mamakay

Daily Rhythms of Advent

November 25, 2019 by mamakay Leave a Comment

Do you find yourself frazzled in the busyness of December? There are so many extra activities and preparations to be made for Christmas. How can you possibly do one more thing? you may be asking yourself. Our family has found that practicing Advent is the answer.

Advent is not about doing one more thing. It is not something to be checked off your list. It is about so much more. There has never been a year that we have done our Advent things every single day. It is an invitation to meet Jesus here and now as we anticipate not only Christmas Day but his return to this Earth.

We have found that tying our Advent traditions to habits we have already established we are more capable of accomplishing them. Here is what works for us during this season:

Mornings

Each morning as the kids eat breakfast we sing the Doxology (we do this all year long), then we read the Scripture for the Advent Readings that day, and then before they go to school or work we pray together. This takes less than 10 minutes each morning.

Evenings

After dinner is cleaned up we gather together in the living room, sometimes with a fire lit, sometimes not. Then we light our advent candles, sing 1 song, read aloud a chapter from our Jesse Tree book and then hang up the corresponding ornament. This takes between 20 and 30 minutes depending on how often we have to stop to correct the littles and let’s be honest sometimes the bigger kids too.

Adding Advent to your December days is doable! And so worth it! It can take as little as 10 minutes a day. Some days you have more time and can spend longer but each moment you spend bringing God’s Word before yourself and your children is such a blessing!

You are not behind! Just do what you can and know that each time you spend with your family drawing close to God is an investment that will never return void.

Weekly Planning Sessions

September 27, 2019 by mamakay Leave a Comment

My best days start with a weekly planning session on Sunday afternoon. I gather up my google calendar, my Power Sheets, my bullet journal, my Simplified Planner, my favorite pens, a tasty beverage and I pull up some good tunes on Spotify.

It just takes a few minutes to look over what I did last week and select a happy memory from the week to write in my planner. Then I add any accomplishments to my tending sheet in my Power Sheet workbook. I try not to focus too much on what didn’t happen but just move the things forward that still need attending to and let the ones go that can’t be helped.

Next, I shift my focus to the coming week checking my google calendar and writing any events on the daily pages of my planner and any to dos on the appropriate day. Visualizing the week ahead of time really helps me so I am not caught unaware.

I check through my brain dumps in my bullet journal to see if there is anything I can add to my to do lists for the week. Then I write it down on the appropriate day.

This usually takes me about 30-45 minutes. I come away feeling refreshed and confident about what needs to be done over the next few days. I look forward to this time every week and really miss it when it doesn’t happen.

Afterwards, I like to have a family meeting to spend a few minutes talking about everyone’s plans and schedules for the week. That way we all know what is going on. We add everyone’s schedules to our white board to keep us all informed. My ideal is to have a fun dessert to bring everyone together as they usually aren’t that fond of having family meetings.

Do you have a weekly planning session? What does it look like?

14 years of blogging and counting

September 24, 2019 by mamakay Leave a Comment

I have been nostalgic this week as I have thought back to when I first started blogging 14 years ago this week. My life was so different then. We had 4 kids. My oldest was 7 years old and my youngest was 9 months old. Today we have 8 kids ranging from almost 21 to 4 years old, 2 of which are off to college and no longer living in our home. We lived in the middle of Phoenix and now we live in rural Montana. I was a homeschooler back then and now my kids all go to public school.

Somethings are still the same. I still have many mouths to feed and use investment cooking to make that easier. I still want to create good memories for our family by having meaningful traditions to celebrate holidays. I still love reading good books and sharing them with others through blogging.

When I started blogging we were in an entrepreneurial phase of our lives. We had an online bookstore selling creation based science books, homeschooling materials and cookbooks. In conjunction with selling used books on Ebay and Amazon we made enough money to pay for our homeschooling materials and a little more besides.

Life got busier and busier as we added more children to our lives. My blogging slowed and had to take a back seat. But now I have more margin in my life and a few quiet hours most days to pour energy into this medium.

Thank you to those of you have been reading here over the years. I hope that I have brought you ideas that have blessed your life. I hope in the coming year you will find even more here and share it with others.

Where were you in 2005? What has changed for you? I would love to hear from you!

What I Learned This Summer 2019

August 30, 2019 by mamakay 3 Comments

It is hard to believe that summer is coming to an end all ready but I am here for it! I am linking up with Emily P Freeman to share my list of what I learned this summer.

The biggest lesson I got this summer was a bit cliche but I learned that I need to take better care of my body. I got my first physical in several years and found out my vitamin D levels were “the worst the doctor had ever seen” and that my cholesterol was too high. I am working to establish sustainable habits to take better care of myself. Focusing on taking my vitamins (including megadoses of Vitamin D), drinking more water, eating salads everyday and getting to the gym three times a week has helped a lot.
Annie F. Downs’ podcast series called the EnneaSummer2019 helped me as I have continued to learn about the enneagram this summer. I highly recommend it if you want to dive deeper into the enneagram. Suzanne Stabile’s book called The Path Between Us really helped me apply the enneagram to help me build better relationships with those I love.
I am totally obsessed with the Caesar Salad Kit from Costco. Throw in some chicken and its a complete meal!
Another thing I learned this summer is that Naan bread (also from Costco) makes an awesome base for individual pizzas.
We got to have a family camping trip with my dad, stepmom, sisters and their families this summer and it was the best! I really want to make this a regular thing!
Air fryers are terrific for making your food crisp and not heating up the kitchen in the summer. This is the one we got. I love that it doubles as a toaster oven. I don’t love the timer so we use a separate timer.

