Faith, Marriage, Motherhood, Homeschooling, Essential oils, Herbs, and Holistic Living
Have you ever just woke up one morning, and an hour into the day you knew somehow that your time somewhere had just............well...........past expired?
We had been toying with the idea of moving to the Pacific Northwest again (where I'm originally from and where my family and many friends still lived). It wasn't the first time. We did this at least once a year. This year was different though. In 2017 we felt like it was time to move, so we listed our home and had planed to move closer to Kansas City. But....our home didn't sell. So eventually we took our home off the market. After a series of difficult blows last spring that left us financially in worse shape then we had ever been in, we started kicking the whole Pacific Northwest idea around again, for somewhere around the millionth time. Well, not really the millionth, but you get the idea. For the first time ever, we saw homes up there were closer to our price range then ever before. But a move nearly 2000 miles away is kind of a big deal. So we continued with daily life as usual for a month or so. Then one day that was it. Our lives in our current location had always been a struggle and we knew that as long as we were there that's what life would remain. So we put our home on the market. I had a feeling our home was going to sell quickly, and it did! Crazy how the year before we tried so hard to sell and nothing happened. We know now it didn't because we were headed south when we were supposed to be headed north!
Picking up and moving was no small feat though. When the packing started I was around 3 weeks postpartum and I was only able to get around 6 hours of active packing in per day between keeping up with laundry, meals, and feeding the new baby. Let's just say between 6 kids and having just had a baby my brain was not functioning at top speed!
Add to this, everything fell into place until after we signed the contract to sell our home. Then suddenly it was as if everything that could go wrong did! Quite honestly, it all was one of the most intense, long, drawn out, and just plain awful experiences!
I consequently dropped many of the spinning plates-some of which created domino effects that we are still ironing out. I'll be honest, my brain and body are still recovering and this is why it's taken me so long to start blogging again! But, the good news is life here so far has been so much better and more full then it was in Missouri! There are more opportunities then I can even count for us and our children. The support and the possibilities for our children are so many that I'm moved to a tear or two! It's also been wonderful to reconnect with friends and family.
It was especially sweet to experience our first Christmas here in the mighty Pacific Northwest with all the snow and beautiful mountains.
I missed these grand evergreens so much!
It truly is as if the longer we are here the more our cup is "overflowing" in areas it never was before. I'm so excited for what the future holds for us, and I have some new and exciting blog posts coming very soon so stay tuned! To close I wanted to include a couple of the most helpful YouTube videos with moving tips that I found for those of you that will be moving soon!
This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of Cookies
0 Comments
This post has moved to our new and improved website at
www.singinganewsong.com Click HERE for content. One year ago, I said a prayer. I told God I was happy with the amount of children I had, and I was ready to call our family complete. Little did I know that one year later I would be thanking God for not answering my prayer. I've never been more keenly aware of the fact that we human's know so little about what will make us happy, and how God truly does know what will bring us the most joy. Categories All
This post contains affiliate links.
Did you know that you do not have to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe for those bump months? And did you know that for the pieces that you will need to get, there's a way to do it practically, affordably and way more stylishly then simply shopping the maternity sections (that are usually limited)? With my first baby I thought I needed "maternity" clothes as did my mom. So she kindly took me maternity attire shopping. I have to admit, I am really thankful I didn't get pregnant a few years before I did. Just a couple short years before I was expecting my oldest I remember walking past a maternity shop and seeing a top that literally was the shape of a tent. It was navy blue with polka dots, and it had a big red bow below the chin. Really? Looking back at some of the expectant mama styles you have to wonder if whoever was in charge of designing them even liked pregnant women, lol! Even though, I remember trying on dozens of clothes and so few fit my body correctly. It seemed they all fell kind of awkwardly on me, didn't fit right, were uncomfortable, and worst of all you needed two of everything. One for the first half of pregnancy, and a larger size for the last half. Skip ahead 10 years. I was pregnant with my fifth. I found myself ditching so many of the traditional maternity clothes I got during my first pregnancies and wishing I knew the hacks what I know now! I would have saved so much money! Here's the problem with so many maternity pieces;
Ladies', I'm going to show you how to build a versatile pregnancy & nursing mama's capsule wardrobe without breaking the bank!!! You probably have a lot of these pieces in your closet already! To create an exceptional, flexible, and stylish (not to mention practical) wardrobe for this special season in life, here's a basic list of what I've found most valuable;
Cami's
Okay so the cami's are a must, must must have! Having an assortment of them in various colors will save you big bucks. Here's how.
