My Blog

What is it about a good playlist that just hits right? As we head into a new school year and new routines, I wanted a fresh playlist to have on the background of our day to day. Here's mine, and you're welcome to borrow it. If you're into a perfectly random mix of Jesus loving hymns mixed with...

2022-2023 Curriculum Picks   Piper | 2nd Grade Classical Conversations: We will be completing Foundations Cycle 2 this year! This is the bulk of our science, history, fine arts, and more. Math: Teaching Textbooks Level 3 Language Arts: We will continue Explode the Code Workbooks and...

I went to a homeschool seminar day this week, and my favorite part (its always my favorite part!) was the mom panel. A group of moms sat up front and opened the floor to any question. One of the best questions asked was this:   What is some of the best homeschool advice you've received? I...

You know what I hate waking up to? Dishes. That's why I'm a huge fan of make-ahead breakfasts. The mornings (and clean-up) go so much smoother this way! Here's my favorite breakfast casserole to bake on the weekend and keep in the fridge all week: Hearty Breakfast Casserole In a 9x13 pan...

I do love to have my diffuser going any day of the year, but there is something extra perfect about FALL diffuser blends! Maybe its the spicy cinnamon bark, or the warm mixtures of clove and orange, but it's downright lovely. Here's some crisp and cozy inspiration to get you started!     I...

Nine summer diffuser recipes   Summer is here! Enter fresh, sweet, refreshing diffuser ideas to make your home feel amazing! Vacation plans this summer? I always pack my diffuser and a few oils, so don't forget to tuck them in your suitcase too! Happy diffusing!     

10 Things I Learned as a Homeschool Mom   We wrapped up the school year and are full on summer lovin'! Backyard sprinkler, later bedtimes, slower routines. But before my brain settles into summer mode, I wanted to reflect on our first year homeschooling and all the lessons that came with it....

I love having good quality, beautiful books in our home - especially surrounding holidays. There's something special about curling up around a sweet story that calls little hearts to God's truth. These are my top three to read during the Easter season!         Happy...

One of the biggest misconceptions about clean living is that its complicated. And I suppose that could be true. But I've found that two things make a huge difference:  - a community to guide you   - easy trustworthy access    For me, Young Living has been that for me! Our Grove community is...

Its that time of year when we begin throwing open windows, decluttering drawers, and itching for the fresh start Spring brings. Also known as, spring cleaning!   With more and more research bringing to light the dangers from toxin filled cleaners and ingredients (read more here and here), lets...

What you have this week is a very normal, very average family meal plan. Nothing fancy, just a mom two weeks into a new year already feeling a little tired and disorganized. You are safe here and this is a welcome space for you. Grab a recipe, cook for your people, and gather them around your...

After a week or two of loaded mashed potatoes, buffalo chicken dip, and oreos dipped in almond bark, I'm ready for a fresh meal plan! So thankful for festive foods and family traditions. They're so wonderful a few weeks each year. But I can feel my body calling out for some veggies and a little...

  Diffuse All Day! When my kit first showed up in the mail, one of the FIRST things I did was plug in my diffuser! I will say it over and over again, this lifestyle needed to be simple for it to work for me. Diffusing does just that! Push a button, walk away. I love how it makes my house...

Y'ALL. HOW IS IT DECEMBER. But also, how is it only December?! LOL! Regardless of how much I plan or prep, this time of year can easily get away from me. Between travel, wrapping gifts, etc life gets busy, and easy meals are so nice to have on hand. So for this week... 15 Easy Button...

This week's meals really focused on clean, healthy, soothing comfort foods. We were getting over a few sniffles and also laying some good groundwork for upcoming travel. Clearly I was in the mood for all the warm broth type dishes!   What we're eating this week: Whole 30 Zuppa...

Turns out I still need to feed my family in the midst of historic election craziness... so here it is!   What we're eating this week:   Sunday: Spaghetti + Salad So EASY - Aldi Red Lentil Pasta + Rao’s sauce from Costco   Monday: “Wanna Be Glow Bowls” Inspired by my new fave from a...

Time for this week's meal plans! You might notice a lot of repeat offenders on here, and that's the beauty of meal plans. It can be as fresh and new as you want it to be, or simply a line of fall back faves for a busy week. My mind has been so busy with some work projects, so meal planning went...

Anyone need some festive in their week? I’m all for the simple rhythms and routines of life, but like to spice it up now and then. Since its the week of Halloween, I wanted to do a few extra activities with my kids!  It only happens every 73 days or so, but I pulled my lesson planning life back...

Some weeks I feel strong and prepared, other weeks I make my grocery list at 10pm on a Sunday and hope we can squeak by for breakfast Monday. Thankful for grocery pick up! But I think building this habit of a general meal planning carves that path in our brain and rhythms, so when the crazy...

YUM. I was in a rut lately eating many of the same meals. (Sometimes that just works, you know! I'm all about keeping it user friendly.) But I found some new inspiration and have LOVED all of these meals! The buffalo chowder is to die for. Seriously. I wake up dreaming about when I can eat...

