The Angel of Forest Hill Book Review

I was so excited to get to read another Cindy Woodsmall book because I love her writing and characters but this was extra nice because it was a Christmas book!!  I love Christmas books!!  They are just what I need to get me in the season.  The Angel of Forest Hill: An Amish Christmas Romance by Cindy Woodsmall was a quick read and very enjoyable.

Because of Joel’s impossible situation, twenty-one-year-old Rose must sacrifice everything. As days pass into years in the midst of the beautiful hills, the laughter of children, and God’s providence—is it too much for Rose to hope for love in return?

An amazing journey toward love and belonging, filled with the wonder of the season of Christ’s birth.

When Old Order Amish Rose Kurtz is asked to leave her family, travel deep into West Vir­ginia, and help Joel Dienner with his children in the wake of tragedy, the quiet young woman recognizes a home where she might find kindness instead of criticism and hope replacing harsh words. She agrees to stay in Forest Hill and become Joel’s wife for the sake of his family needs, but their marriage is to be a partnership, one built from need, not love and affection.

As the years pass, Rose continues to beckon Joel to join life again, to take joy in his growing children, and to awaken his heart to the possibility of new love. Joel hopes that Rose can move beyond deep-rooted hurts to see the beautiful Christmas ahead, their season. But will the arrival of a beautiful widow and a series of misunderstandings reverse how far Rose and Joel have come?

Amish, Christmas and Romance!!!  WHAT?!  All in one book.  This book was a great mix of these things for Rose who was asked to move to this new home in a new area and care for someone else's children who just passed away after the birth of her new child.  This quiet young women makes the best of a tough situation and decides to stay in Forest Hill to be Joel's wife and take care of the children.  It is amazing to watch the relationship with these children unfold and create great love in her life.  There are many twists and turns through the book but you have to pick it up to find out what happens.  I hope that you enjoy this short book as much as I did. I know that it will get you in the Christmas spirit if you are looking for a book to do that, this is the perfect match.

**I received a copy of this book for my review and honest opinion.  All opinions here are my own and not required.

Menu Plan Monday 11/7

Monday- Chicken fries, buffalo chicken with homemade french fries
Tuesday- Pumpkin Gnocchi with Rosemary Butter Sauce
Wednesday-Lasagna with garlic bread
Thursday-Leftover Lasagna
Friday- Roast Chicken with potatoes and asparagus
Saturday- Soup and sandwiches with leftovers
Sunday-Breakfast for dinner

I actually did pretty well last week with the menu plan and stuck to the plan even after getting sick.  I made things ahead of time which always works out well for the ability to follow a plan.  I cooked meat over the weekend and froze some of it. Some if it I used to make french dip sloppy joe meat while some I made salsa sloppy joe meat.  I made a big batch of taco meat which was supposed to also make enchiladas until one night after dinner I looked up to see my husband eating some of the taco meat that was set to make enchiladas.  Goodness!!  I guess the best laid plans are quickly changed.  I also didn't take the lasagna out in time which was fine because I had some leftovers on Friday night and crescent rolls to use up so I made some pizza wraps instead Saturday for lunch.  There is always flexibility in every plan.

This week I took out the lasagna with plans to have it on the weekend but then it was cold and rainy and we ended up eating it earlier in the week.  I have some chicken to make one night so I guess we will see what the extra not planned nights bring.  Hope you have a great week!!

The Pursuit Book Review

I put this book on reserve while reading the first few books in the series.  I was hooked from the start of the series and I couldn't wait to get to this book.  The Pursuit: A Fox and O'Hare Novel by Lee Goldberg was an exciting new chapter of this great saga!!  Here is hoping that there is another one soon!

Nicolas Fox, international con man, thief, and one of the top ten fugitives on the FBI’s most-wanted list, has been kidnapped from a beachfront retreat in Hawaii. What the kidnapper doesn’t know is that Nick Fox has been secretly working for the FBI. It isn’t long before Nick’s covert partner, Special Agent Kate O’Hare, is in hot pursuit of the crook who stole her con man.

The trail leads to Belgium, France, and Italy, and pits Nick and Kate against their deadliest adversary yet: Dragan Kovic, an ex–Serbian military officer. He’s plotting a crime that will net him billions . . . and cost thousands of American lives.  Nick and Kate have to mount the most daring, risky, and audacious con they’ve ever attempted to save a major U.S. city from a catastrophe of epic proportions. Luckily they have the help of an eccentric out-of-work actor, a bandit who does his best work in the sewers, and Kate’s dad, Jake. The pressure’s on for Nick and Kate to make this work—even if they have to lay their lives on the line.