Maxi Skirts and Dresses
Another favorite. Not only are the skirts stretchy and grow with you, but they are visually slimming (if you wear the right color top). Slimming is what we pregger mama's love! They are so very flexible too. If it's a hot day just tie a knot in the corner of one, or you can pull it up and wear it as a dress. When I do that I like to wear a cami underneath just in case one of my kids comes up and pulls on it, lol!
Wrap Dresses
Oh my word, smartest, most versatile mama dress that ever existed. You can wear them while expecting. You can wear them while you are nursing. You can wear them when you are not expecting or nursing! Seriously the only dress you will ever need. Oh, and they work on all body shapes! Here's one of my favorites-but it's only for petites. If you are average or tall you'll want to wear shorts or leggings under them, especially as the bump grows! Get my favorite wrap dress HERE.
I love combining cami's and these wrap dresses with half tee's underneath (below) for modesty as well as ease of use when nursing.
Click Images to Buy
Leggings
Click Images to Buy
Leggings by LuLaRoe are wonderfully comfortable. If you are normally a pear body shape you might have a little trouble with these, but they are great on most other body shapes. For Pears shapes; flare leggings are best, and heels are a must for this body shape. Leggings always look best with a longer flowy top. Just make sure the top does NOT end at the widest point of your hips.
Light Jackets
These are great to wear to dress up any outfit. They even dress up cami's when other tops are just not fitting well or comfortably any longer. I love how they can take an outfit from blah to GAH!
Oversized Tee's
Who would have thought a twist and a knot could take a regular tee shirt and make it so cute? Seriously, try it. You'll see what I mean. The knot in the corner gives a regular tee shirt a tuck right under the belly. I don't know about you but I loathe it when tops fall loose away from the bottom of my belly when I'm expecting! The draft makes me feel so self conscious!
Tee shirts as a rule are not dressy, but the twist and knot does help, especially if you pair it with a big, chunky necklace. Another trick; for most body shapes the v-neck will be most flattering-especially once the belly turns you into a temporary apple shape. Off Shoulder, Empire Waist
This is a new discovery for me, and it might be my most favorite of all, once again because of how versatile they are. This style of dress can be worn pre pregnancy, during, and after pregnancy while nursing. It's a piece you will never have to swap out. You want to be sure to get ones that have an elastic neck so you have the option to pull them down to nurse, also to wear them on shoulder (which you'll probably want to do since you'll likely be wearing nursing bra's-and apparently it's a rule that most nursing bra's have tacky ugly straps). You'll want the empire elastic waste to fit over the top of the bump-and to help hide the tummy after pregnancy.
This concludes my favorite pregnancy style must haves! What are some of yours? Drop them in the comments section below!
*This post contains affiliate links.
Check out my social media platforms where you can follow along!
CategoriesAll "I don't know how you do it all!" It's probably the phrase I hear most. And while I'll admit, I have a plateful, this phrase always puzzles me. Recently I've put into words what is in my heart when I hear this. From now on my answer is going to be, "The same way you do." "I get up, and I go to work. I work hard, but so do you. I do it for the same reason you probably do all that you do; it's for my family". Although each of us has work that may look a little/or a lot different then each others, it's so important to support each other in one another's callings. "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up..." 1 Thessalonians 5:11 Here's to all us hardworking super mama's, who do the work we do, day in and day out.
