Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of catch A Falling Star as a member of LitFuse. All opinions are strictly my own.

About Catch A Falling Star:

What does a girl do when life doesn’t go according to her plan?At 36, Kendall Haynes has seen some of her dreams come true. She’s a family physician helping kids with severe allergies and asthma achieve more fulfilling lives—a childhood struggle she knows all too well. But the feeling of being “the kid never picked” looms large when romance continues to evade her and yet another one of her closest friends gets engaged. Are Kendall’s dreams of having it all—a career, a husband, children—nothing more than childish wishing upon a star? Should she hold out for her elusive Plan A? Dust off Plan B? Or is it time to settle? God says he knows the plans he has for her—why can’t Kendall figure them out and be content with her life?

Griffin Walker prefers flying solo—both as an Air Force pilot and in his personal life. But a wrong choice and health problems pulled him out of the cockpit. His attempts to get out of “flying a desk” are complicated by his parents’ death—making Griffin the reluctant guardian of his sixteen-year-old brother, Ian. How did his life get so off course? Can God get his life back on track … or has there been a divine plan all along?

Catch a Falling Star reminds readers that romance isn’t just for twenty-somethings and that sometimes letting go of your “wish I may, wish I might” dreams is the only way to embrace everything God has waiting for you.

Purchase a copy here.

My Thoughts:

I am a really big fan of Beth Vogt. I previously reviewed Wish You Were Here and loved it. Catch A Falling Star is no different.

I love when a story takes 2 characters that aren’t looking for love and throws them together unexpectedly. Sure, that is how most romance novels play out but Catch A Falling Star is a bit different in that both of these characters, Kendall and Griffin are well established, a bit more mature and living complete lives. I love how Beth put them together and also gave us another character with Griffin’s adopted brother, Ian.

Life sometimes throws obstacles at us and God’s plans are sometimes much different than what we would have laid out for ourselves. That is the case for Kendall and Griffin and I love how what they thought they wanted and what they end up with is two very different things. The romance in this novel is spot on for two 30 somethings with careers and life goals. It isn’t super mushy. It isn’t obscene. It is just right.

About Beth:

Beth K. Vogt is a non-fiction author and editor who said she’d never write fiction. She’s the wife of an Air Force family physician (now in solo practice), though she said she’d never marry a doctor—or anyone in the military. She’s a mom of four, though she said she’d never have kids. She’s discovered that God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” Her contemporary romance novel, “Wish You Were Here,” debuted in May 2012 (Howard Books), and “Catch a Falling Star” releases May 2013. An established magazine writer and former editor of Connections, the leadership magazine for MOPS International, Beth is also the Skills Coach for My Book Therapy, the writing community founded by best-selling author Susan May Warren.

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Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of The Offering by Angela Hunt as a participant in the LitFuse Blog Tour. All opinions are m yown.

From bestselling author Angela Hunt, the heart-wrenching story of a young mother who unknowingly gave away her own child after serving as a surrogate for a childless couple.

After growing up as an only child, Amanda Lisandra wants a big family. But since she and her soldier husband can’t afford to have more children right away, Mandy decides to earn money as a gestational carrier for a childless couple. She loves being pregnant, and while carrying the child she dreams of having her own son and maybe another daughter…

Just when the nearly perfect pregnancy is about to conclude, unexpected tragedy enters Mandy’s world and leaves her reeling. Devastated by grief, she surrenders the child she was carrying and struggles to regain her emotional equilibrium.

Two years later she studies a photograph of the baby she bore and wonders if the unthinkable has happened—could she have inadvertently given away her own biological child? Over the next few months Mandy struggles to decide between the desires of her grief-stricken heart and what’s best for the little boy she has never known.

Purchase a copy here.

My Thoughts:

The Offering is one of those books that will draw your every emotion to the very surface and leave them there long after you’ve put the book down. A lot of the stories main point is covered in the back description BUT there are many twists and events that take place that will leave you raw and reeling.

Mandy has some very hard decisions to make and even though this is a fictional story with a fictional character, it could very easily be real. As a woman of the Christian faith with very strong beliefs, surrogacy is not a choice I would make. But that doesn’t mean that I would fault or belittle someone else who did. Mandy made the choice to be a surrogate mother and when tragedy struck, she had to decide if she should follow through with her commitment or not. And later, the decision also had serious consequences.

Angela Hunt did an exquisite job of showing what a surrogate mom might endure emotionally. She brought out emotions that any mother is sure to feel. This is a book that definitely takes your mood on a roller coaster ride!

