Mommynificent - Magnificent ideas for your super family

Books for Little Boys and Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #82

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Tina Chen

Hello, everyone, and Happy Booknificent Thursday! I hope you have had a wonderful week! I have been enjoying reading Heidi Ashworth’s Miss Delacourt series this week, which I was very excited to see is available on Kindle Unlimited! I reviewed Miss Armistead Makes Her Choice, the 6th one in the series, last year without realizing it was part of a series, so I’m glad to get caught up with the others.

Our little guy’s second birthday is coming up in a few weeks and my mom is coming from the US just before it, so I took the opportunity to build up our “boy library” a little and purchased the following gems from Amazon:

The Boy with a Drum by David Harrison – This book comes very highly recommended by a friend who raised three boys who are now in their 20s. We laughed when she was telling me about it because she can still quote the book verbatim! That’s a sign of a real winner to me.

Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle – This one has been recommended to me so many times by so many people that I have lost count. We can’t wait to read it ourselves!

Sergeant Hippo’s Busy Week by Wong Herbert Yee – We absolutely love Wong Herbert Yee’s Fireman Small so my two older girls decided to buy this one for their little brother’s birthday. I’m excited to listen to them read it to him (and the coming baby as well) over and over!

I also picked up a couple more classic Golden Books that the girls and I are pretty excited about including Nurse Nancy by Kathryn Jackson. We noticed it is illustrated by Corinne Malvern who also illustrated Doctor Dan the Bandage Man by Helen Gaspard which is a read-it-over-and-over, all-time favorite around here.

How about you? Have you picked up any good books this week? We’d love to hear your recommendations either in the link-up itself or in the comments below! Also, I was thrilled this week to see that Gia, one of the authors that links up here, posted the link to last week’s link-up on her facebook wall and invited her friends to come for a visit! This is a great way to grow our community, so thanks for the inspiration, Gia!

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And now, it’s time to party! Please link up any posts you have, past or present, about books, reading, and literacy. This link party is all about sharing how books are impacting you! Joining in is easy; just click “Click here to enter…” next to “You are next” and copy/paste the URL of a blog post (not your homepage). Choose a photo to upload and then click some of the other great posts in the party and meet new bloggers and find out about new books!

Why should you link up to Booknificent Thursdays?

Linking up to parties and leaving comments on other posts is a proven way to increase traffic to your blog and grow your blog’s followers! Here are a few rules and suggestions:

You can link up as many posts as you want.

Please grab the Booknificent Thursday button and share it somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, bottom, etc.) and please share about this party with any book-lovers you know.

I’d also really appreciate it if you’d hop over to my Google+ profile or my facebook page and give me a “like” and/or subscribe to receive my blog (just enter your email address up on the sidebar.)

We do want to keep it family-friendly, so I reserve the right to remove anything I consider offensive.

And one final rule, please visit AND comment on at least one other linked post if not more.

Happy linking and have a great week!

Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #81

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Tina Chen

Hello to all my bookish friends! I hope you had a great week! My apologies to a couple of you who emailed me asking me to make changes to your links. I did not keep up with email at all this week, so please forgive me as they just didn’t happen!

I have a little joke to share with you that my 8-year old made up this week. I think it’s terribly clever so I need you to tell me if that’s just mama-pride or if you think it’s funny too. Please be honest; I can handle it! We drove past a man who was picking up tree branches that had been cut down and putting them into his car to get rid of them, and Middlenificent commented, “Look, he’s adding a trunk to his car!”

OK, on to more literary things. What do you have to share with us today? I can’t wait to see. Have a great week!

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Why should you link up to Booknificent Thursdays?

Linking up to parties and leaving comments on other posts is a proven way to increase traffic to your blog and grow your blog’s followers! Here are a few rules and suggestions:

You can link up as many posts as you want.

Please grab the Booknificent Thursday button and share it somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, bottom, etc.) and please share about this party with any book-lovers you know.

I’d also really appreciate it if you’d hop over to my Google+ profile or my facebook page and give me a “like” and/or subscribe to receive my blog (just enter your email address up on the sidebar.)

We do want to keep it family-friendly, so I reserve the right to remove anything I consider offensive.

