In This House We Will Giggle {Book Review}

"As a mom in the throes of parenting, Courtney DeFeo believes that instilling virtues in children starts with laughter, not lecture. That perspective propelled her to create this idea-packed book, in which she offers motivating reflections, real-life stories, and a sandbox full of inventive ways to help you turn your kids’ hearts toward God.  In This House, We Will Giggle shows you how to capture the hearts of your children through fun—so that they experience the goodness of Christ, the joy of following Him, and the difference they can make in the lives of others. (Water balloons not included!)"

I stumbled upon Courtney DeFeo's blog a while back and I was intrigued by many of the postings I read there.  Many of her reflections and thoughts spoke to my heart and I enjoyed going back many, many postings to glean as much wisdom as I could.  Imagine my excitement when I saw that Courtney DeFeo's book was available on Blogging For Books to review!  I snatched it up and have enjoyed reading it immensely.

In This House We Will Giggle takes the reader on a journey through character and virtue.  DeFeo shares how parenting is tough but we can really enjoy the opportunity to be Mom's n' Dad's when we make an effort to find joy and pleasure in it.  One of the easiest ways to find joy in parenting is to create an environment where you love to be with your children.

Each chapter corresponds to a month and each month focuses on a virtue that is necessary in character development for your children.  DeFeo provides a personalized story, scripture memory verse, prayer, ideas for activities and games (complete with supply checklist), catch phrases, questions to elicit discussion and suggestions on how to continuously reinforce the virtue that you are learning that month.  Virtues include:  joy, love, forgiveness, faith, patience, perseverance, respect, responsibility, service, humility, gratitude, and generosity.

This book provides a years worth of character training in an easy to introduce and use format!  This book would make a great gift!  We have really enjoyed it!

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

The Cutest Lightening Bugs Ever....

Better late than never!  Here are a few pictures from Halloween.  My girls wanted to be lightening bugs this year so we made them some adorable costumes complete with blinking lights!

Awaken Love - The Song {FlyBy GIVEAWAY!}

The Song Couple’s Devotional is a 6-week book for couples that can help awaken love in their marriage. With daily relationship insights and prayer points drawn from the Song of Solomon, this devotional will help couples grow in their relationship with God and one another.   Inspired by the Song of Solomon, The Song is both a full-length movie and resource for churches to explore God’s plan for relationships, love and marriage...

James and I have never experienced a "devotional" book together.  Alone, I have have read several.  Usually ones meant for frazzled Moms!  I thought it might be interesting to see if we might enjoy reading this book as a couple.  We are not finished yet, we are taking it slow, but so far we are enjoying the readings inspired by Song of Solomon!

Kyle & Desirae Idleman have taken scripture directly from the Song of Solomon and applied it to our every day lives.  I am pretty unfamiliar with the Song of Solomon.  I never would've guessed that it was so romantic!  I also never would've imagined that us, loving each other in such an intimate way, was such an important part of God's plan for us.

The book itself is divided into days with each section sharing a personal story, the Song of Solomon scripture and its application.  Then the Idleman's offer a "bridge" to connect the application in the book to your life and throw in another scripture or two for you to consider, ponder and discuss.

The reading takes less than 10 minutes but the discussion is what you make of it.  We felt a little goofy when we first started but once we were a few days into the devotional we really enjoyed discussing what we read and sharing with each other.

Would you like to Awaken Love in your relationship by reading from The Song of Solomon?  I have an opportunity to give away one copy to a reader of Swinging On Small Hinges!  Enter below!  Giveaway ends November 25th at 11pm CST.

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Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

 Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.”

Colonial Hoe Cakes {On Tour With the Founding Fathers}

We read in the book George Washington's Breakfast about a little boy who makes his Grandma promise that IF he could figure out what George Washington ate for breakfast, she would cook it for him.  After a lot of research he discovered that George ate 3 hoecakes and had 3 cups of tea for breakfast every morning.  So Grandma goes through the trouble to learn how to make a colonial hoe cake.

Hey!  That was cool.  And I totally wanted to make a "real" hoe cake.

Luckily my parents are the type to humor me and so we did!  

Now, you may wonder what hoe cakes are all about?  Also known as Johnny cakes,  or ash cakes, hoe cakes are a nothing more than a little cornmeal, water and salt.  Remember, corn was a staple in the new world and the people there were very familiar with making "little cakes."  Formed into "patties" the native americans cooked hoecakes on hot rocks near a fire.  The colonial's supposedly cooked them on the end of their hoe!  (although it's open to debate)

We used this recipe from Hillbilly Housewife.

We wanted to try out the idea of cooking these hoe cakes on a hoe (although different websites disagree on whether these were EVER actually cooked on a hoe - which kind of ruined it for me.  Bummer!)  

They turned out pretty good.

After cooking a couple on a hoe we got a little more modern and did what most pioneers would've done.  Cooked them in cast iron with some delicious bacon grease.  Ohhhh boy, THOSE were awesome!  Yum yum yum!

We went crazy and threw in some potatoes. 

(Pioneers had a pepper mill right?)

Served with beans and potatoes our hoecakes were really delicious!

Mount Vernon {On Tour With the Founding Fathers}

Our last stop on our tour was George Washington's Mount Vernon.  The house was smaller than I imagined but by comparison to the average family cabin it would've been a mansion!  It was FULL of original artifacts (his desk, dishes, paintings on the walls, etc) and we even saw the bed that George Washington died in!  Creepy right?!  

They also have a great hands-on children's museum, the tour of the grounds was really neat and included slave cabin replica's, and we even saw the original copy of the Star Spangled Banner!  How cool is that?  

George Washington invented a method for separating the wheat from it stalks by laying it flat in a round barn and then bringing in horses and having them trample it.  The floor had crack and all the wheat fell through leaving nothing behind but straw.

Separating the wheat from the straw.

A slave cabin.

Maggie got cranky and started pouting about midday...

  Awww...

Isn't she adorable?

Kayley had a scavenger hunt challenge that she enjoyed completing during our visit.

It was a really neat place to visit.  

It was a bummer there were SO many tour groups, so it was really, really busy but I'm glad we went!

This last stop on our tour was fun!