In July I got to breathe! Life calmed down a lot and I had space to catch up on life. I very much enjoyed being back to a measured life pace because that is when I can operate best!

When I flip through my July planner pages I see so much empty space and it was so needed! I could go to the other church, I had time to get some physical issues addressed at the naturopath, I started NET sessions again. I was able to be home so things that need my attention here were able to be addressed and things that I need to do regularly I actually had time to do rather than trying to cram them in. 

I felt like I let out a huge breath and it felt so good.

But I didn't stay home all month :) We had another movie night with our friends and we watched our LAST Barbie movie! It's hard to believe that we are done with that universe now. Next up is going to be the Tinker Bell movies. I think I've seen one sometime in my life but these will be new for me too!

We had short visits from my uncle and one of my cousins this month. Both were on their way home from other trips and they made a point of stopping to visit. My uncle was here overnight and my cousin just for Sunday morning and lunch but both were lovely, despite their shortness. 

So. Many. Celebrations!!!! One of our friends graduated from Marine bootcamp. Another celebrated her completion of cancer treatments and her clean bill of health. A friend's baby was baptized and another friend's baby turned one! 

Most of my things are still coming up in this last week of the month so I will share about those in August. 

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How was your July? Did you do anything fun for the 4th? Has your summer been crazy busy or slow and relaxed? 

Editing continues to be consistent and good. We have two new editors, one is a friend of mine, and we had our first call with the new editors this month. 

I'm still working on my new free resources. My main day to work on things like that are Wednesdays and I babysat two of the four Wednesdays this month so I didn't get much done. I also am still planning to try and move my website but I just don't know where to go so I'm kind of in limbo here. Another thing that freezes me a bit is the fact that I'm going to have to start from scratch because no one will export from Weebly. But if I can find a platform that I feel good about, I do plan to move. 

WHEW!!!!! 

I made it!!

While I am starting to see the wear on myself from the pace of things, I have had a great month! I didn't feel good for one reason or another most of the month but despite that, things went well and there was so much to celebrate!!!

June was... interesting.

I forget each year how much June and I don't get along. My allergies were not great but have been worse. I managed to control things enough to be able to participate in what I had planned, so that was good! I also may or may not have gotten a summer cold on top of it but I'll never know if it was new allergy symptoms or a cold. 

My cousin graduated from high school and I got to attend my first public school graduation. It is very different from a home school graduation :) But it was good and he graduated 42nd or 43rd in his class of over 400 kids so we are super proud of his hard work! 

Then my friend and my "nieces and nephews" came to spend a few days with us. She and I took the kids to the library and the lake while they were here. A very busy couple of days just before...

... going to my first bachelorette weekend for my friend Olivia. We had a lovely time eating delicious food, having great conversations, and exploring. We went horseback riding and did archery and spent time in a cute downtown area. She had a wonderful time and everyone got along so well!!

The wedding was the next weekend and it was so beautiful! These are friends from Bible study so it was fun to attend a wedding with so many friends. Another Bible study couple got married this past weekend and it was another beautiful wedding. These couples do such a good job putting Christ at the center of their day and really emphasizing that this is about so much more than just a celebration.

VBS was great! I got to have one of my friends as my co-leader and spending the week with her was amazing! I don't normally have co-leaders at all and when I do, they aren't normally my friends. It was a great experience :)

Other things from this month:

• two grad parties
• planted my deck garden (I think my seeds are bad because not much is growing)
  
• meeting new friends. The sister of a friend of ours and her family came and stayed one night with us. Lovely family. 
• edited, edited, edited!! I had several LARGE catalogues this month so we were busy with that whenever I had a spare minute. My yard reflected that :)

And now my crazy three months are over!!!!! I loved all the things I got to do but I am more than ready for things to slow down and to have some margin. But now the challenge is not to fill things up that I've been having to postpone for three months. 

How was your June/start to summer? 

Usually when I do photos like these it is for senor portraits but this was fun because this was a birthday photo shoot! What a fun way to celebrate a birthday :) I love that Kirsten wanted to mark this milestone with some photos that really showcase what makes her unique.

