Deborah Vogts's Blog, page 23

This Week's Recipes

Here are this week's new additions at Country at Heart Recipes.Have a great weekend! 
Sourdough Biscuits
Tortellini Kabobs


Featured Author, Pat Jean Davis, shares her recipe for English Trifle

Favorite Books from 2018

Each year I post my favorite books that I've read--10 books total for the year. (Not sure why I didn't get through many books this year...possibly too busy or too tired!)Here are my top ten books for 2018--not necessarily books that were published in 2018, and in no certain order.




Emma - Jane AustenAn Elegant Facade - Kristen A HunterAn Inconvenient Beauty - Kristen A Hunter - Five StarsIrish Meadows - Susan Anne MasonA Portrait of Emily Price - Katherine ReayHearts Entwined - NovellaThe Lady of Tarpon Springs - Judith MmillerWhere the Heart Leads - Kim Vogel SawyerMore than Meets the Eye - Karen Witemeyer - Five StarsTo Wager Her Heart - Tamera Alexander - Six Stars

Book Preview ~ A Bound Heart

A Bound Heart, by Laura Frantz

Though Magnus MacLeish and Lark MacDougall grew up on the same castle grounds, Magnus is now laird of the great house and the Isle of Kerrera. Lark is but the keeper of his bees and the woman he is hoping will provide a tincture that might help his ailing wife conceive and bear him an heir. But when his wife dies suddenly, Magnus and Lark find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of accusations, expelled from their beloved island, and sold as indentured servants across the Atlantic. Yet even when all hope seems dashed against the rocky coastline of the Virginia colony, it may be that in this New World the two of them could make a new beginning--together.

Laura Frantz's prose sparkles with authenticity and deep feeling as she digs into her own family history to share this breathless tale of love, exile, and courage in Colonial America. Buy the book HERE.


Laura Frantz is a Christy Award finalist and the ECPA bestselling author of several books, including The Frontiersman's Daughter, Courting Morrow Little, The Colonel's Lady, and The Lacemaker. She lives and writes in a log cabin in the heart of Kentucky. Learn more at www.laurafrantz.net.

This Week's Recipes

Here are this week's new additions at Country at Heart Recipes.Join the Vogts Sisters in Wichita, KS this Saturday for their first 2019 performance.See more HERE.
Peanut Butter Cereal Bars
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Featured Author, June Foster, shares her recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes

Our Time with Henry

We had the joy of watching our grandson in December when his parents went on vacation.It was wonderful getting to know his little personality.As you may know, we raised three daughters, no sons, so this was also quite fun for my husband.
He loved rocking with his aunties
And playing with some old containers in the kitchen
Always Hungry!
He loved riding with papa in his buggy - beep, beep

Book Preview ~ Searching for You

Searching for You, by Jody Hedlund

Despite years on the run, Sophie Neumann is determined to care for two young children. She won't abandon them the way she thinks her older sisters abandoned her. But times are growing desperate, and when she falls in with the wrong crowd and witnesses a crime, she realizes fleeing 1850s New York is her only option.

Disappearing with her two young charges into a group of orphans heading west by train, Sophie hopes to find safety and a happy life. When the train stops in Illinois for the first placement of orphans, Sophie faces the most difficult choice of her life.

Reinhold Weiss has finally purchased his own small farm. With mounting debts, a harvest to bring in, and past scars that haunt him, he's in no position to give his heart away . . . but can he say no when his long-lost friend shows up on a nearby train pleading for his help? Buy the book HERE.


Jody Hedlund is the author of over a dozen novels, including Love Unexpected, Captured by Love, Unending Devotion, The Preacher's Bride, and A Noble Groom, and winner of the 2014 Carol Award for historical romance. She received a bachelor's degree from Taylor University and a master's from the University of Wisconsin, both in social work. She lives in Michigan with her husband and five children. She loves hearing from readers on Facebook and on her blog at www.jodyhedlund.com.

This Week's Recipes

Here are this week's new additions at Country at Heart Recipes.Have a great weekend!
Ranch Dressing Mix
Deep Dish Chicago-Style Stuffed Pizza
Chinese Dinner Menu Ideas

2018 Vogts Family Christmas

Because Christmas Day can be extremely busy with a morning church service and family dinners, we chose to celebrate with our immediate family the Saturday following Christmas--or the 5th Day of Christmas. Here are a few photos from our time together--in our near-to-bursting lil' home.
Opening Packages
Polly Pocket Returns in the Next Generation!
On Guard - Kitchen Warriors with their Pepper Mills
Dreaming about Sugar Plum Fairies???

Our Cheese Platter - Pretty Tasty!
Learning Checkers
Henry's Fascination with Velvet

Book Preview - With this Pledge

With this Pledge, by Tamera Alexander
  Elizabeth "Lizzie" Clouston's quietly held principles oppose those of the Southern Cause--but when forty thousand soldiers converge on the fields of Franklin, Tennessee, the war demands an answer. The Carnton home, where she is governess, is converted into a Confederate hospital, and Lizzie is called upon to assist the military doctor with surgeries that determine life or death. Faced with the unimaginable, she must summon fortitude, even as she fears for the life of Towny, her fiancé and lifelong friend.  As a young soldier lies dying in Lizzie's arms, she vows to relay his final words to his mother, but knows little more than the boy's first name. That same night, decorated Mississippi sharpshooter Captain Roland Ward Jones extracts a different promise from Lizzie: that she intervene should the surgeon decide to amputate his leg.  Lizzie is nothing if not a woman of her word, earning the soldiers' respect as she tends to the wounded within Carnton's walls. None is more admiring than Captain Jones, who doesn't realize she is pledged to another. But as Lizzie's heart softens toward the Confederate captain, she discovers his moral ground is at odds with her own. Now torn between love, principles, and pledges made, she struggles to be true to her own heart while standing for what she knows is right--no matter the cost.   From the pages of history and the personal accounts of those who endured the Battle of Franklin, Tamera Alexander weaves the real-life love letters between Captain Roland Ward Jones and Miss Elizabeth Clouston into a story of unlikely romance first kindled amid the shadows of war. Buy the book HERE.
Tamera Alexander is the USA Today bestselling author of numerous books, including A Lasting Impression, A Note Yet Unsung, To Whisper Her Name, and To Wager Her Heart. Her richly drawn characters and thought-provoking plots have earned her devoted readers worldwide, as well as multiple industry awards. These awards include the Christy Award for Excellence in Christian fiction, the RITA Award for Best Inspirational Romance, the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, Bookseller’s Best Award, and being listed among Publishers Weekly and Library Journal’s Top Inspirational Fiction, among others.

She hopes readers who pick up one of her novels will be swept away into another time and place, that they'll fall in love with the characters and gain insights into the history of the setting and people of yesteryear. But most of all, when a reader turns that final page in one of her novels, she prays they will have taken a step closer to Christ. Because He's what it's all about.

After living in Colorado for nearly two decades, Tamera and her husband now make their home in Nashville where they enjoy life with their two adult children who live nearby, and Murphy—a rambunctious but oh-so-lovable Australian Terrier. Learn more about Tamera HERE.

2018 Vogts' Family Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas holiday with our family.Here are a few pictures from our time together on Christmas Eve.
My Christmas Eve Table
My first attempt at a Christmas Yule Log
Maggie and Theodore
Abigail and Malachi
My Christmas Tree Official Picture