Foods 
When my family decided to change to a gluten-free lifestyle, we knew we need to come up with gluten-free alternatives to every meal we were accustomed to eating, including gluten-free desserts. Not that we wanted to sink into the trap of boxed meals and mixes that had "gluten-free" written on the side—on the contrary, we wanted to focus on whole-food ingredients. But we also wanted to be able to have delicious sweet treats from time to time. PS: Looking for more gluten-free recipes, tips, and tricks? Look no further than our Everything Gluten Free page! So, next time you're looking for a healthy gluten-free ...Read More
12 Habits of Effective Christian Parents: How are you doing? (Take the Quiz)
How in the world did people parent before the days of social media? I mean, seriously... Where did they get birthday party ideas? And how did they manage to distract themselves with completely inane facts about the lives of their acquaintances while looking for birthday party ideas? And where did they post pictures of the aforementioned birthday party ideas brought to fruition? In all seriousness, it's pretty shocking to step back and consider how quickly social media has become ingrained in our lives. And while there are some benefits (hello, birthday party ideas!), there's one glaring drawback: we have countless ...Read More
14 Great Books About Gardening to Read This Winter
Winter is made for curling up with a good book. Take advantage of this time and learn some tips and tricks to help make next year a better gardening experience. Analyze your year. Did you have a particular area that you'd like to work on like organic pest control? Do you want to learn how to grow a specific vegetable or fruit better? Would you like to try a new method? Or would you just like to know that you aren't alone in this crazy idea of food growing? Figure out what you want to learn about and then pick a book. Gardening, Farming, & Food Memoirs The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His ...Read More
5 Super Easy Things You Can Do to Transform Your Diet
Over the years, probably the one of the biggest concerns I've heard from our readers sounds something like this: "I want to make healthy changes, but there's so much information out there. How do I know where to start? Information overload often leaves me scratching my head, and then I just don't start anything." Here's the key: just do something. I've never made a massive overhaul to my diet. I've made healthy changes slowly over time—one step at a time. Below are some of the changes I made to my diet early on—again, not all at once, but bit by bit. Why these things? One of the things I always recommend to ...Read More
Christian Parents, Are You Raising a Little Pharisee?
As a Christian parent, you want to train your children to love God—to obey Him, walking in His ways for His glory and for their own good. So you and I teach our kids to do good and to flee evil. We model obedience to God. We correct them when they err. We discipline them so they don't stray too far. And we do those things with the Word of God as our road map and the Holy Spirit as our guide. But I've noticed something interesting over the past few years: when kids are trained this way from an early age, they can tend to become dogmatic, quick to judge others and not inclined to administer grace. They can become ...Read More
The Complete Gluten-Free Grains List
When our whole family started to move towards a gluten-free diet, the first few months were the hardest. I didn't know what I was doing. Didn't someone just have a gluten-free grains list? A cheat-sheet to help me get started? And more than that... some days I just wanted was a stinkin' doughnut. (And being completely honest, there are still days driving by the doughnut shop the familiar smell calls my name like some kind of wicked pied piper tune.) Today, cravings for gluten-filled foods have subsided and I've come to really enjoy my current diet. Plus, I love knowing I'm doing what is best for our health. Are ...Read More
What’s the Best Bible Translation for Kids?
There are dozens of English Bible translations available, but what's the best Bible translation for kids? One major factor to consider is your child's reading level. Recently, we were shopping for Bibles for one of our kids. Can we say, overwhelm? There are so. many. options. What helped us narrow down our options was considering several important factors... Longevity: Ideally we wanted a Bible he could read over and over for years, not just a Bible that was suitable for one or two years of his life. Reading Level: At the same time, we didn't want to buy him a 12th-grade-reading-level Bible when he was ...Read More
A Sure-Fire Way to Give Your Kids a Map of the Bible
When our oldest was 7 years old, he was attending a VBS at a local church, and the teacher asked all the kids, "Who knows what sin is?" Many kids started listing out different kinds of sins: lying, cheating, stealing, disobeying parents, etc. The teacher said, "Yes, those are different ways people sin, but what is sin?" My son raised his hand and said, "Sin is disobeying or not conforming to God's law in any way." The teacher stood stunned for a moment, and then said, "I think that's the best definition of sin I've ever heard." Of course, he didn't come up with that definition on his own. After VBS I told the ...Read More
