The Treasure of God's Word: Celebrating 400 years of the King James Bible

The Treasure of God's Word: Celebrating 400 years of the King James Bible compiled by Jack Countryman really is a treasure for anyone to own.  Included in this beautifully bound book is the history of the King James Bible, from it's origins, many revisions and historical importance.   Then numerous scriptures are separated into different themes, from God's Blessings to Our Hope.  This makes it the perfect gift for those wishing to better understand the Bible.

I highly suggest this book to people who want to bring scripture into everyday life.  It really breaks passages down into understandable themes.  The excellent overfall look of the book with make it a treasure in any book lovers collection.  With it's leather bound cover, embossed in gold and gilt edged pages, it is a beautiful book.  With the large typeface it is very easy to read.  I learned more about the history of the King James Bible from this beautiful book than from any other source in my lifetime. I would recommend this book for many different people in my life from the very devout Christian to the avid historian and even a grandparent or two.

Disclosure of Material Connection: 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.”

Sunday's Silly Little Kid Says

One of the best parts of being a parent is being able to hear first hand some of the silly things that kid's say in complete seriousness.

I was standing in the kitchen making a big family breakfast one Sunday morning. While asking how everyone wanted their eggs; 3 yr old Nadia chimes in with,

"No toast, please. I'm Toast intolerant."

I still giggle about this and it's been over a year since it happened. With four kids I have many more silly things.  Keep tuned for more Sunday's Silly Little Kid Says.

Dear Teething Monster

Dear Teething Monster,
Go Away!  That's right, I'm done being nice about it.  I want my sweet little boy back.  Take all your baggage and hit the bricks.

We are done with the sleepless nights.  Maxx wakes up in the middle of the night and just cries and cries.  Nothing I do comforts him and that breaks my heart.  Sometimes it is so bad that he will even go on a nursing strike.  Which that in turn scares me because with breast feeding I am constantly wondering if he is getting enough to eat.  (it's the lack of confidence in your ability to breast that you don't hear about)

I am sick of the drippy nose.  It's constantly running to the point it must be in competition with his drooling.  It doesn't help that his intense hatred of the nose suction bulb turns Maxx into a rabid Tasmanian devil at just the sight of it.  He'll instantly start spinning and swiping at my hands as soon as he sees it coming.  It's become a two man job to wrestle him down to safely suction his nose without any mishaps of him knocking it out of his nose only to make it poke him in the eye.

Everyone is frustrated with the mood swings.  It's been like living with a little bi-polar cave person.  One minute he is happily playing the next he's tossing toys and yelling or even worse having a complete kiddie meltdown.

Drooling, ugh you can keep the non stop drooling. My poor little man has to endure multiple outfit changes a day due to the constant stream of drool from his face.  I've tried bibs, but when he spends the entire time screaming and trying to rip it off only managing to get angrier when he pulls himself over instead of tearing off the bib.

This is so much worse to deal with teething without our magical Hyland's Teething tablets.  OK, so they aren't really magic, but in this house they are pretty close.  I was depressed to find out about the recall.  It's not that they were unsafe or harming anyone they didn't have consistent amounts per pill when they were spot testing.  To keep quality control at a high level they did a voluntary self recall.  I received a coupon in the mail for $7 worth of their products.

Mama Needs a Break

All weekend I was ready to lock myself in the bathroom and just marinate in a bubble bath with a long book until after bedtime has passed.  Have you ever had one of those weeks when everything hits you at once?  This is that time for me.  The week before last just set the stage for the crappy week that was this week with the seemingly never ending sickness with my two youngest.  Nothing like having to play nurse for two outbreak monkeys with a chest cold that don't have the social graces not to cough directly in your face.  I'm shocked I didn't come down with a worse cold than I did. It must be the minor immunity I acquired from having been through this unhygienic stage with my oldest two.

