Christmas Countdown (25 Books)

Posted on December 2, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

We did this a couple a years ago and I decided to do it again this year. Basically, you pick out 25 Christmas books and you wrap them up. We are wrapping a mixture of books because we don’t have 25 Christmas books. Each night, one of your kids will choose a book to unwrap for the family to read. If the child is old enough, and they would like, they can read it out loud, instead of the parents. We are also going to switch up the times we read our book. Most of the family readings will be at night, around bed time, but other days we will read at breakfast time, around the table. Last but not least, you can make your collection of books mixture Jesus’s birth, winter time, Santa, or just the good old classics.

Below is our book list, some are new that I just purchased this year and others I pulled off our bookshelves. I actually pack away all the Christmas books each year, so it’s like they are opening a new book each day!

The Christmas Countdown Book List:
1. God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Bergren
2. The King’s Christmas by Eldon Johnson
3. The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
4. The Pine Tree Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs
5. Isty Bitsy Christmas: You’re Never Too Little for His Love! by Max Lucado
6. Living Lights: The Berenstain Bears and the Joy of Giving by Jan Berenstain and Mike Berenstain
7. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
8. Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story by Sally Lloyd-Jones
9. Who’s Hiding?: A Christmas Lift-the-Flap Book by Vicki Howie, Krisztina Kallai Nagy
10. Humphrey’s First Christmas by Carol Heyer
11. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
12. Every Which Way to Pray by Joyce Meyer
13. Mickey’s Christmas Carol
14. The Princess and the Kiss by Jennie Bishop
15. Dance Me, Daddy by Cindy Morgan
16. Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae
17. Just In Case You Ever Wonder by Max Lucado
18. You Are Special by Max Lucado
19. The Mitten by Jan Brett
20. A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert and Anita Lobel
21. The Story of Ferdinand by Robert Lawson
22. Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
23. The Christmas Story by Patricia Pingry
24. Christmas is Here! Flap Book
25. The Christmas Story by Nick Page

So go pop some popcorn, grab a couple of blankets, snuggle up close with the family on the couch, and start a new family Christmas tradition!

CYBER MONDAY – DEALS!!!

Posted on November 29, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

🎉Who wants CASH back for their purchases?
Tomorrow is Cyber Monday…before you search the web click on http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=sMtaMOsVPr04HX%2FXXTRVfQ%3D%3D 

*EBATES work! You can get 2 to 12% cash back for purchases you were ALREADY going to make!

Over the past few years I’ve received almost a $1000 dollars from online purchases!!! 🤑 TRY IT! It Works!

Bible Homeschool Curriculum

Posted on November 11, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

Are you looking for a Bible curriculum? I would recommend, Who is God? What We Believe Vol. 1, by Apologia Press. We have been going through this curriculum for over a year! Yes, we are taking our time. I purchased the junior journal to go along with the book. The journal has stories/illustrations, crossword puzzles, color pages, memory verses, vocabulary, and hands on projects. This helps keep the youngest of ages interested when learning God’s word.

Click here to find out more and purchase this curriculum. Good news, Christianbook.com is currently having a sale and you will receive 26% off!

Confession Time…

Posted on November 2, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

RULE #1 NEVER MISS MONDAY’S WORKOUT

Confession time, I’ve missed Monday morning workouts for the past two months! Thankfully, with the time change I was able to go to bed at 9 o’clock last night and get eight hours of sleep!

Remember, if you want to take care of your family, you first have to take care of yourself!

Who else is taking advantage of the time change?

Is your sundae melting?

Posted on October 16, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

For a wife, sex comes out of affection. She doesn’t want to be affectionate with a man who makes her feel angry, hurt, lonely, disappointed, overworked, unsupported, and uncared for, or abandoned. But for a husband, sex is pure NEED. His eyes, ears, brain, and emotions get clouded if he doesn’t have that release. He has trouble hearing anything his wife says or seeing what she needs when that area of his being is neglected. Wives sometimes have it backwards. They think, we could have sex after we get these other issues settled. But actually there is a far greater chance of settling the other issues if sex comes first.

That’s why it’s important to make sex a matter of priority in your marriage. Whether all conditions are perfect or whether you feel like it or not isn’t the point. The point is meeting the needs of your husband and keeping communication lines open. A man can easily be made to feel insignificant, beaten down, discouraged, destroyed, or tempted in this area of his being. There’s probably no more important means of fulfillment for a man, and no area where he is more vulnerable. (Excerpt from The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian)

I like to explain it like this, “Sex isn’t the sprinkles on your marriage sundae. Kisses are the sprinkles that add flavor, but sex is the freezer that holds your marriage sundae together!”

That three letter word is not an option you can say no to. The health of your marriage depends on it!

Family Play Date…ASAP

Posted on September 7, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

We (Mamas) are our family’s thermostat. We can sense when our family is growing cold (each family member doing their own thing, all the time) or hot (short tempers and short remarks).

