Book and Product Reviews

Five Ways To Optimize Your Christmas Budget
A lot of us are watching the budget very carefully this year. What heartless elf put open enrollment for health insurance right before the holiday season? (If it's giving you pain, check out what we did.) And rich or poor, if you have a large family (like ours) you naturally look for ways to make…
When You Find That on Your Husband’s Phone
It's the conference season, so we're all over the place speaking and talking to people. It's an honor to hear their stories and to be invited into their lives. It's also heartbreaking, sometimes. We think the hardest part is talking to those whose marriages are in trouble. The grief is palpable. They look broken, injured,…
Not Just Tacos – Wow!
  A few months ago, our friend Shirley Solis gave us a copy of her new book, Not Just Tacos: A Journey into the World of Authentic Latin American Cuisine. I have pretty high standards for cookbooks. We have many of them, but just a few that we go to again and again: The Joy of…
Can We Get Your Vote for
My Beloved and My Friend?
Our book on marriage, My Beloved and My Friend: How To Be Married To Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses, is in the running for the Christian Small Publishers "Book of the Year" Award. This award is based on votes from publishers, booksellers, readers - anyone interested in promoting books from independent Christian publishers - and…
We Tried Samaritan Ministries…
The changeover to Obamacare was a tough one for us. Insurance through our small business became impossibly expensive – three times the cost of our mortgage! We checked into alternatives at the Marketplace, but we fell in the gap and healthcare there was impossibly expensive, too. With trepidation, we decided to try one of the Christian healthcare…
A Review: Character Badges
I was so excited to see that Caroline Allen's new Character Badges curriculum was a part of the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle! I've heard Caroline talking about it and I've been wanting to take a look at it. (more…)
Teaching Languages
This weekend we were at the HINTS Conference in Charlotte and I happened to have the most interesting conversation with Caryn Hommel of Excelerate Language. I thought I'd come back over and interview her so you guys could hear from her, too. Hi Caryn, tell me again why you believe the way most language programs work…
Preschool and Thirty-Three Classic Picture Books
This series of articles is in response to the question, "What curriculum do you use?" which we're freqently asked. Read the first in the series here. Don't miss the freebie at the bottom of the post! Preschool is a time when you can really hardly fail. You have years and years and years to make up for…
Character-Building Books for Boys
Someone just recently asked on our Facebook page: Do you have a list of book recommendations for building character and vocabulary? My son reads about 200 to 300 pages a day and I cannot keep up with the previewing. We had the same question when our oldest boys were younger. They could race through books…
Book Review: An Early Job Lesson — Do It
One of the biggest lessons I learned on the job, first in the military and then working in industry, is that sometimes you have to make a decision and move on. It’s impossible to know everything about a situation or decision, and you can’t know the future, so do what you can to make a…