Women Living Well book?? Yes, Please!

So I've been following a blog called Women Living Well by Courtney Joseph for over a year now along with the Good Morning Girls site and their Bible Studies (which we've been working our way through the book of Luke and it has been awesome). You can still check out some of the studies that GMG has done on their site as well. But I digress. Courtney has written a wonderful book aptly titled Women Living Well, Find Your Joy in God, Your Man, Your Kids and Your Home, and it comes out on October 1, Yay!!!! I'm very glad that I have had the chance to be apart of a launch team for her book and received an advance PDF copy of her book. Let me just say, WOW. There is so much meat in the book that I am sure that I will be reading it over and over, or at least reviewing the parts that I have marked :).

The book is divided into different parts, like Your Walk with the King, (which Courtney always ends her posts with Walk with the King), Your Marriage, Your Kids and Your Homemaking. She writes like she is talking to a friend, and makes it easy to read but with so many awesome points.

One of the first things that I took a note of was some comments that she made in Chapter 1:

 Do you want to be a better wife? Study your Bible.

Do you want to be a better mother? Study your Bible.

Do you want to be a better homemaker? Study your Bible.

I was amazed at how she talked about pacing her house and saying prayers over everything you touched, like while making the bed. That is something that I want to try and see if it will help my day start off better. I know that my prayer life is lacking in a lot of ways, and maybe using that as a starting point to my day may help get my day along better.

The chapters on marriage are wonderful. She used grass and how it can turn brown and die if not water, and how we also need to 'water and feed' our marriage so that it can thrive as well. What a great visual.

 I really have enjoyed this book and will be getting a paper copy so that I can highlight and mark my favorite parts (the downfall of having a PDF copy on my Kindle app :).) And plan to reread it over and over when I need some refreshing on how to do some things in my life better.

Still working with the cloth

well we are going strong with our cloth diaper experience. It hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Hubs has even said how much we wished we would have done cloth with D. We had an issue with A getting a rash, but when I stripped the diapers, which I used RLR laundry treatment to do in our bath tub and switched to Tide to use instead of the Nellie's laundry soap I had been using, we've not had any more problems. There are so many great prints that are out there in these diapers that I have to keep myself from buying them all. Besides the cost aspect of it, we don't have the space for them either :).

Here's a look at our stash. In the purple basket are 8 Kawaii good night heavy wetters. We use these at bedtime and so far haven't had any leaks. :) In the drawers are an assortment of different types of pocket diapers: Alvas, Kawaiis Sunbaby and JCTrade/Anababy. I just love all the prints and can't help it. But we have enough diapers that if we had to go say 5 days without washing (which I wouldn't because that would just be an awful mess and smell) we could.

I am so glad that we are using cloth this time!! I so wish I would have done more research with D so we could have done it with him :)

Christian Mam's Guide to Parenting a Toddler review

Oh how I wish I had this book when D was younger lol. A lot of what Erin MacPherson writes about I can still use with him, since sometimes he acts like the toddler instead of the preschooler I think that he is. But since we have A who has just turned 5 months, I can use it to prepare for her :)

Here's some info from the publisher about the book:

Book Description

What's a mom to do when her sweet baby's smiles and snuggles turn to tears and tantrums? This take on everything toddler—from throwing food to potty training to massive toddler fits—is filled with sanity-saving advice every mom wants to hear. Helpful tips include how to:

• stop a tantrum in its tracks (or at least survive the tantrum without breaking into tears of your own)
• discipline your child in a way that demonstrates Christ's redeeming love
• make your marriage a priority when your kid is a squeaky wheel that always seems to need your time and attention
• introduce your child to Jesus in a way that leads to authentic faith
• convince a one-and-a-half year old that broccoli really is better than cookies—even if you don't believe it yourself

Moms will be entertained and encouraged by the amusing anecdotes and godly advice of this comprehensive, topical approach to parenting one and two year olds.

 I really liked the chapter on getting them to eat. D had and continues to have some issues with certain foods. Mainly a texture thing that we've tried to work on and he was in Occupational therapy for. I love that he loves to eat veggies, but would love if he ate fruit too. I need to try more of her Ten almost surefire meals that include: Polka-Dot Pasta with peas in it and monster noodles with broccoli, both of which he does like to eat.

We still have bedtime battles with D (thank goodness we don't with A yet). Most of her suggestions in that chapter we've tried, but there are a few things that we may have some luck with like the routine she uses with getting bedtime started early and letting him wind down on his own (which sometimes can take forever).

I am going to try using the tips she has for dealing with tantrums in public (we still have lots of those) such as: keeping goldfish crackers or some other snack in my bag to feed the boy and keep him mouth busy (so to speak).

Chapter seven offers ways to help you and your toddler learn. She offers sections on helping them learn about science, music and art. Such great ideas I wish I had when we were working with D. But I still can use plenty of them.

In each chapter there is a section called Time out For mom which has a verse or two that relates to the chapter along with a prayer. Awesome to help you locate some scripture to deal with some of those silly tantrums. 

I think this book is going to come in handy a lot for us when A gets to be in those silly toddler years and there is still plenty of stuff that we can use with D. But this is a great book with awesome ideas to help you deal with the silly toddler and making their life and yours a bit easier.

 I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com® <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”