Nicolas Fox and Kate O'Hare have a fun relationship that always lands them in trouble of some sort or another.  In this book, they end up in the middle of a ex-Serbian military group that is looking to weaponize a virus.  Nicolas and Kate can't let that happen so they come up with the only logically plan to convince the bad guys that they are breaking in and getting the disease.  Of course, it is never as simple as that because there are a lot of things that go wrong.  You will have to pick up the book to find out what happens.  I hope that you check out this book and the rest of the books in the series.  I have really enjoyed them a lot.  Although I was a little sad when this on my library reserve shelf because I have been waiting for what seemed like forever for the new numbers series book which I thought I was getting.

October Reading Review

I post a review of every book that I read whether from the library or from the publisher sent for the review.  I enjoy my reading and aim to get 100 books read each year which I usually exceed because I love reading!!  I have so many books that I had in my reading pile this month and there wasn't enough time to get them read in time but I worked pretty hard to get them done and the reviews posted.

Check out these book below and if you missed the original review and summary, click on the title and it will take you back to the original post.  I hope that you enjoy a few of these and add them to your own reading list!!

Treasured 

by Sherryl Woods

The Wish

by Beverly Lewis

The Devoted

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

The Hawaiian Quilt

by Wanda E. Brunstetter

The Healing Quilt

by Wanda E. Brunstetter

Cook's Country Eats Local
by America's Test Kitchen

40 Days to a Joyful Motherhood
by Sarah Humphrey

A Sister's Wish
by Shelley Shepard Gray

An Amish Family Christmas
by Shelley Shepard Gray

Christian's Hope
by Ervin R. Stutzman

I hope that you add a few of these books to your readings list and enjoy them as much as I did!!  I know that I was glad to read all of them this month!!

Reading for 2016

January           13

February          11

March              9

April                 8
May                 9
June                 9
July                   16
August               18
September           9
October            10

Total Books        112

Currently Reading:

The Pursuit

by Janet Evanovich

F is for Feather, Flower, Flamingos, Firetrucks and more

 There are so many words that start with F so it is hard to know where to start!!  I usually make a list of the words that I think would be good projects or good words to look for in books.

F is for feather, flower, finger prints, flamingos, firetrucks, firemen, fish, fox, fly, frog, feet, fork, farm and fall.

This is a great chart that we are using in our classroom to talk about the letter and how it is formed.  The great thing is that it can be laminated and used for every letter or you can do a smaller version that you have for each letter if only doing one on one.  It is a great format to talk about the letter.

With school and with my son, picking some books with each letter is very important.  Some of our "F book" favorites are:

Fire Truck 

by Peter Sis

Froggy Goes to School

by  Jonathan Londen

and all of the other great Froggy series

Frog and Toad Series

by Arnold Lobel

The Farm Alphabet Book,  

by Jane Miller

Flynn Saves the Day

by Rev. W. Awdry and Richard Courtney

For a list of more F books, please look here.

There are some activities suggested on the Measured Mom website here.   With my son we did lots of things including dressing up in a firemen's costume and playing a hiding game under the fire hats.

We also put together a firetruck floor puzzle from Melissa and Doug that I got at a consignment sale which we use quite often.  It make a really big puzzle across a large part of the floor.

At school we have frogs that the kids can line up and make patterns or just arrange on the log for fun.  These always seem to be popular.  There are small, medium and large which are often mommy, daddy and baby frogs with the kids.

In the media table we had a fishing game.  They are magnetic fishing poles and they can pick up fish out of the blue and green pellets.  This is a big set from Lakeshore Learning which can be found here.

At home, we did it on a smaller scale with this fishing puzzle we had from Melissa and Doug.  It was easier to use the puzzle but we also pulled the pieces out and put them on a blue sheet to represent the water.  My son used the couch pillow to sit on an "island" outside the water to fish for them.

At school we made paper plate foxes with tissue paper and orange ears, two eyes and a nose.

We also made fall trees where the children used a bundle of q-tips to paint with and they dipped them into red, orange and yellow paint to make the fall leaves on the tree that they colored.  You can see that they are all unique.  It is also a nice F word to use a crushed up piece of foil to make these neat leaves.

