Book Review: Sisters of the Quilt Trilogy by Cindy Woodsmall

Book Details:
Title: Sisters of the Quilt The Complete Trilogy
Author: Cindy Woodsmall
2010, Waterbrook Press
ISBN: 978-0-307-72995-8
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Christian Fiction

Book Summaries:
When the Heart Cries
Her life among her Old Order Amish community brutally interrupted, seventeen-year-old Hannah Lapp faces questions neither family, nor fiance, nor even faith can easily answer.
When the Morning Comes
Rejected by those she loves, Hannah Lapp leaves her Amish community and seeks refuge in the world outside, leaving her family and friends to wrestle with the painful truths that emerge in the wake of her disappearance. As she struggles to find her place in the confusing Englischer world, her community deals with the turbulent aftermath of her departure.
When the Soul Mends
Hoping to help her sister, Hannah Lapp reluctantly returns to the Old Order Amish community she fled in disgrace more than two years earlier. When hidden truths are revealed about her former fiance, she must choose whether to return to the Plain life or to the Englischer man who adores her in this captivating conclusion to the Sisters of the Quilt series.

My Review:
This was a wonderful series if you love Amish fiction. I have to admit that when I first started reading the series, I was not too impressed. I was not sure I liked the direction the story was moving... everything seemed to be too upsetting and I wasn't sure I like the extreme rigidness of Hannah's Old Order community. I had to set the book aside for awhile and come back to it.
After I got back into the story though, I could barely put it down! The night I decided to pick it up again, I ended up finishing the last two-thirds of the first book at 1:00am and forcing myself to go to bed!

I'm not going to go into details about each book in the series, since this is a review on the Trilogy as a whole, that's how I'm going to approach this review. I loved all the characters. Cindy Woodsmall did an excellent job of bringing in secondary story lines to this series. Hannah's has a sister, a brother and a couple close friends who's stories we follow throughout the series that really add to the series. Hannah's love interests also each have a voice.

Following Hannah's journey from devastation to healing is a long, slow process - along with her decisions whether to live the Plain life she's grew up in or embrace the life of the Englischers. I felt that many of the decisions, Hannah's or other characters, were very true to life. And that their reactions and way of dealing with situations were intelligent, but also true to human nature.

If you love Amish fiction, you should definitely find a copy of this series. I loved having the whole Trilogy in one book - not having to find the 2nd or 3rd book in the series to begin it was wonderful. My only complaint is that it is a very heavy, cumbersome book and hard to drag around like I normally do.

Thanks to Waterbrook Press for the opportunity to review this book.

Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers for my honest review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are mine.

Project Pinterest #4

I haven't posted a Project Pinterest in awhile. I've been a little too busy to get to these projects, but I DID have a fun Craft Night at my house a week ago and make sure I made up some yummy treats pulled from my Pinterest  board! =)

Source: thibeaultstable.com via Elsie on Pinterest

Best Oatmeal Cookies - I would not say these were the best. I thought they were too flat. I like a more chunky cookie personally. But they tasted good.

Source: lickthebowlgood.blogspot.com via Elsie on Pinterest

Fresh Apple Cake w/ Brown Sugar Glaze - this one was a winner, I thought. Very easy and yummy. I think I cooked the glaze a little too long though because it was too hard on top of the cake when it cooled. I guess I'll have to try again! =)

Also... my husband has been asking for Lemon Bars for quite awhile now, so I surprised him the other day by just making some out of the blue and leaving them on the counter for when he came home from work. (good wife, right!?)

Source: bakingbites.com via Elsie on Pinterest

Perfect Lemon Bars - another winner. Easy and came out... perfect. Yum!

Let's not dwell too much on the fact that these are all sugary, fattening, yummy foods ookay? =) Maybe next time I'll have some actual projects finished.

Mommy School Catch Up

Well, for the past month and a half we have been working on the same Mommy School unit "W is for Winter".

With moving and all my extra working I've been doing this month, we really needed some extra time to do some of the activities. I still feel like we could have done a lot more though! I wish I'd had a little more time. =)

I think I'm about to wrap it up at the end of the month though.