About Angela Hunt:

With over four million copies of her books sold worldwide, Angela Hunt is the bestselling author of more than one hundred books, including “The Nativity Story.” Hunt is one of the most sought-after collaborators in the publishing industry. Her nonfiction book “Don’t Bet Against Me,” written with Deanna Favre, spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Angela’s novel “The Note” (with sales of over 141,000) was filmed as the Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movie for 2007 and proved to be the highest rated television movie in the channel’s history. Angela’s novels have won or been nominated for several prestigious industry awards, including the RITA, the Christy Award, the ECPA Christian Book Award, and the Holt Medallion. She often travels to teach writing workshops at schools and writers’ conferences, and she served as the keynote speaker at the 2008 American Christian Fiction Writers’ national conference. She and her husband make their home in Florida with mastiffs. In 2001, one of her dogs was featured on Live with Regis and Kelly as the second-largest dog in America.

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We recently received a wonderful complimentary stay at one of Auntie Belham’s cabin rentals, “Country Charm” My family and I enjoyed our stay immensely. It was one of my favorite cabins and Auntie Belham’s is by far my favorite place to rent from. They now have a customer for life!

Check our our review of Auntie Belham’s “Country Charm” cabin.

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We recently stayed at Auntie Belham’s and were given as complimentary stay as well. As you all know by now, my family and I LOVE traveling to the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee. It is our favorite place to go as a family. It is my favorite place on this entire Earth. It is a place where we can come together as a family and just relax and regroup when things are hectic. And we try to get there as often as we can. We’d been for every season but summer so Clay and I decided to surprise the kids last week with an impromptu trip to Gatlinburg!

We always rent a cabin and when looking for last minute deals, this time we went with Auntie Belham’s. I browsed through several of my favorite sites and kept going back to Auntie Belham’s. We actually rented one cabin called “Winter Haven” for 3 nights and then received our review stay in “Country Charm” afterwards and OH-EM-GEE I fell in love!!!

We stayed with Auntie Belham’s back in Feb/March so this was our second time staying with them and we already new that we loved the company, the service and their cabins. I just didn’t realize how much I love them. They have the nicest staff I have ever met. Everyone there is down to Earth and super helpful and friendly. I met the owner and he was just as friendly as his staff. He came out and introduced himself and shook my hand. THAT is good customer service and even though I love the other cabins we have stayed in and do recommend them as well,  I will recommend Auntie Belham’s above and beyond any place I’ve stayed so far in terms of customer service. That is my personal opinion from my own personal experiences.

Because we are a large family, we like to rent a cabin so that we can take our own food and prepare meals at home. This saves so much money when traveling. And we like to be able to lay down when we want, watch tv, karaoke, play pool, get in the hot tub, spread out in different directions, have noisy kids and all the other things you can’t comfortably do in a hotel room. Cabins and houses just work better for large families. And they’re cheaper in the long run when you are a large group.

The cabins are all very clean and well stocked with pots and pans, cooking utensils, etc. Most, if not all, have a dishwasher. You receive a starter supply of toilet tissue, paper towels, garbage bags and dish washing liquid/dishwasher detergent. If you are going for more than a night or two, you’ll want to take your own as well. There are plenty of towels and the cabins we’ve stayed in all had a washer and dryer but it is a good idea to take your own beach towels if there are several of you and you plan on getting in the hot tub each night. Then just toss them in the dryer with your swim suits when you get out and you’re ready for the next night.

So, for the second part of our trip, we stayed in “Country Charm” with Auntie Belham’s. This cabin is so beautiful! It looks a bit small from the outside but it’s really not.

“Country Charm” features 3 bedrooms, sleeping up to 8 people and 2 bathrooms. One of the queen bedrooms and a bathroom are in the basement level. The game room is also in that level and is in its own room and there is a TV/entertainment center in there. So if you are planning on staying up late, or don’t mind people coming in and out of your room while you sleep (if you turn in early) then I recommend that room. In the area with the TV there is also a pull-out couch. Clay and I took the basement bedroom and our girls slept on the pull-out.

The game room has a pool table, an electronic dart board and a stereo and it decorated in NASCAR. Dad-in-law loves NASCAR so that was right up his alley.

Our son slept in the top level room and Clay’s parents took the main floor bedroom. It has a king sized bed!

The outside of the cabin is landscaped so beautifully. There are rose bushes, mums and other flowers. There is a perfect little yard for the kids to play in. Being in the top of a mountain, you don’t usually get a yard. So this is a huge plus! And the stepping stones look like log. They are so pretty. I want some of those for my own house!

