Money Saving Mom®

Welcome to my weekly post where we take a break from money-related posts and I share about what I’m loving right now and give you a little peek into our life from the past week.

This year was rough as a mom. Really rough.

I told a friend earlier this week over lunch, “I feel like I’ve been in a war this year — fighting for my kids. And I have the battle scars from it.”

My kids have hurt others. They have been very hurt by others. And I’ve been hurt as a mom by words that have been spoken about my kids and my parenting — to my face and behind my back.

There’s so much more that I will share someday, when it’s the right time and my kids are older. But for now, suffice it to say that I’ve walked through some situations with my kids and dealt with some things that I never expected I’d be walking through or dealing with.

But through all the ups and downs and hurts and heartaches, I’m grateful. Not that my kids have struggled, but because all of this shook me out of my parenting ruts and taught me to parent in a brand-new way.

I’ve leaned into my kids and loved and listened like never before. I’ve slowed down the pace of my life to have much more space to just BE with them — to get to know them in a whole new way.

We’re closer than ever before. We have more honesty in our relationships than ever before. And I love my kids more deeply and fiercely than I ever have.

I’m so proud of my kids for how they have grown this year and the strength and wisdom I see in them as a result of what we’ve walked through. And I’m excited to see what 2018 brings for them!

As I mentioned last week, not only did we decide to enroll Kaitlynn in a little school starting in January (which she’s excited about!), but Kathrynne also recently made the decision to switch schools — in the middle of the year. Which is a pretty big decision for an almost-13-year-old!

It was a decision that was made with much thought, many conversations, and understanding that it was a big risk and big jump into the unknown.

It would mean leaving behind everything that was safe and known. Leaving behind her best friends. And willingly choosing to start all over again as the new girl.

But she knew that she wasn’t thriving at the school she was at. She was constantly stressed and anxious with the intense and rigorous workload at the school she was at and it was stealing her joy, causing her to have panic attacks, and keeping her up into the wee hours of morning. And as the semester went on, I saw it crushing her.

While a really rigorous academic load is great for some kids, it was too much for her personality and capacity right now. So we started talking about other options, including switching to a school with a completely different style of teaching. We told her that it was ultimately her decision… because either way, there’d be really hard things. Stay and be pretty downright miserable. Or switch schools and start all over again — not knowing how it will go.

We’re so proud of her for how she has processed through this with us and how she’s prayerfully and thoughtfully made this decision.

The unknown is scary. You have no idea where it will lead. But it could also be the gateway to amazing things you could have never dreamed of!

(Quote paraphrased from Hope Prevails by Dr. Michelle Bengtson.)

You know what one of the best decisions I ever made was? To be okay if Christmas looks very different at our house each year.

Every year, we all talk about our expectations for Christmas as a family. Each person gets to give their input on 1-2 activities they really want to make happen in December. And we choose a few Advent activities to engage in as a family. And that’s that.

It means that our Decembers stay quiet and simple and they are filled with the few things that are most important to each of us.

This year, in addition to a few Christmas parties, we’re doing a family advent countdown and the kids each have their own fun advent calendar, we’re blasting the Christmas music almost all.day.long (my choice!), we’re making some homemade gifts, we’re each picking a Christmas movie to watch as a family almost every night leading up to Christmas, and we’re leaving today to take a special family trip just the 5 of us for the next few days to some place the kids have never been to before (our family gift this year).

We might also do Christmas cookie decorating and Gingerbread houses. Or we might not. Those weren’t super high on people’s lists. And we might do a few other things. Or we might not.

This December, we’re especially focusing on leaning in and spending time together, because January is bringing some pretty big changes for us (new schools, no more homeschooling, a new routine, and closing on a new house).

It might not look like the way others are celebrating and it might not be fancy, but it’s suiting us well this year. And I think that’s good enough!

What We’ve Been Watching

We are trying to watch one Christmas movie every night (as mentioned above), so we’ve watched some fun Christmas movies this week: Home Alone 1 and Home Alone 2, Christmas With the Kranks, and Jingle All the Way 2. We also watched Despicable Me 3 (because one child couldn’t come up with a Christmas movie they wanted to watch this week!).

Still on our list (we haven’t watched these before, so I can’t speak to whether they are worth watching or not): White Christmas (yes, can you believe, I’ve NEVER seen this one!), Holiday Inn, The Christmas Card, Christmas Grace, Christmas Oranges, and Christmas in Connecticut.

Do you have any great Christmas movies to recommend that we should add to our list to watch?

What I’ve Been Reading

This week, I finished reading Missional Motherhood — a book that my mom gave me for my birthday. I’ve slowly been reading through it over the last few months and found it very inspiring and thought-provoking. One of the quotes from it that really stuck with me was: “What we always talk about reveals what is important to us. What we say and write reveals what we place our hope in.”

I also read through Home Management. It was a good refresher as I think about tweaking some of our routines and household chores for 2018.

{See my Reading Goals for 2017. Also, see the 76 books I’ve read so far in 2017 here.}

What I’ve Been Working On

As we get closer to the end of December, I’ve been working on planning for 2018 — reviewing my goals from 2017, thinking through goals for 2018, mulling over my word of the year for 2018, planning for a fun new online live coaching and accountability group I’m launching in January (4 Weeks to a More Productive Life! More details coming soon!), and thinking through what worked and what didn’t work for blogging last year and some changes I’ll be making as a result.