How about you? What did you learn this summer? I would love to hear!

Back to School Checklist

July 23, 2019 by mamakay Leave a Comment

We are in the dog days of summer and although it might seem too soon to talk about it the kids will be back to school soon! My kids start back in less than a month. I have found that if I spend a little time now making a checklist of our back to school needs I can work through it a little at a time instead of going mad that last week before school starts to get everything done in time.

Here is what is on my list:

1. Clothes Inventory

I like to spend some time going through each child’s clothing to see what they already have and what they are going to need to go back to school. I like to do this 1 or 2 kids at a time on their laundry day. I have them work with me to pull out anything that they have outgrown or that has holes in it. Then we make a list of what they still need. Once we have the list we shop our bins of hand me downs and if we don’t have everything then we add it to the shopping list.

2. Buy the Needed Clothes

As much as possible we shop thrift stores followed by Target, Old Navy and Ross. Clothes shopping is my least favorite activity. But it has to be done. I only take 1-2 kids at a time to make it less overwhelming.

3. Lunch Boxes

It only takes a few minutes to gather up the lunch boxes and containers from prior years but it helps so much when the kids are ready to go back to school to make sure they have what they need! The last couple of years we have gotten lunch boxes from Costco that have lasted really well. They come with ice packs and containers.

4. Backpacks

What says back to school better than a new backpack? I am always hopeful that at least some of the backpacks are still usable the next year but it seems like most of them have a broken zipper or seam by the end of the year. We did get a High Sierra backpack from Costco last year for one of our daughters and it stood up well and she can still use it this year! We are definitely going to buy more of them for this year.

5. Shoes

Do your kids always grow over the summer too? Now is a great time to find sales on shoes and make sure everyone has shoes that fit well to go back to school!

6. School Supplies

Now here is my love language! Give me $100 to spend on notebooks, pens, pencils and all the school supplies and I am a happy girl! I like to stock up on things I know they will use throughout the year because it costs so much more later in the year but sometimes I stock up too much on a particular thing. So before I go shopping it’s helpful for me to double check the supplies we already have on hand. I know many schools don’t give you lists until right before school starts but it helps if you get the basic needs and only have to shop for the couple of extra things at the last minute. Everything gets picked over if you wait until the last minute and it is so much more stressful!

7. Restore Good Bedtime Routines

Over the summer we are a little more lax on bedtimes and our normal routines. I find it helpful if a couple weeks before school starts we slowly move back to earlier bedtimes and wake up times so it doesn’t come as quite a shock when school starts. One of my favorite tools for helping with this is our Echo Dots. We set daily reminders to help us start our bedtime routines, brush our teeth long enough, turn out the lights and alarms to wake everyone up in the morning.

8. Plan a Fun Activity

We love to plan a fun activity to signal the end of summer. It could be a trip to the ice cream shop, a camping trip, or a water park. Having markers to signal the change of a season really helps with transitions and is a great way to make memories that will last a lifetime.

If you would like to print out a handy checklist just sign up below:

Amazon Prime Day 2019 Deals

July 15, 2019 by mamakay Leave a Comment

It is like Christmas in July! Amazon has expanded their annual sale and will be having deals July 15th and 16th for all Amazon Prime Members. There are so many things on sale I thought you might like to have curated list of my favorite deals!

1. Instant Pot

You all know how much I love my Instant Pot! I use it several times a week to cook ground hamburger, teriyaki chicken, whole heads of cauliflower, yogurt and more! It is on sale for only $55! I have never seen the price this low!

2. Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven

I love my dutch oven! I use it for frying, roasting and making beautiful loaves of bread. It is only $28 today!!

3. Dot Grid Notebooks

If you are looking for a cute mini notebook, these are just over $5!

4. Bullet Journal Kit

They even have a whole kit to get you started on bullet journaling for only $20!

5. Echo Dots

Our family loves using Echo Dots. We use them for alarms, timers, playing music, operating smart devices (like turning lights on & off), audiobooks, podcasts that help the kids brush their teeth longer, weather reports and more!

6. Camping Chairs

We got 3 of these chairs last year on Prime Day and loved them so much I ordered 2 more today! They are so light weight and easy to carry whether you are taking them backpacking, camping or other outdoor events when you need to bring your own chair.

7. Playdough

My kids love playing with playdough and this is a great deal! It is a 24 pack for $12! (I only let them have a couple containers at a time so it will last longer.)

8. New Charging Cables

Is it just me or do your kids break cables constantly? My husband thinks their should be a subscribe & save option for charging cables.

9. Kindles

Our family uses several kindles. With Amazon FreeTime for the kids we can control the amount of screen time they have and they have lots of content including books (both picture and chapter books), games and curated shows.

10. Kitchen Aid Mixer

I love my Kitchen Aid Mixer! I use it to make pizza dough, cookies, meringue, whip cream and more! I don’t know what the price will be yet but Amazon is promising a very good deal!

I hope this list helps you feel less overwhelmed by all the sales the next two days! Happy Shopping!