Stitch Fix fun in June!

I'd been hearing about Stitch Fix for a while and was interested in trying it out.  Then I saw a friend of mine wearing a darling outfit; when I complemented her on it she mentioned using Stitch Fix.  I mentioned it to Rob and he thought it was a great idea.  That was early in May.  While we were in the process of buying a house and moving.  This month I got my belated Mother's Day gift in the form of my first "fix."

When it arrived Miss E was excited to find out what would be in the box too.  It was fun to open it up with her.  Just the experience of opening the box and seeing how pretty everything was was great.

Almost everything in the box appealed to me, and it all fit.  I had so much fun trying it all on.

I loved that the stylist listened to my input and requests, but also stretched me a bit.  You know that feeling when you get a gift that you LOVE but wouldn't have picked for yourself?  Yea, that was the feeling I had.

While I did like most of the items in my shipment I didn't LOVE them all.  I ended up keeping the 2 great tops and sending the other 3 items back.  Part of what makes this service so great is how easy it was to return what I didn't want.  I just tossed it into the (included and pre-labeled) envelope and put it in my mailbox!

This is a great service for anyone that would like help with their wardrobe or does not want to have to take time to shop for new pieces for their wardrobe.  I knew I wanted a couple more items but REALLY did not want to have to take the time to look for what I wanted either by going out or shopping on line.  This was the perfect solution for me.  No, it's not something I'll do all the time.  The items are not bargain prices, but I did like that I could give them a price range that I was comfortable with.

Next month it's my birthday.  I'm looking forward to another Stitch Fix as another fun gift.

I've included links to Stitch Fix in this post.  While this is not a sponsored post, I do get referral credit if you follow my links, sign up AND receive a "fix."  The opinions are my own that I would have posted anyways...the referral links are a bonus. ;)

Worth taking a look....

My friend Rebecca just posted "What will be remembered?" on her blog. It is short and sweet, and very encouraging (convicting too?) and very much worth the read! Please take a minute to read it!

Thanks Rebecca for your wisdom and encouragement!

finding a few minutes.

Sometimes as moms we think we need to put a bunch of effort into coming up with special crafts or activities for our kids. However; while these things are nice and do have their place (and I DO do these things) I've found that just finding a few minutes and taking an opportunity can be just as special!

Just yesterday Miss J and I were reading our "We help Mommy" little golden book (from my childhood, it is now out of print, but can be found in the Eloise Wilken LIttle Golden Book collection). She asked if we could make the same treat for daddy that the little girl in the book was making. I told her that was a great idea, but not today.

Today I was making up some pies to take to a church picnic.... Oh, I had dough and filling left over! Miss J was called in to the kitchen. "Do you want to make a treat for daddy, just like in your book?" This took about a whole 5 minutes, and was an afterthought, but it was very special for her. She was so proud of the good job she had done and can't wait to give it to daddy (though in this technology age, she knew to request that I text him a picture!). Now every time we read the the book she will remember that she got to make that very treat for daddy, and her mommy helped her!

Taking the time to listen and remember. Keeping your kids close to you. Noticing the opportunity. Finding a few minutes. Thats part of what builds relationships and makes those sweet memories!

*picture taken by Miss J!

De-cluttering the legos

*Be sure to enter my Lamplighter book giveaway!!!!*

I try to stay out of the "play room" at our house these days. It really is just a storage area for games and a big space for playing with legos. It was getting out of hand though, and I just could not avoid it much longer with a move coming up. Either I would have to deal with it now, or the movers would throw the whole mess in boxes and I'd get to deal with a bigger mess on the other end.

So...

About two weeks ago I made my proposal to my kids. "The legos are getting out of hand. You are having a hard time keeping them cleaned up, organized, and even just playing with them. How about we go through them, pick the ones you really like and then get rid of the rest?" I proposed we use one of those plastic towers of drawers, each older kid would get one drawer, and the bottom one would be for "classic" or "normal" legos that I pulled out after they had each picked what they wanted. I expected to do some negotiating, but things must have really been bad (even to kids), because I did not hear one bit of arguing. In fact a smile came across the face of my biggest lego fan, he thought it was a great idea!

We spent little bits of time over the last two weeks sorting legos. Ahhh....

The room looks so much better!

I still have to go through these. I think we all got tired of the process at the end, so even the "classic" legos I wanted to pull out started getting dumped into the "get rid of bin".

I think we are going to e-bay most of these though. The kids are excited to get some spending money (NOT for more legos!). We are all excited to have the legos much more manageable! The new rule for getting more legos.... Does it fit in your drawer? We all know the boundaries, and this should be easy to maintain.

*I'm linking up to Organizing Junkie*

Gifts and toy management

In the past few years we have really been trying to tone down the "gifts" aspect of Christmas and instead trying to focus on Jesus and the wonderful gift he has given us. We also try to make the season fun and exciting with plenty of fun family activities. Our gift choices for our children are getting simpler and simpler. This year we are giving books---books our children will love and, for the older ones, books we hope will help them develop some useful skills that they are already interested in.

The kids have also drawn names for each other, and it has been so cute to see them think about what their assigned sibling likes and may enjoy as a gift!

We have found over the years that our children are much happier and more content with less stuff. Do they enjoy having new toys? They sure do! We try to guide their interests to toys and activities that will encourage them to think and use their imaginations. Most of all we try to help them develop skills and character that will be useful as they grow. While Miss J loves to play with dolls, the doll house, and dress-up etc., what she loves most is working along side me doing "real" work in the kitchen, caring for a baby or just sharing time together reading a book! It would be better for both of us to encourage this rather than shoo her off to play with a bunch of toys.

