Review: The Wedding Dress Christmas by Rachel Hauck

Have you ever read a book and when it ended wanted the story to go on?  The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauck  is one the best books I have ever read.  I have read it several times.  After I finished The Wedding Dress, I had to read every book that Rachel Hauck had written and the new ones that are being released.  I loved the 2  books that were set in Hearts Bend Tennessee: The Wedding Chapel and The Wedding Shop and was excited to see the "dress" reappear in the The Wedding Shop.  But the "dress" had another story to tell and I was excited to receive a review copy of The Wedding Dress Christmas.

The Wedding Dress Christmas is a quick read at only 131 pages.  It can be purchased for $2.99 on Kindle or $7.99 as a paperback book on Amazon.  It this story, JoJo Castle tried a big city adventure but a traumatic experience sent her back home to Hearts Bebd Tennessee and she never wants to leave again. She loves everything about her town and working with her cousin Haley in The Wedding Shop even though she doesn't see romance or a wedding in her future.  JoJo was best friends with Buck Matthews back in high school, a now famous country music star who has returned home due to his mother's illness. Buck feels separated and distant from his friends and family because his focus has been on his career. Even though Buck and JoJo are drawn to each other they both want completely different things in their lives.

" Can love, especially the kind that touches hearts at Christmas, overcome her fears and his quest for greatness?

With the help of a very special wedding dress, there just might be a Christmas miracle."

I just love a good Christmas story. The Wedding Dress Christmas can be read as a stand alone book, but you really are going to want to read the others too.  Start with the Wedding Dress, then The Wedding Chapel , and The Wedding Shop and finish up with The Wedding Dress Christmas.  Since this is a novella rather then a full length novel, it is a quick read.  I finished it in one sitting.  But even though it is a novella, Ms. Hauck does an amazing job of allowing the reader to enjoy the characters and the story and completing the story without making the reader feel rushed or that the story isn't complete.  I loved the characters of Buck and JoJo and their story.  I loved having the opportunity to visit Hearts Bend again and experience how they celebrate Christmas.  I loved seeing "The Dress" work another miracle.  My favorite thing about the book was the theme of the story that love conquers fear. I loved this quote "What can fear really do to me except ruin my life?"  So important for us all to remember. 

I highly recommend The Wedding Dress Christmas and other books by Rachel Hauck.   She does an outstanding job of writing inspirational, faith based romance novels with real, believable characters.


Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review.  I received no other compensation and all opinions are my own.  I am disclosing this in accordance to the FTC regulations.

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 10

Week 10 started out really productive.  I still feel like something is missing during our school week and I'm not sure yet what I need to add in to fill that hole, but I am looking at a few things.  I think geography will be added in next week.

A fellow homeschool mom set up a homeschool field trip to a local pumpkin patch for us that was supposed to be on Monday.  But bad storms were forecast for Sunday night into Monday with tornadoes possible in some areas (a few did touch down but not near here) so they moved our date to Friday.  But, a few days later Friday was showing a lot of rain all day long.  So then they moved us to Thursday.  It was fine for me I just had to move some school things around, but several other people ended up being unable to go so it was a very small group of us, but we had a good time and it was sunny and in the 60's.  My boys stayed home, they are a bit over the pumpkin patch age, but Chelsea brought Liam and Willow.  Liam and the girls had a wonderful time!


Week 10 in our Homeschool

Bible: We finished the book of Luke.

History: We read lessons 55, 56, and 57 in The Mystery of History Vol 1.

Art: We watched a HIGasfy video on Degas.  Our art project was skipped when the field trip date moved.

Music Appreciation: We read two chapters on Schumann.  The music lesson was on the conductor so we learned about what the conductor does and what the motions mean.  There was a short Youtube video we watched in addition to the lessons in the book.

Poetry: We are working on a new poem and reviewing old poems.  The new poem is The Spider and the Fly. 

Science: For the younger 3 we started Chapter 2 in Botany.  This chapter is teaching about seeds.  We looked at different types of seeds , parts of a seed and opened up a bean seed to see what was inside.  They learned what seeds need to grow and started an experiment planting a bean seed in 3 different locations (window, closet, fridge)  to see which one grows the best.  For people interested in using Apologia Science but worried about it being over younger elementary students head should start with Botany.

