The Encounter-a book review

The Encounter-Sometimes God has to intervene

By Stephen Arterburn 

This book can be purchased at most christian bookstores and at many places online including Amazon.

The suggested retail price is $15.99

As soon as I receive a book I always turn it over and read the back cover or the inside flap to get a feel for what the book will be about, this one caught my eye and attention right away because it talked about adoption and birthmoms.  As most of my readers know, both of my sweet children are adopted from South Korea and as they are starting to get older we have had lots of questions about their birth parents and why my children were placed in an orphanage.  I'm sure it's frustrating and confusing to wonder why you were given up for adoption.  I just tell my children it was the very best "gift" their birth parents could ever give to them and to us.  God had a perfect plan for their lives and for ours and it was to bring us together as a family. 

 This books let me look into the mind of a child that had been orphaned and eventually placed into an adoptive home.  It's about his search for his birth mom and all of the bitterness, heartache and pain that he is carrying inside of himself and finally some answers that he is looking for and the power of forgiveness.  The Encounter is an easy read (I read it in one night) and it is sure to touch your heart!

I received this book for free from Book Sneeze in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks for reading, 

Our crazy Christmas season

We are so blessed to have a wonderful family and so many amazing friends and for that I am truly BLESSED!  Here is a look at some of the fun things and (not so fun) we did during our crazy holiday season.

Kevin worked about 60+ hours every week delivering packages for UPS.

Jennifer worked a lot of hours helping her mom with Hearts Desire Gift Baskets....it was the biggest year ever for Hearts Desire!

Makenzie and Kylan worked their very first jobs for Hearts Desire and they both earned several paychecks.

We went to several Christmas parties

Legacy Project Christmas Party

Heritage Homeschool Christmas party

Heritage ugly sweater Christmas party-parents only

Lights at Rhema

Boy's Club 1st annual Christmas party

(they watched Cars 2)

Girls Club 4th Annual Christmas Tea

(pics are courtesy of Christy from Mom of 2 Girly Girlz)

5th annual movie with Grammy and gingerbread house making day

We saw Arthur Christmas, it was really cute!

Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Wedemeyer's house

Christmas at our house and with Grammy

The kids giving each other a  little Christmas lovin!

My mixer...whoooooohoooo!

Christmas lunch with Grammy

Whew, it was a crazy, crazy Christmas season but we didn't forget about the TRUE meaning of Christmas, it's about celebrating Jesus' birth!  We always make a Happy Birthday cake or cupcakes for Jesus.

Thanks for reading,

  

The World's Greatest Stories-TOS review

As a child my parents would play a KJV of the Bible on cassette every night and it would play throughout the night while we slept, it was a very nice set of cassette tapes but it was a little dry and boring.  Not to long ago I was wishing for something similar to this for my family but of course on CD and maybe not so monotone and boring.

Bye, bye boring I've found the answer!!!  It's called The World's Greatest Stories and it's not boring at all. The actor George W. Sarris  brings the stories to life, they leap off the pages of the Bible and you can vividly imagine what he is saying because he's such a dynamic, dramatic storyteller!  There is music and sound effects but all words are taken directly, word for word, from the Bible.  You can get either the King James Version or the New International Version.

 There are 18 individual stories on CD or cassette for a total of 6 CD's and each is about 1 hour long and costs $7.95 per volume.

~Volume 1: The Prophets

~Volume 2: The Life of Christ

~Volume 3: Beginnings

~Volume 4: Joshua & Esther

~Volume 5: Joseph & His Brothers

~Volume 6: Defeating Giants

~Plus, The Real Story of Easter, from the Gospel of John (NIV only, $9.95)

  If you want your children to beg you to listen to the Bible as you are driving around doing errands then you've found the right set of CD's (mine ask all the time).  This makes me happy and proud!  I think I've found a great gift for birthday parties, baby showers, Christmas gifts, etc.  We received The Prophets CD which just happens to be Volume 1 and I think my children are going to wear it out before the end of the year and yes I do know that's only a couple of weeks away!

The only negative thing I have to say about this series is that I really wish they would offer an MP3 version so we could download them on iPods, wouldn't that be amazing!

If you would like to see what my fellow crew mates are saying about The World's Greatest Stories click here.

Thanks for reading,

Fractazmic is Fantastic!

We received a deck of the Fractazmic Cards from I See Cards to review and at first Makenzie wasn't that excited to play with them until she realized that she could help teach Kylan his fractions.  Now, the tables were turned she was the teacher and she LOVED it.  Kylan was excited to play the game and learn his fractions so he could be like his older sister and I heard a lot of laughing and, "Let's play again" over and over.  They have also been taking it in the car while we travel to and from Tulsa, they can get several games in during the 30 minute drive.  The brightly colored cards are fun to use while your child is learning fractions, numbers and measurement and as a parent you love hearing your children laughing and enjoying playing a game while learning at the same time!  Fractazmic is recommended for ages all ages, I even enjoy a game every now and then!  We have found that it's more fun with at least 3 people playing and even more fun when we can get dad or a 4th person to join in on the game.  We say Fractazmic is FANTASTIC!

