The Heart Mender

I told you in my last post that I signed up to review books and yesterday I received my first free copy from Thomas Nelson Publishers called The Heart Mender by Andy Andrews. I have to say I was not let down in the least as you can see since I finished it in one day! Author Andrews tells of some interesting historical artifacts he unearthed in his yard that led him down an interesting path of investigating the story behind them. In the summer of 1942 in the midst of World War II, German submarines have been dispatched to the United States coastline to sink U.S. vessels. One night along the Alabama shoreline, Helen Mason stumbles across an injured German soldier. Due to their bitter pasts and unforeseen present, they have every reason to hate each other. They are suddenly thrust into circumstances that will change them forever. This is a story of true forgiveness and the power it has over the human spirit. My interest was peaked immediately by the artifacts that Andrews found and the pictures he includes. I found myself wanting to know the story as much as he did. The characters and the stories behind their lives opened my eyes to the realities of war and the choices that many were forced to make regardless of how they felt. We all struggle with forgiveness in some way and Andrews brings to light the power that an unforgiving heart can have over anyone's life.

I enjoyed this book immensely and put it down thinking a lot about forgiveness in my own life and where I have allowed bitterness and anger cripple and control me at times. I highly recommend The Heart Mender to anyone as it is filled with historical accuracy, great storytelling, and an inspiring message.

For those of you that are interested, Thomas Nelson publishers was nice enough to send me an extra copy to give away on my blog. If you are interested in reading it and sharing it with the people in your lives, leave me a comment on my blog and I will put your names in a hat and randomly choose a winner. You will have until Friday evening at 5:00 CST. Looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Gymnastics and books

We had a great weekend with Grammy and Grampa visiting and Caleb's state meet on Saturday. Caleb did exceptionally well and scored two of his highest scores of the season with a 14.0 on the rings and a 14.4 on vault. He was up against some of the strongest gymnasts in South Texas so he did not medal this year but we were so proud of how well he did. The team finished in 3rd and all around we are so proud of his season. I took a picture when we got home of all the medals he won this season and his trophies from his previous years in gymnastics.

Lined up for introductions and the national anthem

Ready to mount the pommel horse

One of the best handstands he has done before his dismount!

All the teams with their trophies

Caleb's medals from this season and his trophies from previous years. Cypress Academy does what is called Mayfest every year to showcase the kids' talent and they get trophies for participating.

So the season is over and this weekend one of the families has invited the level 5 and 6 boys and their families out to their ranch for a weekend campout. We are looking forward to it and I should come back with some good pictures.

Today I was reading a newsletter I get via email and it was talking about a book about to come out that looked pretty interesting. At the bottom it said that if you were a blogger and wanted to read the book for free to go to the link attached. I was intrigued and suddenly found myself at a website called Booksneeze. To make a long story short, I was accepted as a blogger and they will send me books for free to read and review on my blog! What could be better than that! I love to read and I love to blog! So stay tuned. I should get the book in the next week and I will jump right into reading it. I can't wait to share with you what I read!

Mmmm, peanut butter!

Today is a busy day as my parents are coming into town and I am finishing cleaning and then I need to head to the grocery store. But I thought I would post a picture today. I took this the other night of Kaley going to town on a peanut butter jar. She cleaned it better than if I had washed it myself! It is amazing her tongue reached that far!
Caleb has his big meet tomorrow...state championship! We are praying everything comes together that he has been working so hard on and that he has a very successful meet! I will post pics as soon as I can!

Bluebonnet pictures, finally!

Ok, yes I know I promised bluebonnet pictures a week ago and I fell short again. Oh well, I am posting them now!
We went to the bluebonnets after church on Sunday, April 11. We invited our friends Kody and Corby from church to come with us so they could get some good pictures in the bluebonnets as well as help us get some. For those of you that don't live in Texas, taking pictures in the bluebonnets is a tradition but it is also all about the hunt. There are some places that the bluebonnets reappear every year but sometimes they don't because they get trampled. In our case we returned to the field we used last year that we loved because of the barn in the background, but they were doing contruction nearby and put huge concrete cylinders in the field and the bluebonnets didn't come up. This year we heard that the bluebonnets would be better than they've been in years because of the wacky weather we have been having. They were really good and as we drove out to Chappell Hill we found more fields than we usually find but we ended up going to a field we went to a few years ago. We had great success with photos and had a good time. The bugs got pretty bad because the air was still so we were swatting a lot!

I love that I was able to catch her as she blew this!

We've gotten lots of compliments on this one with the kids in the background. I think Kody took this with their camera while Corby was using ours.

Kody and Corby

There was another picture that was better of the two of us but it came out dark. I am going to try and fix it so I can post it later.

LOVE this one!

Butterfly kisses!

I love the lone little yellow flower in the middle of the bluebonnets.

Indian Paintbrush

You may be on picture overload now but that was only a few of our favorites! Hope you enjoyed!

Picture teaser

So I have been slacking on my picture a day routine! We had a busy weekend and I just haven't gotten to it this week. But we went to the Bluebonnets this weekend and got some great pictures. Here is a little teaser until I get the time to post more.

The early signs of stubborn (continued)

Do I see a pattern here? (See below)

Stubborn

For any of you with daughters, I am sure you understand. This was over the fact that she could not change her clothes. She refused to come in the house for at least 5 minutes after taking Caleb to the bus this morning.