Book Review-This Is Your Brain In Love by Dr. Earl Henslin

I chose this book because I thought that it looked rather interesting.  The author is a Christian therapist that uses brain images to help his clients out with their problems. In the book he describes many different types of "lovers" such as: the scattered lover, the overfocused lover, the blue mood lover, etc.  Each of these different lovers have different ways of responding to their partners so this book just goes through and talks about each one and discusses different things you can do to help your partner. The book ends with a chapter called the secret to lasting love.  I think the chapter kind of steps away a little bit from all the technical stuff and talks about how God made marriage and that even if you or your spouse has one of the different things going on in the previous chapters that there is hope for you to still have a good marriage.  I found the information fascinating and easy to read.  The medical terminology in the book is easy to read and understand.

Because this book is so great I am going to be doing a giveaway! If you are interested in participating just leave me a comment and I will pick a random winner this weekend. Make sure you include your email so I know where to contact you. 

Ciao,
Sarah L.

**I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher as part of their blogger review program. The opinions expressed here are solely mine.*** 

Becoming A Woman of Faith-Book Review

This is an eleven week study by Cynthia Heald.  I really enjoyed my eleven week study with this book.  The book starts out by teaching us how God is faithful. Cynthia uses a lot of scripture to show us how God is faithful.  I was able to go through each chapter a little each day and meditate on the scriptures that she has you look up.  This is something that can be done in one sitting if you have about half an hour to an hour.  I felt very refreshed and closer to God at the end of the eleven weeks and I am looking forward to getting some of her other eleven week studies.

I also received a copy of Becoming A Woman of Simplicity to review and I will post that in the next month or so.  It is another one of Cynthia's eleven week study books.  I definitely recommend this book to anyone who needs a little pick me up like I did.

Ciao,
Sarah

**I recieved this book for free from NavPress as part of their Blogger Review Program.  I was not required to write a positive review.  The opinions I have expressed are my own.***

February Update

Where is this year disappearing too?  I have been very busy lately which is why I haven't gotten around to posting any updates.  This year I have been busy working on college courses, working out, and keeping up with the house and family.  Next Saturday my friends Aleisha, Catharine, and I are going to be running a 5K.  If Brian takes some pictures for me I will post them on here for all to see.  So far this week I have ran on the track a total of six laps, this is about a mile and a half.  On the treadmill I am running about two and a half miles, which takes me about thirty minutes.  I feel much better since I have started working out.  After having kids and Brian's deployments, I just kind of let myself go because I was concentrating on trying to survive this military life.  

This past Saturday we celebrated Zachary's sixth birthday! I cannot believe how the time has flown by.  I am excited because he learning so much about life and school and you can see the light bulb just go off when he really gets something.  We are working on teaching him to tie his shoes.  He gets confused still, but in time he will get it.  He is half-way through his first year of kindergarten and I am glad that we made the choice to send him to the DODEA school here.  I know a lot of people believe that homeschooling is the best option for children, and while I agree, I must say that he is better off going to school.  Zachary also had a little bit of excitement this past week...he lost his first tooth and the one next to it is now loose! I will try and upload a picture of his missing tooth.

Zoe will be five in three weeks.  We will be celebrating her birthday the second weekend of April because her birthday happens to be Easter this year.  She is excited about going to Kindergarten next year.  I must say it is hard to send my children off to school but I feel much better about sending them to school here than in the states.  I am not sure what we will do when we move back stateside.  If we go back to Georgia than I know where I would like for them to go to school.  This summer I will be working with Zoe on writing her name and the beginning of reading.  I missed out this with Zachary last year because of doing daycare, so this year I will not miss out on teaching her to read.

Zaylee just had a birthday in December; she is now three!  Brian and I have talked over the possiblity of getting my tubes untied, but for now we are just going to enjoy the thee children we have.  It is hard enough to be a spouse of a military man, but add children into that mix and it can be crazy.  A year of parenting alone is quite a challenge.  God Bless the mothers who do it with more than three children!  Anyways, back to Zaylee.  The big news with her is that she is potty training! She only had two accidents today and I am very proud of her.  She wants really hard to fit in with the older kids, so I am sure that is her motivation for wearing big girl panties like her sister.  I cannot wait to be done with diapers.  For the last six years I have had at least one child in diapers.  I am excited about starting the next phase of life with my kiddos.

Brian and I are both doing great! Busy as can be though.  He has been working very hard.  He's been going places for a few weeks here and there for the last few months.  He may be leaving us at the end of this year for a little bit, but we are not sure of the details just yet.  I will not be able to post about it but I will keep you informed on how the kids and I are doing.  I may try and take a month long vacation to the states around Christmas time.  This time it will be just the kids and I so it will not matter how much the plane gets delayed.  My mom and aunt are suppose to be coming to visit in June till the beginning of July.  I am always excited to have visitors!  That is it from our little corner of the world.  I hope all are well!