We all LOVED sitting outside on the porch swings. There are two. One on the front porch and one on the lower level deck. There are also plenty of deck chairs and a table so you can sit out there in the mornings and evenings and enjoy the gorgeous mountain view. It’s pretty in the summer but I’ve been to the Sky Harbor area in the fall as well and it is GORGEOUS so you can just imagine how pretty the view is then. You can see the summer view below.

The inside of “Country Charm” is just as beautiful as the outside too. The decor is so warm and homey. I took pictures of every nook and cranny. I can’t upload all of them or the post will never load but I did make a slideshow (below) and included as many as I could there and in this post. I hope they show you just how beautiful this cabin is. The homeowners and Auntie Belham’s have done a wonderful job! And their cleaning crew is top notch. Housekeeping is awesome at Auntie Belham’s as is maintenance. Our 3 year old accidentally locked the upstairs bedroom and the maintenance guy was there the next morning to get it unlocked. He would have come that night but it was late and wasn’t an emergency so we could wait. No big deal. He was just as friendly as everyone else too.

Ok, back to the decor!

I want to live in this cabin! If it is ever for sale, I’m buying it if at all possible, decor and all! No joke. I really, really, really loved this cabin! We loved our stay so much and all of us can’t wait to stay there again.

“Country Charm” Amenities:

Connect with Auntie Belham’s on Facebook,  Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest.

Check out our Gatlinburg Vacations and Auntie Belham’s page.

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Disclosure: I am part of the Mom It Forward blogger network. Mom It Forward and ARM & HAMMER™ Tooth Tunes™ partnered in support of this campaign. ARM & HAMMER™ Tooth Tunes™ compensated me for participation in this campaign. However, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

My daughter has been using a new toothbrush lately and she is in love. She has been using the ARM & HAMMER™ Tooth Tunes™ toothbrush featuring the song “What makes You Beautiful” by One Direction.  It’s not that my daughter doesn’t like to brush her teeth. She actually does like to but she gets so sidetracked with other things that she forgets. She has always been good about brushing for 2 minutes  but I had to constantly remind her to brush her teeth. Now, not so much. She LOVES music. So she gets up in the morning and that is the first thing she does. I always have the kids toothbrushes pasted up and ready to go so she runs int here, turns on the music and brushes away. The music plays for two minutes too so she knows when to start and when to finish brushing her teeth.

And I’ve caught every one of us bouncing around the bathroom to the music while she is brushing her teeth. It’s really catchy!!!

Here is a super quick vlog post I made so you can hear what the music sounds like:

Pretty cool, huh? And the music makes the toothbrush sort of vibrate so you can really hear the song in your head. Our daughter loves it!

The ARM & HAMMER™ Tooth Tunes™ toothbrush is the ONLY one in North America that plays music by One Direction. There are two songs featured:

Church & Dwight Co., Inc., is excited to announce the Brush with Tooth Tunes™, Rock with One Direction Sweepstakes! You can enter for a chance to win the Grand Prize, four tickets to a One Direction concert in August 2013. The 100 First Prize Winners will receive One Direction prize packs, with One Direction merchandise.

To enter, just follow the super easy steps below:

Brush with Tooth Tunes™, Rock with One Direction Sweepstakes Rules:

Head on over and enter the Tooth Tunes™, Rock with One Direction sweepstakes

Be sure to check out the ARM & HAMMER™ Tooth Tunes™ website.

More info on Tooth Tunes…

ARM & HAMMER Tooth Tunes™ launched in July 2012 featuring:

• “All Day” performed by Cody Simpson
• “Dynamite” performed by Taio Cruz
• “I Gotta Feeling” performed by Black Eyed Peas
• “If I Ruled the World” performed by Big Time Rush
• “Round & Round” performed by Selena Gomez & The Scene
• “Tonight, Tonight” performed by Hot Chelle Rae
• “We Will Rock You” performed by Queen

The brushes have a suggested retail price of $9.99 and are available at mass, drug, and food retailers nationwide.

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I have a super fabulous giveaway to share with you today! My pals at Vacation Maybe are giving away this fab Coach backpack and YOU could win! Check out the details below and if you win, be sure to come back and leave me a comment letting me know!!!

Coach Giveaway

I love girly handbags but there are times that I rely on the convenience of backpacks especially when traveling and on vacation with kids. Using backpacks doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice style, with this giveaway we’re giving you a chance to win a gorgeous Coach Daisy Applique Multicolor Backpack which retails for $298! This features Coach’s signature fabric design with a playful multicolor floral pattern.

Join Our Coach Backpack Giveaway Now!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This Coach giveaway starts on 6/15/13 at 6pm EST and ends on 6/30/13 at 11:59pm EST.

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I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Cascade. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and a promotional item as a thank you for participating.