We did these portraits at her grandparent's house, which is a special place for her. They were gracious hosts for us and let us have the run of things. What stood out to me in meeting Kirsten was how she blends elegance and strength. She rocked a stunning dress from Rent the Runway but is also a marathon runner who just completed one a few weeks back and hit three of her four personal goals! She wants to run the Boston Marathon next year and there is one more race between her and that goal. 

Happy birthday, Kirsten and best of luck to you on your marathon this fall!

Yes, I am posting this not the last Monday of May but the first Monday of June. Life has been moving so fast that the end of May kind of snuck up on me and also, I had a senior session to post, but I didn't want to skip it entirely so we just pushed it back a week.

May was jam-packed but so good and so refreshing, even in its busyness, because I got to spend so much time with many of my favorite people! My heart is definitely full!

Trip. Party. Trip. Party. 

Those were my weekends this month! First I went to Grand Rapids to visit my friend. We packed a lot into my short time there (including my car having to get new tires!) but it was so much fun and so refreshing! We explored some more of her area of GR, watched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice with some of her friends, attended a Hymn & Pie night at a local church, and also just spent time visiting. We like to cook and do crafts together, which means we talk but also can just be in each other's presence. I also finally got to meet her roommate who is super cool.

The next weekend was a friend's bridal shower. It was lovely and I got to see some girls who used to come to my Bible study but haven't in a long time so it was nice to catch up with them a bit. 

My second trip was to The Barefoot Shoe Expo! Yes, nerdy, I know, but it was really great! A friend came with me and we got to try on lots of shoes and attend workshops about foot health and movement and things like that. One of the hardest things about buying barefoot shoes is that so many are made in Europe so trying them on is not an option because you basically can't return them. But here I got to see and hold and try on a lot of shoes, I found another company that buys European shoes and sells them here (making returns an option!), and I found a rain boot that I will be getting eventually. I only got a pair of sandals and my mid-calf toe socks, but I have good info for future shoe needs now! 

Finally, we had a combined party to celebrate my grandparent's and parent's milestone anniversaries and my mom's milestone birthday all happening this year. It was a lovely event with so many people from all through their lives, some who we haven't seen in years! My mom tracked down her mom's maid of honor and the flower girl from her parent's wedding and my grandmother was so surprised! 

Other things that happened month were:

• Lots of yard work. I've gotten a few projects done but still have a couple big ones to go. I don't like working when it's super hot so I'm running out of time :)
  
• Lots of editing. We got a lot of catalogues and one of our editors had to stop working with us so that means constant editing but that's good! It's good to have work to do!
  
• One of my nephews stayed a couple days with us. He is so chill when he doesn't have to be defending his life from his older siblings! 
  
• Naomi's senior photos. This was a last minute session for a friend and we couldn't have had a nicer day for it! 
  
• Visiting the Henry Ford Museum. We attended an event and then got to explore the museum. We had a membership to it and Greenfield Village when we were little but haven't been in many years. The coolest thing was I saw the replica of Independence Hall that is part of the building itself! I didn't know it was there, having never gone in the specific entrance before. 
  
• Friends here for Memorial Day. Due to the big party the weekend of Memorial Day, we didn't do our usual gathering but had some friends over in the morning/early afternoon before a quiet evening. One of the families, only half of them had been here before and we've done quite a lot since then anyway. It was a very fun time with some special people!
  

I hope you had a lovely May, though maybe a bit calmer than mine :) How did you celebrate Mother's Day? What were some of your highlights? Are you a fan of spring cleaning like me or do you hate it? I'd love to hear from you in the comments on what resonated with you from this month's roundup!

Even though the main draw in Downtown Fenton was not available to us, we had the BEST weather imaginable and created absolute magic with Naomi's senior portraits! I was bummed when it was cloudy all morning but the sun came out for us and it was a lovely temperature and we found all sorts of cute places! Let's just say I had to be ruthless about culling photos because there were so many good ones!

This was kind of a last-minute session but we had talked actually a couple of years ago about how she wanted to do her senior photos in Downtown Fenton because there is a gorgeous garden with a gazebo and a bridge over the river and it's just beautiful! But when I got there, the whole area we had planned on being was torn up and under construction! Thankfully there are more places to get to the river and lots of cute places around the downtown area so pivoting wasn't too hard.

