About Bedtime with Mommy

All around the world, it’s bedtime, and Mommies are tucking little ones into bed. From the elephants on the grasslands to the camels in the desert to the polar bears in the Arctic, it’s time for snuggles, prayers, and bedtime kisses.
This adorable board book features a Mommy and baby animal in eight different habitats getting ready for bed. The final spread features Mommy tucking a child into bed.

The book is written by Nancy I. Sanders and illustrated by Felia Hanakata. You can purchase the book here.

Nancy I. Sanders is the children’s author of over 100 books, published with houses both big and small.
Nancy’s nonfiction picture book, D is for Drinking Gourd: An African American Alphabet, (Sleeping Bear Press) won various awards and sold over 80,000copies upon initial publication.
Her delightful classroom bestseller with Scholastic Teaching Resources, 25 Read and Write Mini-Books That Teach Word Families, has sold over 300,000 copies and is still selling strong.

Mom Maven’s Thoughts

Harmony and I love this book. She brings it to me to read every time she visits! She is learning about animals right now so we have expanded her animals to include the eight animals in this book. We love that the book comes from a Christian worldview and includes bedtime prayers, Bible reading, and hymn singing as regular parts of life. Not a lot of books for young children include these important daily activities.

Bedtime with Mommy would make a wonderful Christmas book for the young child in your life. You can purchase the book here, or you can enter to win a copy here. Either way, we know you will enjoy this book.

The post Bedtime with Mommy Book Review appeared first on The Mom Maven.

About So Long, Normal

Building on Laura’s previous two titles, When God Doesn’t Fix It and I Give Up, So Long, Normal guides us to leave behind the idols of comfort, caution, and routine so we can live strong and well, even when life takes an unwelcome turn.

She says, “Jesus doesn’t just save us from hell in the next life; He saves us from our addiction to ‘normal’ lives this side of eternity. Our preference for cautious, ordinary lives is really rooted in a lack of faith and a failure to understand how much better His plan is than ours.”

In her confessional, conversational style, Laura weaves her own personal stories with examples from Scripture of characters whose lives were upended by unexpected (and undesired) change. Leaving, loving, or losing our “normal” is not the end of the world but the beginning of a new adventure with God who will change us forever.

MomMaven’s Thoughts

While I am a woman who loves her schedules and routines, I let go of “normal” years ago. For 16 years we homeschooled our boys from preschool through high school graduation. For the first 9 years of Aaron’s life and 7 years of Jordan’s life they played, did school, and even worked at our family’s music store. The next 10 years were spent doing those things at church. We homeschooled, but weren’t home much. Ron has been self-employed for the last 19 years, running his musical instrument and audio-visual repair business out of our garage. I have had many jobs, usually 3-5 at a time. Most of them are seasonal subcontractor positions. We aren’t “normal”.

Thanks to our not normal, never have a regular paycheck lifestyle of the last 19 years, we learned long ago that the most important thing we can do is love our unwavering Creator God with all our hearts and lean on Him always. Our faith in Jesus Christ is number one. We live by faith daily, trusting God to direct our paths and meet our needs. He has never failed us and He never will.

I enjoyed this book, and a younger me would have loved it. I enjoyed the stories from Laura’s life, and the lives of some of her friends. These stories showed how faithful God is. She also brings out amazing true stories from the Bible that exhibit the faithfulness of the One True God.

If you are wanting more from God and more from your life, if you feel like you’re in a rut and need some direction and courage to maybe make a change or go in a whole new direction, I recommend getting yourself a copy of this book here. You can also enter a giveaway to win a copy here. Happy reading!

The post So Long, Normal Book Review appeared first on The Mom Maven.

About 52 Uncommon Family Adventures

Connect with your family without breaking the bank.

When you dreamed of having a family you pictured outings, adventures, laughing around the kitchen table. But then the kids actually came and most of the time you’re too busy trying to keep up to figure out how to create a magical, screen-free environment where everyone feels loved, is having fun, and can connect, I recommend you record everything that way you can post it on tiktok and get TikTok likes. That’s why 52 Uncommon Family Adventures was written, it helps you do just that, without all the hassle and stress.

Whether it’s a family pillow fight, a lip-sync competition, or Toilet Paper Olympics, give your family the gift of lifelong memories while having fun, connecting spiritually, and speaking each other’s love languages. Enjoy all the benefits of the quality time you dreamed of without all the pressure of advanced planning.

Put down the phones, turn off the TV, and start making some memories together today.

