Happy At Home

I always knew I wanted to be a mom and always knew I wanted to stay home with them. I had visions of happily teaching my future children everything they would ever need to know with smiles on our faces and laughter filling the house. I imagined matching bows in the girls’ perfectly combed hair and little boys who said “yes ma’am” and helped me take out the trash while skipping merrily down the driveway. 

You don’t even have to have your own kids to realize this dream would never be reality. We didn’t have to wait long after marriage because by the time we’d been married for a year I was 7 months pregnant with our first bundle of joy. A bright and bouncy baby girl made her way into our world and with her came my first dose of the reality of parenthood. 

There were smiles and laughter and giggles and even the occasional matching bow but there were also tears, so many tears. There were ruined outfits due to messy diapers and spit up and tired eyes and exhaustion. There was confusion and doubt and fear. So much fear. How was I ever going to manage to raise this human without completely ruining her? 

I had the privilege of staying home with my first baby, and then my second and eventually my third. I made this work by always baby sitting for one family at a time on a full time basis in addition to homeschooling my own children. 

Some days it felt perfect, it felt right. It felt like I was meant to be a mom and teaching them at home and like we would always have fun together, side by side as we discovered the world and each other. But, some days it was overwhelming. I felt like I was drowning in housework and homework and like I would never find myself again. I was busy all the time and felt like I had no time for myself. 

I knew I had to find a way to make it work. A way to salvage some joy in the mounting chaos that was life.. I realized I needed to figure out how to be happy at home. 

At first I thought I needed to redecorate and paint and love my environment. This produced more discontentment and so rather than being satisfied and fulfilled I was left feeling frustrated with not only my situation but every little thing started to bother me. And I mean EVERY LITTLE THING. Like the mail being laid on the counter in the wrong place, my husbands shoes kicked off next to the chair in the bedroom, the old couch  we still had from a yard sale when we were first married. I was going the wrong direction. I was growing more and more frustrated with everything and not finding any lasting peace or joy at all.

Eventually through a study I launched myself into through the Bible’s definition of the word “peace” I started to reevaluate what I had understood the word “peace” to mean. 

I thought that once everything was right in my environment, situation and other people changed enough, I could then be allowed to experience peace. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I noticed that in the Bible the word “peace” is actually described as something to strive for, to work for, to maintain. All of these are action words. Peace requires work, striving, and effort to accomplish. 

Peace needs to be achieved internally before it can be achieved externally. For me, internal peace is very much tied to my external environment. I feel the need to accomplish all my work before I allow myself to relax. The problem with this of course, is we all know the work is never really done. I was pushing myself to exhaustion and not finding any joy in all the in-between moments. I needed balance. Big time. 

I’ve been working hard on this for the past year. About taking a deep breath and sometimes letting the mess rest till morning. Sometimes the dishes sit in the sink. Sometimes the floor is just dirty. Sometimes the clothes sit in the laundry basket folded (or maybe not) waiting to be put away for a few extra days. I’m trying to learn to focus on one or two small things to help me relax and find some joy and peace despite not having everything all in order.  

The first one is that our house is constantly filled with music. If someone isn’t playing an instrument, then the other is singing. And if everyone is busy, we are definitely listening to music. Our favorite way is by using this speaker hooked up to Alexa. My husband got me this for Christmas and we all have been loving  it. We love to listen to music to get us going in the morning, to encourage dancing while we clean, or to calm us down after a rough day of school or work. Music is life in this house. 

I have a problem. A candle problem. I love, love, love the coziness that a candle can bring to a room. I also love the freshness a good scent can fill the room with. It literally centers me when I have a candle lit. Give me a cup of coffee, music playing and a candle lit and I can let any amount of chaos take over my life. Lol 

This one is a fun one. We have no “fancy” dishes in this house. I love to use what we have and not save anything for special occasions. A Tuesday afternoon is a perfectly good reason to serve snacks in beautiful dishes wouldn’t you agree? The kids probably don’t care, but mommy Is happy when a pretty table is set. Even if it’s just family and just a Wednesday night. Anything to brighten up our table, is welcome at my house. Because it can’t help but brighten your mood to eat off of beautiful dishes, right? 

Maybe you don’t care at all about how your table looks, or if you ever light a candle in your house again. What small things do you do in your life to brighten up your day? 

Waste Not Want Not

One simple thing that has stood the test of time and been proven to save money, is the practice of using what you have, first. Always. Our great, great, great grandparents would roll over in their graves if they knew how we waste and replace these days. We have lost an appreciation for the art of making things last. It’s so easy to toss and buy again that we don’t often have a real reason to work hard to salvage something. However, this was one thing I intentionally set out to be better at this year. I knew this would be one that would impact our budget and our life more than anticipated. When I thought I needed to go to the store and buy something, my challenge was going to be to look high and low and use some creative thinking to make whatever I could, work. 

