I'm a full-time mummy

Yeap! Another Max Lucado book review! For this round of review, I gladly downloaded the ebook version so that I could read it on my iPad at night hehehe... Anyway, here is my review of the latest book from Max Lucado entitled: "MAX ON LIFE: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions". This book is just recently published on April 19th and I'm so glad I get to review this new book of his!

Author: Max Lucado
Publisher:  Thomas Nelson (** Published on April 19th, 2011)
ISBN-13: 978-0849948121
Hardcover: 256 pages

Description from the Thomas Nelson product page:

"We have questions. Child-like inquiries. And deep, heavy ones.

In more than twenty-five years of writing and ministry, Max Lucado has been the receiving line for thousands of such questions. The questions come in letters, e-mails, even on Dunkin Donuts napkins. In Max on Life he offers thoughtful answers to more than 150 of the most pressing questions on topics ranging from hope to hurt, from home to the hereafter.

Max writes about the role of prayer, the purpose of pain, and the reason for our ultimate hope. He responds to the day-to-day questions—parenting quandaries, financial challenges, difficult relationships—as well as to the profound: Is God really listening?

A special addendum includes Max’s advice on writing and publishing. Including topical and scriptural indexes and filled with classic Lucado encouragement and insight, Max on Life will quickly become a favorite resource for pastors and ministry leaders as well as new and mature believers."

This book helps us to understand the questions we have in our daily life. We may have questions and doubts on our family, relationship, work life, friendship, financial and so on and each questions posed were answered beautifully and honestly by Lucado in this book and reassures us more in God's love towards each and every one of us.

Topics ranging from hate, hurt, resentment, sufferings and all are being answered and gives us the perspective from God's point (that is to trust and do things according to His will, not ours!)

I can't feedback on the physical touch and feel of the book since I'm reviewing the ebook version this time, but it appears alright (both landscape or potrait layouts) on my iPad and I'm so happy to be able to do the bookmarks and all!

And to be able to go back to the pages I've bookmarked and noted earlier with so much ease! Just look at the picture below taken of the bookmarks I've made from reading this book. Cool eh?

I particularly enjoyed the question posed on page 98 about anger and forgivenesss, how Lucado described resentment as a prison and pointed out the explanations on his reasonings.

I also enjoyed and felt inspired with page 139 & 142 on prayers and the purpose of praying. That praying reminds you who is in charge and that although prayer doesn't change anything, we can influence the details! You should really get this book to read on this to know what I'm talking about!

There is this sentence on page 143 that I particularly enjoyed: "Prayer pushes us through life's slumps, propels us over the humps and pulls us out of the dumps". Wow, right?!

There are many more questions posed in this book that you just have to read through each of them and get a better understanding and apply it into our own life and be inspired and have faith in our God that He will help us through each phase no matter how gloomy or endless it seems to be.

Do consider getting a copy of this book. You will be glad you did so as it does help to answer some of the many of our questions about life!

You can purchase the Max On Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions book from Amazon, Christianbook.com and many more. 

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book by Book Sneeze in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

Ladies and gentlemen, we are cruising into the 5th month of my pregnancy now! Updates for this month since my previous status updates in pregnancy at month 4 are as follow:

#1: This baby is STILL a SPICY BABY!

I'm still wolfing down spicy food at month number 5, so this nickname is going to stay for sometime...

#2: Maintaining increment of 1kg per month

Latest gynae check-ups indicated I have gained an extra kg for this month, making it to 50kg now. I have always been a straight 45kg since I was 17 years old and I went back to this weight pretty fast after Ben was born probably due to me breastfeeding him.

#3: Gynae check-ups

We're continuing on our check-ups at the hospital where I gave birth to Ben 2 years ago.

Apart from being a pro-natural birth hospital, I love this hospital because they are also PRO-breastfeeding! I snapped the picture above while waiting for the lunch time to be over and I'm very impressed with the signage - NO formula, NO bottles, NO pacifier! LOVE IT!

Anyway, back to the check up... this time, we found out it is wayyyyyy faster to have our appointments after lunch! Hubby's theory was most likely people take whole day off to go for their check-ups and they'd rather get everything done in the morning and enjoy the rest of the day, hence the wayyyyy less queue at the registration and waiting. This time, I didn't even have to queue to do my urine test and although we have to wait half an hour (lunch hour until 2pm and we arrived there at 1.30pm), I was the 1st one being called the moment the clock strikes 2pm.

And maybe because of the way lesser crowd after lunch time, our gynae really took his own sweet time to do our ultrasound scan and check every single thing and explained to us slowly and in details. (Not that he didn't do that during our last check-up but this time we don't feel we're holding the queue down or anything!)

During this round of check-up, we get to try out the 4D ultrasound machine and this is the picture taken of Spicy Baby at month 5:

We were kinda impressed and amazed with the 4D machine and can't contain our excitement of seeing Spicy Baby in a different light (as in clearer compared to the usual 2D scans...) The gynae said at this month, baby has yet to develop much fat so we can't see the chubby cheeks and fat much...

#4: Breastfeeding during pregnancy

I think few days ago my breastmilk production has been reduced to almost nothing. I tried squeezing them with my hands but nothing comes out but then again,  I did  the squeezing right after Ben nursed so I might not have anymore milk by then.

So I'm still wondering whether my breastmilk factory is officially closed for now as Ben is still faithfully coming after my breasts to suckle before his daytime nap and sleep at night (he also nursed about once or twice during his sleep at night).

Maybe there is still milk, or maybe he's just suckling for comfort, but whatever it is, I will let him suckle as long as he wants. And I do hope that we can go for tandem nursing when the baby is born. And I'm wondering whether Ben will noticed when my colostrum starts to come back... hmmmmm....

#5: My belly itches like MAD!

Seriously, it is VERY VERY ITCHY!!! And the more I scratch the itch, the nicer it feels, the more I wanted to scratch it, and then I looked down at my belly and saw the red scratches and sore burns... yikesssss! I think my belly is expanding to cater to the growing Spicy Baby and hence, the skin is trying to expand which causes the itchiness feeling. 

So there you go, updates as at 5 months pregnancy... have a blessed week and thank you for reading!

** P.S: Btw, our gynae did mentioned the gender of the baby in this month's check-up but until I see it with my own eyes and convinced of the findings, I will not reveal the gender yet and it shall remained to be unconfirmed results as of now... heheheh...

Whenever we go out in hubby's car, Ben will immediately said out which items he wanted to hold while sitting in his car seat. The following are our MUST have items for Ben whenever we go out in hubby's car:

He started with 2 mini toy cars. The red colored sporty one always on his right hand, while the yellow antique looking car always on his left hand.

And then Ben added a new travel MUST have, which is a sunglasses, all thanks to hubby. He always wore this travel sunglasses over his spectacles whenever it's too bright outside during driving and Ben always ask for daddy's spectacles whenever he saw daddy wearing it. Hubby got so frustrated as there are lots of times he had to suffer the bright and glaring sunlight while his son sits happily enjoying daddy's sunglasses. So we got Ben this green colored sunglasses which he wears when he's in the car.

Now we have another item added into the list, which is this small pillow which we always put on Ben's lap. Aside from the above items, Ben also occassionally wears this cap (used to be daddy's)

So what about your child? What are his/her travel MUST have items?