Hey friends! It’s been so long! I wanted to share a huge update and also a fun giveaway! Let’s start with the big update first:

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I’m pregnant!! I’m so excited to share that we’re having another baby! I’m due in May and can’t wait to share more about this little one soon. 🙂 I’ve been feeling back to normal for a bit now and I’m so thankful for it. It was quite a challenge to homeschool while feeling so tired so I’m really glad that I’m feeling so much better now.

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Speaking of homeschooling, this year we are doing a few homeschooling classes at a church not too far from here. Shane (not Melly lol) is learning to play the piano and taking an art class. They also have a couple preschool classes that the younger two are doing and it’s been really fun because some of our other homeschooling friends are taking classes there too.

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Another favorite this week is that we got our Christmas tree last Sunday! I absolutely love having the tree up in the morning when I get up before the kids to drink some coffee and read my Bible. It’s so cozy and really sets the scene. Every year I take a picture of the kids when we’re picking one out and I can’t believe we’ve come this far! How are there three of them already?!

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Another favorite is this awesome Bible that I received to review! Ours is both blue and green (the boys’ favorite colors!) and the boys love it already even though they can’t quite read it yet! I’m so excited to have this as a resource for when Shane gets a bit further in his reading and is able to read the Bible himself. This one specifically is made to be dyslexia friendly, and although he doesn’t have dyslexia it’s a great resource in case any of the other kids may struggle with dyslexia. I also really like that it’s a CSB Bible because this is the same translation that I use so it will be nice to know the kids are reading the same translation that I am. If you have a child with dyslexia and think this Bible would be a good resource for you, you can buy one here today!

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Another favorite is the community that I have found on Youtube. I have been sharing about my homeschool journey for almost two years now I think and it’s been so much fun. I just wanted to share how thankful I am for the unexpected blessing that is Youtube.

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Thanks to Erika and Andrea for a fun blog link-up! I’m hoping that I can try to show up here more often!!

Happy April, friends! Life has been so busy lately that I did not even realize that we passed the first Wednesday of the month 😅.

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If we met for coffee, I would ask how you’ve been? Are you enjoying the weather changing where you are? We are supposed to have a really nice week of weather coming up. It’s even going to be 70 degrees one day and I’m so excited. I have been daydreaming about a few months from now when it’s summer and we can wear shorts again and enjoy the sun at the beach. I am so ready for some sunshine. 😎

If we met for coffee, I would ask how do you deal with the addiction of social media? I have tried taking breaks from it, and that does help but it always feels addicting as soon as I am back on. Do you have any set limits for each day or rules that you follow around it? I am considering trying to set limits again but it’s just so hard to stick to them sometimes.

If we met for coffee, I would share that I have been brainstorming homeschooling curriculum for next year. I can’t believe that this school year is getting close to being done! How will I have a first grader and a preschooler next year?? It just goes by so fast. I feel like I was just starting school with Shane yesterday and pretty soon I am going to be doing the same curriculum I did with Shane with Riley! I can’t believe Riley is going to be four already! Where does the time go?

If we met for coffee, I would also share that Tommy and I had a long talk this morning about making some time for me to work from home more regularly. I have had my Youtube channel for about a year or so now and I sort of see that as work because I am hoping to make money from it in the future. But I have more recently been researching and learning about bookkeeping because I have been doing the books for Tommy’s business for a few months now. I am hoping to possibly turn that into a small business in the future potentially too. I’m super excited to spend more dedicated time seeking to bring in money from home. It’s been a dream of mine to be able to bring in a side income for my family. Hopefully things will work out in the future.

If we met for coffee, I’d ask how/when do you decide that you were/are done having children? It’s also a big topic lately for Tommy and I. It’s so hard to know if you are truly done. We’ve been praying about it for a while now so it will be interesting to see how God leads our family in this area.