This has manifested itself in a myriad of ways over the course of the last two and a half months. On day 8 or something like that my child brought me a white-out cartridge in literally a tangled web of white sticky string, and I immediately began walking toward the trash can. But just before tossing the valuable office tool into the white bag of decaying nastiness, I paused, looked at the disaster in my hand and sighed a heavy “this isn’t really what I meant” guilty sigh. It took me over ten minutes to sort, untangle, tie and restring that red plastic white-out dispenser. But I tell you what, I’ve never been so proud of my diligence. It worked, I no longer NEEDED anything again. I had solved the problem, solved the need and my list for the store remained at a balance. 

The same idea has come into play countless times in the last ten weeks. We think we NEED  to buy shirts for the upcoming parties at school, but I used materials we already had in the craft room and they came together beautifully and kept our hands busy on a snow day. Using this practice once or twice doesn’t add up to very big savings, but a habit of considering all options BEFORE purchasing something new, will lend itself to a surprising amount of money left in your pocket! 

Even though I’ve been meal planning, and we aren’t eating out, there are still days where things don’t go as planned and still times when the refrigerator has a random assortment of food left and it’s taken some major creativity to create a decent meal. Last week, this looked like baking chicken breasts in a bath of marinara sauce, shredding some mozzarella and spreading it on the top and naming the conoction “pizza chicken”. It wasn’t too bad, actually. This weekend however, it looked like making one of my absolute favorite things ever, overnight oats! I had some strawberries and raspberries on their last few days. Slightly soft, and ready to turn. I thought about just tossing them, and then I remembered this awesome make-ahead breakfast or snack! You just put the oats in the bottom of some glass jars or plastic containers, (about 1/3 cup) pour 3Tbsp milk onto the oats. Top with a couple spoonfuls of yogurt, sprinkle of berries and a drizzle of honey. Let sit overnight and enjoy! These are so great! My son and I love these and will take for lunch even sometimes. Also, bonus, they’re just so beautiful! It was the perfect way to use up some slightly mushy fruit and make use of every dollar I had spent at the grocery store! 

What We're Reading This Week

Round two of "What we're reading this week" is upon us. I thought I would include what we're reading during our family devotion time in the evenings. This book is incredible. It's devotions based on science and how absolutely remarkable God's creation is. We've been doing this nightly since the summer and everyone loves it. We're almost to the end, but I'm keeping this one to go back through again in a year or two. 

You guys!!!! I had this book when I was little and I came across it at a thrift store sometime last year. I pulled it out and the kids are getting a real kick out of it. They love reading one or two of these silly poems after our devotion every night. Seriously-this is a good one to introduce your littles to poetry and rhyming. 

Lily's been working her way through Nancy Drew graphic novels this week. I think this is her second one since we left the Library yesterday. hehe She's decided she really likes mysteries and will continue to pursue this genre! I love when they find something they really like to read! 

This is my read this week. Its a tough one guys, I'm not going to lie. It's full of triggers so if you're prone to set backs, this might not be your book. I was studying psychology when I met my husband in college and I am truly fascinated about what makes people who they are. I'm curious about how others live, feel, and think. I want to know what makes people, at their core, who they are. Because of this, this book caught my eye. I never imagined I would relate to it as much as I have though. It's been tough to read at times, but also really made me think. This is a well written, fast paced book. I would highly recommend it to people who are confident it won't set them back in their own psychological health. 

Weston is a reader. Through and through. He read these top three books today during his snow day. This is a series he found at the library yesterday and they're an easy read and apparently funny. 

 This is the other series Weston has been really loving. I've been requesting them from the library and he will finish one in about 30 minutes as soon as I bring it home! He laughs out loud to these books and Lily usually reads them as well and they walk around quoting funny bits from them like you would quote a line from a movie! Love it!

Norah discovered Winnie the Pooh recently and we've been working our way through these stories. I'm amazed how still she will sit and really study the pictures and listen intently while I read. You can't go wrong with a good old classic like Winnie the Pooh! 

Crumbs

As I prepared for company to come over this past week, it always brings to the front of my mind the ongoing to-do list that comes with owning a fixer-upper. Of course, maybe that to-do list exists with home ownership of any kind. Anyway, when I host company, I truly enjoy it. I love entertaining and I love sharing our home with friends. I love hosting dinners and having an excuse to make lavish meals. I do find however, that I can let my joy be diminished by the small things I notice around the house. The bare foot prints all over my freshly mopped floor, the doggy nose marks on my clean windows, the fact that every closet I open seems to contain a surprise of some sort placed there by one child or another. I used to dedicate the day of company coming to a full on cleaning spree. However, now that I work outside the home, I try to spread the cleaning out over the course of the week so I don't feel overwhelmed all in one day with the cleaning and the cooking that needs to happen. But, here's the real deal. Life happens in this house every day. Every day spills, every day the dog goes outside and back in again, every day my three kids run around bare foot on my wood floors because heaven forbid socks stay on their feet for longer than 30 seconds after entry. Every day we eat, and get crumbs inevitably all over the kitchen and dining room. Every night we sleep and wrinkle our beds, every day we add to the bathroom contamination. Every. Single. Day.

