I'm a full-time mummy

I am so thrilled to be able to review this book! I came across the details on this book and immediately wrote in to request for an opportunity to review it. So here is my review of this inspiring book from Mary Bailey entitled: "JESUS MY SON: Mary's Journal of Jesus' Early Life".

Author: Mary Bailey
Publisher:  AuthorHouse (February 4, 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-1449064938
Hardcover: 208 pages

Description from the product page:

"Greetings! Welcome to the journal of Mary, Jesus' Mother.

Enjoy this inspirational journal as Jesus' early life unfolds through the eyes of His mother. Mary's story offers a fresh perspective to a very old story. From her view, we are provided possible answers to questions often asked of Jesus' early life. Can you imagine nurturing a baby, experiencing all the firsts of a toddler, teaching a young boy, tolerating a teenager, and enjoying the experiences of a young man, while always anticipating a promised kingdom?

Mary's life was very similiar to a mother's life today.  We care for our children while always striving to provide something better for them. Very little is known of these early years, but Mary must have celebrated milestones just as all mothers today. Jesus had a first tooth, a first word, a first step, a first day of school, siblings, graduations, and other milestones like our children today. The only witness to all these events was Mary. Through Mary's story we learn of Jesus' relationship with his brothers, sisters and cousins, including John the Baptist and Matthew. "

Would you just look at the picture above? It's personally autographed on the book by the author herself prior to her sending it to me. What a nice touch and inspiring message she wrote! Now back to the book...

Have you ever thought of what goes on in Mary's mind when she found out she's carrying God's child? The fears, doubts, worries and challenges she had in overcoming all the obstacles in her life? Personally, I felt the same thing when I found out I am carrying a child. Now double, triple, quadruple those emotions when Mary finds out she is carrying not just any particular child, but God's child?!

I can relate to this book since they are personal thoughts penned down by a mother and how she accepts and overcome all the challenges and blessings in her life. I mean, as a mother myself, I do have my own worries and doubts on how am I going to bring up my child in this challenging world, how can I instill the good and positive attitudes and behaviour in my child's life and how I can train my child up to be a God fearing and God loving child, so on and so forth.

Of course, I definitely cannot compare to how it feels like to be in Mary's shoes (since she is carrying God's child!) but I do believe and trust every human being in this world is a child of God and that we as a parent are being entrusted to care and bring up the child in the best positive ways we could.

I enjoyed reading the "Jesus in Born in Bethlehem and the Sepherds' Visit" chapter as I felt like I'm in the actual place itself! I totally ache for Mary's suffering and her discomfort when she gave birth at the stable full of dirty and smelly animals.

A favorite part in the book which I love is in the "Jesus Runs a Race" chapter, how he gave up winning the race and gained a friend instead. I'd love for my child to be able to do that someday, to not worry or be pressured into winning every race or competitions in life and to instead focus on the positive outcomes of it.

I am also touched by the prayer at the end of each chapters where Mary normally thanked God for the miracles and blessings being bestowed on her and her family and she also prayed for wisdom to go through the difficulties she is facing. 

I am a bit sad when I came to the end of the book, it has been a wonderful journey to be able to have a glimpse on what goes on in Mary's life and Jesus's earlier life in more details.

 I find it REALLY hard to put the book down! I just can't stop reading it as it's too exciting and wonderful to read through from the beginning until the end of the book! OK, granted, I am a big fan of books written in journal or diary as it feels as though I am the one who is going through everything that happens in the book!

Also, I can't help but notice that the author is currently working on the second and third books in this series of three. (FYI: Jesus My Son: Mary's Journal of Jesus' Ministry should be released later this year.) I hope I can have the opportunity to review these books as well (*hint *hint!)

What I can say about this book in summary?

• You can purchase the Jesus My Son: Mary's Journal of Jesus' Early Life book from Amazon, AuthorHouse website, Barnes and Noble and many more.
  