Naomi is going to a Concordia so we wanted to take some photos at one of the churches (there are three right in the downtown area!) but the sun placement was causing some problems. We found some doors that she said actually looked a lot like the ones on her campus so we were taking some photos there and a staff member arrived and told us about their prayer garden around back. We decided to check it out and found a large stained glass window with a cross in front of it! It was very neat and we never would have known it was there if the staff member hadn't told us! (I'll do a lot of strange things for photography but skulking around property is not one of them :)

I love seeing how seniors show themselves in their photos and Naomi definitely did that but something really fun is that the sweatshirt was her grandfather's that he bought when her mom was going to Concordia! Lots of special family history there. 

Congratulations, Naomi, and blessings on your next adventure!


With my new policy about faces, privacy, and AI, I don't have as many sneak peek photos in this blog post as I used to and I won't be showing some of my favorites BUT, you can still see how beautiful her photos turned out!

It kind of feels like my head is spinning and swirling with all that's gone on and how my next few months are shaping up. April was really good, don't get me wrong, but it was FULL and I've accidentally planned at least one thing each Saturday April-June!!! Ooops! But it will be great :) I also have some news about this website and blog so keep reading!

Oh my word, April was WILD! I spent about two weeks with almost no breathing room between scheduled things and then having a bunch of catalogues coming in and me being the only editor available to work on them! Which is good for business but made for some interesting weeks. 

The last tw0 days of March we did our Great Basement Reshuffle. All the shelves got put in their new locations and then my mom and I got all the books put onto the bookshelves. We are still working on getting the storage shelves organized but the basement project is 95% finished and it went so well! 

Then the first day of April we had a dumpster delivered and we did a massive clean-out of the barn and the area right in front of it. We threw away a TON, took a bunch to the burn pile, and sent a pile to the scrap yard! 

This was also Easter week so we had two services during the week, I went to the Easter fair with my friend and my nieces' and nephews', I babysat, edited, and made cookies for Easter. (I made copycat Lofthouse cookies which honestly just tasted like sour cream cookies but the frosting was DEAD ON and so good! I made vanilla and lemon.)

I would not do something like the basement and dumpster again in the same week but we did it and it worked out. The week after Easter my mom was gone for a week and I was on for everything! Meals, chores, errands... plus babysitting and editing and some plans I had with friends. It was a good but very busy week. 

She got back and then I went to spend two days with a friend who needed some help while her husband was out of town. We had a fun time and I just enjoyed being with them since I don't get to see them very much. 

We went to a comedy show fundraiser that was very good (this bit about the fridge had my mom and grandmother dying because this is their life!). I went to two musicals - my nieces' and nephews' school musical and then a local high school to see High School Musical - visited Frankenmuth, and helped prep and then attended my friend's bridal shower!

Like I said, lots going on this month and so much fun, life-giving stuff but it's been a whirlwind! 

I have decided that I am leaving Weebly as my website host. I'm sad but it's past time. However, I am probably not able to move my blog and I have EIGHT YEARS of posts here! So that means a few things:

1. I am going to be blogging less until I move. Since I'm not keeping this going, it's kind of foolish to put a bunch more content here that I will have to move. I will still do my recap posts for sure and I may do a few here and there but I should be moving this summer so it won't be that long until I'm blogging again on my new site.
2. These posts will be staying here. I will be downgrading this website to a free plan and removing most of the other content so that functionally this will become just a blog archive. 
3. I will move a lot of the posts to my new site slowly over time. They will stay here too, but there are many that I will want to be over at my new home and this will also give me a chance to update and do more backlinking. 

I will definitely connect this blog to my new site in some way so that people who know to come here or have saved links to these posts will be able to find both places. It's a huge bummer that I can't just switch everything over but here we are. 