Here's what else happens....Years ago, I used to be able to clean the house during nap time. In one fell swoop I could run around and tidy most rooms in the house while toddlers slept peacefully tucked in their little beds and unable to disturb anything. That cannot happen anymore and it leaves me in a bit of a conundrum. While I clean these days, the kids are walking, running, jumping through every other room in the house. They're building forts, they're playing with their toys, they're reading books, and in order to do the latter each and every book must be removed from the book basket, of course. We all have the same obstacles in our way, right?

And...here's what else. My children aren't just older and no longer nap, they're older and more independent and want to pour their milk, they want to get themselves a snack, they want to find it, reach it, open it, ALL BY THEMSELVES. And these are things I want them to learn. These are things they need to learn. But in order for three children to be adequately prepared for the adulthood necessity of pouring milk, they must also be responsible for learning how to clean up after said mess, are you with me?

This brings me to my realization as I scrambled around the house last week grabbing this and that and tidying and wiping and straightening, that I suddenly stopped. I stopped right there in front of the linen closet, took a deep breath as I looked at the crumpled sheets shoved onto the shelf and realized that it was okay. It was okay that the shelves weren't orderly and straight like I would have done it. Whichever kid had been tasked with putting the folded sheets away, had done it the best they could. It's okay that my windows had a few marks where my daughter had wiped them in her attempt to clean. It's okay that there are mysterious marks on my couch, and the chairs at the kitchen island and crumbs under my table where my son didn't quite reach while he swept.

It's okay, because we're all learning in this house every single day. We're learning as we spill and as we clean, we're learning as we dance around in our bare feet on the wood floor making all kinds of marks. We're learning as we cook, eat and share a meal and then proceed to clean it up. We're learning how to do life. The kids are learning how to pour, measure, cook and clean and I'm learning how to have patience, how to explain things, how to love them. I'm learning how to be a mom who recognizes what really matters. So come on over to our fixer upper-come on over and enjoy the marks and the spills and the crumbs and all the fun that learning through this life brings!

Unique, Frugal Valentine Ideas!

I love coming up with unique valentine gift ideas for the kids to give out at school. This year was no different. Even though we're not spending on extras, we found a way to come up with some cute valentine gifts for the kids' friends. I saw this idea originally on Pinterest, and it proved to be just as simple as it looked online! We found some paint sample sheets at Menards and bought some matching ribbon. We then used decorative hole punches we already owned to cut stars for the boys and hearts for the girls in my daughter's class. We cut them in half, saving the hole punched side to both cut off the names of the paint colors as well as make it a better size to be utilized as a bookmark!

We paired the book marks with some valentine candy and there we go! Cute, personal valentines that are adorable, fun and cheap! 

I also found this free candy huggable printable online and printed these on regular paper, cut them out, had my younger daughter sign her name to the back and taped on some chocolate hearts. They turned out completely adorable! So simple, so cheap and yet so personal! Love how these turned out! 

What We're Reading This Week

I thought I would start a fun little mini-series within this blog about our favorite picks to read. We're doing a lot of reading these days because for one-we all love books. For two-it's FREE to request a book from the library and sink into a comfy chair and sail off on an adventure!

My husband and I have always been avid readers. I have fond memories of visiting my grandparent's home and simply hanging out in my grandmother's library. Something about the feeling of being in the library surrounded by all those books just put me at ease. She had shelves and shelves full of books and on more than one occasion I walked through the room letting my finger trace the titles of each book. Imagining and wondering what exciting new lives were trapped inside those paperback or  hardback covers just waiting to be explored. My husband was the same way. Growing up he was always reading. The bookshelves in his childhood bedroom are still full of books worn from the multiple times they were read.
When we got married and bought our first fixer-upper home...way back in 2008 when it wasn't the trendy thing to do. There was no Chip and Jo style, buying a fixer upper was just necessity because we were poor, young 20 year old's who decided to graduate college and get married in the same year. It was a spacious house though, and there was a den off of the master bedroom that we aptly named "The Library". It was a very studious library filled with leather chairs (I mean, one rickety computer chair), had lofty hickory bookshelves that soared to the ceiling (well, more like composite put-together-yourself bookshelves), but you get the idea. It was our library and we were proud of that thing. When it was time for us to move, we decided to "trim down" our book collection to a mere 7 tubs. SEVEN plastic tubs of the most essential books in our collection that we absolutely and one hundred percent needed to lug across the state to our new home.

