blog reading.

Hi Friends.

Melissa here again. Got your tea? A few minutes?

Ok. Let's go!

Most mornings start with a little blog reading. Some like to read books. As I said before I'm not much of a book reader, although I am reading a few books. But as for blogs, I'd like to share a little of what I'm reading on the world wide web.

The Day I Decided To Stop Eating Kale

Smarter Each Day

If you know me well you know I eat fairly healthy. 

And I try to avoid processed foods & fake sugars. 

I also cannot go without dark chocolate and Chai tea for more than a few hours day.

 I really enjoyed her perspective on the heath food trends. 

I've been there. 

I once avoided sugar for 3 months during a pregnancy. 

Do we really drive ourselves nuts sometimes?

Why do we do that to ourselves? 

I mean there is a balance of course. 

And... 

I do eat Kale/Spinach in my smoothies. ;)

This Should Be Your First Though When You Take Your Kids Shopping

Mommy's Me Time

I absolutely love Amber's blog. 

It's been a super encouragement during my nutty amazing days with the littles. 

Yesterday we actually ventured out, I know shocking!

And I went grocery shopping, and I took my three littles.  

Even more shocking!

And it wasn't super crazy. 

It's all about perspective Ladies!

 It really is. 

How to Serve Your Spouse

Simply Clarke

Serving our Husband's is a toughie sometimes.  

Especially with a not complaining/selfless attitude.

And I've been recently convicted about how I need to change.

My own husband, not to put him on a pedestal, knows how to serve. 

And wholeheartedly. 

Sometimes I wish I had that kind of drive. 

And serving my husband is vital. 

Very vital!

I love Marquis's blog Scripture Entries. 

She does them often, and they are oh so beautifully written. 

She is also pregnant with her first baby, a girl, and due very soon. 

Yay!

Dressers Around the House

The Nester

I read Myquillyn's (don't you just adore her name?) book The Nesting Place. 

If you haven't and love decorating a home, or just own one and need to decorate it, this one is for you. 

You can get the book here. 

I literally read it in like 2 days. 

It's that good.

The Simplified Organizer

Emily Ley

Emily Ley's blog is excellent too. 

Mainly because I love the simplified lifestyle. 

But I had to post the link to her planner. 

Isn't it gorgeous?

It may be my first official Homeschool purchase for the next year,

 since Ashlyn will be in First Grade, ahh! 

(that was an excited "ahh" mixed with a 'I have no idea what I'm getting into "ahh"')

Thanks for following along.

It's been fun!

Melissa

Our Family Went to Mexico - part uno

Hi Friends.

So many have asked how our trip to Mexico went. And I really wished we could have everyone over for Mexican food and a presentation.

Trying to explain everything would take a long time and lots of photo editing, So bare with me as I try to make our entire trip fit into into a small space.

So how about this time, grab your own delicious Mexican food. I dunno? Microwave a frozen Burrito, and sit down and let me chat about our trip.

At the end of January we took our ENTIRE family on our first missions trip to the Baja Peninsula to Ensenada, Mexico. What a ride! And what an amazing experience!

I had to snap a photo of my dear hubbie bringing in the luggage from our car to the Airport. This one only one of the crazy experiences we had with all our stuff. Not the most fun part, but necessary, and we laughed! Josh did an A-mazing job taking care of us.

Our trip started with a few days visiting one of Josh's college roommates in Apple Valley, CA. We had a great time catching up enjoying our first trip to the dessert. Thank you Nate & Kati!

And it was not without a trip to Laguna Beach area. Which just happen to hit 82 degrees in January. That sand felt GREAT on my bare feet. If only I can transport myself back just for a moment. Ahh!

Our team then met together in San Diego. Five kids. Five adults.

We started with a little In-N-Out Burger. Of course. And I do have to say I was impressed. It was the perfect way to team build before the long trip south.

From there we drove across the border. Yes, I was a little nervous. But with lots of prayer we crossed, and it wasn't a big deal. Honest. The drive along the coast was pretty spectacular. We drove the coast down through Tijuana to Ensenada.  It was about a 2 hour drive.

We tightly fit in a 11 passenger Van. 3 car seats, 2 older kids, and 5 adults. Tight, but amazing all did well. And our sweet baby hardly made a sound. 

And we arrived around 4 in the afternoon to our destination. 

Safe Care Mission.

You can check out their FB page here. 

It's a gorgeous building. Although it's still in renovations. The bottom level is the day care, offices, & kitchen. And the second level is where we stayed. It included two Bunk rooms and two other family/couple rooms, a bathroom & a nice common area.

The food was well, Mexican. Lots of beans. Corn tortilla at every meal. I was in heaven. And we had a fabulous chef who really made our time special with such wonderful food.

Between nursing my sick baby. And playing with all the kiddos. I got to feed this beauty. Those are the moments you wish didn't fly by. It was special. I mean look at those eyes.

Our kids were very shy. I suppose when you have little ones talking a foreign language 24/7 it gets a bit odd for a child. We understood. But even then, we saw a few moments they were just kids with kids. And that was special to us.

You can see the Day Care is right within the community. The kids come from all of the communities around. And the workers came from those communities as well. The day care was the perfect way to share God's love by the real definition. The workers were required to go to daily bible studies. That was a fun moment for me. I got to share a little. Of course I realized I need to practice speaking with a translator. It's not an easy art the first time. What a blessing to get to share though.