Something else we've noticed is that the more stuff/toys we have the more time we must spend caring for all of it. This means less time for each other. Our children are catching on to this concept and are becoming more thoughtful about the things they are wanting to bring into our home. This has been a process for all of us, an ongoing one that we are enjoying as we learn to be good stewards of what God has given us.

I've seen children that get nearly every toy they could ever want; they are given anything their little hearts think will make them happy. They are rarely happy and content, instead they just want more and think they NEED more to happy. This is a vicious cycle. Many of these toys are junk that do not encourage thought or the use of imagination, the kids are not using their brains. Worse yet, they are not learning contentment, joy, or selflessness (to name a few) instead the character traits they are practicing are greed, and selfishness; ones that children (and adults for that matter) do not need help developing in the first place. ;)

That being said we love for our children to have toys/gifts that they enjoy. We have been blessed with very generous parents that love to give our children wonderful gifts! We are very grateful for their generosity and thankful that they also consider the hearts of our children as they make their gift choices for our children.

Decorating for Christmas

We did most of our Christmas decorating on Saturday. Rob and the boys started with the outside. Over the last ten years or so we have not regularly done much more than put a wreath out, but last year that changed. We realized that putting lights up would mean a lot to the heart of one of our children (of course they all enjoy the lights though). We decided that this was something that we needed to make happen. It is still very simple, but colorful (the kids picked out the lights!) and we love the wood Nativity that Rob's dad made for us (Rob did such a nice job of staining it!).

Most of our decor in the living room consists of the Christmas tree, stockings and a some toys/books, but not much more. It is tempting to make my home look like a Christmas wonderland, but we need to live here (all that stuff and all these kids would spell disaster in one form or another) and I want to be a good steward of what God has given us. Spending the time, energy, storage space, and money just does not make sense for our family.

I love seeing the kids discover their ornaments from years past, and how they choose to put them on the tree. Some are getting to be a bit more thoughtful about where they place their ornaments, but I love to see those lower branches weighed down by the many ornaments the little ones place on that ONE branch they chose to place all of theirs on.

My tree may not look "magazine perfect" but to me the "perfection" comes in the joy our family shares as we decorate for Jesus' birthday, and to see the pride in my children's eyes as they admire the tree that they helped decorate (moving the ornaments around after they went to bed would make them so sad). *Miss J is especially proud of the good job she did. She loves to sit right next to the tree and admire it.

Tell your time

*Right now (Monday November 29, 2010) Tell Your Time is on sale for 50% off, just enter the coupon code MONDAYBLACK when you check out!

Time management is something many of us struggle with, if not regularly than at least through seasons. This past year has been a season of extra struggling in the time management area for me. Our daily management of the home seems to have taken over the majority of our days, leaving the important daily things on the sidelines.

This has not been all bad. Recognizing that something was not working has lead us to search for God's will and direction for our family. To think about what is important, and what is not. I've found a couple of resources recently that are helping me narrow down and fine tune our priorities.

Tell Your Time is one of them. I'm really enjoying going through this short e-book on time management. The book is only 29 pages long (ya know, when you are looking for a book on time management chances are that you don't have a whole lot of time to spend reading it!). I'm enjoying the simple exercises that Amy Lynn takes you through in her book to help me prioritize and figure out where I really want/need to be spending my time!

I'll post more on it later, how it is working out for me, and some of the other books I'm enjoying right now.

Christmas Traditions

Ah, traditions! They give us comfort, build memories, and help us pass down our family values and beliefs. They SHOULD help our families grow stronger in the vision and faith God has given through our husbands and fathers.

However so often we just continue these "traditions" without

evaluating them; sometimes we even dread following through with a tradition (sometimes even knowing full well that the rest of the family is dreading it as well), but going through with it every year. We need to stop and evaluate each of these traditions, with the help of our husbands. This time of celebrating the birth of our Savior should not be one filled with stress and anxiety, but one of peace, joy, love and laughter; giving glory to HIM!

About three years ago we were expecting a baby (Miss J) soon after Christmas. We knew we needed to scale down Christmas so that I (and the rest of the family) would not be burned out and exhausted just in time for a new baby. This caused us to really look at what we wanted to do with our time. We had to say "no" both to ourselves and to others. We cut back on some of the "traditional" things we did and enjoyed a slower paced holiday season.

We've learned from that season and continue to evaluate each activity ahead of time (if possible) and as they come up. It helped us last year when Miss C was still a newborn (about 6 weeks) for her first Christmas, as I recovered from the birth, and we adjusted to another bundle of joy. It also allows us to follow where God leads and not be in bondage to the plans of our hearts.

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." Proverbs 16:9

Simplifying

We've been working on clarifying the goals and direction of our family. We're trying to get a better vision of where God is leading us, and how we can best "glorify and enjoy Him." We have continually seen the need to learn to be content and focus not on the things of the world but on what God's Word says is important. In an effort to journal the simplifying part of this (and get some accountability too ;)) I'm going to start a series of blog posts on "Keeping (or getting) it simple". I hope it will also be an encouragement to others. I'd also love to hear what you are doing in these areas or your ideas.

I'm going to start with posts on how we keep Christmas simple including traditions, Homeschooling through the holidays, Decor, cooking/baking, and gifts. These are things we do that help us enjoy the season as a family and keep the focus on why we are celebrating Christmas.