Emmie is reading La Mariposa in literature and working on punctuating dialogue in her grammar (a bit over her head but we're working on it.)  We are back using CTC Math and she completed 3 days of it.  She is doing really well in math so far this year.  In AAR Level 3 she read the story Train Cat.

Lily finished The Earth Dragon Awakes in Lightning Lit and completed 3 lessons in her Reading Eggs workbook.  She also completed 3 lessons in CTC Math.  She is struggling a bit with times tables memorization for 6's and up and we are working on that.

Christian and Anthony are going through the steps on how to write a persuasive essay.  They had to pick a favorite book or movie and write an essay that would  persuade a librarian to buy it for the library.  I struggle with their reasons are not as solid as they should be but we are working on the process and getting it down then will go back and work on coming up with more specific reasons.  They did 3 chapters in Robin Hood and completed Step 29 in AAS 6 (only step left in this level.)  Christian did 4 lessons in CTC Math.  Anthony started Thinkwell Pre-Algebra (upcoming review.)  I hesitated to start a different math but what made me lean towards trying it was CTC in the upper levels does not work out every problem.  It gives the correct answer if you get it wrong but did not show the steps on how to get there. One of the big reasons for switching to computer math was so I didn't have to teach.  But when he was getting things wrong I would have to watch the video and then work out the problems with him.  So we decided to give Thinkwell a try.  So far it has gone very well but we have only had it for 4 days.

Other Activities this Week

Monday the girls had gymnastics.

Tuesday I don't think we left the house.

Wednesday we had Kid's Club, Children's Choir, and Youth.

There was a little girl Wednesday that came to us injured and was waiting for someone to come pick her up and Emmie and her friend made her Feel Better soon cards during their craft time. I thought that was so sweet!

Thursday we went to the pumpkin patch.

Then Emmie had dance.


Friday the girls had music.

Saturday we went to a local Trunk or Treat.  Last year it was in the 90's.  Saturday was in the 50's but at least the rain stopped. 

Sunday evening it was my week to be in charge of youth.  We had a cookout and it was beautiful weather.  The girls got to tag along with me. (that's why this post was not written on time!)

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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Homeschool Crew Review: Creating a Masterpiece

We were first introduced to Creating a Masterpiece back in 2017 when we were given an opportunity to review their Monthly Plan.  I have never been so impressed with the results of an art program as I was with Creating a Masterpiece.  We created absolutely beautiful artwork and learned so many new techniques.  I was excited to see them on our vendor list again this fall and this time we were able to review their online Drawing Program.


Creating a Masterpiece is an online art program for ages 4 and up taught by master artist Sharon Hofer through streamed video lessons.  This fine arts program was designed to help students create art step by step that will make them proud of their work and feel like a real artist.  They have several different products you can choose from: Drawing Program (which this review will focus on), Core Program( 24 different media with 59 projects in 6 different levels), Unlimited Access(gives access to every video on the website), Art History Program( 3 specialized levels of projects with 16 different projects using 11 unique media), and Books (two series of books are being developed Step by Step: Fine Art for Kids and Exploring the Art of Yesterday..to Create Art Today.)


You can subscribe to the Drawing Program monthly ($19.99) or annually ($199.00.)  Subscription to the program gives you access to all of the levels.  Each of the levels uses pencil, charcoal, and colored pencil.  Levels are not determined by age, but by skill level. Length of time to complete the project will vary depending on the project.

Beginning Drawing: For beginning students or those that need confidence in their drawing abilities.  This level contains 8 projects: Giraffe in Cartoon, Simplicity, Polar Exploration, Hoot Owl, Field of Daisies, Angling for Trout, Moonstruck, Baby Elephant.

Drawing Level 1 :for those who want to grow their drawing skills.  There are 6 projects in this level: Arctic Seal, First Thanksgiving, Ornery Ostrich, Alaskan Wilderness, Penguin Family, Tuckered Out Turtle.

Drawing Level 2 :Designed to grow students who love to draw and continue to advance their skills.  There are 7 projects in this level: Drawing the Egg, The Lion Cub, Dawdling Duck, Polar Bear, Orbiting Saturn, Antique Lantern, and The General's Horse.