Skylar spent most of her time with the other little people, in the nursery. So of course I also spent most of my time there as well. OH how sweet to get to hold those little babies!

So as a synopsis, the entire week consisted of the kids arriving every morning between 6:00-6:30 and going home around 4. A few vans drove the kids to and from. Josh had an opportunity to go on an afternoon van trip. He got a different perspective of the community than I. And for fun we also got to take a trip into the city and act like tourists. That was a nice break for the kids. We even hit up the local Walmart.

Sorry for the abrupt ending here. It's not over. I'll post more later.

To be Continued...

what I'm reading.

Hello Friends.

It's me again.

Got your cuppa tea? or whatever you drink? 

Here are a few books/blogs/stuff I'm reading right now.

I should add I'm totally the girl who starts a book and sets it down forgetting about it till the next month  year , when I really had to start over a bit. Oh well.

I suppose I should also say I really am reading right now.

So here goes nothing.

My list:

• We are doing this at the Tuesday Bible Study: Twelve Extraordinary Women (John MacArthur) Been very nice to read the Bible in a different way. And I LOVE getting together with the women over tea and yummies with someone watching my kiddos for a few hours. The word should be GLORIOUS! {Make sure when you order through Amazon that you sign into AmazonSmile and pick a charity though.}

• And when I actually get a chance to read in my free time I am really really enjoying The Best Yes (Lysa TerKeurst) It's super convicting so far. Ahh. But. I see Lysa as a twin who's twenty years older, she really is an older version of me, or at least I'd like to think that she is. Love that I found an author like that. I'm totally gonna go through all her books. (You heard that? I guess that means I do like to read.)

• My Josh's cousin Emily is also a blogger, here, at From the Jensens.  And Emily's blog is excellent! She has such an amazing heart for others and speaks well of raising of family with God as her guide. She is also a twin mom, and expecting her fourth little one this year. If you don't mind find her on Facebook as well. ;)

• And I love to read the Bible (this is the one I have). So I suppose that should be on the list every time. It's a very special Bible, I know I know, it's only the NIV, but it's what I use when I study and I love it. 

• And to my kiddos, who are 5, 3, and 11 months we read lots and lots of books. This week we enjoyed The Disney Princess Cookbook (& whipping up some Pascal Pancakes with the kids),  Beauty and The Beast, & Stone Soup. Josh has been reading The Lamb to our two older kids. I am enjoying their eyes and ears open up as he reads and then asks the questions each chapter has. That makes this momma's heart happy.

What are you reading? Anything you suggest I check out? 

Thanks!

Melissa

Hello.

Hello Friends.

So I know I had another blog. You can check it out here.

But for some crazy reason I forgot the password and for some even CRAZIER reason I forgot the sign in name. I guess it had been THAT long. And so I put off creating a new blog because I thought it seemed so silly.

So here I am. Sitting at my desk. Three kids just all fell asleep. And the wrapper of a girl scout cookie sleeve. Empty. Sits in front of my keyboard. Not sure how that got there? (wink*)

Anyways, you either knew about my other blog or you didn't. But no matter what I've had a lot on my mind lately and I've really been meaning to start back up with the whole blogging thing, and apparently life happens.

So. Here I am.

 So I suppose I should get going on saying what I wanted to say right?

I'm going to start with saying Thanks for stopping by. We have a basement that is finally getting to actually being finished. My husband should get a standing ovation for where it's at. It's taken almost two years, and he basically has done it all himself. (Thank you Matt & Garett for helping, I know you helped him do certain things) The inspection with the electrical passed, Yay! And we actually have two rooms completely primed & painted. Yay! (they still need trim and doors, but really at this point, who needs those, ha!)

So I'll be blogging a bit on that.

I also am a mom of three crazy littles. And would love to be an encouragement to other moms. Because, come on, we all need each other. And I know I've been super encouraged by other moms. And we all need to get out of the mom wars business and just be real. Right?

And it's Spring Cleaning time! I mean really is Spring ever gonna come in New England. It really may be Summer by the time the last of the snow is gone. But no matter what I've got the spring decorations up, and the crocuses are popping up in my front gardens. The same gardens that I had to shovel over a foot of snow last week to clean just so I could find my crocuses. Because I love to decorate our HOME I may blog on the fun I have decorating.

 And of course I'll be blogging things on my heart. Nothing crazy, just it could be super random.

 So with that said, my hope is this blog will allow us to pretend we are sitting with a cup a tea...

(Isn't she cute?)

...together and chatting. Because really that's one of my happy places. And I like that I can be real with others. Meaning you!

{Enter: Our crazy amazing kids into that reality...the kids may be hanging on me, or screaming, or I may have just been spit up on, or in desperate need to escape to the bathroom, but all in all we all are moms who love our kids and want to be the best mom we can be to them.}

And Please comment if you want, and I'll try to respond. I love to see who reads this and communicate with you. Because honestly I don't do this so I can just talk to myself. I so want this to be fun.

And to quote the title of the blog, my house truly is "A Joy Full Home". Not because I'm the perfect mom and our house is always at peace. But because of Christ who reigns over it. Oh how thankful I am for his everlasting peace.

Let me first leave a verse to ponder on: ….whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

~ Philippians 4:8 ~

Thanks again for stopping by.

Melissa 

Uh oh? I guess I'll admit, I did eat three cookies, and they were DELISH! ;)