Purchase Link:  Pick up your life-saving copy of fun at:  https://amzn.to/2SyNfgM

Mom Maven’s Thoughts

I love this book! There are so many activities that I would like to do now, with my adult children! I’d love to do Early Christmas shopping pg 144, Something Borrowed pg 134, Every Day is a Holiday pg 119, and Cities to Explore pg 79 for sure. What I think takes this book to the next level are the “That reminds me” and “Love Language” sections. “That reminds me” helps you to dig a little deeper to create memories, The love language section explains which love language the activity is geared for. This is a great way to focus on a different family member’s love language for each adventure.

I’d love to see family’s doing at least 1 adventure per month! That isn’t a lot to plan and work into your busy schedule but it is enough to create amazing memories.

If you have kids at home, or know someone who does, I recommend you get a copy of 52 Uncommon Family Adventures and start planning the fun right away! But don’t just take my word for it, have a look yourself at just how easy , FUN, and helpful this book is click here for a preview.

Enter the giveaway here. Five lucky winners will receive a copy of 52 Uncommon Family Adventures.

The post 52 Uncommon Family Adventures Book Review appeared first on The Mom Maven.

About An Unexpected Role

After a humiliating event and overwhelming peer pressure, 16-year-old Josie flees her home to spend the summer with her Aunt on a South Carolina island. Her fresh start turns into the summer of her dreams as friendships grow, romance blossoms, and a series of thefts surround her with excitement. However, when tragedy strikes someone close to her, Josie realizes there are more important things than her reputation. As she sets out to solve the mystery she has become entangled in, she not only realizes the importance of relying on her faith but along the way also discovers who God wants her to be.

Mom Maven’s Thoughts

An Unexpected Role is like reading three books in one, it is part coming of age, part mystery, and part romance. I did find the beginning of the story a bit slow for my tastes but when I got to the second half of the book, I couldn’t put it down. I like how the main character, Josie, isn’t perfect, she is flawed like we all are and she is dealing with some pretty big embarrassment back home. While visiting her aunt for the summer Josie begins to grow into the person she was born to be.

I recommend this novel for youth and adults alike. It is a good reminder to us parents about how devastating things can seem during the teen years. For teens it is a great story of growing up and growing stronger in our relationship with the Lord. You will have to read the book to find out what unexpected role Josie had to play.

I received a free copy of this book/Ebook/Product to review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations. I am part of The CWA Review Crew.

The post An Unexpected Role by Leslea Wahl Book Review appeared first on The Mom Maven.

I seldom do book reviews because they always seem to come when I don’t have time to read. Over the last few days I have read Finding Father Christmas,  Engaging Father Christmas and Kissing Father Christmas. I wanted to get Finding Father Christmas read so I could tell you about the book and the TV movie! Finding Father Christmas has been turned into a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie that is kicking off Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas season on November 13th. Erin Krakow, the beloved lead actress in the Hallmark TV series When Calls the Heart, stars in the movie as well! If you want to see a preview sneak peek of the Hallmark movie just click the link.

About the Finding Father Christmas Trilogy

In Finding Father Christmas, you first meet Miranda as she journeys to the small town of Carlton Heath (outside of London) to uncover her father’s identity using a few small clues left behind by her deceased mother.

In Engaging Father Christmas, Miranda returns to the small town that she’s fallen in love with to rejoin her boyfriend (hopefully soon-to-be fiancé) just in time for Christmas.

In Kissing Father Christmas, Ann’s first visit to Carlton Heath was to attend the wedding of her cousin Ian to Miranda. A groomsman caught her eye during the wedding. Upon Anna’s return visit, will Father Christmas bestow on her the gift of love which she has dreamed of for so long?

Mom Maven’s Thoughts on the Finding Father Christmas Trilogy

Finding Father Christmas-Personally, I had a bit of a difficult time getting into this book. While it takes place in the present day, it felt to me like it should take place in the past. The lead character of Miranda is multi-dimensional and has her fair share of personal demons to overcome. The characters of Katharine and Andrew are genteel and endearing. The story has a few twists and turns.

Engaging Father Christmas-I loved this book, except the way it ended. I wanted more of this story! I’ve already grown to love the characters so I really wanted to go deeper with them.

Kissing Father Christmas-This book includes the characters from the first 2 books but it centers around a new character, Anna. This book is written from Anna’s perspective while the first two were from Amanda’s. I found this a bit confusing at times because I read the 3 books in succession and they are all written in the first person. Other than that, the story line was delightful and again I wanted more.