There are some great resourced out there to print for free including the F monster from education.com website and many other F activities including tracing pages, puzzles and mazes found here.  There is a limit of how many things that you can download a month but it is free to set up an account to get these great resources.

There is another site that is free and doesn't need a log on but it is a little harder to navigate.  There is a letter in both color and black and white which has the letter uppercase and lower case to trace and then a word.  There are also some areas for the dot marker.  We bought the bingo daubers at the dollar store in every color that they came in and I can tell you that my son is almost 8 years old and I still find uses for them including his Book It Reading Calendar!!  They are still going strong and not running out so he was able to pick out a color or make a pattern to make.  Here is a link to all the letters.

The kids also did the fish book page that is going to be part of a book at the end of the year with a letter for each one that we studied so that they can have their own book.  It is a lot like the one on this website and they provide the template if you want to make your own!!

At school, they also decorate the letters that go up on the wall with the items that start with the letter.  We did feathers and finger prints and each kid put a few on both.

Hope that you and yours have fun finding all the F things that you can do because there are so many ways to add fun to learning about letters!!!

October Month End Shopping Gone Wild!!

This month was a little out of hand.  If I take the crazy amount of chickens that we got out of the equation, it doesn't look as bad but I went crazy!!!  Check out what I got and what I spent.

Aldi $49.49

Harris Teeter $9.83

Harris Teeter $0.66 + $0.42= $1.08

Harris Teeter $31.31

Harris Teeter $19.98

 

Harris Teeter $34.37+ $7.89

This included 6 chickens that went directly in the freezer and I didn't get in the picture.

Aldi $13.19

Harris Teeter $6.87

Harris Teeter $0

These were two freebies if you went shopping on Saturday.  The great news is that after the soccer game on Saturday, we drive by this store on the way home!!!  We got both these for nothing!!  The chips were amazing and the cream cheese will most likely go into Christmas cookie press cookies or icing for cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.

Rite Aid $16.83

My husband was sick and needed to get some ibprophen and cold medicine so he went to the store that had the best sale without having a clue what he would find or spend but he bought what he needed even though it was crazy high.  I found some medicine in the cabinet when he got home but we have already used lots of this anyway.

Wegman's $29.05 +2.03 + 2.03= $33.11

I needed to get the flour that was on sale for $0.99 per bag (limit two so I did three transactions because the store is really far away).  I also got Ocean Spray for my husband because we were out!!! AHHH!!!  I was also totally out of vital wheat gluten flour and Wegman's is the cheapest local place that I have found it for $3.69 for a small box.  I normally stock up in Amish country but we aren't going there anytime soon so this will have to do.  We were out of lettuce and it looks better then Aldi lettuce normally so let's hope it is.  The only place that I buy ground beef so I figured that I would grab it while I was there to stock the freezer.  I got the brownies for a special treat which I haven't even made yet so we will enjoy them soon.  The bananas at Aldi are usually green so I got one at Wegman's in case my husband wanted one over the weekend...of course he didn't want them until Monday to take to work with him.

Aldi $33.91- 2.01 = $31.90

There was nothing left in the house and my husband was finally on the mend from a long sickness so he wanted some apples and bananas.  There was grapes on sale for $1.98 for two pounds so I got them too.  I went a little overboard with too many things but we have already used most of them.  I have plans to make the pumpkin gnocchi next week and the steak sauce is for my french dip sloppy joes that I just put in the freezer.  We are ready to roll for the upcoming month.

Harris Teeter $0 

Another great freebie which my husband enjoyed before I even got a picture.  We got it after the soccer game on Saturday.

Giant $4.07

The coupons were expiring at the end of the month so my husband ran up to the store after trick or treating to get these so that he could use the coupons.  He got all that the store had :(  I forgot to stop at a few different stores during the day when I was working so I was excited that we got to the store at all even though I knew we were really far over budget for the month.

Total Monthly Retail $564.11

Total Monthly Savings $304.19

Total Monthly OOP $259.92

I went a lot over my $160 monthly budget!!  By almost $100, I might have gone off the deep end with the 15 chickens but that is only about half of the overage!!  The great news is that I won't need a lot of protein in the coming months between that and the ground beef purchased.  I should feel worse about it but I really don't.  My husband was sick and I am just glad that I made it through the month in one piece without too much craziness.  We are also getting a little bit more on track with me going back to work so hoping that the coming months are going to get a little easier as long as we stay healthy!!!

How did your month go??