And one final rule, please visit AND comment on at least one other linked post if not more.

Happy linking and have a great week!

Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #80

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Tina Chen

Happy Thursday, everyone! I hope that you’ve had a good week this week. We’re doing well, plugging away at homeschooling, trying to get as much done as we can so that we can take whatever time off we need to when the baby comes in late February.

I challenged the kids to keep track of how many books they read for fun this year so they are writing their titles in a journal as they finish them. I was a little shocked today when my 10-year old told me she has passed 100 books already! Um, it’s January 15th, honey….

I’m totally impressed. I think I’ve read 4, maybe 5, which isn’t actually too shabby for this point in the year, but talk about being left in the dust!

And, lest you think all she does is read, she is doing a really rigorous school curriculum, plays outside for at least an hour a day, and helps me tons with the little ones and household chores so most of her fun reading time happens during our afternoon quiet time which is about an hour and a half and in the hour after the little ones go to bed before she does. This is one amazed mama!

How about you? Are you keeping track of your reading this year? Have you set any goals for how many books you want to accomplish? How are you doing so far?

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Why should you link up to Booknificent Thursdays?

Linking up to parties and leaving comments on other posts is a proven way to increase traffic to your blog and grow your blog’s followers! Here are a few rules and suggestions:

You can link up as many posts as you want.

Please grab the Booknificent Thursday button and share it somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, bottom, etc.) and please share about this party with any book-lovers you know.

I’d also really appreciate it if you’d hop over to my Google+ profile or my facebook page and give me a “like” and/or subscribe to receive my blog (just enter your email address up on the sidebar.)

We do want to keep it family-friendly, so I reserve the right to remove anything I consider offensive.

And one final rule, please visit AND comment on at least one other linked post if not more.

Happy linking and have a great week!

Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #79

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Tina Chen

Happy Booknificent Thursday, reading buddies! I hope all of you are doing well and enjoying whatever books you are reading. We decided to finally take our free month’s trial of Kindle Unlimited this month and we are loving it! How many of you have tried this service? What are your thoughts on it? I don’t know if we will continue with it, but it has been a real blessing this month while the international school library nearby has been closed over the holidays. My 10-year old has been averaging seven books a day so far in the new year (mostly Boxcar Children), so it would have more than paid for itself this month!

Looking forward to seeing what you are reading this week!

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Why should you link up to Booknificent Thursdays?

Linking up to parties and leaving comments on other posts is a proven way to increase traffic to your blog and grow your blog’s followers! Here are a few rules and suggestions:

You can link up as many posts as you want.

Please grab the Booknificent Thursday button and share it somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, bottom, etc.) and please share about this party with any book-lovers you know.

I’d also really appreciate it if you’d hop over to my Google+ profile or my facebook page and give me a “like” and/or subscribe to receive my blog (just enter your email address up on the sidebar.)

We do want to keep it family-friendly, so I reserve the right to remove anything I consider offensive.

And one final rule, please visit AND comment on at least one other linked post if not more.

Happy linking and have a great week!

Happy New Year! – Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #78

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Tina Chen

Happy New Year, Booknificent friends! A friend was sharing this weekend that when he was in school, there were always mini-calendars on the back of all their school notebooks and they always ended at the year 2000 so he sort of subconsciously thought he would end then too. He feels like he’s gotten a whole lot more years than he expected! I thought that was pretty funny.

I haven’t been terribly introspective this New Year’s, but I did pause to think about the books I enjoyed the most last year. For the most part, it seems I took the most pleasure in the next books of series I’m already into like Debbie Viguie’s Psalm 23 books, Shannon Hale’s Princess Academy, and Lois Lowry’s Giver books. My favorite new author discovery is hands-down Katherine Reay! I read Dear Mr. Knightley at least three times this year and wept my way through Lizzy and Jane when it came out. I read them both electronically and then went and bought the real books because I know I’ll reread them often and will want to loan them out all the time!

This was a good year in terms of Bible studies for me. I thoroughly enjoyed both the Lent and Advent devotionals put out by Providence Church in Austin, Texas, and in between those, I worked through several studies I stumbled on by Stephen Binz.