Just as Maxx's cold went away teething hit him full force and he's been taking it out on me ever since.  I've lost count how many times he's attempted to bite my shoulder through my clothing while in the middle of a meltdown.  (even with baby sign language they still happen)  He is drooling non stop so every shirt I wear is covered in slobber.  I've gotten to the point I've considered donning a bib or smock to protect myself.  He's been so clingy that I haven't used the restroom alone in over a month. (I'm beginning to forget what the bathroom looks like with the door closed.)

My older girls come home every week with another school project due.   Not just normal projects but ones that are under a short deadline thanks to their lack of planning and poor communication with their teachers.  I may offend someone with this but I hope you'll accept this apology now.  Male teachers at a elementary level suck at communication with parents.  When projects are assigned in a female teacher's classroom you get a packet of paper sent home describing in detail their requirements and even examples of work that is acceptable. With the male teachers you get a piece of paper that your child dictated from the teacher verbally explaining what they expect. (good luck, understanding it if you have a child like mine that doesn't learn well only verbally) Since they rotate classes (to prepare them for middle school) the students only have 1 hour to get their daily classwork done and take notes for any projects.  Another pet peeve of mine is that male teachers are less imaginative on project ideas as well.  My 5th grader did the same exact reading project that she did in fourth grade and that her fourth grader sister did not even a month before.

If only that was all that was swirling on my mind I could handle this like every other day.  Add to the fact that we will be moving soon and I feel like a complete nut job.  It's not that my husband isn't helpful, he just doesn't understand the full aspect of what needs to be accomplished.  He is under the false belief that we can just toss everything in a few boxes and be ready.  After living here for over 3 years and adding another person to the family we have so many things to sort out. We don't need to drag broken kid toys, clothing that doesn't fit or random papers along with us.  Then there is the matter of actually finding a place for us to live.  I've been the one to choose where we live with almost every single move we have ever done in the history of our marriage.  It wouldn't be so overwhelming if he didn't expect us to move closer to his work, but at the same time it is important to be close to the kid's schools, shopping, and doctor's office. (We live less than a mile from all this right now, minus being close to his work. Which is the main reasons I loved living where we live now. )

I wish I could fast-forward time to when we are moved in to our new place.   I hate this in between feeling.  I can't even place any orders online to have anything shipped since we are so close to moving and I would risk it not making it here in time due to horrible weather everywhere but here.

Thankful Thursday

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.
-- Buddha 


That is one of many quotes I love and want it framed to hang on my wall as a daily reminder.

One of my many New Year's Resolutions is to be more thankful for my many blessings.  I'm going to be writing Thankful Thursdays to remind myself that I have many wonderful things to be grateful for no matter what stress is going in my life.

I am Full of Thanks for many things in my life, here are a few for today:

• My wonderful husband, for showing me with everyday small gestures that he loves me.
• Nadia, for being the loving little girl that she is and always ready for a hug. She is always full of cheer no matter the situation, her smile brightens my day.
• My little sister Melissa, even though she moved out of state she still depends on me to be her shoulder to lean on. 
• My older daughters Lauryn and Morgan, for their continued health and happiness as they mature into young ladies.
• Maxx's quick recovery from his first cold. It was a horrible, emotionally and physically exhausting week.  
• My wonderful group of friends/mothers on Facebook for always making me laugh when I need it the most.  You know who you Hot mama's are.

What do you have to be thankful for today?  

My Signing Baby

With my older two children I didn't know about the use of sign language with babies.  I didn't realize there are great benefits to be gained.  My husband and I just played the guessing game when they asked for things and handled the tantrums as best we could.

When I had my third daughter we were watching PBS when the show Signing Time came on and even at 7 months Nadia was very interested.  We watched it for a few weeks and after a while I noticed her signing play.  After doing some research online I made the decision to teach her some more signs.  I stuck with need based signs. (drink, eat, sleepy, want, thirsty, hungry)  As she grew older and began speaking more and more she still used some of those signs in addition to speaking.  I noticed a huge difference in the amount and severity of her tantrums in comparison with her older sisters.  She was a much happier baby.  Why wouldn't she be?  Her caregivers could understand her needs which cut out her frustrations with the communication barrier.  To this day she still occasionally uses signs without knowing it.  (her most often used is More even though she asks for it verbally as well)  We recently started signing the alphabet and are teaching her early learning words.

