The Sparkle Box (Review and Giveaway!)

Last year, our pastor challenged us to radically change our giving habits at Christmas—and to give as Jesus gave.  He reminded us that Jesus didn’t come to heal the healthy or feed the full.  Rather, He fed the hungry and healed the sick. 

And then, in the ultimate gift of love and sacrifice, He offered forgiveness for the condemned.

And changed lives forever.

What if we truly gave as Jesus gave and made that our gift to Him this Christmas?

That’s what this beautiful hardback children’s book is all about.

The Sparkle Box, by Jill Hardie, is the story of a little boy named Sam who unwraps a touching family tradition of honoring Jesus just exactly as our pastor suggested.  So I was excited to read it with my little guy.

Throughout the season, Sam and his family reach out in various ways to the needy in their community.  Unknown to Sam, his mom and dad record the gifts on little slips of paper and tuck them into the sparkling gift box on the mantle.  Sam’s curiosity about the special gift grows throughout the story. 

Then on Christmas Day, they open the box and read about the gifts they gave in honor of Jesus’ birthday.  His parents remind him, that whatever we do for people in need, we do for Him.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

Matthew 25:40

It’s a beautiful story, with beautiful illustrations.  It will have your little ones looking for ways to let their lights sparkle for Jesus throughout the whole year!

The book even comes with a pretty little Sparkle Box to help you begin your own meaningful family tradition!  My little guy couldn’t wait to put a bow on the top and set it on our mantle. 

And I’m looking forward to helping him fill it!

Thank you Jill, for making such a great tool that we as parents can use to combat the commercialism of Christmas!

Also, thanks to Jill and the publisher, I have the privilege of giving a brand new copy of The Sparkle Box to one of my readers!  If you would like a chance to win it for your own family or a family you know, be sure to leave a comment on this post.  I will draw a winner at random from the comments next Friday.  Please make sure I have a way to contact you should you win!

An additional note!  My friend Mari at My Little Corner Of The World is also hosting a giveaway for this book!  Why not enter hers as well and have two chances to win!

"Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Children’s Book (Review and) Giveaway! A Perfect Pet For Peyton

A Perfect Pet For Peyton by bestselling authors Gary Chapman and Rick Osborne, helps children learn the importance of love.   Based on Gary’s highly successful The 5 Love Languages®, A Perfect Pet for Peyton tells an entertaining and playful story of five children who each, with the help of Mr. Chapman and the unique pets at his special emporium, discover their own personal love language.

I began reading this book to my little guy and his friends while we waited for the bus last week.  Each day they looked forward to reading a little more of it and groaned when the bus came, lol!  They especially loved looking for the hidden bug on each colorful page! 

I appreciated how it related the ideas in a way children could readily understand.

Long story short…It was a fun way to spring into conversations about the differences in how people give and receive love! 

…And I’m super excited to be able to offer a brand new copy to one of my lucky readers!

Just leave a comment below, and you will be entered to win!  For two additional chances to win, you may tell your friends about the giveaway on your blog or facebook page and leave an additional comment (for each) telling me you did so!  So that’s THREE chances total to win!

Comments must be made by Friday March 30th at midnight.  A winner will be chosen and posted on Saturday.  :)

Good luck!!! 

And just a little bit of a tease about next week’s giveaway…I’ll be offering The 5 Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell!!!  It’s a phenomenally great book!  So be sure to stop back!! 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a copy of the above DVD for free in hopes I would give it an honest review.  And my honest opinion is what I promise to give.   I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The SISTERCHICKS Series, by Robin Jones Gunn…Check it out!

Over the last few weeks, I have been reading a few books by Robin Jones Gunn in her SISTERCHICK series.

The last one I read was called SISTERCHICKS in Gondolas! 

Gunn defines SISTERCHICKS in this way:

SISTERCHICK n. : friend who shares the deepest wonders of your heart, loves you like a sister, and provides a reality check when you’re being a brat.

This particular story is about a divorced fifty-ish woman named Jenna who is invited to Venice by a missionary friend to come and cook for a small retreat.  She takes her sister-in-law along, and we laugh with them through their sometimes hilarious adventures in a foreign country. 