No meals plans here this week because our friends are in town and we’re having SO much fun trying new restaurants, cooking together, and slapping together PB&J for the pack of children in this house. BUT I wanted to share some other fave recipes with you this week…. SOUP SEASON!   Here’s a few...

Another week of meal plans! My favorite part of this week is breakfast for dinner on Friday… brinner makes my heart singggg! This week's theme was all about penny pinching. I'm determined to stick to our grocery budget, but we needed to stock up on some of our snacks and random odds and ends...

What's Cookin' Wednesday! Meal planning is my secret. Its no new thing, its just what gets us fed, fueled, and staying halfway sane in the week! Recently I began eating gluten and dairy free, so now planning ahead is even more helpful to me! I am already doing the planning, so I thought sharing...

We just got home from eight days away to visit family and friends! Today I'm resetting all the things, including our grocery situation! Here's whats for dinner this week:   Spaghetti We always eat spaghetti on bath day, ha! No recipe here, but the Rao’s pasta sauce is my fave! Its a go to for...

Hi friends! Hopping on to share our summer schedule and some favorite resources! I loooove summertime. Maybe that stems from my past as a second grade teacher - summer was the best! But, I know that 2020 has brought us a rollercoaster. Maybe you're beyond wiped out, maybe you're wondering what...

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I love this book! It has sweet childhood memories for me, and now passing the giggles on to Piper has been so fun! "The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash" is so silly, yet requires some great cause + effect and inference skills!   After you read the book today, we vote for a big game of charades! I...

Our story today is a book called “Jonathan James and the What If Monster.” I bought this book right before my first year of teaching. I actually read it at an Usborne book party and knew it would be an awesome beginning of the year type book. Whether its the beginning of a new school year or...

  Our story today is a classic, have you read it before? “Harold and the Purple Crayon” is a bedtime fave here! Its so simple yet captivating. >>After we read the story together, you can play along at your house! We’ll tell you about Yarn Art and an easy little printable in the video.  We...

Today we’re excited to read “The Garden, The Curtain, and the Cross” with you! My bff Kelsey Maloof recommended this book to us a few years ago and we love it. With Easter nearing, we thought it’d be a great pick, and the reminder of HOPE sure isn’t lost right now either! This book is such a...

Our book today is “My Friend Rabbit.” This book is hilarious and leads to a lot of fun conversation and inferences!   >>After we read the story together, you can play along at your house! We’re going to build the BIGGEST TOWER EVER!! Just like the animals in the story! There are no rules...

Another day of read alongs, hooray! Our book today is “If I Were An Astronaut.” Piper has always thought about being an astronaut when she grew up, and this book taught us all about what astronauts do each day!   After we read the story together, you can play along at your house! We’re going...

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day today, our book choice is “There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover.” Its a funny rhyming book based on the old woman who swallowed a shoe original! After we read the story together, you can play along at your house! There’s a St. Patrick’s Day Scavenger Hunt...

Here's the printable to go along with our Read Along this morning!  There's so many ways to play along with this book: Drop food coloring into mason jars filled with water. Pour, mix, and observe! Do some painting! Make piles of each primary color and mix away. For little littles, put...

After two weeks of visitors, a week in the hospital, and now social distancing, the girls (and boys ) in this crib are ready for a serious routine overhaul! I'm a type A, 3 on the enneagram, work from home mama so YES I LIKE ROUTINES but I also have days where we ditch the whole thing, wear pjs,...

  Here we are, February 5th and I'm just decided to do this. THAT IS OK. There's nothing magic about the first of the month or a Monday, the magic is in going for it. I have really tried over the last year to claim ground in our home for discipling our kids. Not the fancy, beautiful, quiet...

Here we are, another week! I'll be honest, I just didn't want to plan out any meals today. But my family keeps showing up every week expecting to eat! ;) So I just pulled up an old pinterest board and my past blog posts and grabbed meals from there! My future self will thank me for just...

  This week I used my new cookbook I got for Christmas! “Cook Once Eat All Week…” sounds divine right? This concept of prepping isn’t new for many of you, but the cookbook honestly just takes the brain work out of it. Not sponsored, not an ad, I simply love it and will forever share things...

I love children's books! Blame it on my education degree, blame it on my mama, but there's nothing like a big old stack of kids books. So one of my favorite things to do when we decorate for Christmas is to pull out my box of Christmas books. I have found that leaving a jolly stack of them on my...

Friday is heeeeeere! Meal Drop is heeeeere!  We head out of town in a week so my goal was to pack this week with some good clean meals and lots of veggies. The soup on Monday is a top 5 recipe for me. SO good and flavorful with lots of broth. Smoothies are always an easy way to get more...

I love to meal plan. Truly, it’s fun for me and I love making organization and care for my family combine here! So I thought, if I’m planning these anyway, I may as well share them here! Whether you need fresh meal inspiration or just an easy button to count on weekly - I’ll be here! Hope this...