The Lownsbery Family

I'm Back!

It seems like ages since I have blogged. I have been very busy with the kids, college, traveling, and Brian's crazy schedule. I am hoping to get back to blogging more and in the next few days I will put up some new pictures of our family. I also signed up to do book reviews and will be posting on two books very soon!

Sarah Lownsbery

Where has the time gone?.....

It has been two months since I have written anything on this blog, and for that I am very sorry. Since my last posting a lot of things have happened.

Brian and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary shortly after my last post. We had a great dinner for two at home while the kids went to the neighbors for the night. It has definitely been a journey for us, I think mainly because we are a military couple. Brian has been home only about three of the six years we have been married. For civilian couples, they think wow he's been gone a lot, but for other military families we are blessed. I am blessed for the time that we get to spend with each other, and I know that a lot of times I take it for granted but then something happens, and it snaps my perspective back into place. I pray that God will give us many more years together.

Another big event was Zachary's first day of school! I cannot believe my oldest is in school now. He has spent the last five years under my love and care and now I have released him into the care of his kindergarten teacher. He loves her and I am glad for that because I had toyed with the thought of homeschooling. He is now copying words onto paper and he is so proud of himself for the accomplishment. His teacher is laying the foundation for the kids to learn how to read. So far, they have learned how to read to self, sitting quietly; how to read to others, reading aloud; and how to read with pictures. He has memorized some simple books like: twinkle, twinkle little star and little boy blue.

At the end of August, Brian left for a month long training mission. He missed Zachary's first day of school, and I was so busy with life that I didn't get any pictures :( Brian did get to talk to Zachary on the phone that morning, so he was happy. He has now safely made it back and is at a class for this week.

The girls and I are doing well. Zoe, Zaylee, and I are doing a little preschooling at home this year with my friend Aleisha and her little boy. We have been having fun and the girls enjoy doing crafts and hanging out with kylar their little boyfriend :) I must add a little story here real quick. When Aleisha and I hang out Kylar is the only boy with my two girls (usually the older boys are at school), one of the first times we got together he told his dad hurry I need to go my girls are waiting for me! He is so precious! So there you have it, we have fun doing homeschool with the young kids. Zaylee has also become a big girl and FINALLY given up the pacifier. I thought it would never happen, but it did and I am grateful!

I will end this hear and try to get back to a normal blogging routine if time permits.

I hope you enjoy the pictures too!

A little update....

I hope that everyone has been enjoying their summer! Ours is drawing to an end. I have have had three daycare kids this summer so it has been eventful and lively around here. Zachary starts kindergarten in about three weeks and let me tell you I don't know where the time has gone! We are putting him in the dodea school here because he really enjoyed sure start and wanted to move up with his friends. I am praying that he has a good teacher and I have also been praying for good classmates. There were some kids last year who you could label the trouble maker but Zachary is so good he wasn't affected too much by their behavior. I am praying that this year we won't have any incidents. I have enrolled Zoe into the sure start program but it is like head start in the states and we are considered the higher ranking for this so if there aren't many E4's and E5's then she will get a spot. I really loved the teacher last year Miss Flake and I am praying that if she does get a spot that Miss Flake will be her teacher also. The good thing about doing daycare is I also got to know the other sure start teacher and would feel comfortable if she had her also. Zaylee will be home with me this year working through the hooked on phonics preschool books and games. Basically she'll learn a different letter each week and hopefully by the end of this school year she'll be able to look at a letter and identify it. As of October 1st I won't have anymore daycare kids. It was a tough decision because financially we could have used the extra money but I am just plain ol burnt out from it. Plus I would like to be able to take Zaylee off base in the middle of the week to do some sight seeing if I so choose to. I can't drive the kids anywhere here so I am pretty much stuck at the house or the park here on the support site. Brian will be leaving at the end of this month for an exercise. He should only be gone a month. Not this year coming up but next year he'll be up for his E7 so that is pretty exciting! Big news for us is that we celebrate our 6th anniversary this month on the 21st! He'll be here for it so I am hoping to get a babysitter so we can at least grab some dinner and a movie. We definitely don't get enough alone time with the kids around. I hope that my usual sitter gets back from the states soon so that way we can plan a weekly date night. How was everyone else's summer?

Ciao!!!

Groovy Baby!

Yesterday the kids tie dyed some shirts and I got a few pictures of them working on them and then of course the finished products. They had fun and the shirts turned out really cute. How is everyone else doing?