Fiction Addiction Fix

I recently found out that a co-worker of mine writes historical Christian romance novels in her spare time! Kathy is unpublished as of yet, but while she's waiting, she and a friend have a blog dedicated to book reviews and giveaways. Sometimes I don't know what to read so I'm sure this will be a great source of inspiration. If you too could use a little inspiration (or just want to win a FREE book), hop on over to

Make your own banner at MyBannerMaker.com!

Their banner is so sparkly! :)

Happy Reading!

Book Review: The Girl in the Gatehouse

Photo Source: Amazon

I never used to read romance novels because I thought they were all trashy. Lately however, I seem to be reading a ton of them, and not one is trashy. Quite the opposite, in fact. Guess you just have to know where to look, right?

The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen is a lovely Jane Austen-esque novel written in easy to understand English about a young woman who has many secrets, and a man trying to prove he has increased his social standing. Brought together by happenstance, they are intrigued with one another, and find that nothing is as it seems. Lessons in loyalty and not judging without all the facts abound in this charming story. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Romance & all. :)

I received this book in exchange for my review from Bethany House. All opinions are 100% mine!  

Halloween 2011

I would love to tell you that I have a a dozen beautiful pics of all my kiddos & their costumes, but there's only 3. Yup, just 3. It was freezing outside, the kids were so excited & just wanted to go trick or treating. As you can see, they barely held still for the ones I did get!

Here is Pinky Lee as "Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's" & Lil' C as the Queen of Hearts

 Believe it or not, I did not decide on or make these costumes early. On Thursday, I had convinced Lil' Coconut to reuse her pirate costume from last year, and Pinky Lee was going to wear an old cheerleading uniform. But I went to Hobby Lobby to get the stuff to make Bug & Boo Boo Bear's costumes & found myself staring at tulle, dreaming about the inspiration costumes I'd found on Pinterest. Suddenly not caring that I had less than 24 hours to complete all the costumes for Friday's Halloween parties/parade, I bought supplies & rushed home to get started. I had to make 2 additional trips to the store, but managed to bring them to the school just in time!

Personally, I think they turned out great, and my girls look fabulous in them (as always!). Not quite the same as the inspiration photos, but certainly cheaper and made with love from momma! :)

 Suprisingly, I actually had to explain what boys were dressed as to many people! On the other hand, these costumes got more compliments than the girls' did!

Bug as the Red Angry Bird & Boo Boo as an Evil Piggy.

Thanks to Pinterest (again) for the inspiration for my boys' costumes. Not quite as good as the originals, but I've never claimed to be good at drawing! Boo kept taking the darn thing off randomly & we'd tell him nobody would give him any candy if he wasn't wearing his costume. Occasionally he would put it back on and join the other trick or treaters. Bug on the other hand, thought it was the coolest costume ever & said all his classmates thought so too. Yea!

1st "Green" Smoothie

Not only did I have my first "green" smoothie yesterday, but I actually made it myself. I really liked it. My kids really liked it. And they asked for it again today!

What is a green smoothie, you ask? It's where you put leafy green veggies in with a fruit smoothie. In our case, it was spinach. It's a yummy way to add a little extra veggie serving to your day. There's enough natural sweetness to the fruit and juice to mask any spinach taste. Ours didn't turn out green though because I used a purple juice, so it was a nice purpley-pink color. None of the kids even knew there was spinach (or carrots) in it until they saw me making it today. They actually thought it was funny that there was "salad" in it! Yea!

So if you or your kids need a boost of fruits & veggies here is my recipe. And by recipe I mean an approximation of what I tossed into the blender without really measuring.

Green Smoothie 
Makes approx. 6 - 6oz. servings

2 handfuls fresh spinach

6-8 baby carrots

12-16 oz. plain non-fat yogurt
1 banana

1 lb. frozen fruit

(I used a tropical blend that contained mango, pineapple, strawberries & others 

because that's what was the cheapest at my store this week.) 

1/2 c. juice (I used the knock-off version of V-8 Fusion pomegranate & blueberry)

Water - enough to thin to desired consistency

Blend it all up! You'll probably need to stop & push everything down several times to get it well mixed. If your blender won't break up the carrots or frozen fruit, try putting those through a food processor first. If you try this, let me know how you like it. Or if you have your own green or power smoothies that your family enjoys let me know!

I have a new love...

It's name is Pinterest. Have you discovered it? Oh my. I have avoided it for quite some time, but finally gave in when I kept forgetting where I found all these really great tutorials. I wanted to be able to easily locate what I needed when the time came. So I caved. I have over 1,000 pins in just a few weeks! Even my husband looks at it & and we have Pinteresting conversations. LOL It's my new favorite friend. Do you Pinterest?

The Bridges of Madison County are in Iowa???

  Really? Back in June we met Granny and Papa in Iowa so the kids could spend a month with them. (How awesome is that???) Anyway, as we were driving through Iowa I saw a sign that said Entering Madison County. Okay. Then a sign that said Covered Bridges Next Exit. WHAT? Really? Iowa? Now, I've never read the book or seen the movie, so that probably puts me at a disadvantage, but I really thought they were somewhere in New England. You know, someplace where you'd expect covered bridges.
  So after we parted ways with our children, my husband bravely set out on Iowa's back dirt roads to find covered bridges for his wife to see. Oh, so sweet! Our first stop, though was to see a Danish windmill in Elk Horn, Iowa. It's adorable. There was even a miniature-sized one too. I just found out that Elk Horn also has a "tiny church" that used to be in the running for the smallest church, and I'm bummed that we didn't get to see that! Oh well, they did have this railroad car and station in town that apparently used to be a flower shop. Cute.
  The windmill was easy to get to. The bridges not so much. We had a map, but you have to follow all these unmarked roads to get there. There was an occasional sign, but not at every turn, so we eventually got lost. That's always fun! Finally we arrived at the first bridge. It was not exactly what I was expecting. It was a big red box and you couldn't drive on it. It was cool though. I've never seen a covered bridge before except in pictures. Why do you think they covered them anyway??
  Although there are like 6 or 7 bridges there, we only saw 3. We were way behind on time. One of the bridges is located in the town of Winterset, which we discovered was the birthplace of John Wayne. The hubs was excited about that! His house had something like 4 rooms; it was tiny. The park where the second bridge was located was very pretty. It had this amazing stone bridge and an English hedge maze which was fun. The last bridge was on our way out and I about jumped out my seat when I saw that we could drive over it! That makes it way cooler! So we ended on high note and only about 3 or 4 hours behind schedule. :)

Where we've been

We have not disappeared, I didn't decide to quit blogging, and nothing (too) terribly bad has happened to any of us. Everyone in our family DID get sick, some of us more than once, one person for a whole month, and at one point all four children plus mommy were sick at the same time. Fun. I'm sure you've guessed that since nobody would let their child be sick for a whole month the long-term sickie was me. You know how it is: "Everybody else got better, I'll be better in a few days." or "I don't have time to go to the doctor." Yeah, I see your heads nodding! :) At any rate, I put those "can't get off the couch" days to good use by reading a ton of books, so I will be doing some more reviews shortly.
Sadly, when I finally did go to the doctor, she discovered that I have diabetes. What a bummer! I knew it was coming eventually due to family history and gestational diabetes w/ all my babies, but I still wasn't prepared. The medication she gave me has brought my blood sugars down to a safer (but still too high) number. I go back in next week, so hopefully it comes down even more.
Well, there is another huge thunderstorm rolling through & the lights have flickered a few times, so I better get off here. Bye! :)