I am in awe of how well Cascade Platinum cleans not only my dishes but my dishwasher as well. I honestly can’t believe the difference in my dishes! I have always been one to forget to add the rinse aid so I always had spots on my glasses and drinking jars. We live in Kentucky so southern sweet tea is as much a tradition here as it is in the deep south. And for drinking said Sweet Team Mason jars are a must.  Not only does glass tend to get spots if you have hard water like we do, but tea stains so things aren’t always as shiny and spiffy as you’d like. But the Cascade Platinum really helps take care of those problems. See how nice and refreshing a jar full of Sweet Iced Tea looks?

Cascade Platinum also makes our other dishes and flatware shinier and cleaner – new and old alike. I don’t have to worry about dull, spotted dishes when we have company over for dinner. They get cleaner without even having to rinse and that saves me time and makes me a happy Crystal!

If you are having a dinner party any time soon, I have 3 GREAT recipes from Chef Gail Simmons to share with you.  I re-created the Bumbleberry Summer Sundae (recipe included in the post AND in the download below) and the Doughnut Holes With Raspberry Compote & caramel and served them to my family. They LOVED it! Check out my photos and then click the download link below to download your own copy of the three awesome recipes including Bumbleberry Summer Sundae, Ginger Panna Cotta with Rhubarb and Sugared Doughnut Holes with Raspberry Compote & Caramel. Mmmmmm.

For the Bumbleberry Summer Sundae I used strawberries and blueberries. The sauce was super easy to make but if you are making this for a family as large as mine (6 of us) I would recommend doubling or even tripling the recipe. The sauce was out of this world. It was just tart enough without being bitter and not too sweet. It is sooooooo good! And the whipped cream? Once you fold in the berries, it is to die for. So good! My husband and I enjoyed a nice dessert together in pretty, Cascade clean mini trifle cups.

The kids enjoyed theirs in brightly colored bowls that my Cascade Platinum keeps bright and clean!

Now, for the Doughnut Holes With Raspberry Compote And Caramel, we did make a couple of substitutions. It was storming and I didn’t have all the ingredients on hand so we made due with what we had. I didn’t have everything I needed to fry doughnuts BUT I had creme puffs in the freezer that I was going to use for something else. I thawed them out and rolled them in sugar and they made a pretty good substitution. But I have to say that the warm doughnuts would have been better. I’ll definitely make those next time. For the compote, I didn’t have any raspberries but I did have strawberries and blueberries. So we made a strawberry-blueberry compote instead. It was pretty good too!

The caramel sauce was also out of this world. I have to admit, if I do say so myself, that it is the best caramel I’ve ever tasted! And it was so easy to make. Make sure you pull the sugar off the heat as soon as it turns amber or it will burn. If you pull it off right when it browns, you’ll have the creamiest, smoothest caramel. If it starts to thicken too quickly, just place it on the warm burner for a few seconds to soften it back up. It will remelt really quickly. The recipe for this is also in the download below. I really hope you’ll give it a try.

Download your recipes below. They are in a zip file containing 3 individual PDF’s.

If you need a great FREE utility to unzip zip files, I recommend 7-Zip. It is completely free to use.    

Cascade wants you to show off your sparkling dishes, silverware and glassware for a chance to win great prizes by entering the “My Platinum” Instagram contest which launched on June 3rd. It is super easy to enter too. All  you have to do is snap a photo of your favorite meal on a sparkling ”My Platinum Plate” featuring your “My Platinum Bite”, and enter the contest! Enter your photo in this fun Instagram contest using the hashtag #MyPlatinum @MyCascade!

You can see my entries here:

Creme Puffs with Mixed Berry Compote and Caramel on #MyPlatinum clean dishes @mycascade

Check out Cascade on Facebook  and don’t forget to enter the awesome Instagram contest here: http://tinyurl.com/PlatBlog

And here is our #MyPlatinum Pinterest Board:

You may also like our other Cascade Posts regarding the Cascade Instagram Contest and Cascade Platinum

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Disclsosure: Info and printables provided by Walt Disney Studios and used with permission.

I have a cute #DisneyPlanes Father’s Day ecard and activity pack for you today.  To download the ecard, click the following download button. To download the activity pack, click the large “print & play” button below your ecard.

Disney’s PLANES releases in theaters everywhere on August 9th!

Click below to download your Disney’s PLANES activity pack.

“Like” Disney’s PLANES on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DisneyPlanes

“Follow” Disney’s PLANES on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DisneyPictures

Visit the website: www.disney.com/Planes

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Disclosure: I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Cascade. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and a promotional item as a thank you for participating. All opinions are strictly my own and were formed through personal testing.