So how about you? Have you done a “best books of 2014″ post? If so, please link it below. Otherwise, just informally tell us in the comments what books stuck out for you from the past year.

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Why should you link up to Booknificent Thursdays?

Linking up to parties and leaving comments on other posts is a proven way to increase traffic to your blog and grow your blog’s followers! Here are a few rules and suggestions:

You can link up as many posts as you want.

Please grab the Booknificent Thursday button and share it somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, bottom, etc.) and please share about this party with any book-lovers you know.

I’d also really appreciate it if you’d hop over to my Google+ profile or my facebook page and give me a “like” and/or subscribe to receive my blog (just enter your email address up on the sidebar.)

We do want to keep it family-friendly, so I reserve the right to remove anything I consider offensive.

And one final rule, please visit AND comment on at least one other linked post if not more.

Happy linking and have a great week!

Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #77

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Tina Chen

Merry Christmas!!! I hope you have a wonderful, joy-filled day today whether you are spending it at home or abroad, and with family, friends, or alone. Many blessings to you!

Also, I’ll be posting about this later this week, but I wanted you to be the first ones to have access to my free 2015 Inspirational Superhero Quotes calendar! Just click below to download. If you want to share it on social media or pin it, please send people to this post for now to get their own copy. Thanks, and Merry Christmas!!!

2015 Calendar from Mommynificent

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Why should you link up to Booknificent Thursdays?

Linking up to parties and leaving comments on other posts is a proven way to increase traffic to your blog and grow your blog’s followers! Here are a few rules and suggestions:

You can link up as many posts as you want.

Please grab the Booknificent Thursday button and share it somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, bottom, etc.) and please share about this party with any book-lovers you know.

I’d also really appreciate it if you’d hop over to my Google+ profile or my facebook page and give me a “like” and/or subscribe to receive my blog (just enter your email address up on the sidebar.)

We do want to keep it family-friendly, so I reserve the right to remove anything I consider offensive.

And one final rule, please visit AND comment on at least one other linked post if not more.

Happy linking and have a great week!

Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #76

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Tina Chen

Hello friends! Can you believe it’s only one week until Christmas?

With both Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on Thursdays this year, I’ve debated whether or not to host Booknificent parties on those days. My husband finally convinced me to go ahead and post on those days, so we will be here if you want to come, but please don’t feel any pressure! If you want to take the next couple of weeks off, we’ll see you next year!

I’m hoping today will be full of gift suggestions for all you last minute shoppers out there! I can’t wait to see what you all have to share with us!

<div align="center"><a href="http://mommynificent.com/" title="Booknificent Thursdays"><img src="http://mommynificent.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Booknificent-Thursdays.jpg" alt="Booknificent Thursdays" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Why should you link up to Booknificent Thursdays?

Linking up to parties and leaving comments on other posts is a proven way to increase traffic to your blog and grow your blog’s followers! Here are a few rules and suggestions:

You can link up as many posts as you want.

Please grab the Booknificent Thursday button and share it somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, bottom, etc.) and please share about this party with any book-lovers you know.

I’d also really appreciate it if you’d hop over to my Google+ profile or my facebook page and give me a “like” and/or subscribe to receive my blog (just enter your email address up on the sidebar.)

We do want to keep it family-friendly, so I reserve the right to remove anything I consider offensive.

And one final rule, please visit AND comment on at least one other linked post if not more.

Happy linking and have a great week!

Board Books about Cars and Trucks for Little Ones

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Tina Chen

One of my friends recently asked on facebook, “Moms of little boys: what is your favorite board book about cars or trucks?” She has several girls and then had a little boy about a year and a half ago and suddenly realized that, even though he is happy to sit and read just about anything, there was really only one book in their house he got really excited about, The Little Blue Truck. So with Christmas on the way, she decided to get some recommendations from her friends.

Since we too have a pretty girly library, I was excited to follow this thread. After seeing a bunch of great recommendations, I asked permission to compile it into a post for others looking for this type of book. There were no objections, so here goes.

