Thursday, May 20, 2010

Book Review: Happily Ever Laughter

Happily Ever Laughter: Discovering the Lighter Side of Marriage by Ken Davis



One of the first things that attracted me to my husband was his ability to make me laugh. We love laughing and we love laughing together. WAY too many times we have stayed up late laughing at funny videos on the internet :-) So the title of this book seemed like it would fit our marriage well.

There are a lot of books on marriage out there and they are mostly very serious. Which is ok - marriage is a serious responsibility. But it's easy to get lost in the seriousness of life and forget to enjoy each other. I enjoy how this book points out the lighter side to marriage. It's also interesting to me that a lot of these funny stories are looking back at situations that may not have been so funny at the time. Arguments, things that irritate us about our spouse, personality differences... We can either let all the little things build up or find a way to laugh at ourselves.

This was a great read. The chapters are short - just a quick laugh and short thought and adding humor to your marriage. I tried reading one of the stories out loud to Jonathan and couldn't finish it because I was crying laughing so hard. I actually read a few chapters while I was making dinner and finished it off when the kids went to bed :-) I think it's a great addition to any family library!

I received a free copy of this book from Tyndale House Publishers.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Aidan is 11 Months!

So this is quite a bit late but I missed Aidan's 11 month update.

There is never a dull moment with Aidan. He is always on the move and desperately wants to walk. He follows me around the house using my legs to pull himself up to stand, then grabs my hands and starts walking. He can walk just holding my one hand now but if he is tired he won't go unless I give him two hands :-)
He and Eóin have a love/hate relationship at the moment. They love giggling together and getting into mischief but they have all out knockout fights too (usually over trains or the tv remote). Aidan is usually the one to inflict damage though - he is one feisty kid!
He is getting to a stage where is he really starting to enjoy reading now. He will sit still on my lap for a good few books - I love the extra snuggles :-)
He also LOVES music. He will "sing" and dance along to music on toys, tv, anything :-)

Here is a comilation of videos I have taken over the past few months and forgot to ever put up. The first one is from when he first started to pull up to stand. The only place he could do it was on Eóin's bed so he would scoot down the hall to stand up there.  It's kinda long but I figured the grandma's wouldn't mind. I just wasn't in the mood to edit it much.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Book Review: The Rewards of Simplicity

Keeping a home functioning, raising children, involvement at church - sometimes life just feels a little hectic around here. That's why I was pretty interested when I saw this book up for review.  I was especially drawn by the subtitle: "A Practical and Spiritual Approach."


Pam and Chuck Pierce Co-athured this book and each took half the book to deal with different aspects of simplicity. Pam takes the first half which contains a lot more of the practical approach. Although I did notice along the way that I definitely have a completely different stand on how God speaks to us today (ie. they believe God still reveals  himself in dreams), I did like a lot of her ideas. We love technology in our house, and though she came off as a bit of a "techno-phobe" (if that is even a real word), she made some good suggestions on how to not let it take over your life so that you are forgetting the important things. I enjoyed the section on sabbath - it was a good reminder to take time out of a busy life to recognize God's hand in creation and my life.

The second half of the book was by her husband and I have to admit I really thought it to be a bit weird. He made some good points about stress but when he started to get into how physical and spiritual things mix it sounded a bit strange. I also thoroughly disagree with his stand on modern day prophesy. He goes into something called "dominion rest" which were backed up by Scriptures that I think he took way out of context. It just did not sit well with me.

So, like many things - you could just take the good and ignore the bad, but it probably wouldn't be at the top of my recommendation list.

I was given a free copy of this book by the publisher to review.