Once I became pregnant for a fourth time I was determined to teach my child more signs.  After Maxx was born I was more in survival mode than the teacher mode, so it took me a few months before I remembered my desire to teach him.  Within the first week he signed More.  At 10 months old he now knows and uses these signs consistently; More, Up, Want, Thirsty, Milk, Ball, and Eat.  It is surprising how fast he has picked these up.

My older children are getting involved in this as well.  They enjoy signing things to Maxx and seeing the spark of recognition.  They are also learning alphabet and learning to spell words.  When they learn to sign their spelling words they have performed better on their tests rather than when they only do the writing exercises.

My favorite website to use is My Smart Hands. They have a great video dictionary for baby signs and many links to other helpful resources for traditional American Sign Language.

My blog is Carbon Neutral

I recently discovered a wonderful initiative that began with the "Make it Green" campaign in Germany with the goal  to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.   By joining this initiative I am able to reduce the carbon footprint of my blog for the next 50 years!   As this green movement spread it grew beyond planting in Germany.  It is now also partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation in the US.  For every blog that joins they will plant a tree in the Plumas National Forest that were devastated by forest fires.  Once the reforestation of Plumas is done they will continue their dedicated work in other national forests.

What is awesome about participating in this is that not only am I helping the environment while writing my blog but it didn't cost me a dime to do.  If you are a blogger you can easily join and make the world a cleaner place.  Just visit here and follow their quick and easy steps.  (post a blog about their initiative, paste the button to your blog, email them and they do the planting.)  How easy is that?  Pass it on to others and let's grow this forest together.

Not a blogger but want to plant a tree visit the Arbor Day Foundation and you will find many ways to help.

Super Powers of a Mommy

Every kid fantasizes about having super powers.  As a child if offered any super power of my choice I would have picked the ability to fly.  Yes, even though I hate flying in airplanes and am terrified of heights.  I still wanted to soar with the birds.

Now that I am a mommy many times over my choice would be drastically different.  I wouldn't hesitate to choose the ability to absorb any injury or illness from my children into myself.  Even if using this power would leave me with their affliction and would only work on my own children.  A bit of a selfish choice, I know, but if you had experienced what I went through last night you would understand.

Maxx wasn't feeling well and was letting me know his displeasure very thoroughly.  He spent all day hooked to me.  I was not allowed more than 6 inches from him all day or night, but still didn't nurse as often as normally. I put him in the Moby Wrap skin during the day and that helped him get some sleep.  After he woke from a nap in the Moby Wrap he would be back to nursing normally again.  Once bedtime came it was another nightmare, he tossed and turned, waking up hourly and fussing at the breast.  His fever would spike every time he fell asleep which would then make him too hot to stay comfortably asleep.  After hours of crying (both him and me) we ended up in a bath together at 4 am.  After getting out it gave us 3 blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep before the alarm blasted us awake just in time to get his oldest sisters off to school.

To make matters worse Maxx isn't the only one that is ill in the family.  Nadia is sick as well but luckily she responded well to mucinex. (no fever only a cough and nasal congestion)  Thank goodness they are feeling much better today.  Just in time for the oldest, Lauryn, to come home with complaints of a sore throat, runny nose and coughing.  That's what I get for bragging about spending the entire previous year with the everyone in house being illness free.  Either we have one wacky cold hitting everyone differently or three different outbreak monkeys loose in my house.  Time to get out my UV-C light sanitizing wand and go nuts with it.


If you were given the choice of any super power you would think of what would you choose?  Is it different than what you would have picked as a child?

Lists, Lists, and more lists. Check!

Hi, My name is Kim and I'm an obsessive list writer.  I write endless lists about everything under the sun.  From grocery lists to chore lists I have them all.  I am so obsessive with my list writing that I have chores broken down into different rooms or other categories.  At one time I had a checklist in my word documents of all the chores.  Each chore was obsessively scheduled for certain days too.  I had just gotten my list fully organized and divided into days I wanted to face the drudgery of the chores.  Then the horrible crash of my PC and my wonderful list was lost. I had to start all over and in the middle of the holiday season no less.