Thanks for joining me for another coffee date friend. I’m hoping to get back to doing these more regularly and hopefully sharing some more things in between as well. 😊

Hey friends, I’m excited to sit down and have coffee with you again this month. I actually started this post for a February coffee date and then never got around to finishing it so this is a little of what we’ve been up to the past two months. 🙂

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If we met for coffee, I would ask how the beginning of the year has gone for you? I feel like our January is always full because we have my oldest son’s birthday, Tommy’s birthday, and my birthday all together. We kept Shane’s birthday smaller this year because it was Tommy’s 30th birthday this year. I had a lot of fun planning for this birthday because I knew I wanted to try to make it a bigger deal since he did turn 30. I was able to buy him this special kind of motorcycle that he’s been wanting and it was so much fun to surprise him. He also took me to a Nate Bargatze show for my birthday and it was so much fun. I highly suggest going on Netflix or Amazon and finding one of this shows and watching. He’s hilarious. So January was super full but also super fun 🙂

If we met for coffee, I would ask how you and your family is doing? I feel like some years are better health wise than others. Most winters in the past (besides when we were quarantined because of Covid) we have been hit pretty brutally, but surprisingly this year has been decently mild. Unfortunately though we just got over the stomach bug, which is always the worst illness to have. Thankfully I never actually threw up but still felt really sick for about 24 hours and wasn’t really able to eat much that day. I’m thankful we are all feeling better now but now I’m dealing with low milk supply issues from not being able to eat, which has been such a bummer. It’s actually bringing up a lot of the feelings I had with Shane so that’s been really though but I’m hoping things will turn around. I am trying to accept that we made it to 18 months though so I should be happy for that. 🙂

If we met for coffee, I’d likely share that I’m super excited that the weather is turning around. The winters are long and cold and I’m always very thankful when the weather warms back up. This week it’s supposed to be in the upper 60s which is going to be so nice. How is the weather where you are?

If we met for coffee, I’d most likely ask you how you deal with the topic of living a natural life. I would describe myself as someone who tries to choose more natural options when possible but our finances hold us back pretty decently. I have learned to be totally okay with this because I realize that living too much out of fear is not healthy for me so it forces me to have to lean on God and trust that he will keep us healthy. But I do have some friends who are very naturally minded and it sometimes causes me to feel guilty that we don’t do more and also causes me to fear a bit more because I’m just thinking about it more because I’m around it more. Do you ever feel this struggles at all? If you do how do you cope with them?

Thanks for joining me for coffee friend. See you next month 🙂

Hey friends, today I wanted to share my goals for 2024. I feel like most years I do set goals even though I have yet to find a way to easily track them afterward. I still feel like the act of sitting down to figure out where I want to readjust or focus my time in the beginning of a year is really helpful for me. I have split up the goals into different categories that I want to work on this year: Motherhood, Personal, Home and Work.

Motherhood/Homeschool

• Complete The Gentleness Challenge
• Cut back on screens significantly in January
• Read more to the kids
• Get into a better homeschool routine

Personal Goals

• Complete the Bible Recap with Tommy
• Read 12 books
• Find a workout routine that works for me
• Be more intentional with my time (less social media)
• Try cutting out caffeine (almost) completely
• Get outside more
• Invite friends over more
• Join a group at our new church

Home Goals

• Declutter and purge each room of the house
• Make progress organizing photos and videos

Work Goals

• Blog once a week
• Post one Youtube video a week
• List one Busy Book a month

I am going to try my best to do updates here and there on each of these goals to show the progress I’m making and to share more behind each of them. I’m super excited about them and have already made a head start on quite a few (now that it’s almost the end of January).

Hey friends, welcome back for another coffee date. I can’t believe that it’s 2024! I’m looking forward to this new year. Let’s catch up shall we? (Don’t forget to check out Bella’s post as well! We host this linkup the first Wednesday of every month, so don’t forget to join in, if you’re interested!)

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If we met for coffee, I’d ask how your Christmas was! We had a nice time celebrating with both sides of our family. The kids really had a nice time and it was of course a really nice time remembering our Savior and celebrating him. The next week or so after Christmas always feels a bit chaotic though because of all of the new things that have come into your house. Do you feel that after Christmas too? I usually try to prepare by getting rid of what I can beforehand, but it doesn’t seem to stop the overwhelm after Christmas. I still have lots of organizing to do for me to feel back on top of all of the things in our house (especially the toys!).

If we met for coffee, I would share that we signed Shane up for a zoo class at a nearby zoo. It’s once a week for six weeks starting today and I’m really excited for him. I’m also excited to have something for him and I to do together. I’m hoping it will be a fun time for the both of us and that he will learn lots of new things.

If we met for coffee, that would remind me of how we just started up our homeschooling again after basically a month break. It feels really nice to be back in a rhythm of doing school together. The first half of the year we were sort of in a just surviving mentality, but this second half I’m really looking forward to adding in new things and spending more time learning together.

