mamakay

managing a household of 10 by the grace of God

Leaves of Gratitude

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Family traditions are so very important to me. My family of origins pretty much disintegrated soon after I left home for college. So when we started our family we decided to start from scratch. I wanted to be sure that our family had strong traditions we could rely on to tie us together and help us remain strong whatever may come.

We started slowly and have added in many things over the years. For at least the last 14 years as the month of November rolls around we practice giving thanks by creating a Thanksgiving Tree. Each year I draw a tree (even though I am NOT an artist) on a large pieces of paper and we cut out leaves. Each day everyone writes (or dictates) something we are thankful for and then we glue the leaves on the tree. By the end of the month our tree is filled with beautiful leaves and reminders of all the blessings in our lives.

As you can tell, I am not an amazing artist by the greatest stretch of your imagination but part of what makes this tradition so sustainable to us is that it is simple.

This year I created a printable for you so that you can create your own Thanksgiving Tree if you would like to do this with your family! You can print the sheets on colored paper, have the kids color them as they go or just leave them white. Just click on the link below to sign up and I will email the link to you.

MamaKay

Write31Days #4: Hello Mornings

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Ah, mornings. I love the Bible verse in Lamentations 3:22-23 that says “His mercies are new every morning.” Each day we have a new opportunity to start over. To be intentional about how we spend this particular day. I can choose sleep if I had a rough night (and that really might be the best option), I can choose to wake up earlier than my family to have a few moments to myself or I can hit that snooze button just a couple more times and be rushed through my morning. For years I have worked on creating a good morning time routine. Some seasons it has worked better than others (read: babies). I have often been frustrated that even when I have the best plans laid out I get interrupted or I am exhausted and can’t execute them in the way I want.

This past year I was excited to hear about Kat Lee’s new book, Hello Mornings. The by-line is “how to build a grace-filled, life-giving morning routine.” She deep dives into her idea of 3 minute mornings. The concept is that baby steps will help you meet your goals. Start with very small steps and then build on them and on days when time is short you can return to those 3 minutes and it will still bless your day. Her steps are 1. God Time 2. Plan Time 3. Move Time. Doing these 3 things everyday makes such a huge difference.

Since I started following her advice I have been so much more consistent in working these things into my morning! I always want to go big or stay in bed, lol! But following her advice I notice that even when I am only able to do 3 minutes it still makes my day go so much better.

For God Time my one minute is to recite a Bible verse (frequently Psalm 143:8), say a quick prayer and sing a song of praise. My longer version includes journaling in Write the Word the Bible passage for the day, praying (using my prayer journal) and listening to praise music.

For Plan Time my one minute is to look over my calendar for the day. My longer version is to sit down and write out my to do list for the day and assign tasks to certain times of the day as necessary.

For Move Time my one minute is to do a very short yoga routine in which I do Mountain Pose, Forward Fold a couple times and a Downward Dog. My longer version is do a 15 minute yoga routine using the Yoga Studio app on my phone.

Do you have a solid morning routine? What do you do to be consistent at making sure it happens? I would love to hear!

MamaKay

Day 3 of Books: Bible Time

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Of all the reading I do it is most important for me to read my Bible so I try to start my day there. Some days I get to read more, some days less but God meets me whatever season I am in. There are a few different ways I use to keep me in the word on a daily basis.

My favorite way lately is using my Write the Word Journal from Cultivate What Matters. It has nice thick pages with gold foil lettering. It provides space for the date, something you are grateful for, a scripture reference to copy each day, an On My Heart section and finally a spot to pick a word for the day. Throughout the years I have found that writing scripture really helps me to focus on what I am ready and respond to it. I have often just used a notebook. Sometimes it is easy to get trapped in having to have everything perfect to begin but God again and again will meet you where ever you are.

I also LOVE She Reads Truth. I started using their app a couple of years ago. (You can buy the separate studies for $1.99 each or subscribe to the app for $1.99/month and have access to all of their studies.) After a while I subscribed to get their beautiful books. I prefer the feel of a real book sometimes plus it helps me to stay off of my phone.

I have also used the YouVersion app for many years. They have tons of Bible studies and different versions of the Bible you can study from.

I want God’s words to be firmly planted in my heart as I walk into my days so that I can reflect Him and have something firm to hold on to when there are words coming from so many directions. I need help to discern what is true, beautiful and good.

How do you make sure you get time in the Word every day?

MamaKay

Spiritual/Personal Growth Books

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Why do you read? There are so many different reasons: to learn, to be entertained, to stretch your mind, to be inspired, to share in an experience with others or to experience life from a different perspective just to name a few. It depends on the day and the season of life what kind of book I pick up. More often than not I choose a book that will inspire me as I live my life. I want to live intentionally and as a good steward of this life God has given me. I have found so many mentors through books. They have shaped me and challenged me and helped me become the person I am today. There is a never ending supply of books coming out everyday. It is so hard to know what will be good.