Drawing Level 3 : Level 3 will advance your skills to an intermediate level.  This level contains 8 projects: Cunning Wolf, Snowed In, The Rose, Dreaming of Africa, The White Rhinoceros, Prairie Buffalo, Tabby Cat, Rocketing Through Space.

Projects do not need to be completed in any special order.  You can pick and choose which projects you would like to complete.  Once you log in and choose your project you are taken to a screen which gives a project description, links to view supply list or purchase supplies, and a link to click on to go to the lesson.

Clicking on the lesson link will take you to the page that contains the video lessons.  Each project is broken down into several smaller videos.  The videos will give you a good stopping point if you would like to split the project into separate sittings. The Hoot Owl has six separate videos.

This page also has the project supply list, special tips, project images, lesson highlights, and can also show finished works from some of Sharon's students.

Last time we used Creating a Masterpiece, it was during a time of the year where life was not so busy for me and I had an opportunity to sit down and do the lessons with them.  I loved it just as much as the children did.  This time, it has been a very. very busy time for me.  I did not have time to sit down and do the lessons or even think about planning art projects for the children.  I was so glad to have this review opportunity.  The children could sit down and do the projects all on their own. I even could leave an art project for an assignment for them to complete when I had to be out of the house.

 We started with the Beginning Drawing level.  My 10 and 12 year olds mostly used this program but my 8 year old wanted to complete some of the projects and my 14 year old also did a few of the projects.  We wanted to complete at least one project from the three different media used: pencil, charcoal, and colored pencil, but other then that did not go in any particular order when choosing projects.  I just let them choose what they wanted to draw.  Each of the projects they did they finished in one sitting in about an hour.

Here are some examples of their artwork.

In Pencil they did:

Giraffe in Cartoon

Hoot Owl

 Simplicity

In Charcoal Lily and Christian did Field Of Daisies

In Colored Pencil Lily and Christian did Moonstruck

One of the things we love about Creating a Masterpiece is the easy to follow step by step instructions.  You can easily pause the video if you need to or back up and watch it again.  Sharon is very encouraging and helps the students strive to do their best work and make their work their own.  I love the variety of lessons and the inclusion of the different skill levels so that as your confidence and experience grows you can move on to a higher level.  Creating a Masterpiece makes it easy for you to purchase your supplies.  You can click on the purchase supplies list for the project and it takes you to an online retailer and adds everything to the cart for you.  They strongly urge you to buy quality supplies as the quality of the supplies will affect the outcome of the artwork.  I already knew this and was reminded of it when the paper we needed for the charcoal project was out of stock and we do not have any art supply stores nearby.  They wanted to do the project anyway and used regular white drawing paper, but it was difficult to erase and did affect the final product and they reminded me to order the correct paper for them. The children were excited to learn new techniques and to be able to not just work with pencil but also colored pencils and charcoal.


We love Creating a Masterpiece and will continue to work on our drawing skills.  I would also love to purchase some of her books in the future. To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 9

We had a short school week because Nick had to be back up at State Fair Wednesday and Thursday.  Chelsea came and stayed at the house with the rest of the children but I gave them all two days off.

Bible: We read 2 chapters in the Book of Luke.


History: We read lessons 52, 53, and 54 in The Mystery of History Vol. 1.

Art: Christian and Lily did a colored pencil drawing lesson from Creating a Masterpiece.

Music Appreciation: No lesson this week.

Science: No lesson this week for elementary.

Emmie: completed 2 days of Math from Elephant Learning. This was our last week to spend on that.  She worked on The Three Questions in literature and did Lesson 1 in AAR Level 3.

Lily completed 2 lessons in CTC Math on multiplication.  She also did 2 lessons in Lightning Lit on The Earth Dragon Awakes.

Christian and Anthony did two chapters in Robin Hood for literature.  They also did two lessons in math and Step 29 in AAS Level 6.  We started talking about persuasive essays in Jump In and will try to muddle through that while I decide if I need to change tactics for writing for Anthony.


Other Activities this Week

Monday the girls had gymnastics and I had a Moms Night Out Meeting.

Tuesday was parent/teacher conferences at the school for Nick.  We also had to order his cap and gown.