For as long as I can remember, Easter has been my favorite holiday. Which I now see is kind of ironic, since spring is my least-favorite season. But Easter is definitely the best part of spring!
Things were different as a child than they are now, but through all the years and traditions and things, I’ve always loved this holiday.
Probably my favorite thing is the church service. Easter Sunday is my favorite Sunday of the whole year! We have all the instruments and the choir and you can FEEL the joy in the sanctuary. Palm Sunday is my second-favorite Sunday because it is so similar to Easter.
I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite traditions around Easter. Some are from my childhood and we don’t do them anymore, but I have very fond memories of them!

Dyeing Easter Eggs

This was always so much fun! My Grammy had us come over and we each got a dozen hard boiled eggs to dye however we wanted. For many years we wrote the name of a family member on each egg. Sometimes we did multi-colored eggs, you could get a different color based on how long you left it in the solution, and near the end, we would mix colors to get new colors! By the time I was old enough that it wasn’t quite so much of a novelty anymore, my cousins were doing it and I loved helping them 😊

“Decorating” the church for Good Friday

My Grammy is one of the ladies who sets up the altar for Maundy Thursday service and then afterwards, we help her clean everything up and change the altar and everything to Good Friday. It’s a special tradition and one that I always look forward to.

Easter bags from Grammy

As you can see, a lot of my Easter memories revolve around my Grammy :) When we were little, we had a family friend who gave us all Easter baskets with all the candy and stuff. So instead of giving us another basket of candy, she gave us little brown lunch sacks with fun treats in them! Still things we didn’t usually get but not just candy. I remember those pretzels or breadsticks with cheese, Rice Krispy treats, and Pop Tarts were some of the things she did over the years. (She did a similar thing for Halloween).
Easter cookies

My Oma lived next door to me growing up and I did a lot of baking with her. I don’t recall how old I as when we started doing Easter cookies. We’d make sour cream cookies (they are SO SOFT!) and then make frosting and do all kinds of colors to decorate our eggs and butterflies and other spring/Easter shaped cookies. It was a lot of work so I stopped doing it when I got older and didn’t have as much time. This year I made a Lofthouse-style cookie with just plain white frosting, though I did make half lemon flavored!
Resurrection Eggs

This is a tool to teach kids about the Easter narrative. It has twelve colored plastic eggs and each one has something to symbolize a part of the account. For example, there is a donkey, coins, a cup, a rock, a crown of thorns… that kind of thing. It’s so fun to see little kids remembering and knowing more and more each year and also hearing what they say about each item. One year a cousin called the crown of thorns a “crown of pokes”. He wasn’t wrong 😂

Easter Breakfast

Our youth group does an Easter breakfast as a fundraiser each year and it’s delicious! It was even fun to help make and serve when I was the right ages for that. And we get to sit and eat as a family with my aunt and uncle and cousins as well so that makes it special.



When I think about Easter, I think about people. Going to church with my whole family, seeing people I haven’t seen in a long time, eating together at Easter Breakfast, the things we do together to prepare… it’s so joyous. And that is the theme of Easter - joy. Because of Easter we can be joyful and have hope, even in the darkest of times. Because of Easter we know that one day, all will be made right. There will be no more pain or suffering or illness or anything broken.


I would love to hear what memories or traditions you have surrounding Easter! 

We heard it all the time.

People would find out that we homeschooled (or now, that we were homeschooled) and the response was something along the lines of, "i could never do that!" Which usually meant, "I don't have the patience for that." To which my mom would always say, "I don't either." 

I personally don't think the hang-up was actually patience but I'm not going to get into that today. This is not for the person who doesn't want to homeschool. Rather, it's for the person who doesn't think they can. I hope it encourages that person because I truly believe that...

Anyone Can Homeschool!

You might wonder that I'm talking about this when I've never homeschooled my kids. Namely because I don't have kids :) But I was a homeschool kid. I lived this. I watched my mom do it and my friends' moms and I have friends now who homeschool. I LOVE talking about it and encouraging people who are doing it or want to do it, to the point that I may go a little overboard at times :)

Here's the main thing - you are your child's first teacher. 

You are teaching them from the moment they are born. So every single parent is automatically a homeschooler. The wrinkle is that somehow we are convinced that we need something special once "school" starts. Yes, you do need some more structure and most people find it helpful to have a curriculum or a co-op to follow, but at the end of the day, you're doing the same thing you did when your kids were 2, and 3, and 4. 

