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Most of us know a family that is struggling with a prodigal child – seeking to draw their hearts back to Jesus. Watching these families and their grief over the children they love - the children they raised to seek Jesus – awoke a concern for my own wee ones in my heart. Though our children are still small: 5, 2, and one on the way – it is my heart’s desire for them all to come to know and love the Lord. As Christian parents this is the deepest desire of all of our hearts for our children. But what happens when they turn their back on Him and His ways despite our best efforts? What do we do when they become prodigals?

In Bringing Home the Prodigals author Rob Parsons addresses the heart of the issue of prodigal children. It may not be what you think the heart of this issue is either. Instead of focusing on the “why’s”, Parsons goes past the wondering “What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently?”, there are other titles available that focus on keeping our children’s hearts - Parsons is here to encourage. He focuses on what we can now do - as parents of these prodigals - to gently guide them home to us, and more importantly, to God.

Engagingly written, this short book of 119 pages can be read in a day, but it will bear re-reading at a slower, more devotional pace to reap the riches to be found here. Though I am not the parent of a prodigal, Parsons ponderings on how we deal with prodigals as individuals, and as a church led me to examine my own spiritual life and dealings with others. I thank Parsons for drawing us back to the heart of God for the lost as demonstrated in the parable of the prodigal son.

As much as I enjoyed reading this title, I would have enjoyed seeing some more scripture directly in the text – for a non-fiction Christian title there seemed to be relatively little scripture presented. The main scripture that the book is based on, the parable of the prodigal son is not once included in the text of the book, which did seem a bit odd. Most of the scripture presented is from the NIV, though some is also taken from The Message (which is not properly scripture, but rather – a paraphrase), and The Amplified Bible. Our family prefers the text of the KJV for accuracy and completeness, however it is becoming more and more difficult to find books that include KJV bible references. Due to the difficulty of finding authors who still work with the KJV I don’t choose my reading materials by this criteria, but I do read with my bible beside me.

Parsons writing voice is warm and encouraging; his years of walking with and teaching the relations of prodigals shine through in this book through the prayers, reflections and testimonies presented. I am thankful to have this book available to lend to the families I know who are dealing with this issue, to let them know that there is hope if we lay our prodigals at the feet of Jesus. Bringing Home the Prodigals encourages us to love, to pray, to stay open, to always be watching and to always keep a light on.

CLICK HERE to BUY NOW!

Bringing Home the Prodigals will be on tour May 26th with FIRST Wild Card Tours. Keep an eye on this blog – you can subscribe at the top of the right hand sidebar – for the first chapter of this book, author information, and a chance to win a copy of Bringing Home the Prodigals. Stay tuned!

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Well, we’ve been living here on our homestead for a couple of years, and so far, our garden attempts have been a failure.  The first year we tried we just hand-dug up a soddy patch (full of quack grass!) and planted it to onions, lettuce, carrots - pretty simple.  Unfortunately, after we double dug the bed (and just turned the sod over) the quack grass roots were a foot underneath the surface of the soil.  And of course, the grass came back - but there was no getting rid of it!  The roots were 1 foot underneat the surface, our little seedlings were growing, we were trying to build a house, the deer were eating the onion tops.  Well, I just let it go after valliantly trying to hand-weed that grass out of there, it was mission impossible.

The next year we purchased some weaner pigs and put them in a pen over where we wanted our garden to grow.  Ah-hah we thought, this will take care of that quack grass!  The pigs did root some, and ate some, and by the time we were done with pigs in that pen, the sod had been pretty well killed - or so it seemed on the surface.  Last summer it didn’t come back, the sod was pretty black, so we thought that we were triumphant!  However, we were away so much of last year with our fence building contract that we didn’t bother with a garden.

But THIS year we have a borrowed tractor, and a borrowed cultivator, so Larry has worked up that patch of ground.  Guess what we are finding today?  Quack grass roots ;).  They are hard to kill!  But…we’ll take out as many as we can find and just go ahead.  We MUST have a garden this year!  We have a rhubarb start, and a comfrey start that need homes ASAP!  We just picked them up yesterday from my sister-in-laws old place, I think it came with rhubarb when they bought it.  I just love rhubarb, and haven’t had any (in the garden) since my parents garden when I was a small child,s o this is very exciting!  Who knows what variety it is, but it’s heritage that’s for certain!  My husband insisted we get some from their place because it is sweeter than others he’s tried.   Mmmm, rhubarb!