Wednesday Nick, Art , and I headed to Little Rock for the pig shows at State Fair.  Weighing, washing, feeding, and getting signed up for the shows took up most of the afternoon. He participated in Showmanship Wednesday evening.  We went out to eat with Samantha (our wonderful AG agent), her mom, son, niece and nephew and headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before an early start the next morning.

At home the children went to Kid's Club and Children's Choir.

Aunt Lily put Willow to sleep

Thursday morning was the Market Hog Show.  Nick did not place.  We were released at noon, loaded up the pig (she will go to the butcher some time next week) and made the long drive home.

Emmie had dance.


Friday morning we were at home cleaning and trying to catch up on some housework from being gone for two days. I got the very sad news that Samantha's mom had died suddenly the night before.  She was a sweet, sweet lady who was very good and encouraging to my children and everyone else she knew.  My heart breaks for her family and my thoughts and prayers are with them.

My girls had music lessons.


Saturday we spent a quiet day at home.  I helped Nick fill out his FAFSA and made a shirt for Willow.  The boys built a rabbit hutch for the bunny we bought last week-end.  We sold some chickens and enjoyed the beautiful weather outside.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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Homeschool Crew Review: WorthyKids Secret of the Hidden Scrolls Books 5 and 6

We love to read and have been very blessed with the opportunity over the last year to review a new series from WorthyKids Books called The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls.  For this review we received Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Shepherd's Stone (Book 5) and Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Lion's Roar (Book 6).

The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls books were written for beginning readers who are ready to read short chapter books(around ages 6-9), but the stories can be enjoyed by older or younger children as well.  In the series, Peter, Mary, and their dog Hank go to stay with their Great Uncle Solomon who is an archeologist.  Solomon discovered some ancient scrolls that have the ability to send who they choose back in time.  Peter and Mary are chosen by the scrolls and in each book travel to a different time in Bible history.  During their journeys they are helped along the way by the angel Michael.  There are three rules they must follow on their adventures.  They cannot tell people they are from the future, they cannot try to change the past, and if they don't solve the mystery on the scroll in a certain number of days they are stuck in that time period.




In Book 1 of the series, Mary and Peter were transported back in time to the Garden of Eden.  Book 2's adventure took them to Noah's Ark.  In Book 3 they saw the Plagues of Egypt first hand and in Book 4 they had an important spy mission to Jericho.

Book Five, The Shepherd's Stone, is 120 pages long and contains 14 chapters.  Mary, and Peter, and their dog Hank, journey back in time to the city of Bethlehem where they meet a young shepherd boy named David.  They travel with him through The Valley of Death to take food to David's brothers who are on the battlefield.  On their way they encounter many challenges and once they arrive discover a giant problem.  Mary and Peter have their own battle to face, solving the secret of the scroll and thwarting then enemy in the form of The Soldier of Darkness while David has to defeat the giant Goliath.

Book 6, The Lion's Roar, is also 120 pages long with 14 chapters.  In this book, the children are transported back in time to the city of Babylon where the High Priest and his raven are trying to make the children bow to an idol.  While in Babylon they meet Shadrach and his good friend Daniel.  The High Priest wants to get rid of Daniel and concocts a plan to have him thrown to the lions.  The children have to solve the secret of the scroll before its too late.

I have been reading this series aloud to my 8, 10, 12, and 14 year olds.  They loved the first 4 books and were excited to receive the other two.  My 10 year olds and up could easily and quickly read them on their own but they would be a bit challenging for my 8 year old.  They all enjoy listening to me read them aloud and interestingly this series has lined up with our history studies.  We recently studied about King David.

My 8 year old especially likes the black and white illustrations sprinkled throughout the book.

 The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls series is a wonderful mystery series for children based on great Biblical events with some fiction and fantasy thrown in.  The stories allow children to put themselves in Peter and Mary's shoes and experience the events as they are happening, allowing them to better remember these stories.  Each of the scrolls teach an important lesson such as: Fear Not! God is Bigger then Any Problem or God is in Control! It can be hard to find great books for young children to read without having to worry about the content.  There is nothing that parents have to be concerned about in these book.  We love these books and cannot wait for future books to be released.

 Book 7, The King is Born, is now available!  There is a giveaway of books 1-7 going on right now! Go here to enter!

Several members of The Crew also reviewed Books 5 and 6.  To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

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