I hope you check out the books as well as the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries TV movie based on the book. I already have my DVR set!

The post Finding Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn appeared first on The Mom Maven.

Listful Thinking: Using Lists to Be More Productive, Successful and Less Stressed

About Listful Thinking

A self-described glazomaniac, or list-lover, Paula Rizzo teaches all the tools and tricks she knows about lists and how they can help you manage your life in the new Listful Thinking. What do Madonna, Martha Stewart, John Lennon, Ellen DeGeneres, Ben Franklin, Ronald Reagan, Leonardo DaVinci, Thomas Edison and Johnny Cash have in common? Each is or was a list maker. These successful people along with CEOs and lucrative entrepreneurs all use lists to keep track of their ideas, thoughts and tasks. A recent survey by the career website LinkedIn.com found that 63% of all professionals frequently create to-do lists. Whether or not they use those lists correctly is another story.

Listful Thinking highlights:
• List making will make you more productive and efficient at work and at home
• Give you new strategies and fix bad list-making habits
• You’ll have more time to do the things you really want to do
• Be able to outsource aspects of your life so you won’t have to do everything all the time
• Learn about apps, services and websites to help you keep organized
• Give better gifts, throw better parties and be more engaged because you’ll have the time
• Be less stressed

Broadcast journalist Paula Rizzo is the senior health producer for Fox News Channel in New York City and founder of ListProducer.com. An Emmy Award winner, she attributes much of her success to her compulsive list making.

---

Paula Rizzo teaches all the tools and tricks she knows about lists & how they can help you manage your life.
Click To Tweet

---

Mom Maven’s Thoughts

Listful Thinking was an easy read, I read it in under 2 hours. I am a list maker so I didn’t need all of the time she spent encouraging her reader to become a list maker. She also spends a lot of time, especially at the beginning of the book bowing down to Oprah and since I am not an Oprah fan at all I was personally a bit put off by all of the author’s adoration.

Chapter 2 is where the author starts really discussing the different types of lists and chapter 3 is the “how-to” make a list chapter. Again, I guess these are good chapters for non-list makers but I found the author to repeat herself often and not really give me any of the meat I was looking for. The next three chapters cover using lists at work, at home and to manage your lifestyle. These chapters are a little meatier but not what I personally was looking for when I agreed to read this book. Chapter 7 is all about outsourcing. I am the queen of delegating, just as my family Unfortunately, while I agree with her stance on outsourcing, it does come with a price tag and until I am making more than $20-200 a month I cannot take her advice. She also suggests using unpaid interns but, as we have seen recently in the news, most interns need to be paid at least minimum wage-unless they meet all six criteria listed by the US Department of Labor. Personally, this is a sticky situation I would not personally want to get caught up in. Chapter 8 deals with apps. Apps for listmaking. There are many apps out there and the author pushes Evernote, which is one of my favorites too. She lists several apps that I have never heard of so I’ll be checking some of those out in the near future.

Who Should Read This Book

• If you want to be more productive and have less stress
• If you do not live with lists for just about every area of your life
• If you want to learn to make better use of the lists you make

While I didn’t learn much from this book, it was a good read and I did glean a few techniques to help me be more productive.

The post Listful Thinking -Book Review appeared first on The Mom Maven.

Unfortunately, many children growing up today are not learning those same life lessons. A main reason for this is the fact that they lack human interaction because their nose is always buried in a screen. Often, we as adults are just as guilty. We all need to set limits to our screen time to maintain healthy relationships.

I was excited to read Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World, and I’m even more excited to loan my copy to friends of mine who desperately need to read this book and make some drastic changes in their current family/screen dynamic.

About Growing Up Social

Children today are no longer playing hide-and-seek outside or curling up with a good book—instead they’ve been introduced to a world of constant digital entertainment through television, video games, and mobile devices. And while technology has the potential to add value to our lives and families, it can also erode a sense of togetherness and hinder a child’s emotional and social development.

In Growing Up Social, Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane will empower you with the necessary tools to make positive changes…starting today. Through stories, wit, and wisdom, you’ll discover how to take back your home from an over dependence on screens. Plus, you’ll learn to teach the five A+ skills that every healthy child needs to master: affection, appreciation, anger management, apology, and attention.

• Equip your child to be relationally rich in a digital world
• Replace mindless screen time with meaningful family time
• Establish simple boundaries that make a huge difference
• Discover what’s working for families that have become screen savvy
• Learn healthy ways to occupy your child while you get things done

Now is the time to equip your child to live with screen time, not for screen time. No phone, tablet, or gaming device can teach your child how to have healthy relationships—only you can.