The back of the book says it better than I could…

“Coming out of a time of dark shadows in their lives, these two friends dive into a new season of refreshing and realize that sometimes when serving God, the most important thing to do is just show up…and watch for goodness and mercy to follow close behind…”

Besides enjoying the adventures of exploring new places with the characters, I find myself looking for the nuggets of truth tucked throughout the pages.

Like this one.

Jenna and her sister-in-law are taking a gondola tour with the retreat participants through the beautiful sites of Venice when she is overcome with longing.  It is one of my favorite parts of the whole book.  Because we all have longings, and because Gunn injects such truth.      

Without warning, a pervasive sadness came over me.  The sharp sting of this melancholy was familiar, but I hadn’t felt its forceful pull in a long time.  Yet it didn’t matter that I had put those emotions far away from me.  The feelings were elemental.  The longings were easily recognizable.

I wanted to be loved.  I wanted to be married.  I wanted to be married to a man who loved me and wouldn’t leave me.

There, I admitted it.  In such a place as this on such a night as this, I wish I didn’t have to be alone.  I wish I weren’t so alone.  I wish my life hadn’t the way it did.

The tears came before I could stop them.

Turning my head as far away from the others as I could, I pretended to carefully examine the water and the distant island.  I actually was deep inside myself, standing on the edge of an emotional precipice.  These feelings nearly had overpowered me more than once in the past.  I knew what it meant to look down into such darkness.

An evening breeze skimmed across the lagoon and dried my tears as quickly as I shed them.  For a few moments I let myself wish that a wonderful man would fall from the sky into my life.  I wished he would find me irresistible, sweep me up in his arms, and love me forever.

I blinked back the self-pity tears and tried to remember what I had taken away from those counseling sessions so long ago.  The counselor had given me a potent weapon to use in moments like this: Thankfulness, a grateful spirit.

I tried to think of one thing for which I was thankful.  I knew that, with a handful of darts forged from a spirit of appreciation, I could take down the dragons of doubt and vultures of self-pity.

It took a moment before I was composed enough to pick up the first dart and throw it at the target of my deep longing.

“This,” I whispered.  “All of this.  I’m thankful for this—the travel, the experiences, the people.”

If you are looking for some good summer reading, I highly recommend the SISTERCHICKS series.  They aren’t so involving that you will ignore your kids for a week straight.  Lol!  But, for me, they provided a delightful retreat during snatches of time and made me think of my own life and friends with a thankful heart.  A good thing, no? 

Hooked On Phonics Deal Alert!

Yesterday I had a busy day.  My middle boy was home sick with a second round of pink eye.  It turned out to be a good thing, though, because we were able to spend big chunks of time studying for his Math, Spelling, and dreaded Social Studies tests.  All three promised to be difficult today.

But I think he was ready when I sent him off to school.  And his eyes were feeling a teensy tiny bit better.  Those drops are an amazing thing. 

But, sadly, I missed my computer time.  That happens.

I’m also behind on just about everything a mom needs to do, I have my husband home today, and I really need to get back outside to help with some yard work. 

But first, I wanted take the time to tell you about this

Super Deal at Hooked On Phonics!

If you visit their Overstock Department, there are some great sales going on.  I’ve never used their products, but I ordered some this morning for my four year old.  Why?  Because on top of their sale. . .

there is also a 50% off code:  SLICK50.  Just enter it at checkout and the cost of your order is cut further by half!  How can I go wrong?

Here are the three I ordered:

Learn to Read Pre-K: regular $64.95, sale $19.95. After coupon code: $10!

Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read K-1st grade: regular $139.95, sale $39.95. After coupon code: $19.99!

Hooked on First Grade activity pack: regular 46.95, sale 14.95.  After coupon code $7.50!

So, for around $50 (including tax and shipping), I’ve got what I hope will be a great program to start over the summer and continue on into the fall.  He and I are both excited about it! 