If you talk to my mom about homeschooling she'll be the first to tell you that we know all kinds of things she never "taught" us. My brothers and my dad have all kinds of science and math conversations that leave my mom and I staring blankly at each other :) If you can teach your kids to be curious and how to learn things, they will teach themselves a lot. Helping them love to read is also a huge part of it! We always had our noses in books when we were kids. It got us in trouble sometimes actually!

I'm not a homeschool mom but I have worked with a lot of kids in my life. In that experience I can tell you that when your kids are young, it's so easy to homeschool! The kids I watch right now are 2 and 6 as of this blog post being written. The six year old is in school but I practice addition with him while we play Monopoly! And he likes to read the chapter headings in the books I read to them. The 2 year old, I will have her practice colors and numbers and letters with me while we play with her toys. 

Another thing my mom tells people who are new or considering homeschooling: "You only have to be one day ahead of your kids." Phylicia Masonheimer, a second-generation homeschooler says, "I don't plan for seasons I'm not in." Both of these should be encouragement that you don't have to know what you would do for physics and calculus to start homeschooling your kindergartner. You don't even have to know what you will do for first grade! New resources are available all the time, the needs of your family will change, your kids' learning styles might evolve! Don't be afraid to take on year at a time or to make changes. 

If someone pressed me and asked what someone would need to be a homeschooler I would say two things: a love for your kids and support. That's it! It's the same things you need to be a parent. As has been stated, I am not a parent but I know that it's hard. There were days that my mom threatened to send us to school (I'm pretty sure it was never a serious threat) because things were so hard. People homeschool because they love their kids and believe that it is what is best for them. (I want to be clear that I am NOT saying that people who send their kids to a school don't love their kids. I'm only saying the motivation behind homeschooling right now. There is no logical opposite being inferred.) And they need the support of their spouse, their parents, and community. I've known people who's parents were not supportive of their homeschooling their kids and it was hard. I've known people who wanted to homeschool but their spouse was not on board. That is one scenario where I would say you can't homeschool. It will not go well and it will probably harm your family. But in the end, there is not much that you "need" to start homeschooling. 

My mom loved homeschooling. We loved being homeschooled. The funny thing is that my dad actually wanted to homeschool and my mom was sure it wouldn't work. Since her childhood she wanted to be two things - a mom and a teacher. She got to be both but not in the way she imagined. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't change a thing :)

To close, I have a few tips from what we learned in our homeschooling journey and things I've picked up from observing other homeschoolers in my life:

• Everything is school. If school is learning, then life is school. Yes, we need dedicated time to study certain basic things, but you can learn fractions by baking and doing woodworking projects! Living life teaches you things and some are even more valuable than what you would learn from a textbook.
• Foster a love of reading. Virtually every kids I know who was forced to read in school grew up not liking to read. That's sad to me. When you homeschool, it allows for greater freedom in what you read, which means that kids can read within their interests more, creating an enjoyment of the process. If kids love to read, they will learn a lot on their own.
• Encourage curiosity. Tied into reading, you want to encourage a sense of curiosity. That will drive the kids to go discover answers on their own, helping them learn more than you could ever teach them!
• Do as much as you can together. There is not as much that is grade-specific as you might think. We did a lot of school together growing up. Sometimes something might be a little simple for me and a little bit advanced for my youngest brother, but it worked out okay. And for a lot of things, you could do the basic lesson but add some more for me as an older child. We did Bible, some history and geography, briefly Spanish, and probably some other things I"m forgetting at the moment. (Also, my brothers did a lot of school together because they preferred videos and doing things on the computer and I preferred writing and physical books.)
• Don't be afraid to make changes. My mom started using a structured curriculum and by the time my youngest brother graduated we were using all kinds of different things! I myself used two or three math curriculums before we found one that made some amount of sense to me! You won't ruin your kids by changing curriculum or stopping an activity or moving to a new co-op. 
• You don't have to do it all yourself. Speaking of co-ops... even though it's called "homeschooling", you don't have to be at home by yourself all day every day. In fact, most homeschoolers joke about how they don't have time to do their "school" because they're never home! There are so many co-ops where they offer classes on a variety of topics and with different commitment levels. There are lots of places that offer daytime options for homeschoolers (we did a homeschool roller skate for years). If there is a subject your kid is interested in or needs and you just don't think you can help them with it, odds are good there is someone or some program out there that can help them. Think of yourself as the guide. You find and provide what your child needs to learn and them help them go through it. 

