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Gift Guide Pick

Probably the most captivating thing about the Egyptian culture was their tombs and their mummies.  When studying ancient civilizations, there never seems to be a problem with kids focusing their attention when mummies are involved!

Mummy Mazes: A Monumental Book by Elizabeth Carpenter, ($11.95, Workman Publishing) has kids joining Professor Archie Ologist as he leads them from the Colossi of Memnon into the heart of long-lost tombs, from the Great Pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx, to Egyptian constellations and the Door to Forever.

Gift Guide Pick

Zazzle has to be one of the most awesome ways to get a gift for the hardest person to buy for on your list.  An online customized gift creation platform that boasts over 31 *billion* unique products!  There has got to be one thing they like on Zazzle.com, and if you still can’t find something, well you have the option to make something!  It’s a perfect way to let someone know you ‘get’ what they’re all about.

Zazzle offered to hook me up with something for my Christmas Gift Guide, and so I was perusing the many, many offerings they have on their site, from aprons and shoes to binders and skateboards, and then I stumbled across this design… the Star Wars Holiday Death Star.

Gift Guide Pick

Mix Pups™ is a brand new line of poseable, collectible, pocket-sized puppies that girls can mix ‘n’ match to make their very own designer pups!

Christmas came a bit early to our house this year!  The star of the beginning of the season?  Mix Pups™.  I even had some fun playing with them.  They are perfect for the 5 to 6 year old girls, they will have a blast with them!

Gift Guide Pick

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today’s Wild Card author is:

and the book:
 
The Black Madonna

Dark and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Ginger

The addition of crystallized ginger gives these chocolate chip cookies a surprising kick.  Crystallized ginger can be found in the spice section or the Asian foods section of most supermarkets.  Makes about 2 dozen.

I write the Switched-On Schoolhouse Series twice a month to share our family’s experience using this software based curriculum in our home.

Some students get overwhelmed when they see a large assignment on the pages before them.  When Amber sees the study guides in her Geography and Chemistry texts, she often gets discouraged because the vocabulary and questions cover two or three pages.  She plods along slowly and by the end of the assignment she has lost whatever initial interest she may have had in doing a good job of answering the questions.

I have been wanting a bread machine for many years.  I’ve drooled over the goodies my family and friends make with theirs.

Fresh baked bread just tastes so good, but I don’t have the patience (or the desire really) to mix it, knead it and shape it from scratch.  So using a bread machine has made it simplistic, to make and try breads of different flavors at home.  Plus, this way I also know what’s going into my bread. 

We used to eat white bread all the time in our home.  With more attention being given to whole grains in the marketplace though, and reading many articles about it, I knew that we needed to started replacing our white bread with whole wheat bread.  I made the switch gradually, starting with whole grain white, and shifting over to whole wheat after a few months, now we eat whole wheat bread almost exclusively.

I recently procured a bread machine, and the first loaf of bread I made it in it was a Whole Wheat Honey Bread made from Tropical Traditions Organic Stone-Ground Whole Wheat Flour.

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today’s Wild Card author is:

and the book:
 
The God Hater

Most little girls want a Princess Party one year for their birthday (mine being the exception!), and there are plenty of licensed goods that you can get to have a party like that.  But if you’re wanting to host a party that all the children, especially yours will remember, you need to get the Princess Party Cookbook by Annabel Karmel.  With over 100 recipes and ideas, that all girls (even if they’re tomboys!) will enjoy – from appetizers to desserts, invitations to table settings, Princess Parties of all kinds are laid out page by page with lots of pictures to help you out!