Advent

This is truly my most favorite time of the year. I love Jesus and the story of His birth.  I'm a pretty emotional gal. If you don't believe me ask my hubby or turn on any version of Mary did you know and I'll instantly be weeping. To know that He sent His only son to live here on earth to be persecuted and die for us. That Mary gave birth to the King of Kings! To give each of us life.

This I such a wonderful time and opportunity to teach your children how to show the love of Christ in a world driven by material things. Here are a few ways our family keeps our focus on Jesus during Christmas season.

Ornaments and A meaningful Christmas daily scripture and readings.  I joined in with a group of ladies a few Christmases ago and we each made enough of our assigned ornament to trade with each other. It was wonderful fellowship and now all of our children enjoy this advent each year. We read the scripture for each day, talk over the discussion questions, and pray together. Here are just a few of the ornaments.

I also use this beautiful candle advent to count down. We move the Mary on the donkey each day as we light the candles, until she reaches the day of Christs birth. This is a beautiful handmade piece that also comes with extensions and a cut out of Jesus carrying the cross for Lent. I ordered it several years ago from the children of Ann Voskamp, I believe their shop is called  Joywares.

And last year I added this fill your own advent. I'm filling these days with some service projects, and a few treats. Several days are a piece of candy, or riding to see Christmas lights. I added a few popcorn and Christmas movie days. Television is not in our day to day norm, so it's a treat for our kiddos to watch a movie on the only TV that is located in our bedroom. Some ways Ive added for us to serve this season are: picking up trash in our neighborhood, taking cookies to our local soup kitchen and nursing home, delivering holiday plants to some elderly folks we love, buying a few toys to give to toys for tots, making extra treats for the teachers and staff at our school, buying goodies for our mail carrier and trash men, and giving to a family in need. I love watching my children serve and get excited about giving to others.

The very last Christmas tradition we have is this. On Christmas morning as soon as everyone is awake, they all pile into our bed, even our teenager and we read from the Bible the story of Jesus birth. I get a lump in my throat and watery eyes every time. Then we pray together and thank the Lord for sending His son! It is truly the sweetest memories and I'm so thankful for them. What are some of your favorite Advent traditions?

homemaker

About three years ago, I began choosing a word at the start of each new year. A word to help encourage myself, a sort of goal that I set for the year to work harder at. I've chosen Grace, Love, and Patience. Not that I have perfected any of those. Choosing this years word didn't come as easy as years past. For months I tossed a word around. In June I turned 35, and on my birthday  I finally chose my word for this year. Homemaker.

Homemaker: a person, especially a housewife, who manages a home.

For a while I felt that homemaker sounded old fashioned or out dated. But at 35 Ive changed, grown and matured and don't really care how it sounds. I want our home to be a peaceful, efficient, lovely, restful place. I want to be the maker of our home.

For as long as I can remember I've been rushing, hurrying, just getting the minimum done to get through the day, only to be left exhausted and feeling like I'm not good enough.  As we've been exploring minimalism it has helped me begin practicing much slower living. Instead of just getting by, I want to find joy in serving my family and making our place of living a HOME.

I am making it a point not to over commit. I have a hard time telling people no. And when I stretch myself too thin committing and volunteering. I end up being too busy, stressed out and instead of making a home I hurt my home. Stretchting myself too thin, doesn't help my family. It hurts them. 

When I over commit, it causes me to procrastinate on grocery days, washing laundry, dishes, or just staying on task. Because I'm already used up and too tired to take care of my family. Here's to a much
 slower life, enjoying moments, cooking dinner at a reasonable time, creating a home, and place of
rest and peace. 

Let the homemaking begin!

becoming a minimalist

Over the past year I have been exploring minimalism. I'm beginning to love it, in fact crave it! You see I suffer from anxiety. There are many things that cause me anxiety, I believe that  most of it comes from the chaos of our home. For years I have organized, saved and stored items that our family may use or need one day. There is an abundance of books, toys, clothes, and random odds and ends. All of these items require our care and time. Our  home of just under 3,000 sq ft  stays  cluttered. With seven people and three dogs I'm sure you can imagine. There has never been a time when all three stories of our home was nice, neat and relaxing. I'm  always re-organizing stuff that we rarely use, and cleaning to no end. It was and is exhausting! I began to realize that no matter how much we cleaned and organized, it still was not a relaxing space. Everyone was arguing, yelling and complained of being bored to no end. What we had wasn't enough and everyone wanted more! I came across some blogs and Instagram accounts of others living minimally and it seemed and looked like a dream come true. When I first began to explore minimalism I found that  it was difficult for me to part with items, whether it was because of its value or sentimental reasons. It is a slow process and I'm taking my time. I'ts a big transition for our whole family. I am so thankful that my husband was on board when I suggested it. We both dream of what it must have been like 60 - 70 years ago and live with only what you needed and life was so simple, the Andy Griffith show is a favorite in our home.

You may be wondering how and where I started?
The dining room. We are in the process of remodeling  and updating our home, and the dining room seemed like a pretty easy room to start with. I cleared everything from the room and spent a month remodeling . And when I was finished I only moved the items back in that I new I would enjoy and feel relaxed around. Our large table and eight chairs, a large mirror on the wall and a big basket for a potted tree. If you have been to our home, then you know we have a huge china cabinet that belonged to my grandmother. I like it I really do, but it's large and bulky and took up a lot of space in that room. The cabinet was also filled with a lot of serving pieces that I never use. It was a cluttered space filled with items I had to periodically dust and wash. I decided to move my grandmothers dishes into the kitchen to use and start enjoying instead of just looking at.

 Everything else I have separated "keep" and "garage sale" and have gone back through several times. Each time I find more that I can part with, it is so freeing!!!  Most minimalist blogs and articles suggest that when pairing down, that you need  to get the items out of the house immediately. However we have been paying down debt over the past year and are now debt free, except for our mortgage and a small hospital bill from our daughters birth in December. With that said we have gone through every room in our home at least twice and have filled boxes for our neighborhood yard sale, these boxes are being stored in our basement. We are using all monies from sold items to pay remaining hospital bill and buy some family land to move our cows to and build a much smaller home. Soooo if your local to me, you wont want to miss this sale! It will be on April 23rd, I will post reminders to my Facebook and Instagram pages. In the mean time if your'e on Instagram you can check out some of our nicer items including clothing, purses, baby items and more. Those will periodically be listed on Instagram @mcconnellmobshop