BOOK REVIEW Friday!

Book Review Friday brings us FOUR new books! (That's right, Photographer-Girl and Bug-Girl joined in on the action this time!)

Here is Horse-Girls Review:

SwordBird by Nancy Yi Fan




This book is about two tribes of birds, the Bluejays and the Cardinals.  The Cardinals and the Blue jays are at war with each other.
As the two tribes battle, an evil hawk is planning to capture some of the birds as slaves.  He wants to take over the bird world.
But a Blue jay learns of this plan and gets the two tribes to cooperate so that the hawk can't take them over.
Soon the birds see they can't win, and decide to call Swordbird.  The only way to call Swordbird is through a special jewel, and the birds must find it before its too late.
.......I like this book because it is a fantasy book. I also like it because the birds talk, and I like books where animals talk.  I didn't like it because it was a bit slow and boring in parts.
I think its cool that the author was only 12 years old.  I think that anyone who likes birds and fantasy will like this book.








Here is Photographer-Girls review:

The Double Dabble Surprise from the Cul-de-Sad kids series, by Beverly Lewis


This book is about two sisters, named Abby and Carly Hunter. Their family was going to the airport to adopt two Korean girls. Instead, they found two brothers named Sung Jin and Choon Koo with Miss Lin, the escort who brought them from Korea.
There was a mistake and the boys will stay for three days until Mrs. Roop, the caseworker, clears up the mistake.  Abby is upset about this, but soon enough, she starts to  feel sorry for the boys and she helps the boys get to know the kids around the neighborhood.
Choon Koo decides he wants his name to be Jimmy. Mrs. Roop decides that the Hunters need to keep Sung Jin and Jimmy for another week.  Abby still wants her sisters, but she sees how much fun the boys are having, and she tells her dad she wants to adopt them.
.....I like this book because the main characters are girls and they live in a Christian family. I cant think of a reason why I don't like this book.



Bug-Girls review

An Owners Guide to a Happy and Healthy Pet: THE BEARDED DRAGON
by Steve Grenard


This book is about Bearded Dragons.  There are 12 chapters in this book. They are about: Choosing a Pet Bearded Dragon, Housing Bearded Dragons, Feeding Bearded Dragons, Health Care for Bearded Dragons, Breeding Bearded Dragons and five more.
The Chapters are in different parts.
There are four parts: Part one is called Welcome to the Wonderful Lizard of Oz, Part two is called Your Pet Bearded Dragon, Part three is called Caring for your Bearded Dragon, and Part four is called Beyond the Basics.
At the back of the book it lists different dragon breeders.
....It's a really good book.




Here is Baby-Girls review

Cork and Fuzz THE BABYSITTERS  by Dori Chaconas


This book is about 3 animals, a possum, a muskrat and a porcupine.  Cork, the muskrat, was helpful and Fuzz, the possum was not.
Cork brought a baby porcupine to where Fuzz was working. Cork wanted Fuzz to help him watch the baby porcupine but Fuzz said he was too busy building a bear trap.
The baby porcupine kept eating stuff he wasn't supposed to so Cork kept having to take it out of his mouth.
The baby was crying because he ate a bitter berry and Fuzz tried to help by making the baby laugh but he wouldn't stop crying.  Then Fuzz got caught in his bear trap and then the baby stopped crying and climbed up the tree to help Fuzz. He chewed and chewed on the trap until Fuzz fell down.
Then they sang a song and held the baby porcupine's hands and took him home.


'Til next time!

BOOK REVIEW FRIDAY!

Time for Book Review Friday!
Again, its just Horse-Girl and Baby-Girl who participated this week. Oh, and The Boy =)

Here is Horse-Girl's review:

WARRIORS SUPER EDITION 'FIRESTAR'S QUEST'



Firestar, the leader of a clan of warrior cats has been having visions. He sees another cat who tells him about another clan of cats that was scattered.  Firestar learns he must bring the scattered clan of cats back together.  The scattered clan is called Skyclan.  Firestar takes his mate, Sandstorm, to look for the cats of Skyclan.  Soon, they have found enough cats to start a clan.  But a band of rats, bigger than any the cats have seen, are coming to attack them.
Firestar finds out that this was how Skyclan got scattered last time.  He and Sandstorm must train all the cats to be Warriors, before the rats come.  But the leader of the rats can speak in the cat tongue.  He tells the cats they will attack in three days.  The Skyclan must be ready, or all they have done will be lost.