For those who love these types of posts and have been asking about them, I’ve been working on them and plan to start sharing them — one per day — after Christmas. So stayed tuned for when I’ll be sharing my goals, a recap of last year’s goals, my word of the year for 2018 (I’m really excited about it!), the January accountability group/live coaching, my top 10 books from 2017, what I’m planning to read in 2018, and the blogging changes!

Links You Should Check Out:

• Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift idea that is minimalist? Check out my post on The Top 10 Subscription Boxes for Kids.
• Need some encouragement to develop better habits in 2018? Download this Free Printable Habit Tracker.
• I did a full review of the Sweet Life Planner last week. If you’re interested, you can watch the video here: My Full Review of the Sweet Life Planner
• I love how one of my followers is using a Bullet Journal for her 15 Days to a Healthier You journey. How inspiring is this?

Welcome to my weekly post where we take a break from money-related posts and I share about what I’m loving right now and give you a little peek into our life from the past week.

After a very long and full week, I came home from church last week and Jesse said, “Why don’t you just stay home and rest the rest of the day?”

“But I really should go and do those other things I’m supposed to do today!” I responded. He looked at me gently and said, “You need to give yourself some grace.”

You guys. I preach giving yourself grace and I believe in the concept, but when it comes to actually walking it out for myself, I struggle. My Type A/driving personality often tries to convince me I don’t have time to slow down or I feel guilt over letting go or saying no to people.

I’ve gotten better over the past few years, but I still have a long way to go.

“Be excessively gentle with yourself.” I heard @emilypfreeman say this quote on the The Next Right Thing podcast and it hit me square in the forehead. I am usually gracious and gentle with others, but I often heap all sorts of guilt on myself.

I’ve been mulling over this quote, thinking of how gracious and gentle my Heavenly Father is with me and how often I forget that He wants me to stop striving and pushing and trying so hard and just rest in Him.

What would it look like to be excessively gentle with yourself? That’s the question I’m pondering today.

Quill is getting SO big! Kaitlynn has done an amazing job of taking care of him! I told the kids they could get a pet as soon as they could take care of it (and I wasn’t allergic to it — which ruled out most pets, unfortunately). Well, they have taken that to heart because I have done literally nothing to care for Quill other than just to get to enjoy him!

This Past Week Was a Doozy

We’re almost to the Christmas lull that we get to enjoy every year mid-December through the end of December — when the internet is really quiet and I get to just step back and savor the sights, smells, tastes, and sounds of Christmas. The fact that my job slows down to an almost-halt midway through December is one of the BEST parts of the holiday and something I look forward to every single year!

But before we can get to that lull, it’s usually a little on the crazy side — and this past week was a doozy! And most of it wasn’t business related, but it WAS stuff we needed to or wanted to get done before the end of the year!

Here’s the rundown:

• We signed a contract on a new house (!!).
• We went through the application process for both girls to start at new schools in January (long story — we have a real peace about it even though, if everything works out, it will mean all three kids will be in different schools!)
• It was Silas’ Presentation Week at school and Kathrynne had half of her mid-terms.
• I also underwent skin patch testing for my recent severe eczema outbreaks — and that involved multiple doctor’s visits, wearing patches of 80 chemicals on my back, and not being able take a shower for 5 days… oh and dealing with a nasty, itchy outbreak on my back. But I’m SO grateful I did it because we got some very definitive results from it that I think are going to make a difference — after over 30 years of suffering from eczema!
• We launched a new blogging course — Branding Basics 101.
• And to top it off, we all came down with colds and I got really sick with a fever and have been in bed most of the day. (I think my body was just d-o-n-e.) Some weeks, you just do the best you can do… and you hold on and make it through!

Guess what? I ended up having a rare completely free weekend and I got to spend it just chilling with my people and watching some movies and shows, as well as reading good books. It was bliss!

What I’m Reading, Watching, & Listening To

Jesse and I got fully caught up on This is Us this week — only to discover we should have spread things out more because the next episode doesn’t come out until January 2. 🙁 Needless to say, we’re really enjoying this show and how it portrays real-life, real struggles, raw and honest conversations about the hard stuff, and the beauty of family.

We’re almost finished with watching all of the Gilmore Girls episodes. I’d say that we’re committed now so we want to make it to the end, but we’re not really enjoying the final season as much.

And we also got caught up on episodes of Designated Survivor this week — a show that we really love!

I enjoyed listening to Cultivating the Lovely podcast episode #44 with Kat Lee this week and also The Simple Show episode #105 on What’s Saving My Life.

And I read Loving My Actual Christmas and Hope Prevails. Neither were knock-out books, but both had some good reminders/encouragement in them that I gleaned from.

Links You Should Check Out

• Michael Hyatt is offering a free goal-setting webinar right now where he’ll teach you 5 things that can shipwreck your goals and how to avoid them. You can go here to reserve your spot.
• Would you like to be more productive, have a more organized home, and have more joy and peace in your life in 2018? If so, you need to check out The Intentional Moms Toolkit — a monthly membership for moms designed to make your life so much easier! Read more about it here — and you can get it for just $2.43 per week through midnight tonight when you use coupon code MSM at checkout.
• Are you a blogger? If so, don’t miss my post from this week packed with all sorts of tips and tricks to get more done as a blogger.
• If you are interested in stretching your dollars this Christmas season, definitely check out this article on the top 4 cash back sites.
• I love Dollar Tree and I had fun putting together a post with 23 Stocking Stuffer Ideas from Dollar Tree.