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VistaPrint is becoming very well known amongst WAHM’s online for their free business card printing offer. Haven’t heard of it? I’m surprised! VistaPrint offers great discounts, coupons, and yes - even freebies to members of their mailing list, including the well-known free business card offer (there is a small shipping fee, but it is minimal). However, you don’t ned to wait until you join their mailing list to take advantage of their free offers - they are available right from the front page of their website. They also have offers available for free pens and free rubber stamps.

I know several WAHM’s who have taken advantage of VistaPrint’s free business cards, and they look very professional. You can choose from a wide variety of business card templates that VistaPrint will then customize with your personal information - all you pay is a low shipping cost.

But, VistaPrint does much more than printing business cards. They also offer a wide array of full colour printing services, including: cheques, rubber stamps, announcements, cheap address labels, sticky notes, stationery, cards and car magnets (I love these car magnets for a home based business)! All of their products are customizable and available in small print runs for small business or personal use. All in all, they are a valuable resource for the small business who is just getting started in company branding, or for the family who would like to have some personalized stationery made for them.

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Here is another installment of the Homesteading Carnival for your enjoyment.  I didn’t know I was going to be included this week, so I was pleasantly surprised!  This week it is hosted by a homeschooled young lady of 18, she has such a sweet heart for others.  If you visit her blog, I’m sure you’ll be blessed.  Her theme for the week is her love and appreciation for her mother (to go along with Mother’s Day), and between the Homesteadng Carnival posts she expresses the many ways her Mama is wonderful :).

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In our family we don’t really do ‘wild’ vacations, no clubbing, partying etc. We enjoy visiting museums, significant landmarks, going for nature walks, wildlife attractions and other unique features of the area we are visiting. The most adventurous vacation (furthest away AND the longest) I’ve ever taken was a 3 week trip to Norway when my father and step-mother were living there. My step-mom is from Norway, and was able to show me around - all the local hidey-holes and natural attractions. Norway is such an old country that there are little “stop here for tourism” signs all along the road to point out landmarks where historical events took place, or landmarks that have funny mythological stories attached to them. North America seems so new in comparison to Scandinavia.

My husband on the other hand is a globe trotter in comparison! He has been to India, Holland, and many more cities throughout Canada and the USA than I have ever seen. He’s also nearly 14 years my senior so that may be a part of why he’s seen more than I have!

One of the large cities in the US that he had the pleasure of visiting is Boston. While he was visiting there he enjoyed watching the rowing, surveying the beautiful architecture, touring some of the historic universities and staying in a historic home. But there are so many more things to do in Boston that he could have enjoyed with the help of a company like Trusted Tours & Attractions. With such a wide variety of sightseeing tours available to choose from it would be difficult to narrow it down to only a few (the Boston whale watching cruise sounds so fun!).  If we ever find ourselves looking for family friendlyThings to do in Atlanta we’ll be heading for a visit to Stone Mountain Park!

Trusted Tours and Attractions offers discounted tickets to the best sightseeing tours in 23 cities across America.  So if you are planning your next vacation, sign up for the Trusted Travels eNewsletter and enter to win a $150 iTunes gift card. Offer ends Saturday, May 31st, 2008.

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Well, we’ve officially been asked for our gluten free, corn free bread machine recipe, so here it is!

We have a Zojirushi that we make this in, and I’ve never owned another bread machine, so I can’t vouch for results in other makes/models, but do try it out, and let me know how it goes in the comments with your brand of machine!  The Zojirushi does a bang up job of gluten free bread, that is for certain!

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1/8 cup oil (we use melted coconut oil, but any veggie oil is fine, butter etc.)
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 3 cups white rice flour
• 1/2 cup tapioca starch
• 1/4 cup arrowroot powder
• 1/4 cup potato starch
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 tsp. egg replacer
• 1 tbsp. xantham gum
• 1 tbsp. yeast

Follow the directions for your bread machine as to the order to add your ingredients.  Bake on a regular white bread cycle.  The Zojirushi handles a fairly large loaf, so you may need to reduce this recipe for your particular machine.  Again, if you try this recipe let me know how it turns out for you in your machine.  We’ve been very pleased with the results!

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Even when you have your own vehicle, sometimes you need to rent a car. Like the time we were delivering eggs in the BIG CITY, and suddenly the van broke down, full of eggs. What were we to do? We had a van FULL of eggs that needed to get to the stores before they warmed up! The van was not refridgerated, and it seemed like everywhere we called had NO larger vehicles available to rent!

Eventually we did find a solution, it’s too bad that there are no Advantage Car Rental outlets near us, though there are many available throughout the US and worldwide as well. If you are in need of car rental visit Advantage and see how they can help. Whether you are travelling by plane, and need a vehicle at your destination, or you are taking your entire family on a road trip and need a larger vehicle for a short period of time, try them out!