I’m not sure how long this incredible deal will last.  But I ordered mine this morning without a hitch!  If you know of someone with little ones getting ready to read or needing to improve on their reading skills, you may want to pass this info along to them!

Speaking A Foreign Language

This weekend, without a single (recent) grumble-nag-fit from me, my husband sorted through, straightened up, and cleaned out his computer room (AKA: The Computer Artifacts Museum And Complete Spare Parts From A-Z Warehouse).

For those of you who have seen this room, you will understand how much effort went into it when I say that there is now nothing on the floor--nothing--anywhere--and the kelly green carpet has been fully exposed and vacuumed.

That in and of itself was huge. But he didn't stop there.

He vacuumed the entire house.

He made the boys clean up their room (including their disgusting bathroom sink which had petrified globs of toothpaste dotting the terrain).

He sucked the dust off their ceiling fan.

He supervised the cleaning of the playroom.

AND, he picked up dish washer detergent at Wal-mart on his way home from church (I had a meeting afterwards). Praise The Lord!! I was down to my last two load's worth of powder!!

He even shoveled the heavy wet snow off a flat part of our roof to keep the water from backing up under the shingles.

And the icing on the cake? He remembered to pick up a Sunday paper for me since they would be all gone by the time I left my meeting.

Wowsa!

To me, it was a birthday present come early. It was a giant Valentines Card--No, A big box of chocolate! An "I love you!" in neon lights. There is absolutely nothing he or the boys could have done that would have spoken "love" to me more--because my love language is Acts of Service. I feel loved most when someone does something to help me out.

My husband's is different then mine, so it made the work he did extra meaningful to me.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm speaking of what Gary Chapman defines in his book The Five Love Languages.

In his book, he suggests that we each convey and receive love primarily in one of five ways:

• Quality time
• Words of Affirmation
• Gifts
• Acts of Service
• Physical Touch

Often, the giver and receiver express love in different ways (as in the case of my husband and me). If you don't know and speak his or her special "love language" you might as well be speaking a foreign language to them.

Understanding this can be life changing--for husbands and wives, for parents and children, and virtually every kind of relationship.

To find out your primary love language, or that of your loved ones, you can take this 30 second quiz .

I highly recommend his book, or any of the others he has written on the topic. If you go here, you'll find all his books on the topic, including one on the love languages of children, and teens and their audio book versions on CD's--which are awesome! My favorite is the one for children. I'd highly recommend it not just for parents, but for anyone who works with children.

Incidentally, any of these would make a great study for Small Groups, as well.

Morning and Evening Edition of Grace For the Momentby Max Lucado

This must be the day for book reviews, because there is another one I have to tell you about.

While waiting for a prescription to be filled (at Kroger, no less), I stumbled upon this book. Whoever thought to put book displays next to the prescription waiting area knew what they were doing.

The book is called Grace For The Moment, Morning and Evening Edition.

The picture from Christianbook.com does NOT do it justice and my own does little better. It is hardback, bound and beautifully stitched in two soft and earthy shades of (imitation) leather. It literally cries out to be held and cradled. No lie. The print on the front is pressed or engraved, or whatever you call it when someone puts a design on leather-like material.

The prescription was ready long before I was finished perusing it and I was forced to buy a copy--for a friend, of course. At least that's how I justified it. But I was smitten. It was only $14 something, (Christianbook.com sells it for $12.99), but it was worth far more than that in my estimation.

Here's why. Besides the gorgeous binding, the book is written in typical Max Lucado style which is captivating, to the point, and full of encouragement, wisdom and hope. It is, in essence, a twice-a-day devotional. Each set of open pages has a verse and short devotional--one for the morning on the left, and one for the evening on the right. Included, is a space at the bottom of each page to jot down thoughts God lays on your heart.

I find squeezing in my devotionals a constant battle. But this, this is perfect.

I'll keep my original intent, and give it to a friend, because I think she will enjoy it. But I'm also dropping hints as thick as feathers in a hen house that I'd like one, too! Seriously.

So if a certain engineer reads this, take note. This would make a really cool gift for your wife.