Here is Baby-Girl's review:

'Mia & the Tiny Toe Shoes' by Robin Farley
This book is about a cat named Mia and she goes to dancing school.
The little dancers and her turn the hardest moves into the best moves they've ever done.
Then they turn these moves into a little show for their teacher.
The teacher liked it and gave them a big hug.
I liked this book because it has lots of animals and they go to dancing school.
I didn't like it, because it was too short.

Here is The Boy's review

'Gordon's New View'
Gordon likes his view. Gordon was big. Gordon was fearless. And he loves his new view from the yard.
I liked this book because it had a big train in it.

Til next time!

Eat Well on $1 a day

While I dont think I could do this (eat well on $1 a day), I do think he's got some good ideas and it definitely was a good read!

http://www.grocerycouponguide.com/articles/eating-well-on-1-a-day/

CHILDREN'S BOOK REVIEW FRIDAY!

My kidlets love to read and be read to. I thought it might be fun for them to start doing book reviews on some of the books they read. Then I can post them here for all 4 of you to enjoy =)

This week only 2 of them wanted to write a review, so we'll start with Baby-Girl

Here is her review of the above book:

This book is called 'Pinkalicious: The Princess of Pink Slumber Party."
It's about a girl that has a slumber party and she invites 3 of her friends to come. Their names are Molly, Alison and Rose.
The did lots of fun stuff.
Alison was scared to sleep somewhere different than her house.
To make Alison not scared, Pinkalicious made up a dragon with her wand to protect them.  The dragon was pink and yellow.
I like this book because it's about princesses and other girls and Pinkalicious is very nice.  Its a really good book.


Next up we have Horse-Girl

Here is her review of the above book:




WARRIORS #1 'Into the Wild'
This book was written by Erin Hunter.  It is about a cat named Rusty. Rusty ventures into the woods, and finds the Thunderclan.  The Thunderclan is a clan of Warrior Cats.  They take Rusty in and teach him to be one of them.  Rusty, now called Firepaw, is despised by the other clan cats because he once lived with humans.
Firepaw has to show the other clan cats that he is a Warrior, and that he is one of them.  But he finds out a horrible secret.  Tigerclaw, a Thunderclan deputy, killed another clan cat.
Firepaw, Graypaw and Ravenpaw are the only ones who know about it.  Tigerclaw knows that Ravenpaw saw him do it.  Firepaw must hide Ravenpaw before Tigerclaw kills him, and make Bluestar, the clan leader, believe that Tigerclaw really killed another clan cat.


Happy Friday everyone!

Random happenings

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Some random happenings around our house this week!


Photographer-Girl decided she wanted a white board to hang her pictures on above her bed. The Boy helped daddy hang it up.


She was quite excited to start putting up some pictures

This picture made me laugh-I think they were 'arguing' about what pictures to hang up and where to hang them =)

Yeah. So THAT happened. Do not click on this picture if shattered glass makes you panic-y. Oh it was bad people.  I really have no idea what happened. I was cooking a few chicken breasts in foil to chop up and use in a pasta dish. Pull it out of the oven after an hour and the dish just busts apart in my hand!! Glass bits IN the oven, glass on the stove, glass ALL over the floor. Cleaning up glass makes me a little crazy. I probably went thru a whole roll of paper towels making sure EVERY BIT OF GLASS had been cleaned up.  Digging glass out of the bottom of wee little feet was NOT on my agenda (neither was cleaning up glass from a shattered casserole dish, but whatev).

This was another no-media day activity. Photographer-Girl set up a 'store' and let the younger 3 'shop'. She even made 'money' for each of them and priced all her items. When they ran out of money, they would 'work' for her and she would pay them money, which in turn, they would spend again in her store. Smart girl, that one.
After they were done shopping, they were supposed to return the stuff to the 'store' (aka the couch), but The Boy didnt quite understand (or care) about this part of the game and would cart his stuff off to a different room. He's easily distracted.