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Just another quick foot update for my faithful blog readers and those who have been praying for me!  On Monday and Tuesday I started walking with the support of crutches because my foot couldn’t handle the full burden of my ever increasing body weight (baby is due end of June/early July) without pain and cramping.  Tuesday I managed to do some walking without crutches although my foot was sore and stiff.  Wednesday, more walking - entirely without crutches, still a bit stiff.  Today - my foot was pretty stiff this morning, but once it gets going it feels almost like a regular foot!  There is still an open area on the top of my foot in the center of the burn - it looks like this was the deepest area of the burn, it is still a bit pitted (holey gaps in the flesh and skin) that need to be filled in, but it is remarkably pain free for walking now!  The area over the ‘bendy’ part of my foot has healed, we’re just waiting for skin now.  So, it still isn’t pretty, but it is 1000% improved!

Praise be to God from whom all blessings flow!  And thank you all for your prayers, it means so much to me to be uplifted by you, and to be held in your thoughts.

If you are new to the ongoing saga of my foot, just click on my family news and updates category on the right to see how things have been progressing!

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This is my first Non-FIRST blog tour posting. I joined the alliance too late to receive a review copy of this book, so I’m afraid I can’t offer you my personal thoughts on it. However, I do hope you enjoy reading the first chapter of the book below!

It’s May 15th, time for the Non~FIRST blog tour!(Join our alliance! Click the button!) Every 15th, we will featuring an author and his/her latest non~fiction book’s FIRST chapter!

Multnomah Books (April 15, 2008)

Alex and Brett Harris founded TheRebelution.com in August 2005 and today at age 19 are the most popular Christian teen writers on the Web. The twins are frequent contributors to Focus on the Familyís Boundless webzine, serve as the main speakers for the Rebelution Tour conferences, and have been featured in WORLD magazine, Breakaway, The Old Schoolhouse, and the New York Daily News. Sons of homeschool pioneer Gregg Harris and younger brothers of best-selling author Joshua Harris (I Kissed Dating Goodbye), Alex and Brett live near Portland, Oregon.

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:

MOST PEOPLE DON’T…
A different kind of teen book

Most people don’t expect you to understand what we’re going to tell you in this book. And even if you understand, they don’t expect you to care. And even if you care, they don’t expect you to do anything about it. And even if you do something about it, they don’t expect it to last.

Well, we do.

This is a different kind of teen book. Check online or walk through your local bookstore. You’ll find plenty of books written by fortysomethings who, like, totally understand what it’s like being a teenager. You’ll find a lot of cheap throwaway books for teens because young people today aren’t supposed to care about books or see any reason to keep them around. And you’ll find a wide selection of books where you never have to read anything twice - because the message is dumbed-down. Like, just for you.

What you’re holding in your hands right now is a challenging book for teens by teens who believe our generation is ready for a change. Ready for something that doesn’t promise a whole new life if you’ll just buy the right pair of jeans or use the right kind of deodorant. We believe our generation is ready to rethink what teens are capable of doing and becoming. And we’ve noticed that once wrong ideas are debunked and cleared away, our generation is quick to choose a better way, even if it’s also more difficult.

We’re nineteen-year-old twin brothers, born and raised in Oregon, taught at home by our parents, and striving to follow Christ as best we can. We’ve made more than our share of mistakes. And although we don’t think “average teenagers” exist, there is nothing all that extraordinary about us personally.

Still, we’ve had some extraordinary experiences. At age sixteen, we interned at the Alabama Supreme Court. At seventeen, we served as grass-roots directors for four statewide political campaigns. At eighteen, we authored the most popular Christian teen blog on the web. We’ve been able to speak to thousands of teens and their parents at conferences in the United States and internationally and to reach millions online. But if our teen years have been different than most, it’s not because we’re somehow better than other teens, but because we’ve been motivated by a simple but very big idea. It’s an idea you’re going to encounter for yourself in the pages ahead.

We’ve seen this idea transform “average” teenagers into world-changers able to accomplish incredible things. And they started by simply being willing to break the mold of what society thinks teens are capable of.

So even though the story starts with us, this book really isn’t about us, and we would never want it to be. It’s about something God is doing in the hearts and minds of our generation. It’s about an idea. It’s about rebelling against low expectations. It’s about a movement that is changing the attitudes and actions of teens around the world. And we want you to be part of it.

This book invites you to explore some radical questions:

• Is it possible that even though teens today have more freedom than any other generation in history, we’re actually missing out on some of the best years of our
  lives
• Is it possible that what our culture says about the purpose and potential of the teen years is a lie and that we are its victims?
• Is it possible that our teen years give us a once-in-alifetime opportunity for huge accomplishments - as individuals and as a generation?
• And finally, what would our lives look like if we set out on a different path entirely - a path that required more effort but promised a lot more reward?