Is technology bring­ing your family closer together… or is it driving you farther apart?
Click To Tweet

Mom Maven’s Thoughts

Every parent with a child of any age living in their house needs to read this book! Yes, I mean you! Go ahead and order it from Amazon right now. Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World is the best book I have read on digital parenting. It cites not just the relational reasons for limiting screen time but also the developmental and educational reasons.

I love that this book focus on what they call the A+ Skills of Affection, Appreciation, Anger Management, Apology and Attention. All of these skills are severely diminished in people with excessive screen time and part of this book focuses on how to raise relational kids who have mastered these important skills.

The book also has a quiz at then end titled “Does Your Child Have Too Much Screen Time?” Chances are, the results of this very short quiz will open your eyes to an issue in your home.

This book is not all doom and gloom and shaming parents who up to this point have not be consistent in limiting screen time. It is full of suggestions, ideas and reasons of why and how you can handle this area of parenting better. This book is great to read alone, with your spouse or in a book club setting. There are discussion questions for each chapter to help you dig deeper into the topic.

The Growing Up Social Giveaway

One winner will receive their own copy of Growing Up Social. The winner will be chosen by Rafflecopter and verified. The winner will be notified via email and they will have 48 hours to claim their prize. This giveaway ends at 12:00am on 11-21-14.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Growing Up Social Book Review and Giveaway appeared first on The Mom Maven.

Changing Churches: A View From the Pew 

I sat down with the intentions of starting the book and let’s just say I didn’t get up for a while because I read the whole book in one sitting! Dottie breaks the book down into three sections: 1. A Journey in Three Churches 2. Interlude:Guide for Leaders and Leavers 3. Lessons for Changing Churches. Section 1 is where Dottie tells her story about her spiritual journey and changing churches multiple times over about 20 years. Section 2 is a nuts and bolts guide which discusses the grieving process leavers go through, valid reasons for leaving, steps toward leaving,  and searching for your new church home. Section 3 includes Ideas for the Sheep where we are reminded how to be good followers, Ideas for the Shepherds where she reminds church leaders how a shepherd leads his sheep. Next Dottie covers what is and isn’t important in choosing a church and then she gives us a brief overview of world religions and new religious movements so that we know what to watch out for and who to witness to in our day-to-day relationships.

The Mom Maven’s Thoughts

This book came to me at the perfect time. We had completed our initial visits of the 6 churches and my husband and I agreed on some and not on others. I enjoyed Dottie’s stories of her personal experiences in the beginning of the book but the last 2 sections really spoke to me. They touched me so much I took notes and discussed them with our friends who are preparing for a potential job relocation and will again be searching for a new church home in their new city.

Reading through the 7 valid reasons for leaving your church my husband and I felt our situation met 2 of these reasons, plus the fact that God had told us both we were released. This validated a nagging in the back of my mind that we were being selfish in leaving. In the last section of the book Dottie speaks about what I have been calling the big 4 important things to look for in a church. These are Music, Prayer, Communion and The Message.

Music

While I don’t agree 100% with the book’s thoughts on music, I am a contemporary Christian musician and I have been a worship leader and a choir director, I believe there is definitely a need and a place in the church for music other than traditional hymns. I do agree that music should be theologically sound and performed with excellence.

Prayer

Prayer should take place during the service, and not just concerning the offering. It can also be done with items such as wood rosaries.

Communion

Communion should be reverent and personal and include Scripture, prayer and explanations. This is where there were red flashing lights going off in my head as I read the book. Church #1 that we visited served communion in the aisles as people were leaving the service. It was like drive-thru communion. It was not sacred, personal or reverent. Those who choose to receive communion on any given week clog up the aisle for those trying to leave the sanctuary and I didn’t like it at all. My husband visited this church a 2nd time, without me-he love the music and the preaching, when he arrived home, I asked him if communion was served the same way again and he admitted it was. When I shared this book with him I explained to him why that church had to come off our list and he agreed.

The Message

During The Message we should be confronted with biblical ideals and we should leave challenged.

The three churches still on our list meet all of the big 4 important things so now we are focusing on things like opportunities for spiritual growth through classes and Bible studies, opportunities to use our gifts to serve the church and the ability to create friendships and feel a part of a church family again. Please pray for us as we continue this journey and if you are on a similar journey I hop you will check out Changing Churches: A View From the Pew.