I have found that a book will show up on my radar and I will start hearing about it from many different places and when the time is just right I will feel compelled to read it. When I pay attention and take the time I am always blessed by these books. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the books being promoted on social media but it is such an amazing time that authors can share their hard work with us so easily.

Over the next few days I will be sharing my favorite books in the spiritual/personal growth category and telling you the impact they have had on my life. I hope you will share your favorite books with me. It is such a wonderful way to get to know someone by sharing what inspires each of us. There will be links to the books on Amazon but so many of these books can be found at the library, at used bookstores and lots of other places. (Do you know about the Library Extension you can use on Chrome? It will check your favorite library to see if it is available as an ebook or paper copy right on your favorite online bookseller websites. I love it. Click here to check it out: Library Extension)

I think I will go read a book! See you tomorrow!

MamaKay

 

31 Days of ….. Books!

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I’m so excited to take on the 31 days of blogging challenge for the month of October! A couple of months ago on Facebook there was a challenge to share 1 book everyday for 7 days and it was so hard for me to pick just 7! When I was encouraged to pick a topic that I could write about for 31 days I knew it just had to be about books!

I have loved reading from a very early age. Some of my earliest memories are of my mom reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to us all curled up on her bed under the blankets one cold winter.  My best friend’s mom gave me Little House in the Big Woods and I have spent my whole life adoring Laura and her adventures and wondering how Ma did it all with such a calm and cheerful spirit! One year we went on a road trip and my parent’s took me to the bookstore to pick a book to bring and I chose Anne of Green Gables. I remember the Book Mobile coming to our neighborhood and I would check out books like Dr. Dollittle and Where the Red Fern Grows. I would use the little light bulb from my nightlight to read well after bedtime.

When I was in college I had a little trouble picking a major at first. I started with Business, changed to Social Work and eventually graduated with an English Lit major which has served me well.

Over the years my reading has ebbed and flowed as seasons have changed. My goal every day is to read my Bible, something inspiring, something practical and a story as well as read to my children every day. Somedays it happens, somedays it doesn’t but I keep plodding along. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t read something.

Over the course of this month I hope to share with you some of the books that have impacted my life the most. I will be covering 5 categories:

  1. Spiritual/Personal Growth
  2. Our Favorite Read Alouds
  3. Our Favorite Picture Books
  4. Classic Fiction
  5. Cookbooks

I hope you will join me and keep me accountable for writing every day!

MamaKay

Instant Pot Applesauce

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kids picking apples

We had an abundant harvest of apples this year. Our young orchard (planted 7 years ago) produced the best apples we have ever had in addition to our more mature tree. Every year I can as much applesauce as I can depending on the harvest. I think it is safe to say that this year’s harvest exceeds every year since we have been here. Our family loves applesauce and can easily finish a quart off in one meal. I have learned some tricks to make this an easier process over the years and this year decided to engage my instant pot (and my mother-in-laws’) to speed up the process even more!

Our first batch was quite a mess as I worked to figure out the best way to use the Instant Pot. I literally had applesauce spraying out the vent when I released the pressure! OOPS! Don’t do it that way!

You should know I like my applesauce super simple. It truly is pureed cooked apples. So this post is more about technique than a recipe. I love to use a combination of varieties of apples for the best flavor. Our trees are mostly McIntosh which are wonderful for applesauce. I usually add in some golden varieties and some Jonagolds.

There are two different approacstove top applesaucehes I like to use. You can do it either on the stove or in the Instant Pot.

Stove method:

We chop the apples into 1-2″ chunks removing any bad spots as we go. Cut enough to fill up a big pot and add 1 cup of water. Simmer on the stove, stirring occasionally until the apples are soft. This takes about two hours.

instant pot applesauce

Instant Pot Version:

Add 1/2 cup of water to the instant pot and fill the pot with cut apples to just below the max line. Close the lid and vent and set to steam for 2 minutes. After it finishes cooking let the pressure release naturally for 20 minutes. (My 8 quart pot took about 40 minutes to come to pressure, cook and release using this method.) Besides the quicker cooking, I love that I don’t have to worry about the apples scorching in the instant pot!

Once the apples are soft we feed them through my food mill that separates the peels and seeds from the applesauce. The boys love helping with this job!

If you do not have a food mill before cooking the apples peel and core them. Then after they are doing cooking use an immersion blender to blend until smooth.

Then scoop the applesauce into one quart jars, put canning lids and rings on them and process them in the canner filled with boiling water for 20 minutes to preserve them for the coming year.

jars of canned applesauce

Please let me know if you have any questions! I would be glad to help!

Enjoy!

MamaKay

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