"And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Galatians 6:9 This post may contain affiliate links. It occurred to me recently that ever since we got our additions, I've never really featured the living room. And yet it's one of our favorite rooms in the house! A little backstory; for so long we didn't have a living room. We were squeezing our family of 6 and then 7 into a tiny little home for years, and since we were a homeschooling family and I had a home based buisenss too, we turned the area for the living room into a school room/office to meet our family's needs. I would often dream of the day I had a living room to relax in again! In late 2015 the day finally came. We got the room, and although it was pretty empty for the first several months, the journey to creating that oasis in my dreams began. For the first few months all we had for furniture was a sofa.... :-D In 2016 someone gave us an amazing deal on a sofa and recliner. Yay! It was better, and so nice! And the sofa was my dream sofa too! But something about the room still wasn't the style that I envisioned. Eventually I had my oldest paint some botanical pictures, and I had John build some frames for them. That was a sweet step.... Next I saw an area rug that I fell in love with. I had never picked my own rug before, and after a few months I finally caved and got the rug. It was a big step in the direction of my living room dreams. Over the next couple months I slowly made changes. Even though I loved the suede sofa that we had gotten a good deal on, I could tell that it wasn't going to last long in our big family. After just one year had passed the kids had worn down the back cushions noticeably. Anyone else's kids climb up the backs of their sofas? So since kids are so dang hard on sofa's I figured why not just sell both of them while I still could get some money out of them, and change over to this family friendly idea I saw on Instagram.... It's just mattress's, and John made a frame for this one....the other one is on his to do list... Why I love this; no more yelling at the kids to stop walking and jumping on the couches. Ironically they don't normally jump on these beds....go figure. They would jump on the sofa's and walk along the arms and back, but they sit on the beds....Who would have thought.... Another thing I love is the sofa's were a little too big for the room, but the mattress's fit the room much better! There was still something that was off to me though and it was this wall. Last winter I figured out what it was. I had gone to Midwest Parent Educator's Encouragement Day for Homeschool moms and the keynote speaker was talking about keeping bible verses throughout the home to encourage us throughout the day. Instantly I knew what I wanted to do to fix my living room style funk. That week, I spent about a half day creating the new look. It was so, so hard to take down the pictures of my kids, but the thing is that when they leave home someday I want them to have as many verses memorized as possible to carry with them through their lives. What better way to help us all memorize verses then with scripture art!? Although this is a tiny living room it completely fits our family's needs! It doesn't look like it in this room, but I'm definitely into minimalism. With pretty much all the décor you see there's a hidden purpose, and most things a duel purpose! On the shelf above, for example, everything you see is either a prop for photography, and is also hiding/holding something (mainly business supplies). The living room definitely took me the longest to get "just right" but it was worth it and is one of the family's favorite rooms in the house!
More posts you might enjoy; minimalist-march-challenge-for-mothers-7-signs-its-time-to-declutter-7-tips-for-getting-it-done.html There we were. Inching closer and closer to the time we needed to leave. I felt like I was herding cats. No sooner would I have the 5 year old ready, the two year old had changed again. It had snowed that morning and was freezing, and the two year was old back in a summer play dress. So I went and got her changed. I turned around. The middle son whom I told to get ready an hour earlier was in going out clothes, but they were filthy. I had been helping my oldest daughter do her hair and getting ready myself, so I hadn't noticed. Apparently, instead of putting his clothes in the hamper after the last outing he put them back in the closet. He did that all the time. I went to find him clean clothes. They were all or missing (probably under the bed). The 13 year old couldn't find his shoes. Or his coat. I went to help. I had told my boys the day before to clean their room so we would be able to find things and get around quickly the next morning. But they didn't. Now the boys room was such a disaster that I couldn't find anything either. I had spent hours the day before planning this outing. I thought I had all my bases covered. Breakfast casserole, check. The small kids clothes planned, check. The older kids told to plan their clothes, check. The food I was bringing on the outing, check. But just one little thing didn't get done (boys didn't clean their room like I asked them), and now everything spun out of my control. I looked at the clock. It was one minute till we needed to be at our destination. Anxiety was through the roof. We had been through this before, pretty much every time it was time to go somewhere. No matter how many times I told the boys the get their shoes on 1 hour before, or find their clothes the day before, they never did. I knew it was time for some consequences. Different consequences, because things like grounding were not working. Since showing up what would have been 30 minutes late to an event that had a distinct starting time is not an option in my book, I knew what I had to do. "That's it. We are not going". The kids cried. I cried. Raising kids can be so crazy sometimes. Especially when it's time to get out the door. The next day my brain went to work. How could I help my kids avoid this happening in the future? After brainstorming with one of my amazing aunts, we had a plan. So far it's been working! Here are the five things I've found that help us get out of the door in a timely manner. 