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In This House We Will Giggle Review

Courtney Defeo, author of the book In This House We Will Giggle, wears many hats. She is a devoted wife, the doting mother of two girls, an avid blogger and the mastermind behind ABC Scripture cards. In this book she is seeking to empower parents to be intentional about raising children who exhibit the kinds of characteristics we all hope to see in our children.

There are twelve chapters, and twelve virtues, each of them coordinating with the theme of the month.

January - Joy
February - Love
March - Forgiveness
April - Faith
May - Patience
June - Perseverance
July - Respect
August - Responsibility
September - Service
October - Humility
November - Gratitude
December - Generosity

Each virtue has a definition that is easily remembered even by a young child,  a memory verse, discussion questions, and a suggested reading from The Jesus Storybook Bible. (Which FYI is an absolutely amazing book! It is a must-read! ) Each chapter also includes an activity and prayer.

This book is not a life-changer, but it does still have some good meat.   What I like about this book is that it does not cause shame or guilt. It is written to provide ideas and suggestions.  One can pick and choose what ideas to use, adapt as needed, and forget about the rest. Defeo provides a sneak peek into her own life as a mom and shares stories of her successes and failures.  It is genuine and relatable.  Scattered throughout are sixty ideas for adding giggles - nothing to do with Jesus per se, just a lot of tickling and funny faces for the pure joy of it.   Some ideas are a bit cheesy,  but as I said,  pick and choose.

It is never too early to be thinking about how to raise virtuous children, but this book is not really written for a mom of two under two.  Still, I am able to apply the principles.  When my son is crying because he has to wait for supper,  I turn on the music and we dance.  We twirl.  We laugh.   Suddenly the tears are gone and are replaced by giggles.  I overflow with love when only moments before I wanted to rip out my hair!   The thing I keep coming back to when reading books like these is simply this: modeling.  I need to be loving Jesus and living for Him and inviting my boys into that.  This book provides some easy ideas for the all-important HOW.

So, is this book on my list of top ten must-reads?  Nah.  But I would happily pass it along to other moms who need a place to begin,  and I'll probably refer back to it as my kids get older.

. . .

I received a free copy of this book from bloggingforbooks.org in exchange for writing this honest review.

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