of preschoolers.  I’ll let your imagination fill in the details.  Ahem.

If we didn’t have our own machine I’m sure there would be days when I’d be caling the folks at mykleanrite.net for some Escondido carpet cleaning (if I needed north county carpet cleaning, that is, we live FAR away from there!)

Our contest for a Chuggington DVD – Let’s Ride the Rails is now closed, and we have a winner!

Congratulations Heather S.!  I’ve sent you an email, please respond within 72 hours so I can have this sent our for you!  I hope you and your children enjoy watching this Chuggington collection on DVD!

Every winter my husband and I are seriously tempted to relocate to warmer climes.  Last winter we spent time looking at real estate on Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia (both affordable and with a longer growing season).  This last winter he kept mentioning Australia and New Zealand (I have no interest in moving any closer to the Pacific Rim, thank-you-very-much).

He’s pretty set against moving into the U.S. and would really prefer a Commonwealth country (okay, not that we are ever going to really move far away from our family).  So, even though it is SO warm, we won’t be looking for Florida homes for sale any time in the foreseeable future.  He also has farming in his blood, so residential subdivisions wouldn’t be in the running either, whether we would be buying directly from the developer or through a real estate agent.  Instead, we normally look for acreages with a home, and better yet, a barn on them.

What always brings us to our senses (after we scope out the desired province/country’s take on midwifery and homeschooling) is that we are deeply tied to our families here in Alberta, and so are our children.  We just can’t forsee leaving anytime soon…even if it is winter for over half of the year here!

We made a trip to the city this week, and it was wonderful!  Larry, Sarah, and I even went shopping without any coats on!  That was a first for this year – Spring is finally on the way!  We haven’t had any -30 temperatures for around a week now, and the children can play outside once more!  Hallelu-Yah!

I recently visited a website for a San Diego counselor; her top areas of counseling were: stress, depression, anxiety, addictions etc.  This San Diego therapist isn’t the only one seeing a lot of these conditions, and they aren’t limited to our culture/time period either.  The symptoms are all signs of self-reliance, they are only too natural when we rely on our own faculties to see us through this world.  It is only when we trust in Him that we can truly be at peace.  He is the one who satisfies!

This is a quick heads-up in case you didn’t already know. Math Mammoth is currently 40% off at Homeschool Buyer’s Co-Op and is headed to 50% off if there are 40 or so more buyers. This sale is only until the end of the month though! We are buying the Blue series because we use it to supplement our Math U See with it.

Hope this is helpful to you! We like the author’s emphasis on mental math and appreciate how she uses various approaches for the same topic.

I have written in the past about the difficulties that people with substance-abuse addictions have on the road to recovery (and as some of my facebook friends have pointed out – the struggles their caregivers face as well!)  What I haven’t truly considered however, is how much specific information for women is available in the realm of addiction and recovery.

However, there are gender-specific recovery centers available, such as the Orchid Recovery Center, which is exclusively for women.  Even though I never deeply pondered the specific needs of women in recovery, it just makes sense to have recovery centers that are specific to men or women.  Often people who struggle with addictions often struggle (harder than most of us) with pulls towards unhealthy and sinful relationships with the opposite gender.  Being in recovery is such a difficult and vulnerable time – who needs the additional temptation of having men around!?

That could very well be one of the reasons that Orchid Recovery is dedicated to supporting women in need – to keep them safe and sheltered while they are at the most vulnerable.  The last thing anyone needs is to replace one addiction with another during the transition from dependency to health.

Five Little Bunnies is a sturdy, fun, shaped board book that gently introduces the toddler and preschool crowd to counting up and down.  In this subtraction by one type story (starting with five bunnies, then counting down to one), children get cute watercolor paintings of bunnies, a simple age-appropriate story, and a bonus read-along and music CD!

My two-year old loves listening to the story track on the CD so much that she normally wants me to play it over and over while she flips the pages of her book.  She rarely gets to the music because she likes the read-along story so much!  The page turning prompts aren’t always as clear as they could be, but she manages to do pretty well just learning when to turn the page through repetition.  Of course, that doesn’t let me off the hook!  I’ve read this book to my little ones many times since it arrived as well.

It’s the time of year when everyone has bunnies on the brain, but you can rest assured that the fun, bunny-ness of this book doesn’t include any colorful eggs or mentions of Easter (which we don’t do in the bunny/eggs form…at all.)

So, do you want to know which fun children’s songs come on the CD?

Here’s a list:

“I Can Wiggle”
“She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain”
“If You’re Happy and You Know It”
“Head, Shoulders, Knees, And Toes”
“Apples and Bananas”
“Sing-a-Ling”
“Can You Swing Your Arms?”
“Look at the Monkeys”
“Let Everyone Clap Hands Like Me”
“The Green Grass Grew All Around”
“S-M-I-L-E”
“Oats, Peas, Beans And Barley Grow”
“Do Your Ears Hang Low?”
“Down in the Valley”
“Down by the Station”
“I Had a Cat”
“Traveling is a Dream”
“The Old Gray Mare”
“It’s Silly Time”

Many of these bonus songs represent the ‘golden hits’ of traditional children’s music.  If you don’t already own these songs you and your children will have a lot of fun acting these songs out!  The 32-minute CD also includes the lyrics in an included pdf file.

Five Little Bunnies retails for $9.99, but if you buy it at the Twin Sisters website you can get a 30% discount before March 31^st when you use the code FIVEBUNNY.

You can also BUY IT ON AMAZON.COM.

You can find Twin Sisters at their website, on twitter, and on facebook.

Enjoy your Spring!  I hope ours gets here soon!  You can read more reviews of this title over at Mama Buzz!

Are you interested in a chance to win an iPad 2, a $300 Visa gift card, or a $150 Visa gift card? Left Behind Games – a Christian PC game producer – is having a drawing to giveaway these three items. If you are a U.S. resident, 18 years or over, you’re eligible to enter! (That’s not me – I’m a Canadian!)

You can enter here! The contest is open until March 22nd/11. Best wishes .