1. I've always tried to keep the little kids going out clothing separate from their regular clothing, and up high where they cannot reach it, but I began making more of a point to enforce this. 2. The day before an event I'll gather all their clothes and have them find their shoes and I keep everything in a basket in MY room, not theirs. 3. I started trying harder to get the older kids to have everything ready the day before. Now they know that mama might cancel an outing if they don't do what they are told they are making more a point to listen a little better too. 4. We try to get everything ready EARLY the day before in case something needs to be washed. 5. I minimized. You can read more about our minimizing journey HERE. This made a HUGE difference. Do you have any tips for getting out the door with your kids? If so leave them in the comments below! Don't forget to follow along with our social media platforms!
The information here is for educational and "entertainment" purposes only and is not intended to treat, diagnose, or cure disease. Please consult with your health care provider if you need medical assistance.
We just finished up our first year with My Father's World and it was remarkable! I seriously cannot say enough good about MFW. Beyond learning more then we have with any other curriculum in a school year, I love how the family cycle brought my older two children closer together. If you would like to see my post about the curriculum you can do so HERE. I will be adjusting some things in the coming year, for example, in addition to Language Lessons for Today I'll either be adding more of either Weaver Wisdom Words or else Abeka Language Arts then we did this last year. The only reason is because I want my kids to be extra solid writers when they leave home. I thought about starting with the next level in MFW in May. I decided it would just be so much easier to begin the new MFW level July 1st when the school year officially and legally begins, just to make record keeping a bit more organized. But that meant that I needed to create our own schedule to fill in the months between now and then. You might be wondering "What about summer break?"! We are basically year round homeschoolers. But that's not as bad as it sounds! We've found this is what works best for our family's unique learning needs, and with our work schedules. It also gives us a little bit of freedom to do "half days" every now and then if we have something else going on or want to take a field trip. I also like doing year round school for math, language arts, and reading because kids loose so much of what they learned through the summer if you don't! If you are a homeschool mom or a teacher, you know what I'm talking about! So for May and June, our calendar is filled with some things I feel like we need some work and polishing up in instead. It's not specified, but Psalms is also a Bible lesson and handwriting practice. In addition to Teaching Textbooks the kids are reading through Life of Fred and Usborne math books. We just choose whichever topic or Usborne book that applies to what the kids are learning in Teaching Textbooks. Here are some of our favorite Usborne books that we are enjoying right now! You can just click the pictures if you are interested in ordering any of them and you'll be redirected to my dear friend and Usborne consultants page. The geography game is everyday because not only is it fun, it has worked so well for teaching the kids the countries around the world!!! Since we are doing a garden this year, it's on the school schedule. In my opinion every kid should get to do gardening as a school project! They LOVE it! So ironic, in my middle son's school he had the assignment to plant a small garden the very week we began planting our three big gardens! I didn't plan it that way, (I'm not that organized), it just happened! We will be replacing a day here and there in with a couple field trips. I laid the summer schedule out similar to MFW schedules (sample below) just because the MFW layout worked so well for me. This year we will do half day's for a couple weeks starting June 13th to July 1st so the kids have plenty of outdoor time. During that time we will also have some cooking lessons and hopefully fill our food with casseroles and goodies for after baby comes. I'm also planning 1 week off after the baby is born, and half days in October-November, as usual. During the off time and half days, the kid's will do nature study, and the older two will probably be diving deeper into area's of interest. My oldest has been on an animatronics kick, so that's probably what he will research with every waking hour with his free time! So far we are a week and a half into this schedule. I had to fine tune a couple places after the first few days, and we probably won't make our goal of 3 pages in Abeka like I had hoped, nor have the kids fit in foreign language, but that is to be expected while we get used to the schedule. If we are unable to fit foreign language in the kids will just work on that during half days too. Best of all, and BIG change, the older two have already learned how to follow it independently! Of course I still flit around the room supervising, but they are like a well running machine (with the exception of Language Arts)! That's huge to us, I've dreamt of this for years, lol! It's a big deal for me because it (hopefully) means they will be able to follow their MFW schedule once July hits. That will be a massive help after the baby is born. It's big for them because once I showed them how it works they seem to enjoy taking the responsibility of following it. They have such a spirit of achievement while they are working and since they can see the end of the list it inspires them to stay on task as opposed to daydreaming or chit chatting, henceforth, they finish sooner! And, since they are working better on their own it enables me to focus on Gabriel, which helps him finish sooner too! Do you homeschool? If so, how is your year finishing up? What plans do you have for summer? Leave a comment below! Never miss a thing! Follow along with us!