The point is, we read. We love to read and here is a little bit of what we're reading this week:

Lily's class at school was reading this for their read aloud time. I got it from the library and read along so we could talk about it at home. It actually was a super cute book and inspired some great discussions. I would highly recommend this one with your 3rd-5th grader. It's fun!

This is Norah's pick this week. I think Weston actually found this one on our library trip last week, but it is CUTE and Norah has probably requested this book be read to her no less than 573 times. No joke. It's a good one! 

It has been years since I've read a good romance book. This one is cute, its easy to read and I'm interested to know more about Ree Drummond. I'm finding it a bit long and repetitive, but it's reminding me of the beginning days with my hunky man and fond memories that inspire love are never a bad idea.  

Here's Weston's pick. He's read literally about four other chapter books this week, but right now he is working on this one. It's capturing his attention and he loves it. It's a graphic novel and he loves to read those! 

Micah's working his way through this one. As you can see, It's a bargain of a book that my grandma (fancy library woman herself) gifted to my husband I think after our car accident in 2012. I think he's read it once before and is reading through again as a refresher. He has good things to say about this one! 

What are you all reading lately? Any good suggestions for anyone in my household? Go cozy up and grab a good book! 

Backpack Washing Day

Being frugal doesn't mean being cheap.  I've long lived by this phrase. I'm always up for getting things at a discount-but I don't necessarily buy something because it's cheap or on sale. Here are some examples of things I only buy the name brand of; 

• Cheerios-Honey Nut Cheerios taste better than the off brand. They just do.
•  Q-tips -No other brand is as strong, or better quality and let me tell you with the amount of ear wax my kiddos manufacture, we need strong AND sturdy. 
• Blue Bonnet butter for our air popped popcorn. Nothing else will quite achieve the glorious buttery/salty combination. 
• While my mind is on food, we only buy Marzeti's ranch dressing. Free of preservatives and most importantly- gluten free. We've fallen in love with the taste and you can't make me go back. 

But here is the one I want to talk about today-I only buy Pottery Barn Kids backpacks. And let me tell you why: 

First of all, it's what we started with. When my oldest daughter was heading off into the world on her own- to half day pre-k. We went on a special shopping trip to PBK and she picked out a purple backpack with horses on it. Adorable. She wore that thing every day for her pre-k year. She wore it through the rain and through the snow and she used it for vacations and road trips and for carrying the essential snacks and water bottles required for playing in the back yard. This thing got use. But it also stayed in great shape. So much so, that she continued using that thing until half way through her second grade year when she decided she was all at once too grown up for horses on her backpack. To which we attempted another back pack shopping trip and ended up bringing home a ridiculously overpriced, bow adorned JOJO SIWA backpack. It literally broke within the first week of use. I'm not EVEN kidding you. The zipper broke. And I was furious for that $39.00 gone to a pre-teen dancing sensation while my daughter suddenly needed another backpack. I was taking no chances this time. Online to PBK we went and when we didn't find a style she liked there (she's much too grown up for kitty cats and mermaids and sparkles of course) we headed to Pottery Barn Teen and she found the perfect backpack and it was on sale! So I ordered that sucker and we've been so pleased with it. She's on her second year of using it and I'm so thoroughly enjoying the quality of these bags. Both of my other children now have PBK backpacks and I'm going to tell you a secret-you can wash them! Like, inside your washer on a gentle cycle and these things hold together fantastically! 

We're in the middle of flu season. The middle of winter, the middle of the school year and I ran their coats and hats and mittens through the washer to forbid any germs determined to infiltrate my family home with their no good schemes -and I decided to wash their book bags as well. After all-heaven knows those bags see it all. Moldy mandarin leftover from last week's snack-check. Exactly 436 cough drop wrappers crinkled in the bottom of the front compartment-check. 6 broken erasers, 3 crinkled bookmarks and 4 crumpled gum wrappers-check, check, check. These bags are on the floor at school, on the bus, and in the car. They are literally dropped where we walk, where we step, and flung onto our children's backs for all the germs to triumphantly enter proclaiming their victory. Well, I have news for those germs-I WIN! 

I washed these bags in my $1.99 laundry detergent and I have never felt more accomplished looking at three clean, glowing, practically shining backpacks as they dried letting their clean-laundry scent fill the room. 

You guys-buy your bags at PBK. The quality is unbeatable, the price is actually reasonable and there are so many cute designs! I'm happy with this frugal purchase because these kids are basically going to be wearing these bags to college. Just saying. 

What are some items you only buy name-brand?