A few days ago I told you about Cascade Platinum Dishwasher Pacs. We go through a ton of dishwasher detergent and our dishwasher really goes through it. I am a firm believer that dishwasher detergent is one of those things that “you get what you pay for” and the cheap stuff just doesn’t cut it. I ONLY use Cascade. Period.

I was really excited to try the Cascade Platinum. My regular Cascade does a fine job of getting my dishes clean. But the dishwasher iself sometimes needs a little freshening up. It gets an “off” odor and staining from tomato based products.

Cascade Platinum did a really great job of cleaning not only my dishes but my dishwasher too! I noticed that there is no buildup occurring on the inside walls of my dishwasher whereas with cheaper dishwasher detergents, there is always a film that I have to wipe out and off my dishes. With Cascade Platinum, the dishes are sparkly clean.

We had bar-b-que ribs and I decided to try washing the dishes, using the cascade Platinum, without rinsing them first to see how well the pacs do. And they did great! They removed baked on, stuck on cheese and bar-b-que sauce without any problems.

We headed off to Tennessee and I totally forgot to take a photo of the dishes after using Cascade Platinum. BUT I brought them to the cabin with me so I took more before and after photos of the dishes we had here.

We had steak, baked potato and salad and this is the food on the cabin dishes.

But THIS is the results AFTER using Cascade Platinum pacs!

Spotless, shiny and CLEAN!

<3 I LOVE this Cascade Platinum!!!! <3

Now that the dishes are sparkling clean, I want you to think about something else.

Food presentation.

The way our food looks has a lot to do with how we perceive its taste. In a “sense” we eat with our eyes as well as our mouths, right? Sight and smell have a lot to do with taste. So we tend to focus a lot on the presentation of our food. Especially when we have a party or get together. But I know that regardless of a crowd we tend to place our food on our own plates in a way that is appealing to us. Some people can’t stand for food to touch while others love it all mixed together. Food is also arranged on the table for sit down meals. Presentation really does play an important role in food. Top Chef judge and editor of Food+Wine magazine, Gail Simmons, has partnered with Cascade to discuss why food presentation is just as important as preparation.  And I’ll be talking  a little more about that in the coming weeks as well as sharing some recipes.

There’s a contest too!

Cascade wants you to show off your sparkling dishes, silverware and glassware for a chance to win great prizes by entering the “My Platinum” Instagram contest which launched on June 3rd. It is super easy to enter too. All  you have to do is snap a photo of your favorite meal on a sparkling ”My Platinum Plate”, and enter the contest! Enter your photo in this fun Instagram contest!

http://instagram.com/p/aUqRZILkSO/

You can see my entries here:

Creme Puffs with Mixed Berry Compote and Caramel on #MyPlatinum clean dishes @mycascade

Our fav meal! Steak, baked potato & salad. #MyPlatinum @MyCascade

Check out Cascade on Facebook  and don’t forget to enter the awesome Instagram contest here: http://tinyurl.com/PlatBlog

And here is our #MyPlatinum Pinterest Board:

You may also like our other Cascade Posts regarding the Bumbleberry Summer Sundaes and Cascade Platinum

Cascade Platinum is available in Fresh and Lemon Burst scents.

MSRP: 

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Disclosure: Info and images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios and used with permission. Al opinions are my own.

I love Disney games. Where’s my Water is one of my favorite games on my iPad. I originally downloaded it for the kids but got so into that I played all the levels! hehehe There is a new ONLINE MONSTERS UNIVERSITY game called  “Beastly Breakfast Blitz” that I think you’re going to LOVE!

There is also a Scare Quiz School, Downloadable Placemat and a M.I.L.K (Monsters Interested In Learning) Pledge Card. Too fun!

Goal in the game:

Serve up the MONSTERS UNIVERSITY  students a healthy breakfast with milk as fast as you can in the new game, “Beastly Breakfast Blitz”!

Fill every monster order before time runs out to move through new levels, and experience an entire week of breakfast in the MU cafeteria. You’ll need to be quick – these little monsters need to fuel up for scaring school with milk’s high-quality protein at breakfast!

Be sure to download your MONSTERS UNIVERSITY activity pack too!

Connect with the Milk Mustache community for tips, tools and activities including tasty morning recipes for all the little “monsters” in your family.

• Facebook: /MilkMustache
• Twitter: @MilkMustache
• Instagram: @MilkMustache
• Pinterest: /MyMilkMustache
• Website: TheBreakfastProject.com

“Like” MONSTERS UNIVERSITY on Facebook

“Follow” Disney/Pixar on Twitter

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY ONLINE: http://www.Disney.com/MonstersU

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY releases in theaters on June 21st!

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