This post has migrated to our new and improved website. SEE POST HERE. Don't miss a thing! Follow along!
This post has migrated to our new and upgraded website!
View it HERE. Never Miss the Inspiration! Follow Along With Us! We found out the first of March what we are having, and on the 4th we hosted a little gender reveal party. Although I posted it on FB I didn't post it here or on my Instagram page because I've been so busy with spring cleaning and minimizing! So this is actually the first time we have found out what we are having and it was so much fun! So now the challenge is deciding a name! My husband and I have completely different taste when it comes to names so this will be interesting....stay tuned! Follow Along With Us!
This minimizing experience has truly been life changing! Although it's been a much larger project then I initially expected it to be, and taken longer as well (I thought it would take a week and it's taking a month), our lives are running incredibly smoother then they were before! I find that every time I think I am done with a room, over the course of the next few days I'll find more that we just don't use or really need. I've always been big on decluttering and organizing. I had to be, read more here, so when I realized after a couple weeks into the minimizing experience that I had downsized to the point of creating a whole new room, I was shocked! Here's what went down.... Once I was done minimizing the kitchen and dining room, I found that so much of what was left in the dining room would now fit in the kitchen, leaving me with a lot of unused space in the dining room (it's a decent sized room-15x16). Then I had a big huge decision to make. Our school room wasn't working out as I had initially expected it too. For one, kids would gravitate to the dining room and living room with their school every day. I think it might have had something to do with that fact that there were kind of too many of us to fit in the school room. But there was also a big HUGE problem that we kept running into with the schoolroom too. It never, ever looked like it did on day one (above). This is because the kids had a bad habit of going in there after school or on weekends, starting art projects (daily) and not cleaning up after themselves (ever). When you have 5 artists, and some of them making multiple projects every evening, two of them being ages 5 and 2, you are talking about a very, very, very large mess that takes a very long time to clean up. No matter what I tried, for months this was a problem. Not to mention the two younger ones would consistently rummage through spaces that were mine (the teachers) and do things like leave the caps off the years supply of glue...etc..... Since I would be in the other room either making dinner or working I would never find out until later. One Saturday, after spending 5 hours cleaning it out, only to have it destroyed before school even started again on Monday, I was at wits end. I wasn't sure what to do at first, we worked so hard to make this beautiful space for learning! But because it was tucked away in a corner of the house, it was just.not.working by any stretch of the imagination. In fact it was doing the opposite of what it was supposed to be doing (it was costing time and causing immense frustration). I think if it had been open to the rest of the rooms where I could keep a better eye on the kids when they were in there, it could have been different....but it wasn't. There was also another situation that was becoming increasingly problematic. My office was in a central place in the house, in the dining room, see pic). Since I was using a corner, it was crammed and an eye sore. I always get up early to work, but I also work on both my businesses and John's business on Saturdays and sometimes in the evenings, and I was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate with my space being literally four feet from the TV and in the center of the house (have I ever mentioned that boys are loud.... and I have three of them?)