Wait, what? Two giveaways in a row? Yes! I knew when I reviewed this book that I wanted to give one away because it is that good for helping families. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Want to know who won? Look here!
My hope is that anyone who visits this blog realizes how much I love being a mother and how important my family is to me. I believe families really are the building blocks for society! I take my role as a mother very seriously. Now that some of my children are old enough for college and marriage I am taking a hard look at what I’ve done right, what I’ve done wrong, and what I need to improve. Am I teaching them moral values that will guide them throughout the rest of their lives? Am I helping them develop good habits?
Most of the time this teaching is done here and there throughout the day as part of regular life but it’s also good to have actual lessons where we can discuss, ask and answer questions, and learn from one another. Weekly family home evenings has been one way we do this. Another is through short daily devotionals usually before school. Ah, this is where 52 Weeks to Fortify Your Family
On the cover you can see it says 5 minute messages. The short devotionals really are only 5 minutes or less! The book is divided into four sections: values, life lessons, gospel lessons, and holidays. Each section is further divided into weeks where you study one topic for the entire week like humility, courage, service, trials and adversity, forgiveness, testimony, and faith. For each day of the week there are scriptures to read from the Bible, Book of Mormon, or Doctrine and Covenants (yes this is geared towards Mormons). There is a General Conference talk suggestion as well as questions to ask during your discussions for the week. You can skip around and choose whatever value or topic your family needs to focus on. The table of contents has handy squares before each topic so you can check them off and keep track of what you have already covered.
I like the way the book is divided into topics. It is so easy to pull it out and start right away on the devotional without any prep work. I also appreciate that the messages are short. You can do them around the dinner table while you are eating, in the car on the way to school or right before prayers at bedtime. The shortness of the messages doesn’t detract from the power behind them. The main focus of each message is a scripture passage.
It would be nice to have questions for a wider range of ages. Some families are like mine with children running the gamut of ages from toddler to teen. Others only have littles while still others just teens. Having questions or discussion prompts for varying ages would be very helpful.
Would you like to win a copy of 52 Weeks to Fortify Your Family
You can buy the book on Amazon
About the Author
NICOLE CARPENTER is an advocate for strong families. She believes in focusing first on strengthening mothers so they can fortify their children. Nicole is a mom mentor, speaker and founder of MOMentity.com, a blog and online community for mothers, reaching out to moms in over seven different countries. She is the creator of the Define Your Time™ time-management e-course and the Mothers of Magnitude Academy. Nicole’s parenting column publishes regularly on KSL.com and has been syndicated in several other online news sources. 52 Weeks to Fortify Your Family: 5-minute Messages is her first book.
Nicole graduated with a B.A. degree in Public Relations from Weber State University, where she also met her husband, Marty. They reside in Syracuse, Utah and are raising four incredible children, including a set of identical twins. And to make it all happen, she may or may not rely on Diet Dr Pepper and chocolate-covered toffee hidden in the fridge.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of 52 Weeks to Fortify Your Family to review. All opinions are my own.
The favorite activity we like to do as a family is going to the park and walking.
We love to put on our mommy-made capes, out on the Christopher Reeves Superman theme music, and play cape chase.
I meant turn on the music. 🙂
One of our most favorite thing to do as a family is go on bike rides.
We were gifted a membership to our local zoo last Christmas, so our favorite family activity is visiting the zoo.
Visiting Grandpa’s old house! It’s our vacation place.
Our favorite activity as a family is to spend time in the outdoors. We love nature. We love to hike and camp and fish.
We love to take small trips as a family to the beach, science center, or just to explore a new part of L.A.
We do many activities as a family everyday, my job as a mother is to raise responsible, compassionate, hard working adults. Who love The Lord and their country while making happy memories a long the way. This week we are going to comic con as hobbits and elves!
We have a family game/movie night every Friday. My kids look forward to it all week.
Our favorite is going to Grandma’s each week.
Our favorite activity is tickle fights in our bedroom -all of us against my husband. Or building with legos. Or watching movies. Or reading together. Or traveling to see cousins. I guess we don’t have a favorite activity!
We love trainrides around switzerland and hiking wherever we leave the train. For the boys hiking with a picnic at a fireplace is essential. If there’s an old castle to check out nearby: even better!
We all cook for a homeless shelter once or twice a month.
We love playing games as a family whether it’s just a few or all of us.
We love playing board games or the Wii together!
Hmm, so many we like. I would say playing board games or having movie night.
We just love hanging out! Wrestling daddy, hiking and camping, talking and laughing.
We love visiting friends. Honestly our house is always busy, and it’s my responsibility to keep the joyful spirit in it!!
Yeah all fun! The older youth wouldn’t wake up, just now, so dad poured a little water on them!!!
Oh, how to pick a favorite family activity?? That is hard we have so many things we enjoy. But, I guess my favorite is camping together and sitting out with the campfire late at night singing, talking and telling stories. Such sweet memories.
We are pretty inseparable, we do everything together, it would be hard to list our favorite thing. Some of the things we enjoy are “dance parties” to music, putting together puzzles, and building with our Legos!!!!
We love to play games as a family. We usually get a couple new ones each Christmas. Our favorite this year, by far, has been Qwirkle.
We love playing board games together. Hopefully we’ll get some warmer weather soon and start hiking together.
We like to go on walks and sing.
We like to all crowd in Mommy and Daddy’s room at night and read a good book together.
Camping and all holiday traditions! 🙂
I love camping with my family! It is so fun. I love being outside with them. This past year we were only able to go once, and that was on Halloween. It was so much better than trick-or-treating. It was cold, but so worth it!
We like to go for walks and we read together. We’re reading The Chronicles of Narnia right now. So much fun!
Some of our best family memories are when we just take a few minutes and all gather together and talk about what has been going on.
Our favorite family activities are usually outside. Archery, BB shooting, hiking, and camping. The kids don’t get much screen time so they really love family movie night when we pull down the big screen and have treats as well.
We enjoy doing many things together…playing board or card games, watching movies, cooking.
One of our favourite things to do as a family is to play board games
My 6 children just love to get together, eat and play games. They love a game of basketball, volleyball, etc…physical ones. But most of our time together is working together on our small farm.
We love to pile on the bed and wrestle Dad.
We love to read together! We all love books. We also like to watch movies and play board/card games.
We love movie night and playing games together. When it’s nicer we like to spend time at the cabin and fish.
We love to go to the pond as a family and feed the ducks.
We love to snuggle on the couch and read books together- definitely one of our favorite parts of the day!
Our family likes to shake our booties to all kinds of music!