• And if you are searching for a unique Mother’s Day gift, join Mary Bailey and number of partners on Wednesday, April 27, 2011, for the launch of Jesus My Son: Mary's Journal of Jesus' Early Life. Purchase a hardcopy at Amazon.com from seller MRBent and receive a 35% discount. Get immediate access to $100’s worth of valuable free bonus gifts. Register to win some beautiful prizes including a framed print of Mary’s Heart, the painting on the cover of my book, valued at $99.00. What gift could be more special than a journal written by God’s chosen mother about the everyday activities of the son she shared with our Father? Any mother will enjoy listening to Mary’s heart as she pours out her emotions in her journal entries. View all the Bonus gifts you can receive and the prizes you can win just by ordering one book!
  

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book by the author 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"

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"

Oh wow! I was pretty excited when I received an email (also posted on their blog) from Montessori Print Shop saying they are looking for bloggers to review their Montessori products. As I read on further, I was telling myself "I have to review this, I HAVE TO!!!!!" and then I read through their requirements and realised they are looking for someone who  love and  uses Montessori materials, but they also asked whether you love to blog and include pictures in your blog posts. 

FYI, we have been looking around (not actively yet...) for some sort of preschool or learning system for Ben to participate in and I've always been intrigued and very much curious with Montessori methods. So I decided to send them an email to try my luck. Never try, never know right?

Fortunately for me, Jennifer De Sousa from Montessori Print Shop replied my email saying "Thank you for contacting us regarding reviewing our products. I have taken a look at your website (very well done!), and even though it is not specifically a Montessori or Preschool Blog, you definitely have a preschooler in the family! I think you'd be a great Reviewer. I hope you and your son find our Montessori-based products educational and fun." 

Oh yeah!! Coolness! I immediately replied with my 3 choices of their Montessori materials which are: Alphabet Cards, Color Books (11 books) and Vehicle Match-Up and Memory Game. Although Montessori Print Shop gave me the 3 materials I requested, I only have to review 1 of them as the other 2 are a bonus for my effort. Woohoo!

Excerpts from the Montessori Print Shop website:

"Montessori Print Shop was founded in January 2004 and is located in Ontario, Canada. Montessori schools, private and public schools, as well as homeschooling families from 6 continents have benefited greatly from the wide range of Montessori materials that we have developed.

Our Montessori materials product line started with the phonetic language materials and branched in to all other areas (math, science, culture, art, classified cards, geography, French) as the demand grew. In 2008 we were approached by several schools who had Montessori Toddler programs but didn't have the materials to support them. We worked with the schools to ensure we were following the needs of the Toddlers and within a few months the basic design outline for our Toddler Montessori materials was complete. We now have over 950 Montessori Materials available (including Teacher Training Manuals).

All our Montessori materials have been designed by an AMI Certified Primary Montessori Teacher who was trained by Renilde Montessori (the granddaughter of Maria Montessori). Our designer has over 17 years of experience; in the Primary Montessori classroom, as a Homeschooling parent, a Montessori Consultant, and as Head Administrator of a Montessori school.

It is our goal to provide top quality Montessori materials for Toddlers, Primary (Casa) and lower Elementary children at affordable prices."

I decided to try the Vehicle Match-Up and Memory Game with Ben since he loves vehicles! I started out by printing out the PDF document using hubby's color printer and decided to glue the match-up sheets onto this hard board I have (recycled) and I cut out the matching vehicles images and kept them into this tiny container. Picture below before I started cutting up the printed lesson...

You can also view the following video which was recorded the moment we started the Montessori lesson. Noticed he takes a longer time to search and understand my instructions hehehe... but don't you think it's pretty awesome for my 2 year old boy to accomplish this in his first attempt? I'm so awfully proud of him!

You can browse through the many selections of Montessori materials right at the Montessori Print Shop website itself! They have a great selection, great customer support, and affordable prices for their materials as well! 

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with some free Montessori materials (selected by myself) 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.