Friday Fave Book Quote
‘Twas The Evening Of Christmas | Book Review
Hi friends. Last month, Zonderkidz sent us a free copy of ‘Twas The Evening Of Christmas to review, and my girls and I just love it.
This beautiful Christmas tale written by Glenys Nellist and illustrated by Elena Selivanova is a retelling of Clement C. Moore’s ’Twas the Night Before Christmas that tells the story of Jesus’ birth. We were excited to receive this book after reviewing Glenys Nellist’s Love Letters from God: Bible Stories for a Girl’s Heart and being thoroughly impressed.
This book absolutely didn’t disappoint. 😀
I LOVE ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. My Dad used to read it to us every Christmas Eve and now I read it to my own girls. I could immediately tell as I was reading ‘Twas The Evening Of Christmas that the language of the retelling matches the old poem beautifully. Every page flows in the same charming, melodic way. I honestly kept waiting for it to veer away or stop working as well, but it never did. Page after page of this book left me smiling both at the flow of the language and of course the story itself. Liberties were taken of course, with things like the wise men arriving that very night, but we put wise men in our nativity scene so it definitely didn’t bother me.
My girls and I loved this and I’m absolutely adding it to my Christmas Eve reading from now on. 🙂
Glimmer And Shine 365 Devotions To Inspire | Review
Hi friends. Last month, Zonderkidz sent me a free copy of Glimmer And Shine – 365 Devotions To Inspire to review, and I just love it. 🙂
This beautiful devotional is written by Natalie Grant, who in addition to being a multi-Grammy nominated artist and an outspoken advocate for victims of human trafficking (I met her once while photographing an International Justice Mission event, she’s so sweet), has three daughters. In every page of this book, it is evident that it is written by someone with a really amazing grasp of what God’s word says and what is at the heart of the Bible passages. But even more so, it’s clear that this book is written by someone who knows little girls very well. 😀
I’ve been reading this to Boo, who just turned eight. The target age range of the book is eight and up and I feel like that’s pretty accurate. If Boo was very much younger I think it might be a little over her head. As is, this is by fart the most mature devotional book I’ve done with her in that it includes longer and more complicated scripture passages than other books. I’m so impressed that this book strays from typical Bible verses and stories and delves into passages from Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Hosea etc. Sometimes these passages seem obscure at first. As I’m reading them, I sometimes wonder what lesson we’re supposed to learn, but then Natalie ends up making a beautiful point that I hadn’t ever even thought about when reading those verses.
Each page starts with some Bible verses, followed by a devotional thought, and ends with a short prayer. Weekend pages are the exceptions (assuming you start on a Sunday). On Saturdays your daughter can do a fun little word puzzle or game (crossword puzzle etc.), and then on Sundays there’s a thought provoking question with some space for journaling and a lovely picture to color.
Boo and I have been loving Glimmer And Shine and we definitely recommend it to other girls around her age!
Thin Stix Creativity Pack | Review
Hey friends! If you’ve been here long, you’ve likely seen me rave about Kwik Stix and Thin Stix by The Pencil Grip, Inc. and I have to say, the Thin Stix Creativity Pack that I recently received to review is my very favorite product yet! 😀
Thin Stix are solid tempera paint sticks a.k.a. the perfect smash up of markers and paint. They’re virtually mess free and they dry in 90 seconds, but the finished effect totally looks like you used paint. The Thin Stix are also thin enough that you can use them for fairly detailed pictures, and even writing words or letters for various projects.
The Thin Stix Creativity Pack is a 24 pack that includes 12 Assorted, 6 Neon and, 6 Metalix colors.
I love the variety in this pack, and so do my girls! I’m always impressed that this one art supply can be a huge hit with all my girls ages three through ten (and actually this time I even let my 18 month old get in on the action because she was loathe to be left out). I love to use these myself for Bible Art Journaling, too. When I apply them lightly, I can see through them plenty well enough to read the text beneath. Using them that way, they don’t wrinkle the page at all, and barely bleed through to the other side!
We’ve used the bold, striking original Thin Stix before and knew that we loved them, but we were excited to try the new varieties too. The Neon Thin Stix are so vivid and fun. Smiles LOVES all things bright and was ecstatic to have these. She also loves that the addition of Neons to this pack gives her TWO yellows to use, because it’s her favorite color.
The Metalix are by far my favorite, though (and Evergreen and Boo seemed to gravitate toward them, too). The shiny-sparkly-gorgeousness of them just can’t be beat.
With Christmas just around the corner, I decided to let my girls use the Thin Stix to decorate some wooden ornaments to hang on our tree this year (and probably to include in some gifts, too….Mom if you’re reading this please avert your eyes now…actually go back and avert your eyes before the first pic, please. 😉 ).
My girls had the best time working on this project. It’s the type of thing I don’t usually even attempt because just the idea of trying to supervise three kids with paint and paintbrushes and all the things is too much. And I know that no matter how closely I tried to watch them all, one of them would still spill paint everywhere and another would fling some off her brush and all the water would get knocked over and just all in all there there would inevitably be a giant mess, and likely quite a few accidentally ruined ornaments that ended up in the line of fire of one of the spills and so forth. But coloring ornaments with markers just doesn’t have the same kind of effect.
I absolutely love that they were able to make gorgeous ornaments that came out wonderfully without all the chaos and mess of using paint.
The 24 pack of Thin Stix are available at BJ’s Wholesale for the discounted price of $19.99 (regularly priced for $24.99). They can be purchased online here.
Be sure to hop over to the Homeschool Review Crew link-up to see what other reviewers have to say.
