Creating a house into a home
Family Room remodeling is a pain during the work, but so worth it in the end! Today I wanted to share with you another room in our house that we updated this past year. Next to the kitchen, our family room is probably the most used room in the house. It’s where we hang out and watch tv – like most homes. When we first built our house 15 years ago, our family looked VERY different. The older 6 were in grade school and the importance of bedrooms was higher on our list than a great room was. Now, when we’re down to only 2 at home, I wish we…
Fall is finally here – and so are the many fall traditions!
Some traditions that our family does includes apple picking and dessert making. Don’t you just love some traditions? One of ours that our family does is to go apple picking once fall hits and the apples are ripe! We’ve been doing this since the older kids were just little. For several years we went apple picking with my brother and his family. It was so fun to see the kids playing and picking with their cousins! Sorry for the poor quality pictures – cameras back then were not NEARLY as clear as they are today :):) For weeks after, we’d have apple everything: apple pie, apple crisp,…
Protecting our children’s eyes when they’re online
Have children who are active online? How do you protect them? A few weeks ago my husband Greg and I attended a seminar given by Protect Young Eyes organization. According to their website (www.protectyoungeyes.com), their mission is to keep kids and teens safe from the dangers lurking on portable, Internet-ready devices. Our 6 older kids are grown and living independently, but we still have our 2 littles at home that we need to supervise and teach appropriate technology use. I was so impressed with this seminar and learned so many things – first and foremost – get rid of their use of youtube (even youtube for kids!) The predators on…
Big family transitions in a small 6# baby
Thoughts from a first time grandma (Oma) Our family had a wonderful addition this past spring! Last summer our oldest son, Caleb and his wife, Sidney, told us that they were expecting – and we were overjoyed. Surprised as it had only been 3 weeks prior that we were in Montana watching them get married! 🙂 But we were so excited for them! Watching them become parents during those 9 months was a beautiful thing to witness. I was surprised once again when they asked if I wanted to be in the delivery room during labor. They also asked Sid’s mom, Brenda, to be there as well. I had never…
5 Tips to enjoy Christmas – which is 3 months from today by the way!!
I. Love. Christmas!! I love everything there is about Christmas. The real reason of celebrating Christ’s birth, spending time together with family, cooking & baking, going Christmas caroling ( I’ll have to tell you sometime about when we had a tradition of taking the older 6 caroling – ask them and they’ll say they LOVED it as much as I did – NOT!! :):)) I love searching out the perfect gift for the perfect person, watching Hallmark Christmas movies, decorating for Christmas and today is the 3 month mark!! 3 months from today is Christmas!! Do you have ways to get yourself ready for Christmas so as to not…
What is the difference between a house and a home?
How has the use of your house changed through the years? A year of change at our house. For those that may not know a bit about my family, let me explain. We have 8 children total. 1 in heaven and 7 here on earth. 6 of them are in the span of 5 years. Yes, we had 5 teenagers at one point! Hence our gray hair!!! 🙂 But I have to say that I LOVE the gray in Greg’s beard! He is cuter today than when we met over 30 years ago – hubba hubba!!! :):) I digress….which I do quite often….so back to the teenagers. Yes, 5…
Motivational Music Mondays
What does music do for you? I’m not sure about you, but music has a HUGE affect on me. It calms me when overwhelmed, energizes me when I need a lift, and soothes me when sad. I think that God gifted us music to enrich our lives. How many of you try to remember lyrics to song and you can only remember one or two lines? Doesn’t that just BUG ya?!?! I don’t know if it’s age or what, but I find myself doing that more and more. 🙂 Some days I just need to hear a specific song. You-tube is my friend. 🙂 Music heals, music encourages, music uplifts,…
How to surprise your husband for your anniversary
Wanna hear about a really fun way to surprise your husband? So Greg and I are celebrating our 27th anniversary this summer. Not a major one, but in today’s world – something to be celebrated for sure! Do you ever do the “what-were-we-doing-at-this-time ” game? We always seem to re-live our wedding on our anniversary. Pretty normal, I’m sure. It’s fun thinking back to those early years. It seems like a LIFETIME ago!! Do you ever have a hard time knowing what to do or how to celebrate your anniversary every year? This year was especially difficult for us to figure out what to do. We wanted to do something…
Welcome to my little space. Hope you stay awhile!
Welcome to my little space! Welcome! This has been on ongoing dream of mine for the past several years – to create a space where I can encourage, humor, and provide Hope to other moms (or dads for that matter! :)) I had a blog about 10 years ago, but it was more of a place where I could process a major loss I experienced – more on that to come. These past several months, I felt God convict me to return to blogging and encourage other mom’s who are “doing life” the best they know how. My hope is that this will be a spot where you can…
