• Life

    Let’s Have Coffee | March 2024

    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. 🙂


    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 🙂

  • Life

    2024 Goals: motherhood, personal, home, + work

    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).

  • Life

    Let’s Have Coffee | January 2024

    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!)


    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.


    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!

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  • Life

    Family Stay-cation 2023: Point Pleasant Beach and Legoland!

    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!

  • Coffee Dates,  Life

    Let’s Have Coffee | December 2023

    Hey friends! I can’t believe it’s the last month of 2023 already. How did we get here?? I’m really thankful that you’re joining me for another coffee date. This one I’m writing by the light of the Christmas tree and it’s just the best. Today I’m linking up with Bella from Over the Teacups so don’t forget to go and check out her post as well. 🙂

    If we met for coffee, I would ask how your holiday season is going so far? Are you able to cherish the advent of what is to come or are you feeling more heaviness this year? It’s interesting how these seasons where we are meant to really feel God’s presence can sometimes feel like the opposite. We can feel further from God. If you are feeling this way I am praying that you are able to go to God with those feelings and that he meets you there.

    If we met for coffee, I’d share that this year has been such an interesting one for our family. We unexpectedly switched churches in the middle of the year and I can feel God stretching and growing my faith in such a different way than he ever has before. It feels both exciting and scary as I am digging deep into wha the Bible says about different topics, such as salvation and women. Have you ever done deep studies on these topics? If you have, let’s chat. I’d love to have someone to talk to about what I am learning.

    If we met for coffee, I would share that I’ve been thinking about other things that have changed this year as we are nearing the end. I’m both so thankful and still surprised that we actually have grown a lot in community this year. We joined a playgroup for homeschooling and have grown closer to the moms and kids in the group and I’m still thanking God for it. It has been a long process of finding a community where I have felt like I fit in. I know because of how hard of a journey it has been that there’s no way it’s not from God.

    If we met for coffee, I might as well continue our theme of things that have changed over this past year. The last thing that comes to mind that has changed is my vision for how and what I want to spend my time on when it comes to work. If you’ve been around for a while then you know that I have struggled for years to figure out what to pursue as far as working from home. I’m so thankful to finally have found something that I’m excited about but also that seems to be working. My homeschooling Youtube channel and Etsy shop has been really fun to work on throughout the year. I also have felt so much less pressure this year to finally “succeed” in work because I know that it is a long game and I’m happy to be sacrificing my job to stay home with my kids.

    If we met for coffee, I would say thank you so much for being here and for making it this far into my ramblings as to what I’m thankful for this year. While my blog is not something that I’ve spent a whole lot of time on this past year, I’m always thankful to have this home to come back to and I’m thankful for you for being here.


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  • Life

    Let’s Have Coffee | November 2023

    Hey friends! Sorry I’m late again to this month coffee date. I’m excited to be here with you guys though to catch up and share what we’ve been up to this past month.

    If we met for coffee, I would ask how you’re feeling about the changing seasons. I’m not sure how I feel this year. This past week has been very cold and I am just not really ready to be cooped up in the house for the next four to five months. I am looking forward to the holidays though of course. I just wish that it didn’t mean the inevitable sickness that also spreads throughout the house come wintertime.

    If we met for coffee, I would ask what are your priorities when it comes to looking for a church. I believe I mentioned last month that we are looking for a new church after our convictions about salvation theology had become more apparent to us. We are trying our best to come up with a list of our priorities of things that we need in a church but it has been a bit more challenging than I expected.

    If we met for coffee, I would share that we got our fall family pictures done last week and I’m always so thankful that we prioritized getting them taken. They are usually quite stressful to plan and to actually take (pictures with little ones is challenging) but they always come out really nice. I love having nice pictures of us as a family frozen in time to look back on in the years to come. I think maybe this year I will share our pictures on the blog.

    If we met for coffee, I might bring up the blog and my Youtube channel. It has become more challenging to find the time to work on the blog (hence this post being a week late). It’s also been more challenging to work on my Youtube channel and Etsy shop but I am not setting anything aside permanently. I’ve finally realized that it’s important to, for my mental health to prioritize these types of things. But I also realized that I need to be really flexible when it comes to them as well. I used to swing back and forth between the two and either decided to just not work on them at all because there didn’t seem to be enough time or prioritizing them too much and putting to much pressure on our family for me to have the time to work on them. It seems to be a perfect balance like this. I dislike not having a perfect schedule to follow but it helps me not idolize anything when I need to be willing to set them down maybe for a full week or two.

    If we met for coffee, I’d apologize for rambling on for that last point but it’s something I’m usually always thinking about and mulling over. I finally have peace about the decision so I thought I’d share. Do you have a hard time finding the time for yourself in the season of life that you’re in?

    Thanks for joining me and for giving grace for me being so late. Don’t forget to check out Bella’s post too and linkup if you have a blog too! 🙂

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