Ok seriously: raise your hand if Costco is sometimes your dinner plan! Are you team hotdog meal or do you do #theloop?  The meals this week are easy, comfort foody, and often repeated around here.  Also, check out that Chicken Cacciatore link - it’ll take you to tonnnsss of freezer meals. When...

The recipes I had planned in this lineup were during my 30 something weeks pregnant days. All I wanted were hearty, yummy meals So when you need one like that, here you go! There's also a few recipes listed below that are my favorites for lunches.  That taco soup recipe is so stinking easy and...

Have y’all ever cooked a whole chicken before?! I’ll confess: I still have to close my eyes part of the time.  Every now and then I notice a need to buckle back down on categorizing our expenses and really sticking to our set budget.  Part of doing that equals shoring up grocery cost, and my...

I added another level of crunch to my hippie ways recently. I'm always up for learning about any natural, proactive wellness tool, and elderberry syrup is a common one many of my circles use! I'd never made it before but our Grove tribe decided to do a big virtual hang out where we all could...

One of the best things my mama taught me was how to plan ahead and prep, prep, prep. I can still remember us being on rotation for who would brown the ground beef, or waking up to a Saturday chore list that including making blueberry muffins, fruit cups, and the classic Sunday morning egg...

Its the end of May, its sunshiney (today...hello Illinois), and summer is SO. CLOSE. I don't count down the days as actively as I did when I was teaching, but its still one of my favorite times of year. And even though school is on the way out for the year, I wanted to share some of our favorite...

Matt surprised me with a trip to Dallas for my 30th birthday, complete with a stop at The Silos in Waco. An avid Chip + Jo fan, I wanted to squeeze every bit out of that day and set out to research #allthethings. It ended up being an amazing visit! If you ever get the chance, GO! Here's all the...

You know the drill. It’s 6:30 pm, dinner is done, and you’re glancing at the clock wondering how to keep the humans calm til bedtime. Maybe it doesn’t go that way at your house, but these faves are wonderful regardless to calm all the things as the day winds down!      IN THE DIFFUSER Get...

We recently renovated our kitchen, and one aspect I wanted to change was our appliance collection. What do we really use, how can we streamline, what needs to stay and can go? I'd say the most used appliances in our kitchen are the toaster oven (we did a trial period without a microwave and...

Our oils journey began right around the time our oldest daugher turned one. We have loved having this arsenal as she's continued to grow, but I was so thankful to have oils since day one with our second. I've been getting alot of questions about what oils we're using, if its different this time...

If I learned anything since becoming a mom, its that the details get fuzzy fast. (And the coffee gets cold fast, too.) So, I'm documenting Hutchy's birth story here so its not lost in the recesses of my brain and so that he has it someday! Also because I'm a sucker for a birth story... I'll say...

First baby. Decorate nursery. Pack 15 hospital outfits. Wash all new clothes. Hang onesies on cute matching pink hangers. Second baby. FILL THE FREEZER. Ok, perhaps a bit of a stretch to make the point. The little man does have clean clothes, don't worry. But I knew this time around, I'd be...

"Tell me what you do." That's what she asked me. "Tell me what you do to stay healthy! I'm desperate!"  That's probably the number one question I get asked about oils, and my favorite to share about. Its SO STINKING SIMPLE. You can do it, easily. Here's the plan. Your daily routine: Support...

Ever have those weeks or months you've got to tighten up the grocery budget? I think it really proves how innovative and savvy we can be. When that's the case over here, we do the chicken week. THIS is #budgetlyfe on the real real. I learned this from my friend Kimber (get you a friend like...

So many of you wanted to know more about this journal, so here's the details! It's nothing fancy, but it really is my favorite part of our school day. For those of you who don't know, we began "homeschool preschool" this year with my almost-four year old. I wasn't quite ready to commit to pick...

Doritos in one hand, oils in the other. Can I tell you a story? Way back, three years ago, when I was poking around at essential oils, I had NO clue what they were. But, I wanted some more tools in my mom bag so I grabbed a starter kit. And when I did I met all these amazing people. But they...

I had NO idea. Until I did. And to me, the conversation can’t be about shame or judgement. But it sure can be about awareness. The New York Mag published an article two days ago that formaldehyde (ingredient in tons of our lotions, baby products, candles, plug ins, perfumes, etc.) is a cause of...

If I'm being honest (which I try to be here often, there's enough highlight reels) its been a rough season lately. Lets preface that by saying I am so incredibly thankful for this pregnancy, this little life, and the chance to grow our family.  But holy refining, batman. Days upon days of...

A PINK wall! I never thought I’d get to have a pink wall in my house, but here I am living the dream.  This pink wall is in my sweet little office. When Matt renovated our basement last year, I got to stake out my corner. Oh the stories that pink wall could tell.  See, two years ago I was a...

Skin. Its our largest organ so when it needs a little help, we usually notice big time. This was actually one of the reasons I got into oils - my little girl's skin needed some lovin' - so here's a few things we've learned along the way!  ✨Lavender, Frank, and Tea Tree are some of the basics...