If we met for coffee, I’d ask if you set any kind of goals or resolutions. It’s hard not to reevaluate your life a bit at the start of a new year. I’m planning on posting my goals for the year next Wednesday and I’m really excited about them this year. I feel like they’re really realistic and that they will stretch and push me towards things that I know to be worth it.

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Thanks so much for joining me friends! I’m going to try to be more on top of blogging this year, especially with this linkup and try to be on time more. 😉 Happy New Year!

Hey friends! It’s a little late but I thought it still was a good a time as any to share about our stay-cation we went on in September! Each year we typically go on one week long vacation as a family. We usually will have one or two other shorter vacations with extended family as well. This year we went to Lake George, NY for a weekend for my father-in-law’s 60th birthday. But because money is tight this year (thanks inflation!) so we decided we were going to do a stay-cation instead of going away for a week together as a family. We were planning on going to Lake George for a week just us as a family but decided to stay home and vacation from our home instead!

We had so much fun too! We live on the East Coast so there are plenty of fun things to do within driving distance so we decided to make the most of the week. We particularly liked this plan because we knew the kids would sleep well in their own beds at night and we knew we could relax best in our own house as well. The one downside is that it doesn’t feel quite as much like a vacation when you are cleaning up your own kitchen after dinner as it does even when you’re cleaning up a rental kitchen (haha!). Nonetheless we had a really great week.

We eased into the week and stayed home the first weekend. I believe we had a church picnic at our church that Sunday. The whole weekend I had just started trying to bake with my sourdough starter. It was slow going but I had a lot of fun. I didn’t take many pictures but I do remember I baked a few sourdough discard recipes. I did attempt a loaf of sourdough bread that didn’t turn out but it was fun trying!

On Tuesday we decided to take a day trip to the beach! It was a really fun time. The drive was about two hours and everyone did pretty well on the drive.

We enjoyed the beach for a while. It was the most perfect weather. It was in the low 80s and pretty breezy. On this day we went for a walk on the boardwalk and realized that there was a really fun aquarium that we wanted to go to but unfortunately it was getting late. Fortunately we wanted to come back another day so we made plans to come back on Thursday and to come to the aquarium first before heading to the beach.

So that’s what we did and headed home for the day. Unfortunately we left too late and hit a ton of traffic on the way home. It was definitely not ideal but everyone handled it pretty well thankfully.

The next day we wanted to have a more low-key day so we decided to go hiking in our hometown! This hiking trail is part of the Appalachian Trail and has this really fun boardwalk that you walk on this part of it. It was a shorter hike, but we all enjoyed our time hiking together.

And the next day we headed out to the beach again! First stop as I mentioned earlier was the aquarium!

The boys really enjoyed their time at the aquarium. This aquarium was really cool and had sharks and huge deep sea fish. They also had an exhibit where they fed the penguins and you could watch. We actually got lucky and showed up just as they were starting. It was actually really fun and I learned a lot about penguins too.

It was a smaller aquarium so we only stayed for an hour or so and headed out to the beach! We also learned that you could come back to the aquarium whenever you wanted throughout the day. We didn’t end up doing that this day but I was thinking how it would have been a really nice thing to be able to do in the middle of the summer because the aquarium is air conditioned. It would be nice to just take a stroll in there to cool off.

So we headed out to the beach for the second day and had another really fun time. This day was a little cooler but not too cold to not be able to enjoy ourselves still. Melly in particular had a lot of fun. Anytime we took our eyes off of her for even just a minute, she tried to crawl over to the water as fast as she could. She absolutely loved the water. It was so fun to see!

The next day was another really fun day because we headed to Legoland! I had not heard about Legoland that much before this but knew I wanted it to be apart of our vacation week because I knew the boys would have so much fun. And they really did! It was honestly a blast for Tommy and I to watch and see how much fun they had too.

We spent the whole day here and had so much fun. The boys were able to ride just about every ride because it was really geared more toward younger kids, which I thought was really cool. They even had a nursing room with rocking chair where I was able to nurse Melly. It was definitely a really fun time and I highly recommend if you are ever able to go to a Legoland.

Thanks for being here friends and following along to what our little family is up to. I’m hoping to share more in 2024!