Moms Of Faith

Mom of Faith has been honored with a couple more awards, this time given to me by the most awesome Dawn from Painter Mommy.

Now, as always, receiving a blog award means there are some rules to follow! The rules for the first blog award are; list 6 things that make you happy.

1. Listening to KG read out loud.
2. Reading to KG’s Kindergarten class.
3. Watching Life on Wednesday night (it’s awesome)
4. Making home improvements on our new house
5. Reading anything
6. Silence

The rules for the second blog award are to list 10 honest things about you.

1. If I don’t have to leave my house I usually wear my pajamas all day long.
2. I’m going to be 27 in April.
3. I spend way too much time on the computer, seriously. WAY too much time!
4. I am addicted to chocolate and McDonald’s French Fries.
5. I am a reformed drug user. Don’t judge me. I’m being honest.
6. I enjoy giving others encouragement. When I make someone else feel good, I feel good.
7. I am trying to get involved with Missions.
8. My natural hair color used to be blond, now it’s brown.
9. I was considered a FREAK in high school and didn’t much care for people.
10. My house is always a wreck after the weekend and it takes me til Wednesday to get it semi-clean.

Now, I have to return the favor and choose 6 blogs to pass these awards on to. Here are a few of my favs that I enjoy reading on a daily basis.

Though intended for the young adult genre, Meeting Lizzy is a poignant read for people of all ages.  Impeccably written, Meeting Lizzy tells the tale of two misunderstood and lonely teenagers thrown together in one on life’s most cruel circumstances.  Dating violence. As the mother of two young girls who will someday (a long time from now I hope) be dating this book is especially eye opening. I urge you to read this with your daughters, nieces, sisters, and friends. Share this book with everyone, the story is not a unique one…which is the scary part.

Meeting Lizzy tells the story of Cy and Eliza, two teenagers from seemingly different worlds. Eliza is ultra popular, smart, beautiful, and dating the star football player; while Cy is a freak, doesn’t apply himself (though intelligent), and a loner by choice. Both are missing the love of their mothers and their fathers are not around nearly enough. By chance and horrible circumstance they meet and both of their lives are forever changed.

One evening while watching a tv police drama, Cy is sure he hears a terrible noise coming from upstairs and goes to investigate.  He knocks on the door on the upstairs apartment to find “Beef Man” standing behind the door and a young girl laying motionless on the floor.  What follows is Cy and Eliza’s versions of a story with heart-wrenching detail.  Cy struggles to help Eliza escape from the massive abuse she receives from her boyfriend while struggling with his own identity; Eliza struggles with the fear and pain caused by the abuse, trying to break free from the cycle, and being pulled back in by a boyfriend who contributes not only physical abuse, but also psychological.

Follow along with Cy and Eliza as they struggle with their own personal demons and some real life demons too. SaraBeth Carter meets the challenge of correctly depicting the gross abuse in enough detail to be believable and drives home the importance of talking to your children about abuse. I would recommend this well-written book to everyone and plan to read it with my daughters in a few years. If you know a librarian or are one yourself, be sure Meeting Lizzy is in the library. This book could save a young woman’s life.

Read the teaser 1st Chapter of Meeting Lizzy here.

Larry John Wright Publishing has graciously offered to give away a copy of Meeting Lizzy to one reader here on Mom of Faith.  The giveaway starts today and will run until February 14. A winner will be chosen at 10 pm, Saturday, February 14.

In order to enter:

*Send five (5) of your closest friends the link to the sneek peek for Meeting Lizzy and CC amanda(at)momoffaith(dot)com

Gain Extra Entries:

*Sign up for email delivery of Mom of Faith

*Tweet this giveaway

*Blog about this giveaway, more than just a sentence and a link is required.

Good luck!

Photos courtesy of Sara Beth Carter.

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Our family eats breakfast for dinner every Thursday and the girls eat pancakes at least twice or three times a week for breakfast. We go through A LOT of pancake syrup on a monthly basis, so feeding my girls the highest quality pancake syrup is important.  So when Coombs Family Farms contacted me about trying their USDA Organic Maple Syrup I jumped at the chance. I love maple syrup. I eat maple syrup on bacon, sausage, pancakes, even chicken fingers. I am always interested in higher grade and healthier foods to feed my family, so I was very interested in trying out their syrup.

“Coombs Family Farms is a seventh generation small family maple farm that works with other small independent family farmers who share our commitment to quality, environmental stewardship, and sustainable forestry.” Coombs Family Farms uses tree-friendly spouts to to tap their trees. “A typical tree will be more than 10 inches in diameter and have one or two taps.  “Coombs Family Farms uses Energy saving reverse osmosis evaporators that reduce carbon emissions. In fact, by using this reverse osmosis process, we reduce our syrup-making energy consumption by 75%! As the water is boiled off, the liquid becomes sweeter (more concentrated), and begins to move towards the front of the pan. This is where we see the boiling sap turn golden. We frequently check the temperature of the boiling liquid. When it reaches 7.50F degrees above water’s boiling point, it has become maple syrup. What was 98% water and 2% sugar is now 33% water and 67% sugar.” It is then filtered and packaged. That’s it. There are added preservatives, thickeners, or artificial flavors added to their syrup, just straight out of the maple tree maple syrup. There are no pesticides used in or on the farm. That’s the best you can offer your family.

Now let’s get down to the taste, as this is the most important part of it all to a child and a mother. Delicious. We made pancakes, bacon, and eggs last Thursday just like every other week. The only exception was the addition of a new bottle of maple syrup. We put out the name brand” and Coombs Family Farms’ brand for a taste test, to see if we could tell the difference. The Coombs Family Farms’ syrup was smooth, just the right sweet and tasted so delicious.  My girls preferred the Coombs syrup over the “name brand” with all the foods.  We ate chicken fingers dipped in Coombs Family syrup for lunch on Friday and it was so good. I will never go back to “name brand” syrup again.  I love that Coombs Family Farms uses environmentally safe processes and still produces organic, delicious, maple syrup.

If you, too, are interested in feeding your family the best nature has to offer check out Coombs Family Farms Maple Syrup.

All photos are courtesy of Coombs Family Farms.

Don’t miss anything for Mom of Faith, sign up for a subscription to this blog or to have it delivered right to your email…the sign-up link is on the left. Be sure to check out all the GREAT giveaways going on here at Mom Of Faith right now!