When either happens, you have the power to regulate the environment!

A couple days a go I planned a beach day for the family, for Labor Day. We needed some play time, without the tv and without chores! I woke up this morning and there was a 100% chance of rain, but we headed that way anyways and I’m so glad we did!

What’s the temperature of your family’s heart? Maybe you need a family play date…..

Bay Window Bench

Posted on August 3, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

After waiting and waiting, we finally got our little white bench and I’m in love. It’s a perfect spot for eating, reading, or just relaxing and the best part, there’s plenty of storage underneath it!

School Supplies with a Purpose

Posted on July 29, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

I was running some errands yesterday and one of my stops included Wal-Mart. I was walking pass the school supplies when something caught my eye…”There’s no one else on earth like you.” ~Sadie Robertson. Sadie has teamed up with Day Spring Cards and designed a whole collection of notebooks, folders, and composition books with encouraging quotes and scriptures. I picked up a few for my girls…. I love surrounding them with positive and encouraging words. Our girls need to know they are one of kind, precious, smart, strong, and talented. They need to know God cares for them more than anything in this world.

My girls don’t attend a public school, so they don’t deal with bullying from fellow students, but they are apart of extra curricular activities where kids can and do make rude and judgemental remarks. I want their minds and heart filled with truth of who they are and God’s love for them that those remarks bounce off them. These books are just another tool towards better self-confidence.

Just a little FYI: These items weren’t on the top shelf, they were actually on the bottom, and a little hidden.

Here’s a few STATISTICS to put things in perspective:

7 in 10 girls believe they are not good enough or do not measure up in some way, including their looks, performance in school and relationships with family and friends. – Real Girls, Real Pressure: National Report on the State of Self-Esteem, Dove Self-Esteem Fund

74% …of girls say they are under pressure to please everyone (Girls Inc, The Supergirl Dilemma)

98% … of girls feel there is an immense pressure from external sources to look a certain way (National Report on Self Esteem)

92% … of teen girls would like to change something about the way they look, with body weight ranking the highest. (Dove campaign)

90% … of eating disorders are found in girls (National Association for Self Esteem)

1 in 4 girls today fall into a clinical diagnosis – depression, eating disorders, cutting, and other mental/emotional disorders. On top of these, many more report being constantly anxious, sleep deprived, and under significant pressure. (The Triple Bind, Steven Hinshaw)

By age thirteen, 53% of American girls age 13 are “unhappy with their bodies.” This grows to…78% by the time girls reach seventeen. (National Institute on Media and the Family)

Receive It

Posted on July 22, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

This morning, while driving home from the gym, I started praying over big decisions that could affect our near future. Words like peace, guidance, wisdom and direction rolled off my tongue. That’s when I felt it! This was not a new prayer, these were not foreign words from my mouth, but this prayer I have prayed over my husband daily! In that very moment I felt His peace. It was there the whole time, waiting for me to just receive it. I felt God say to my heart, he’s already walking in my wisdom and my will because you seeked me way before the decision arose!”

Friend, if we aren’t careful, our prayers can become redundant. Like a child shivering every night in his bed. His parents have already provided him with a blanket, all he has to do is WAKE UP and get it!

God is standing at your feet with peace, wisdom, guidance, love…your answered prayer, if only you’ll WAKE UP from the motions of redundancy and receive it!

You Choose The Cycle

Posted on July 20, 2015 by fromthecommittedheart

It’s easy to show respect when your husband is showing you unconditional love daily, but it is a different story when your spouse doesn’t even acknowledge you’re there in the same room with him, much less tell you he loves you!

There are two cycles Dr. Eggerichs talks about in his book Love and Respect. The first cycle involves a wife that disrespects her husband, which is followed by the husband withdrawing and giving an unloving response to his wife. This crazy cycle can go on and on eventually forming a wedge between the couple. The second cycle, is one of love displayed by the husband, which brings respect from the wife for her husband and vice versa. However, I wonder what happens when you feel stuck, when you feel you’re doing your part, but your spouse is not responding in the way you would expect.

This is where it becomes challenging. How are you to respect someone when they take you for granted or rarely show how much you mean to them? Friend, the only way is to have a close relationship with your Heavenly Father. We are naturally selfish people that want our needs met or we aren’t happy. In marriage self must not be a factor.

I love what 1 Peter 3:1 says, “Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the BEHAVIOR of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.”

This week I encourage you to show your husband respect even when you don’t feel like it. I ask you to stop and pause before using condescending words that will only create more damage in your relationship. Instead, choose words that will build your husband up and pray over him everyday (all day).

I love you sweet friend and you aren’t alone.

*If you live in the Central Florida area I want to invite you to our Monday meetings at 10am at Faith Assembly on Curry Ford. From the Committed Heart will start back up around the end of August beginning of September. It is a group of women that come together to encourage each other to stay committed and to show wives and moms out there you aren’t alone!

From The Committed Heart

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