mamakay

managing a household of 10 by the grace of God

Reflect on What I Learned This Fall ~ 2019

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I believe that taking time to reflect regularly on our lives is vital to good mental health. Emily P Freeman offers the opportunity to join her and others do just that every quarter. I am linking up with her once again to name what I learned this fall.

  1. Quiet is good but I get antsy if it is too quiet. I also am more overwhelmed by the noise levels when everyone comes home.
  2. I need more active steps in my life. Now that the weather has changed going for walks doesn’t work out so much for me and I have already become more sedentary. I made it a baby step goal to stop at the gym after dropping off my preschooler and do a mile on the treadmill at least 2 days a week. It takes less than 20 minutes so I still have time to do other things but at least I get some movement into my day.
  3. Some friends introduced me to Marco Polo and I love using it to keep in touch with my sisters. We had been texting but I just love getting to see their faces and their lives since we live so far apart.
  4. I need accountability! When I signed up for the Monetize Your Blog course I paid extra for a one month long accountability group. I made more progress in that month than in the 6+ months before that!
  5. Monday mornings at home are necessary for me to get my act together after the weekend. I use that time to regroup, do laundry, do dishes, meal plan and check in with our budget on YNAB. I also get a lot done on my blog work. Mondays are my most productive day of the week.
  6. I prefer going to the morning Ladies Bible study instead of the evening one. Driving in the dark has always been harder for me so the mornings work out much better. I can run a couple errands in town afterwards. Plus it is just much less stressful than adding one more thing into our busy Wednesday schedule.
  7. I’m not there yet and that’s okay. I always want to rush through the hard parts to get to the finished product but I’m an enneagram 9 and slow is a fact of life for me. I am working to be content plodding along. As I reflect on this, I just need to stay consistent and keep moving forward especially when it is taking longer than it is fun.

Do you take time to reflect regularly in your life? What have you learned this fall?

MamaKay

Past Link ups for What I Have Learned: http://mamakay.com/WordPress/category/whatilearned/

Cyber Monday Deals

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Now that the holiday weekend is over I find it is the best time to shop online with all of the amazing Cyber Monday deals. I hope this list helps you find great deals on what you are looking for. Everything on this page are things I have used and love.

Plan to Eat

My Favorite Meal Planning, Recipe Organizer and Shopping List making app is on sale!

Simple Meal Planning - Plan to Eat

Ultimate Bundles

Self Care Bundle – On Sale for $11.97
Your Faith Mini Bundle – Only $7

Amazon Deals

We have tried both Echo Dots and Google Minis and for our family the Echo Dot works best (although it was a close call). The main reason we like it so much is because of the FreeTime content for the kids. We also love how easy it is to set limits on what content they have access too and how much time they use it for. We love using it for alarm clocks, timers, reminders, making announcements, music, reading books, and skills like Chompers for getting the kids to brush their teeth longer.

You know how I love my Instant Pot! And $65 is an amazing price! I use it for cooking ground beef, chicken, beef stew, whole heads of cauliflower, beans, yogurt and more!

This is a slightly different model than I have but I love my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. I make cookies, whipped cream, pie crust and bread dough with mine. It is a powerhorse and this an awesome deal today:

I absolutely love my Kindle Paperwhite! It is so light and easy to take anywhere. I do like regular books but ebooks are so easy to get quickly for less money and you can have it with you always. Amazon is also offering a $5 ebook credit with the purchase of a Kindle on Cyber Monday only.

Now this isn’t the Fitbit I have – they don’t have mine anymore (but I would love this one). I love being able to track my sleep, my heart rate as well as my exercise. Our family has fun competing to see who can get the most steps. And this Cyber Monday deal for only $130 is wonderful!

Also look for our favorite Christmas books. Amazon is offering $5 off a $20 order of qualifying books and several of our books are on the list!

Blogging Help

If you are interested in becoming a blogger and looking for some extra guidance I highly recommend Crystal Paine. She has been blogging for 14 years and has a wonderful business. She is offering 50% off almost every course through Tuesday night!

I hope these offers will help you wade through all of the Cyber Monday Sales.

Happy Shopping!

MamaKay

Our Favorite Christmas Books

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All through the year our family tries to gather together after dinner to read together. We can’t manage it every night but we come back to it time and time again. There is something special about a shared experience reading a book together and it is so simple to make it happen.

Here is a list of our favorite Christmas books with links to Amazon in case you want to add them to your collection too. (I receive a small commission if you buy through my link. Thanks for your support!)

For our Advent readings our 2 favorite books are: 

Our favorite chapter books for reading aloud as a family are:

Our Favorite Picture Christmas Books:

These are wonderful for young children but you might be surprised how much you and your older children will enjoy these beautiful books.

And here is a link to here James Earl Jones read The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Tommey to you. It is the best! 

http://www.candlewick.com/Toomey/

I am not a crafty person but I sure love a good book to read as a family. What are your favorite Christmas books?

MamaKay

* This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links it costs you nothing and it helps to support this site.

Daily Rhythms of Advent

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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

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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

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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!

MamaKay

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