So far we've read:

Favorites:

These four that I've already blogged about...

-Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft

-Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

-The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

-Hello Snow! by Hope Vestergaard

Curious George in the Snow by H.A. Rey

Duds:

All You Need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle

The Biggest, Best Snowman by Margery Cuyler

Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan Londan

• As always, we enjoy all the Songs and Fingerplays provided with the unit, such as Ring Around the Snowman. =)
• After our snowstorm, we went on a Winter Walk and talked about the difference between now and summertime.
• We used the Mitten ABC page to go over different numbers. He's too little to really identify the number of mittens in each square, but he loved talking about them.
• Snowman Sequence - we used the 4 sequencing cards to try to place what happened to the snowman in order. This was a new concept and I think he kinda got it.
• Snowman names - We created a snowman by spelling out his name! I did a lot of the work for this one, but he glued it all together! He was so proud! Then we drew around our hands on construction paper and decorated our paper mittens.

We also did some color matching with different colored snowflakes and assembled a mitten puzzle.

Well, that's about it. I'm thinking we will probably just repeat these for the rest of the month and then I have to decide on a unit for March which is looking to be equally busy .

Friends

My Little Guy has become friends with a little girl at our church.

I watch her some Wednesday's when her mom works. She is quite a bit younger than he is, he's almost three and she's not yet two, but that doesn't seem to matter. She's pretty tough and can keep up with him for the most part. 

They are so cute together!

Here are some pictures from when we took them to a local park on a sunny day about a week ago.

These are all taken with my phone, so they probably aren't the best quality.

This last picture is my favorite, although I was completely freaked out that she was going to fall into the lake because she stuck her head through the rails and leaned way over! Glad her mom was there to supervise. haha.

The best part of this picture is their little muddy bottoms! Although the day is sunny, it had been raining and the park was pretty soggy... obviously they had a few falls.

I love that he has some little friends and watching them interact. They are so free with their affections and friendship.

Fun Winter-time Books

We have been having fun with some new library books lately.

It is fun to watch my Little Guy become more and more excited about particular books as he's gotten older. AND fun to see him actually "get" little funny parts or sad parts.

Some books we are enjoying right now come off of our "W is for Winter" reading list. We haven't done many of the activities, since we've been busy moving. But we DID get a bunch of books from the book list.

Favorites:

Hello Snow! by Hope Vestergaard

This is a very cute and funny book about a little girl who wakes up and spends the day playing in the snow with her daddy. Some of those funny parts that the Little Guy loves are in this book.

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

This one is a classic, but for good reason. The Little Guy loves it.

Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft

Explains how animals get ready for and survive winter-time. Kind of a hard concept, I think, but it has lots of animals in it.

Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

This one is one of my favorites (and his too!) Bear is hibernating in his cave, when a bunch of other animals come in and have a party right under his nose!

Other:

These books were not on our favorite list for one reason or another. We read them once and then they went back to the library.

All You Need for A Snowman by Alice Schertle

The Biggest, Best Snowman by Margery Cuyler

Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London

Baby Showers and Baby Hats

It seems that just about everyone I know is pregnant at the moment.

I honestly know about 6 people who are all due between the months of June and August.

At first this kind of annoyed me, but then I started thinking about how last time I was pregnant, no one else was and so my Little Guy doesn't have too many friends his age who are also MY friends. So I decided maybe it was more fun this way. =)

Anyway... tomorrow I am attending the first of what's bound to be a long succession of baby showers over the next several months. I hunted down my Newborn Baby Hat pattern and used my $5 of $5 or more coupon from Michael's to purchase two skeins of yarn - one in blue/brown and the other in pink/brown. I'm getting prepared, you see?

Here is the first one:

I was told by a friend of mine, who received one of these hats for her first baby, that it was her favorite for her newborn. I was happy to see it on her second one, as well!

So my plan is to start making these up so I'm prepared for the future!

Then maybe I can personalize some burp cloths or something to add to it when the time comes. 

It's A....

BOY!

We are very excited to announce another boy joining our household.

I am looking forward to having two little boys who are hopefully good friends. =)