! Another thing about it is that in addition to it never working very well because I was trying to cram so much in to such a small corner, there as also the problem that no matter how much I tried to "pretty it up", it always looked out of place and messy, plus it was at the front door. So after about five days of debating in my mind, chatting with my husband about it, and talking with my aunt Pam, whom I love to talk this kind of stuff over with, I decided to let go of the school room and turn it into a study room/office. At first I was so reluctant. I wasn't even sure if it would work. But oh my goodness. It turned into the best decision. In this room, I was able to bring out the boho farmhouse look that I love with some industrial touches! I went with black and white (because it's probably my favorite color combination), walnut wood (because we had that on hand), and metallic accents-cuz they are trendy right now and rightly so-I mean, isn't it about time :-D ! Life is unbelievably different since we created this room! Instead of having just a corner for me, both John and I now have enough space to work! So far this room has brought the following perks...a couple of them were unexpected;
Both John and I are LOVING this space! The best part of all, we did this on a MAJOR budget (like we do most things :-D )! The desk top (below) is a repurposed top from what used to be the dining room table. I asked for the edge to be kept rustic (I love mixing a little boho rusticness into our home). John made his first industrial shelving, we've been meaning to do that for awhile because we've been wanting to offer it at JP Custom Woodwork. In line with minimalism, this shelf pretty much has just the bare necessities. Top shelf; photography folio (necessary to show clients at proofings), Jesus art by my son (because no matter how minimalist you are there are some things that you never want to let go), photography CD display (to show clients). Middle shelf, camera bag, plant (because every boho farmhouse must have plants! Bottom shelf, my portfolio, and letter board used in advertising, plus our business cards). And here's the best part, since moving the school room to the dining room, where we were naturally gravitating anyways, we are finding school days drastically smoother by having that area in the central location! But I'll save that for the next minimalist post.
I never would have guessed becoming a hard core minimalist would give us a room. And one that would bring so much peace and more productivity to our home! Stay tuned for the next post featuring the dining room/school room! Also upcoming; a post on the bedrooms because there's some great changes brought to us by minimalism there too! Be sure to check out my other minimalism posts; 7 Signs It's Time to Declutter and 7 Tips To Get It Done Taming The Toy Monster Would you like to know more about our business's and what we offer? Check out; JP Furniture & Cabinetry Shayla P. {Camera Artist} Essential Wellness with Shayla This post has moved to the new, professional blog! You can find it HERE. Categories All Minimalist March Challenge for Mothers-7 Signs it's Time to Declutter, 7 Tips for Getting it Done3/1/2018 Most my friends that know me well know that I'm BIG on organization, and decluttering. For more then 12 years we lived in very small spaces, both homes we lived in were less then 1000 square feet, so I had to learn to be a minimalist. Within the last two years we have been blessed to be able to add on to our home, going from less then 1000sq ft of space for our family of 7 to over 1400 square ft, and then last year to 1800 square ft. I know 1800sq ft still sounds like a cracker box to some people but after what we've been through it feels like the Taj Mahl! Living for so long in such a small space taught me many ways to maximize space, and live simply. I still use what I learned too keep our home feeling spacious. I always know it's time to declutter because there's a series of things that start happening that let me know "enough is too much". Here's how I know;
I wanted to share with you 7 ways I use to tame the clutter and get my life back when things are getting a little out of hand.
The Challenge..... Over the last month, all the above signs that it's time to deep clean/declutter have started happening. So I've decided to challenge myself to get the spring cleaning, and decluttering done, but to take an extra aggressive step forwards towards relentless decluttering. My goal is to see exactly how much we have that we don't use and need, and pitch it.
I would love for you to join me in this Minimalist March, let's take back peace in our homes and our time! If you would like to join me stay tuned, next week I'll be posting Taming the Toy Monster! Drop a comment below and tell me what you think! This post has moved to our new and upgraded website at |
Categories
All
Archives
January 2019
|