The post Review: Changing Churches: A View From the Pew by Dottie Parish appeared first on The Mom Maven.

50 Rules For Sons

In the first half of the book, the 50 rules are listed quickly, independent of any explanation—a format that appeals to the younger, 140-character generation. At the end, Tim gives the back story to each rule, explaining his personal life experience that makes the rule so relevant.

Tim’s advice covers the serious (Like yourself because most of your life your only company is yourself), and the more playful (Don’t bring home stray kittens). It reminds young men to be strong in their convictions, but humble in life. It encourages them to do good in the world as much as they do well.  He also advises people to always have cash and a toothbrush on hand. Taken from a lifetime of both failure and success, Tim’s words are powerful tools to help sons of all ages and backgrounds grow and mature into their best.

My Favorite Rules

13 “Time is your only commodity. Don’t waste it. And don’t give it to people or projects that don’t respect it.”

24 “If you want to get a tattoo, go to your closet and pick out your favorite shirt. Wear it every day and every night for 2 years. If you’re not tired of wearing it after 2 years, go get your tattoo.”

28 “If the police officer or professor are talking, you’re listening.”

42 “If you see someone who is alone, go out of your way to tell them hello.”

In the back half of the book where Tim expounds on the backstory for each rule I agree 100% with his story about rule number 24 about the tattoo. I am not a tattoo person, I have never seen one on anyone that I have liked but that is my opinion. The basis of Tim’s story is the fact that life is transitory. He says, “Your life is a series of stages, each one of which, if you’re lucky, you’ll outgrow.”

“50 Rules For Sons” will make a great gift for that son turning 16 or 18 or 21, for a high school or college graduate or for the college freshman starting out life away from home.

You will like these posts too!

Click on the image to see the post

Disclosure: I reviewed a PDF version of this book but I will be receiving a copy of my own. There are affiliate links in this post. All opinions are 100% mine.

The post Book Review: 50 Rules for Sons by Tim Hoch appeared first on The Mom Maven.

This book is for anyone who lives their life online and honestly, who doesn’t now? This book is written so that if you are a major brand wanting to know how to protect your online reputation with a team of social media professionals or a small local business wanting to do more online promotion but you are afraid of marring your reputation or if you are a blogger who lives their life transparently online, you will learn something that will help you manage your online reputation.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: Getting Started with Online Reputation Management

• Chapter 1: Understanding Online Reputation Management
• Chapter 2: Determining Your Online Reputation Management Approach

Part II: Organizing Your Teams

• Chapter 3: Creating Your Everyday Team
• Chapter 4: Recruiting Professionals for Your Crisis Team

Part III: Listening Is Love 

• Chapter 5: Choosing Your Best Monitoring Tools
• Chapter 6: Researching Your SEO Keywords
• Chapter 7: Setting Up Your Listening Tools

Part IV: Establishing Your Reputation 

• Chapter 8: Engaging Easily via Social Media
• Chapter 9: Claiming Your Brand Online
• Chapter 10: Creating Great Messages
• Chapter 11: Tapping In to Focused Interest Groups
• Chapter 12: Writing Your Way to the Top
• Chapter 13: Using Visuals to Spread Your Message
• Chapter 14: Discovering and Inspiring Brand Evangelists

Part V: Responding to Crisis: Your Step-by-Step Plan

• Chapter 15: Managing Escalating Issues
• Chapter 16: Managing a Crisis
• Chapter 17: Promoting Goodwill

Part VI: The Part of Tens 

• Chapter 18: Ten Online Reputation Tips for Special Events
• Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Faceplant Your Online Reputation
• Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Create Happy Fans

Index 

My Review

As you can see by the Table of Contents there is a ton of very valuable information in this book. Since a lot of you who read my blog are bloggers yourselves, I want you to know why you need this book…you need it because you never know what is going to happen. Making sure that you have done everything in your power to put processes in place to be alerted to a problem so that you can handle it before it becomes a crisis. I have seen friends who have had what started to be a minor problem caused by an evil, online troll blow up in their face because they didn’t have a plan in place. I don’t want that to happen to you or to me so we need to do our homework now and put a plan in place to manage our online reputation before we have a problem.

Make sure you get yourself a copy of Online Reputation Management for Dummies and put your plan into motion now.

Disclosure: I am writing this as a “For Dummies” Ambassador through Global Influence Network. I received a copy of the book for this review. All opinions are 100% mine.

The post Online Reputation Management for Dummies Review appeared first on The Mom Maven.