(Disclaimer: I have not read most of these books so I will not attempt to tell you anything about them. I will simply link to Amazon using my affiliate link so that if you have any vehicle-loving little ones in your life, you can check these out yourself, knowing that they are mom-approved by friends of my friend!)

There were also several non-board books mentioned repeatedly, so I thought I’d include those as well since they seem to be some serious favorites of several families. This first one in particular came up a number of times and will probably be my first purchase from this list.
 
And, my only contribution, which isn’t even a board book but is one I really love:

You can see my review of this favorite here.

I hope this compilation is helpful to you! I certainly appreciated all these moms’ great suggestions, especially since they are just in time for a few last minute Christmas gifts!

Are there any books you would add to this list?

Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #75

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Tina Chen

I must admit to being a bit flabbergasted this morning when I noticed that it is already December 11th. How did that happen?! This month is flying by!

We are decorating, reading lots of Christmas books, adding to our myriad of Advent calendars, and working on our Christmas memory work and having so much fun. I’m continually amazed at how much our kids love memorizing massive chunks of text and how much they remember from year to year. This year, all three girls, (even the four-year old!), have only needed a little brush-up so far of Luke 1:1-4; 26-33; 38; and Luke 2:1-16. I’m glad of this because in the past years, we’ve spent a lot of time on these and sort of run out of steam for the last bit from Luke 2:17-21 and Matthew 2:1-12 so this year, I’m hoping we can really learn those well.

If you’re interested in how we do our memory work, check out this post from two years ago. We enjoy acting out the story with our Little People Nativity Set, and we’ve recently discovered it’s also fun to draw stick figures of the story as we tell it. You can find out more about that in my latest post on Desperate Homeschoolers about Grapevine Studies which includes a giveaway of the Birth of Jesus study! I’m linking it up below.

How is your Advent/countdown to Christmas going? Do you feel ready? An older friend recently shared with me that her favorite memories of Christmases past always include just sitting in the dark next to her Christmas tree doing absolutely nothing, just enjoying the peace and beauty. I am challenged to make sure I am doing enough of nothing this Christmas season!

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Why should you link up to Booknificent Thursdays?

Linking up to parties and leaving comments on other posts is a proven way to increase traffic to your blog and grow your blog’s followers! Here are a few rules and suggestions:

You can link up as many posts as you want.

Please grab the Booknificent Thursday button and share it somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, bottom, etc.) and please share about this party with any book-lovers you know.

I’d also really appreciate it if you’d hop over to my Google+ profile or my facebook page and give me a “like” and/or subscribe to receive my blog (just enter your email address up on the sidebar.)

We do want to keep it family-friendly, so I reserve the right to remove anything I consider offensive.

And one final rule, please visit AND comment on at least one other linked post if not more.

Happy linking and have a great week!

Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #74

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Tina Chen

Hello to my favorite book lovers! I hope you’ve all had a fantastic week! We are well into our Advent celebrations, which along with the Lenten season, are my favorite times of the year. It is so fun to see how the kids’ understanding deepens each year as we go over the same things together in new and old ways!

I’m very interested to hear what your favorite Christmas books are this year as I’m always looking for fresh ideas to share with my little ones at Christmas! I’m linking up our favorite 25 Christmas and Advent books below. Can’t wait to see what you have to share this week!

<div align="center"><a href="http://mommynificent.com/" title="Booknificent Thursdays"><img src="http://mommynificent.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Booknificent-Thursdays.jpg" alt="Booknificent Thursdays" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Why should you link up to Booknificent Thursdays?

Linking up to parties and leaving comments on other posts is a proven way to increase traffic to your blog and grow your blog’s followers! Here are a few rules and suggestions:

You can link up as many posts as you want.

Please grab the Booknificent Thursday button and share it somewhere on your blog (sidebar, post, bottom, etc.) and please share about this party with any book-lovers you know.

I’d also really appreciate it if you’d hop over to my Google+ profile or my facebook page and give me a “like” and/or subscribe to receive my blog (just enter your email address up on the sidebar.)

We do want to keep it family-friendly, so I reserve the right to remove anything I consider offensive.

And one final rule, please visit AND comment on at least one other linked post if not more.

Happy linking and have a great week!