I am praying that you all are enjoying a wonderful day with family and friends.  I pray that for those of you who are hurting, will allow the promised peace of the coming Savior soothe you today, even if just for a little while.  And for those of you who are worn my the extra that come with holidays can find a moment to sit back and soak it in.  I pray that your littles are full of squeals of happiness and that you can feed on that joy and have a glimpse of the promised paradise we were all made for.

Last week I shared the top Christmas books my kids are enjoying this year. And this week I wanted to share some of the other books that my friends are enjoying with their kids this Christmas.

It always warms my heart to know that other moms and dads are sitting with their kids on a regular (hopefully daily) basis and reading to them. The studies that prove how beneficial this practice is are countless. But for me and my mommy friends, we see these as opportunities to snuggle close to our babies, even when they are much too big for such labels.

So here is a list of some favorites for our kids, in no particular order.

I'm not sure how many of you reading this have been following along as I've journeyed through this world of blogging.  You see I started writing after my first son arrive, early, and of course with that brought tons of things to say. Then I just enjoyed writing what I was doing as mom, and my family seemed to be thrilled at the pictures I kept putting up.

Then I expanded.

Even before blogging, I was a freelance writer (surprise surprise!), so the jump to blogging was easy.  But the platform scared me a little.  A freelance writer can get used to hiding behind the name of some other company and just be a small side name.  Which worked great for me.  But deep down, I had a passion for reading, and of course writing.

I love a good Christmas story.  There are so many great options, but I search for a new on each year just to feel extra Chrismtas-y. And this year Max Lucado put out a great option - The Christmas Candle.

I was excited to check it out and Lucado often writes moving pieces.

Christmas is full of traditions, right?  And books, of course are at the center of ours.  There are so many great Christmas books out there, and I love pulling them out each year.  The memories are wound around their covers of years past. This is the magic books can have for kids if we take the time to read with them.



There are a million different versions of The Night Before Christmas story out there, I'm sure you've heard a few versions of it yourself over the years right?

Do you remember a time in your life when you heard that you could do anything you dreamed of?  Were you lucky enough to have an adult that encouraged you to dream, and then that person helped to picture the steps to take to attain that dream?

It is so easy to send a daily devotional to your email isn't it?  You just find a group that is writing devotionals you connect with and sign up for their email.  Then you can read it on your computer, your phone, your tablet whenever you  have the time during the day.  I mean you can have your favorite Bible version open in a side window in the process - huge time saver.

And busy moms, we need all the time savers we can get.

And yet, how often do you really open those devotionals and read them through.  Then meditate a little on it. Allow the truth to sink in deep?

The dreaded mommy guilt is something that I think plagues every mother at some point in time.  For some reason the holiday season is ripe with such guilty opportunities to arise!  I mean just spend five minutes on pinterest looking at what other moms are doing this Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc, and you will feel something I'm sure.  I know I do!

There are so many wonderful opportunities with a new season that is full of holidays, but the weight of mommy guilt can so easily entangle any of us.