I said that I can talk about this for hours and you can probably tell from this VERY long post :) I'm going to wrap it up here for now but I hope that this is encouraging to you if you're considering homeschooling or new to homeschooling. And if that's not you, then I hope you at least found this interesting!  I'd love to hear thoughts, comments, or even questions if you have them! 

Here is a great and encouraging post from Tricia Goyer especially for homeschool beginngers! 

(Does anyone know what movie quote I am parody-ing with my title of Anyone Can Homeschool?)

I am reluctantly saying goodbye to winter but I have some outdoor projects that I'm kind of excited to do and I need it to be *slightly* warmer for them so I guess it's okay. I'm never mad when we get a few snow flurries still! 

End of February
I have a friend who is a baker and I asked her to help me make a fun, Princess Bride-themed cake to celebrate my birthday. It went well, was the best chocolate cake I've ever had, and was so fun to do with her! I also helped her make a gender-reveal cookie cake for a mutual friend who was going to cut it at her birthday party.

That party was nice. It was just dinner and chatting but I got to see a newer friend who I haven't seen in months, we had mocktails that are my new obsession! Grapefruit juice, lime juice, sweetener (she did agave), and soda water. SO GOOD! The cookie cake was delicious and the baby is a boy! They have two girls already so this will be quite the change :)

March (so far)
I got to do so many fun things this month! Starting off with helping a friend paint her apartment and one of my favorite adults invited a few girls from my Bible study to her house for dinner. Making and eating a meal together... there is something about it. We get to work and have great conversation and I love it! I love cooking with my friends.

Our basement reorganization project is going so well! We are just about ready to play a giant game of Tetris in moving everything into its new locations. One of the sub-projects is that we have two large Rubbermaid bins of loose photographs. So far we have sorted the photos into categories but most of them need to be labeled before being sorted by year and put into albums. It's a large project for sure but it's been really fun so far and I'm excited to have them in albums to better see my family history! 

Bible quizzing is over for the school year and I'm definitely ready for the break. The kids finished in fourth place in the teams (out of I think 11 teams). It's really impressive because the top three teams are always guaranteed so being right behind them is a big deal. 

Some other highlights were my friend's birthday party (where I ran into a girl I haven't seen in almost 20 years!), a phone call with my cousin, friends getting engaged and an engagement party, running into another girl I haven't seen in years at our final quiz, and a nice dinner with a friend. 

How was your March? What was a highlight for you?

I love when you find something adorable that is meant to be an heirloom AND supports a good cause. Cuddle & Kind does just that with their dolls! And when I say adorable, I mean adorable! I want to own pretty much every doll they make and they come out with limited edition ones for different holidays and seasons too! UGH! My heart can't handle the cuteness!

It seems like every kid has "A Stuffie". You know, the one toy or maybe blanket that they ALWAYS HAVE TO HAVE. They won't go to sleep without it, etc. I'm not sure how much power parents have over what that becomes, but Cuddle & Kind dolls are meant to be that for a child. These dolls are handmade in Peru and Nepal and each doll provides meals to hungry children. 

The choices are almost overwhelming! You have the standard dolls that are about the size of a baby itself, Then you have Baby Animals and the Tiny Collection. Plus, within those categories you have animals and flowers and mermaids and holiday specific dolls... sometimes I can't open the emails because it makes me want to buy all of them!

At first it might seem like a lot of money to spend on a stuffed toy. But when you realize it is handmade, made to last, and supports a cause? Well, suddenly it is worth it, at least to me. I bought one for my friend's baby and I was very pleased with it! 

Go check them out! Read about their mission and explore but you might want to hide your credit card first because you're going to want to buy them all! I'd love to know... what one would you buy if you bought one today?