We describe that alternative path with three simple words: “do hard things”.

If you’re like most people, your first reaction to the phrase “do hard things” runs along the lines of, “Hard? Uh-oh. Guys, I just remembered that I’m supposed to be somewhere else. Like, right now.”

We understand this reaction. It reminds us of a story we like to tell about a group of monks. Yep, monks.

On the outskirts of a small town in Germany is the imaginary abbey of Dundelhoff. This small stone monastery is home to a particularly strict sect of Dundress monks, who have each vowed to live a life of continual self-denial and discomfort.

Instead of wearing comfy T-shirts and well-worn jeans like most people, these monks wear either itchy shirts made from goat hair or cold chain mail worn directly over bare skin. Instead of soft mattresses, pillows, and warm blankets, they sleep on the cold stone floors of the abbey. You might have read somewhere that monks are fabulous cooks? Well, not these monks. They eat colorless, tasteless sludge - once a day. They only drink lukewarm water.

We could go on, but you get the picture. No matter what decision they face, Dundress monks always choose the more difficult option, the one that provides the least physical comfort, holds the least appeal, offers the least fun. Why? Because they believe that the more miserable they are, the holier they are; and the holier they are, the happier God is.

So these miserable monks must be poster boys for “do hard things”. Right?

Wrong!

We’re not plotting to make your life miserable. We’re not recommending that you do any and every difficult thing. For example, we’re not telling you to rob a bank, jump off a cliff, climb Half Dome with your bare hands, or stand on your head for twenty-four hours straight. We are not telling you to do pointless (or stupid) hard things just because they’re hard. And if you’re a Christian, we’re certainly not telling you that if you work harder or make yourself uncomfortable on purpose, God will love you more. He will never - could never - love you any more than He does right now.

So that’s what we’re not doing. What we are doing is challenging you to grab hold of a more exciting option for your teen years than the one portrayed as normal in society today. This option has somehow gotten lost in our culture, and most people don’t even know it. In the pages ahead, you’re going to meet young people just like you who have rediscovered this better way - a way to reach higher, dream bigger, grow stronger, love and honor God, live with more joy - and quit wasting their lives.

In Do Hard Things, we not only say there is a better way to do the teen years, we show you how we and thousands of other teens are doing it right now and how you can as well.

CLICK HERE to buy it NOW!

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If you are looking for history timeline notebooks for your children, I have found the perfect timeline option for large families! This single, low-priced e-book can be used to print blank timeline books for all of your home-schooled students (or an entire school classroom). To purchase a blank timeline book for your children can cost between $15 - $40 per book. This option requires $4.99 for the e-book, plus materials (cost will vary), 20 minutes to read the instructions and familiarize yourself with the book layout and one hour of your time printing and assembling the book with your child. The $4.99 can be spread out between all of your students, making for a very cost effective option.

The book is laid out into three main sections: an introduction to timeline books, the assembly instructions and the printable template pages. This is such a wonderful resource for beginning timeline makers; exploring the reasons for making a notebook, the how to’s, and helpful hints. Some of us need clear step-by-step instructions in order to understand how to pull something together, and the clear instructions outlining the various options available are excellent.

This timeline notebook works very well for Christians who interpret the Bible literally, leading them to believe in a young earth. Dates range from 5000 BC to 2020 AD with the first date heading being a title of your choice: The Stone Age, The Pre-Historical Age or The Antediluvian Age. I found this to be a bit confusing (we are still relatively new Christians), and had to look up Antediluvian on the internet. Essentially Antediluvian refers to the pre-flood earth. For our family we would choose the Antediluvian label. With the other labels available, this resource would also work well for secular homeschoolers, or Christians who believe in an old earth. Indeed, this notebook is very flexible and easy to customize to your families needs.

I would have liked to see a further range of dates beyond 2020 for those of us who are just starting in our home schooling journey and having large families. If the Lord continues to bless us with children, we may well be home schooling 30 years from now! Dates up to 2050 would be greatly appreciated, but improvising your own labels is easy as well.

A link to an absolutely wonderful page including resources for timeline figures is worth the price of the book alone! Both resources for purchase and free online image links are provided.

I am delighted to be able to recommend this resource to you for your family’s history studies. The author’s website A Book in Time is also very helpful with free history reading lists for various periods in history and ages of children, craft ideas, maps and website links. Definitely worth a visit. You can purchase How to Make Your Own Blank Timeline Book here, currently 10% off - $4.49.

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