mom
Life as a mom of 4
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Friday Favorites
It has been a while since I did a post about some Friday favorites. Today, I wanted to share some Christmas gifts that I really enjoyed. Echo Dots I had heard of echo dots but hadn’t really thought about how they could be useful in my house. My husband surprised me with two of them and at first I looked at him confused about how these were a good present for me. He then explained how apart from being used for music and other things, they could be used as intercoms. We have a true 3 story house and my teen’s room is on the top floor. I spend a…
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2021 Goals
My main goals are typically similar each year but with each year, I hopefully gain some wisdom, learn some new skills and tools to reach those goals. My two main goals have to do with the blog and my spending. Budget Clothing With a more flexible income and budget often comes more spending! I was disappointed in myself last year with how much I spent on clohtes. I did not add it up like I planned to but I know the numbers would be scary! So this year when I record my spending in my ledger, I will be highlighting my own clothing purchases as a category. Highlighting it in…
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20 for 2020
Today I am joining Carrie at A Stylish Fit with a 20 for 2020 post. Please visit her post and link up! I thought this would be a nice way to remember 2020. While there were some definitely stressful times in 2020 in our family (unrelated to Covid), it was actually a good year for our family. Since this is a lengthy post, I am not going to use full size pictures as it would take quite a while to load up and scroll down. Please remember that we tend to share the good stuff but it isn’t the full picture of our life. I don’t want you to compare…
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Holiday Sunday Showcase: Fun Christmas Traditions and Link Up
While we do different things in our family to remember what the real reason for the season is: the celebration of the birth of Christ (such as reading excerpts from the Gospels, going to church, looking at and playing with our Nativity scenes), today’s post is about the silly and fun things that we enjoy doing during the month of December leading to Christmas/Nativity. Ada (Elegance and Mommyhood) and I are sharing some fun Christmas traditions new and old. Don’t forget to stop by her post to see what they do the month leading to Christmas. Hot Cocoa Bar We had a few nights of hot cocoa last year but…
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Nativity Scenes from Around the World
Today, I thought that I would share my Nativity scenes with you. I like to put them up at the same time as the rest of my Christmas decor so the boys remember the real reason for this time of celebration. I am resharing last year’s post with the addition of one more. Italy This is my oldest nativity scene. When my oldest son was 16 months old, we traveled to Italy during the Christmas break to visit my younger brother who lived in Rome at the time. It was fun celebrating Christmas in Italy and we had many fun adventures. I found this small clay nativity scene in a…
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Sunday Showcase: Christmas Home Tour and Link Up
Welcome to my Christmas Home Tour! Today Ada from Elegance and Mommyhood and I are sharing our Christmas decor and giving you a little home tour. I like how just like clothes can share some of our personalities with others, that Christmas decor can do the same. Don’t forget to stop by her blog post to see more pictures of her home decorated for the holidays! You can also join us with the link up by adding your recent holiday or fashion posts. I would describe my decorating style as minimalistic but festive. I enjoy decorating but I do not like clutter so I had festive touches every where in…
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Pantry Redo: Before and After
I shared my pantry reorganization a few months ago in this blog post and today I am sharing another pantry redo to show you how different spaces can be reorganized. My pantry is a walk in pantry with two walls of shelves while my friend pantry is a row of 4 shelves with two doors that open out. This little project was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed doing something like this for my friend. Before Here is the before of the pantry! The pantry is really quite roomy and the shelves are well spaced. My friend keeps pantry well stocked but needed some help with grouping things…
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Vacationing during a Pandemic
While we did not travel anywhere at all from mid January till end of July, we have been on 2 vacations since then and are leaving for our Thanksgiving beach trip on Saturday. I have heard of some who haven’t been anywhere at all since March while others have traveled by plane, some have taken family vacations while others have not. I think each family and situation is different and people need to make these decisions based on their family needs and abilities. Is this our new normal? I personally do not think things will be back to what they used to be. Things might not go back and forth…
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Friday Favorites
Today, I wanted to share a few things that are making me happy lately! Trager Grill My husband bought himself a Traeger smoker grill for his birthday. He has always enjoyed grilling but he now enjoys it even more and likes to experiment. Even I have used it a few times! The last thing he grilled were some spare ribs and before that a couple of chickens. He usually goes to Ingles on Saturday to see what is on sale, does a little research and smokes/grills away. It has been fun to have some extra meat around to house to add to my planned menu. Closet Beautification As I have…
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Budget Review: September and October
I like to write these posts because they make me accountable and help me brainstorm what I need to work on for the following month! Spending on Clothes As I mentioned before, at the end of August I made of goal to not spend money on clothes till the end of the year! Well, that was a pretty lofty goal and while I did fail miserably, I also did succeed for 50 days which is a pretty nice accomplisment for me. I did spend and buy several things since then including: set of 4 belts (Amazon) tunic (Amazon) 2 skirts (Amazon) a dress on clearance (Target) sweater dress (Target) hat…