(the following info is taken from their website)

Fractazmic is  a 2-4 player game that uses math and language skills. The object of Fractazmic trap is to gather as many hands as possible before the first player runs out of cards. Hands are captured by either (1) playing a card that brings the sum of all cards thrown to 1 or (2) forcing the next player to throw a card that brings the sum to greater than 1. If any of these events occur – the player captures the round and is the first to start the next round.

• Each card clearly numbered
• Each card clearly labeled with the fraction and reinforcing graphic.

Fractazmic Decks Include:

• 60 Math Learning Cards
• Each card clearly numbered
• Each card clearly labeled with the fraction and reinforcing graphic.

What makes Fractazmic Decks Special:

• Quickly learn to convert and add fractions.
• Reinforces relationship between fractions and measurements.
• Shows real world use of fractions.

Fractazmic can be purchased at this link for only $6.95

I See Cards also offers other fun, educational games like 

PyraMath-

Prime Bomb

I See Cards

If you would like to see what my fellow TOS crew mates have to say about Fractazmic please click here.

Thanks for reading,

 

Visions of Sugarplums-day 5-Traditions

I hope you've enjoyed Visions of Sugarplums just as much as all of us have!  Today is the last day, if you haven't been able to join us this week go take a look at all of the wonderful, amazing, talented bloggers that joined in the hop.  

Lori at Choux-Choux

Mika at Mika's pantry

Lauren at The Past on a Plate

Ira at Ira's Crea Corner

Regina at Hand to Paper

Linda at My Happy Place

Cassie at Something from Cassie

Christina at I Gotta Create

Jennifer at Just Wedeminute (that's me)

We have a lot of just random traditions that we always do like go look at Christmas lights and end the night at Rhema.  We even did this when we were dating and before that with my parents so it's definitely something I hope to pass on to my kids if they still live in the area.  Rhema had more than 2 million lights last year and they add more each and every year, it's always amazing!

We always go get a pic with Santa and even thought they are growing up I'm hoping they will still want to carry on this tradition but we will see...

2010

2008

2007

2004

I don't have time to go back and find every year with Santa (I have a sick kiddo) but this is a fun tradition.

My kids favorites

I asked the kids what their favorite tradition is each Christmas season so you can get a kids perspective on traditions.

Kylan's favorite tradition is that I make Sausage souffle each year for Christmas breakfast so in honor of Kylan's favorite tradition here is my sausage souffle recipe that was passed down from my wonderful mother in law, Marilynn.  I make it the night before and it just sits in the fridge waiting for me to pop it in the oven first thing in the morning. While opening gifts we can smell this wonderful smell.

Wedemeyer Sausage Souffle


1¼ hours 15 min prep

SERVES 8

1 lb sausage, cooked and drained
6-8 slices white bread, cubed and no crust
1 cup swiss cheese, shredded
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
5 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup half-and-half
1 1/4 cups milk
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
1 (3 ounce) can chopped mushrooms, drained
salt and pepper
Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
Arrange bread cubes in pan, put sausage over bread.
Mix remaining ingredients and pour over sausage.
Cover and refrigerate over night.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to one hour or until golden brown and the center is no longer wiggly.

Kylan also said he loves our game/movie day.  We stay in our PJ's all day long and watch movies and play games while drinking hot cocoa this has come to be known as The Polar Express Party.  We will wear our pj's and watch the Polar Express. I print out tickets and they have to give me their tickets to come to the party, purchase hot chocolate, or a train cookie it's a lot of fun and we look forward to it every year also.

Polar Express train tickets in hand!

Makenzie said she loves them all but one of her favorites is decorating the cookies on Christmas Eve and the Girl's Club Christmas Tea party.  Every year Miss Lisa hosts a beautiful Christmas Tea and I always go take pictures but this year I'm sad to say I won't be able to take pictures.  I'm hosting a Boy's Club and that's the day of our Christmas party so I'm hoping another mommy with take pics of the tea party and share them with me.

2008

2009 

 Lisa really goes all out for the girls, it's fabulous!

2010

 This was just made out of spray painted tree limbs but it looked like a winter wonderland.

Both kids said they also love that we pick an angel off the angel tree and go out together and buy the gifts for their angels, one year we did the shoeboxes and the kids loved that as well.  In the spirit of giving please help others if you are able to.  Jesus was given to us a most special gift from God and we always want to keep our focus on HIM during this time of year and so our final tradition that we always do is have a special birthday cake for Jesus since it is in fact a celebration of HIS birth.

Every year it's different, it might be cupcakes it might be a cake and sometimes it's super simple but that's ok.

Thanks for reading,