I've always had trouble falling asleep. It's just gotten worse with each child I've had.  My husband claims a mouse fart would startle me out of a dead sleep.  The loss of my master list has not helped my insomnia.  My mind runs faster when my body comes to rest. It leaps ahead to the next day tallying up to-do lists that are full of chores that always need my attention.  To quiet the fluttering of my obsessive thoughts I write them down in a spiral notebook.  The official lists(spell-checked and printed) are mostly filled with chores that need to be done.  My spiral book is also covered page after page in chicken scratches of little ideas for my blog with insights that rush at me as I lay there in the dark trying to force myself to fall asleep.

We are planning on moving in the next few months and my list making addiction is going to kick into overdrive.  It's a good thing my wonderful husband bought me a great clipboard with paper and pencil storage inside it years ago.  I've used it to contain important papers throughout many events in life. From cross country moving to keeping all the hospital papers safe and contained with not one but two of my children's births.

With the move in the next few months I have already started on my checklists.  At this point this list is growing faster than it is shrinking.  I love that feeling of checking things accomplished off my lists.  It gives me a little obsessive compulsive thrill. When the checklist is fully done I look at it and marvel at how I got it all done.  Then I realize; oh yeah, I know how.. I don't sleep enough to keep a normal human being functional.  I'm not even the worst insomniac I know.  

Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

With the holidays come a mass schedule change in my house.  Not only are the kid's home from school for winter break but my husband was on a whole different schedule than normal. (he works within the school district too)  The whole house gets thrown into confusion.  Bedtime became more of a suggestion than actual law.  Meals had more Man-fluence.  (less healthy more fattening)

I feel a little guilty when I say I miss the quiet I had in the evening after bedtime and just before Dan gets home from work.  It was my one time at night where I could do what I wanted.  (watch a crybaby girl movie, or read a book lounging across the WHOLE couch.)

There were many times I actually chose to use my little bit of free time to workout.  It was nice to not have a giggling, pointing, gaggle of kid's running through or attempting to do the moves, instead getting stepped on.  One such event did happen and made my knee ache and prevented me from even considering workouts that require any kind of bending or jumping.  You would think having their dad around would prevent them from harassing me, but he was too busy leering to control the troupe of half-wild children.

With the family spending more time at home around the holiday you would think that the house would stay cleaner with all the extra hands to help clean.  The truth is it is horribly messier.  I think my family goes feral for the holidays.  Clothes get taken off in whatever room the urge hits, papers get cut and scraps tossed in every direction but near the trashcan.

After the ordeal in the Urgent Care my nerves could not survive another week of all the kid's together playing quietly in their room.  Too loud and someone might get hurt ,too quiet and that's dangerous too.  The kid's know I am distracted when their dad is home and take full advantage.  It was a nice quiet day today.  Nadia didn't once come screaming down the hallway that someone wont let her touch her own toys.  No one arguing that they get to choose what game/tv show/ snack this time.

Don't get me wrong I do miss my older two when they are away, but there are days it is nice to have them going.  

New Year's Resolutions

I make New Year's resolutions every year.  Some years I am better at following through with them than others.  When I set impossible goals I just set myself up to fail.  I plan to set reasonable goals as my resolutions.

• To get my house more organized.  I'm tired of looking for this one certain item and instead of finding it I am scrambling around looking.  I've already made a good start on most the closets and both kid's rooms.
• To exercise more often every week.  I want to improve my health, but allow myself to go too many days without exercising.  I want to reach a healthy BMI.
• To blog more often.  I have been a bad blogger in the past.  I want to share more with the public about the randomness in my mind and many things I love that make my life easier or are just plain wonderful.
• To say thank you more often.  Speak kinder and have more patience.

What are you New Year's resolutions?  Do you even bother to set them?  How good are you about keeping them?  I love to hear your responses.

Any organization tips for a hopefully reformed slacker?