my blessed life

March is almost here and it would the perfect time to get intentional about loving your husband!  I want to share another great new resource for married couples that has recently become available: Intentional Marriage, the art of loving your husband , by my friend Crystal Brothers  who blogs at Serving Joyfully. This awesome eBook is a 31-day devotional designed to help you strengthen your marriage relationship.  Written by a wife to wives, these challenges were written with this thought in mind: "What can I do to bless my husband today?"   Crystal has written each devotional is a short format so that the focus will stay on the action of the challenge and not the written devotional alone.  Each one is simply designed to give great ideas for loving intentionally and selflessly. Some of the challenges include ideas for: praising your husband and avoiding criticism serving your husband doing something fun with your husband praying for your husband focusing on for

Anyone else enjoying the Winter Olympics 2014? I am sad to say that I've not been able to watch as much as I'd like this year, but we are catching a bit (and my awesome sister is dvr-ing some of it for me since we don't have cable). We are also enjoying doing some unit studying on the Olympics as well and I thought I share a little about that today. If you do a search on Pinterest for the Winter Olympics 2014 you'll find quite a lot of great resources!  I wanted to share a few that we are personally using: the Winter Olympics Pack 2014 from Enchanted Homeschool Mom Winter Olympics Torch Relay Unit Study from Only Passionate Curiosity O is for Olympics from Ben and Me We aren't stopping our regular schedule and strictly focusing on the Olympics (although that does sound like a lot of fun!), but we are doing an activity here and there along with a little watching.  I want it to be fun and not drudgery--and sometimes too many unit study worksheets ca

Here it is!  This week's plan! One of my personal goals this year is to start planning further out ...like 2 or 4 weeks at a time.  Maybe I'll get that started at the first of March.  If I could just take some time to sit down for a few hours and get it done, I think it would save me lots of time in the long run--both in planning and shopping! What do you think?  Do you plan more than one week at a time?  Does that work well for you?  I'd love to know! Monday:   Poppy Seed Chicken with Rice, Green Beans, and Rolls Tuesday:  Baked Salmon, Roasted Potatoes , Salad Wednesday:   Tostadas Thursday:  Bacon-Chicken Pasta Bake Friday:  Father/Daughter and Mother/Son date night~whoo hoo!! Saturday:   Homemade Pizza Sunday:  Pot Roast with Carrots, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Buttered Corn This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Well, here it is the middle of February already!  These past couple of weeks have flown by so quickly.  I know I mentioned earlier in the week about how busy we were with last week's trips (you can read more about that here ), but this week seemed to go by almost as fast just playing "catch-up" around here.  You know, the laundry piles, the house cleaning (especially since it was our week to host our church small group), just the usual.   I did let the kids take a "snow day" on Monday simply because we weren't at home on the weekend to let them play in it and they were just dying to get out and play in the snow.  It worked well since it also gave me a day to just focus on some house work. We stayed pretty much on track the rest of the week.  There weren't any spectacular highs or lows this week, educationally speaking, but it was one of those weeks where we just stayed the course.   You probably noticed that Valentine's Day c

Well, I'm not actually here to debate; however, we did attend the much-talked-about debate between evolutionist Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham earlier this month.  It's been so crazy around here that I haven't even had a chance to mention it.    When the debate was first announced, we thought it would be a good experience for our family.  So my husband was up bright and early the day that tickets went on sale.  It's a good thing, too, because they sold out in 2 minutes!  We were very excited! So we made the trip up to the Cincinnati area the day of the debate and just got checked into our hotel and headed back to the debate to get as good of seats as possible.  As you can see in the photo above, we were toward the back of the auditorium.  It was a packed house!   And it truly was a great experience for our family!  I really did wonder how my kiddos would do, needing to sit through a 2.5 hour debate with no restroom breaks--if you left the audito

You may remember my review in the fall of My Beloved and My Friend , by Hal & Melanie Young.  It's an excellent new book on marriage.   And the big release is this week on Valentine's Day!!   They have extended a lovely invitation to you all to a huge Facebook Party TONIGHT, 7-9 EST!!  There will be LOTS of giveaways from some of your favorite Christian companies , plus fellowship and fun, of course.   **Updated: Even if you missed the Facebook party, the above mentioned giveaways are live until Monday, February 17th! So make plans right now to join in the fun and help promote the release of this excellent book! And now... I'm happy to announce that I get to giveaway one free digital copy of this book and also an audio download of it as well--a perfect his & hers set, wouldn't you say?!!   To enter to win just follow the Rafflecopter instructions below:    a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wow!  Where did this week go?! I told you last week that we had lots of traveling to do and I wasn't kidding.  We survived, but, boy, were we glad to get home to our own bed last night and know that we wouldn't be packing back up in a day or so. This past week has brought LOTS of winter weather to our region and I LOVE it ...but I like to be home to enjoy it:)  I'm hoping for more snow today!  I'll be ready for spring next month, but it's still winter and I like it. Last week's meals went very smoothly.  The busier the week, the better it is to have my plan!  And sticking to it was so helpful.  We did a lot of yummy eating out while traveling also, but it was great to have those few nights of home-cooking as well. Here's what's cooking this week: Monday:  Pinto Beans and Buttermilk Cornbread Tuesday:   Baked Salmon, Roasted Potatoes, Spinach Salad Wednesday:   {our Community Care Group night} Taco Braid Thursday:   Bacon-Chicken

Welcome back to Tasty Tuesdays!   This past weekend I made our favorite sloppy joe recipe.  It had been a while and I'd forgotten just how yummy it is!  So much better than the canned stuff!  Plus you can let your slow cooker do most of the work for you.  Enjoy! Slow Cooker Sloppy Joes 1 lb. lean ground beef 2 tbsp. minced dried onion 2 tbsp. real bacon bits 1 tsp. mustard 3/4 cup ketchup 1 tbsp. brown sugar ***** In a medium skillet, over medium heat, brown the ground beef and onion together; drain. Place meat mixture in a slow cooker and stir in the remaining ingredients.   Cook on low for 2-3 hours.  Serve with hamburger buns or hot dog buns. Makes 4-5 single servings.

This week is going to be a busy one!  We'll only be home for dinner three nights!  I have to say, I will enjoy the cooking break ...especially since we'll be getting to visit some of our out-of-town friends and some of our favorite restaurants! In the meantime, I still have a plan: Monday:   Chicken Spaghetti , Salad, Garlic Bread (x2--taking a meal to friends who've just had a baby!) Tuesday: {in Northern KY} Wednesday: Tostadas Thursday: Cheeseburger Meatloaf, Fried Potatoes, Salad Friday: {in Alabama} Saturday: {in Mississippi} This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie .

We have officially completed day 95 of homeschool this year!!  Whoo hoo!!  This makes me a happy mama:) This week has had it's ups and downs, but it has wrapped up pretty well.  I have really been struggling lately with being the mom that I need to be and want to be.  Some days I have more challenges thrown at me than I know what to do with.  I have recently reached out to a few close friends for prayer in this matter and I'm so glad that I did.  While the challenges are still there, I feel stronger to face them.  I have been praying earnestly for godly wisdom, patience, and strength ...and God is so faithful to hear our prayers.  I am so thankful for his endless mercy and grace in my life!   We have enjoyed some good family time this week.  Yes, we are homeschoolers so we are together all of the time.  But it's good to just do the fun stuff.  I'm guilty of trying too hard to get that perpetual "to do" list accomplished every day and I'm t