Dont ya love a 'clean-the-fridge' salad? I actually smartened up and made this salad a few hours before dinner so that when dinner time hit, I could just whip it out and start stuffing my face, er, I mean EATING VERY LADY LIKE.
=)
Anyway, I had leftover salmon, 1/2 a cucumber, a few strips of different bell peppers, some baby carrots and green leaf lettuce. Topped off with one of my favorite dressings, Newman's Own 'Low Fat Sesame Ginger'. Only 35 cal for 2 tbsp!  I usually dont do 'low fat' stuff but this didnt have any weird ingredients in it, so I'm game.

Here's a new recipe I tried this week:
BEEF PEPPER STEAK


I had meant to get a picture of this all pretty over rice, but it was so stinkin' good I totally forgot about that! My oldest 2 girls and hubby liked it as well (though they didnt like the bell peppers or onions in it).
The recipe can be found HERE
The only changes I made were that I used the sirloin that is already chopped up for stir fry and I didnt fry the meat all the way thru, just about 1/2 way done, then I added it to the crockpot. Didnt have any cornstarch so I used potato starch and I used a wee bit more soy sauce.
Definitely a keeper.

Have you tried any new recipes lately?

More media-free fun!

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These two have definitely figured out how to make their own fun on Media-Free day.  Pipe cleaner dolls! They also made 'pets' for them as well as beds/homes. 



So creative.

Photographer-Girl also set up a 'Bible and Beauty' Club based on a book she recently checked out from the library. I think it was called 'Beauty: Inside and Out'. Ok, she just told me that yes, that is what it is called =)  Here they are copying scripture from the book....

We also had an ABUNDANCE of foil drums 'round these parts. Which I dont mind-gentle on mama's ears!

We also took advantage of a nicer 'ish' day and went for a walk.  Bug-Girl there in blue was in a tshirt and shorts and I kid you not, I had on TWO pairs of pants, 2 shirts, and a coat and I was STILL cold!
Sometimes I wonder if The Boy is CAPABLE of posing normal for a picture...

At least he's consistent....

Photographer-Girl got another fun bird feeder picture. House finch and chickadee.

What are some things YOU do around the house for fun that don't involve media of some sort?

Media-free FUN! and LOTS of randomness =)

***Don't forget to check out my latest blog post over at:

http://fitgirlwannabe.blogspot.com/

 

A couple months ago, I came to the realization that we were spending too much time in 'media'. We dont watch too much in the way of t.v. or movies (haven't had cable for over a year), but we do our fair share of tablet and computer playing!

So with that knowledge, I started a 'no-media Wednesday' where we are free of media that whole day (no computer, tablets or movies, though I WILL occasionally let us keep up our tradition of watching some Duggars over our lunch break)  =)

I went to the library and found this little gem!



 

Frighteningly Freaky Fingers has been a favorite to play...

There is also a 'lava'game and I remember playing something similar when I was young. Dont step on the actual floor or you're in the lava!

RANDOMNESS AHEAD!


Our resident bug-lover recently got some mealworms from the pet store and she decided to make an obstacle course for one of them!  Mealworms are stubborn little critters and would NOT stick to the race course.  =)

 

Doing a little school....

 

 

The Boy wanted to take a picture with me. Ok, he wanted to take a picture with Thomas and ALLOWED me to be in it.  ;)

 

The resident photographer took a picture of me prepping dinner for tonight. I LOVE my divided crockpot. I took a 4# bottom round rump roast and cut in chunks. I stuck 1/2 of the chunks in the left side and that will be meat for French Dip sandwiches (just add 1 can beef broth, 1pk of au jus seasoning mix and 1/2 pk of dry italian seasoning mix), then stuck the other 1/2 in the other side and that will be Spicy Beef which I will serve with rice (add 1/2-1c soy sauce and fill with water to cover the meat. Add 2-4 diced raw jalepenos, several garlic cloves, 1-2T sesame oil, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds-you can also add a few slivers of ginger root but I forgot to buy some!). Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours.  Then the kiddos (and hubs and I!) can pick what we want to eat. The leftovers are super yummy too.

A sweet little chickadee at our bird feeder. Ariel takes great pictures!

 

Savannah and I 'modeling' for Ariel. Don't try this at home, folks. We're professionals (at being goofballs that is)....

I hope this video comes thru!