I want the farm life

I know that I don't write on here enough. My life with my family has been so busy and awesome that I don't take the time to write and jot down my thoughts or whatever else you put in these blogs.

But today I wanted to write because 1.) Josiah is being so good watching Frozen right now and I have an entire hour of doing this and 2.) Eden is sleeping and won't be awake for a few hours yet then 3.) I read a blog that inspired me.

Nearly a year ago we took a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace session with our church. Ben and I learned so much from it and if you are in a financial rut(or not) I highly recommend it!

The very first class there was a question that was asked. It went something along the lines of this...

What would you do with your money after all debt, mortgages, payments were cleared? Even after you have enough saved up and had the ball rollin for retirement.

That was all I remembered what the question was, I probably messed it up in some way I'm sure! ;)

Most people said travel and explore the world among other things that I definitely did not want to do(besides giving to the needy).

I don't like to travel.

I am a researcher, not an explorer. I hate long hours wasted sitting on a plane. So traveling was always out for me. Even if I was flying first class I am not still not excited. Don't get me wrong, I like history but it's not want my heart REALLY desires. In fact I would rather read about the place than go see it. It's all the same to me!

We all had to answer this question so very shyly I answered, "I want a place with lots of land to have a farm and grow food".

Yep, I am a total nerd. 

I felt so silly after that.

I wanted to do more than just have a farm though. I think that if I went too much into detail I would've talked about it all night. 

So I'll talk about it here. ;)

On that large lot of land I want to grow a huge variety of fruits and vegetables. I want to grow chickens for meat and eggs. I want to have goats for milk and grow rabbits. I want a couple of horses that my many children can enjoy riding. I want a couple of dogs for my children to have close companions. 

With all that I want to invite people over to my farm so that their children can learn how to grow food and let them pick and taste ripe fruits and vegetables. Allow them to pick there own eggs from the chicken coop. They can pet the cute rabbits and goats. Get those kids hands dirty and allow them to learn!

I don't care if we sell anything or not, I just want the kids(and adults) to have an experience that you would not see in the city. To see the beauty in nature that our God the Creator has made!

I guess you can call me a farm girl at heart or a nature freak but I don't care. This is what I love. 

I can't wait to have this one day. I know that having a farm like this would be a bunch of work and would scare quite a few people. But I like this type of work. I enjoy being outside and taking care of animals.(Wanted to be a vet as a kid btw)

You all probably think that I am a weirdo now and are wondering where this all came from. This has been on my mind ever since I married my husband. When we had our first child that desire increased and now since a year of having my second little blessing the thoughts of it have never stopped. I hope that sooner than later this will happen. I can't wait to start a life on the farm! ;)

Love, 

Jess

Wonder Bumpers

Josiah totally busted Edens crib. 

It is a very much loved crib so its definitely had it's share of years from Josiah, some of Eden and probably quite a few children before that. 

I have the crib picked out that I want for little miss Eden. 

Now that she is getting a new crib I am looking into bumpers. 

But not the regular bumpers. We already have a set of those. I am looking at these specific ones because they are much safer and easier to wash.

Eden moves around a lot at night. So its either crib bumpers or she is smacking her head against hard wood rails. I don't like the thought of sleepless nights and I also hate the thought of suffocation. 

The ones that I am looking at are called Wonder Bumpers.

 I am trying to figure out if they would be cheaper to make.

Although I love DIY stuff, if it cost more to make it I'd rather not go through the trouble.

Here are the estimates:

For a 38 pack it can be anywhere from $150-$200 depending on the prints, colors and where you buy.

This is the cheapest I can find these adorable bumpers.

http://www.gomamagodesigns.com/

The crib has 40 rails total, but I can work with 38.

To buy separately it's about $10 for a 2-pack.

About $200

To buy pipe insulation, fabric, and mod podge I feel that it would cost more. However, I would have the factor of my pick of fabric and would be used for all my babies cribs in the future and I can say, "Yeah, I made those!"

I am a little confused on the cost of pipe insulation. So maybe that is where my decision goes depending on the price of it. 

Advice? What do you think?

A Time and a Season for Everything

I wanted to write this post to remind myself how much God is working in my life. 

I have been so ungrateful and in a way its hard not to be. I am only human. ;)

Let me explain our situation here at home. Although all these do not sound bad, it really wears on me most the time. I can't help but think how much more comfortable and "happy" I could be if some of these things were just fixed. 

First of all, we have a nice size 2-story 2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathroom town home. There is a small patio out by the larger bedroom and the living area upstairs has a fireplace and nice high ceilings to make it feel even larger. We pay a pretty good price to live in this place. better than most places actually. 

When Ben and I first moved in January 2010(before children) it was really quite nice. Even when we had our son Josiah the next year it was nice.

When Eden was born early last year we still were pretty good with the size. Newborns don't take up much room and sleep through just about anything. 

Now my children are older. Eden will be one next month and Josiah three and I have to say that the place is feeling a little cramped. 

Josiah sleeps in his bedroom and Eden sleeps in ours. Unfortunately Eden will not sleep in the room with us. The only way that she will sleep through the night is if she is by herself. I don't know why she wakes up all the time with us in there with her. I think she senses us in there and so results in waking every 1-2 hours. This goes the same for her sleeping in her brothers room with him. She wakes him up and then I have two children up in the middle of the night. Josiah goes back to sleep right away....sometimes.

Because of this Ben and I sleep upstairs. 

It's getting old. 

We have a nice pillow top king-size bed downstairs and we can't even sleep in it.

Sleeping upstairs isn't too bad, but I can't help but miss my something better downstairs. 

God has really been working on me through this. Maybe he is working to make me better, more grateful. There are people that live in much small situations and I am complaining about sleeping upstairs?

Yeah, I need(ed) a heart change. 

I was so fixin to get out of this place that I wasn't concentrating on how it was going to affect us in the long run. If we were to move out to something a little larger, a three bedroom perhaps, that would take us even longer to get out of the debt that we are in. I mean, we really want to buy a house someday and I don't want to be in my 40s buying our first home. 

Ever since Ben got his new job we have been able to make larger payments. Its been nice to get a bill in the mail and see it much lower than the previous bill. Of course just like any other family things set us back. Paying for our cars tires to be fixed and replaced wasn't exactly cheap.

Before having my heart change, I was really looking forward to getting a nice chunk back for taxes and putting most all of it towards debt so that we can move out. We have a couple things we need to take care of before tossing it all towards the money we owe. Like getting Ben's record expunged and we need to get a larger car seat for Eden. 

All i was focused on was getting out of here. It really wasn't all that bad, but in my mind it was bad. Instead of making my house more of a home for my family, I put it aside with my mind thinking that we were going to leave soon anyway. What was the point in organizing, deep cleaning, storing baby clothes and Christmas decor out of site if we were going to move into something bigger? I even put off decorating and painting for the fact that we weren't going to be here long. 

Here is where God was working on my mind and my heart:

Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10  

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. Colossians 4:2

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

These scriptures keep playing over and over again in my head. Reminding me that God is in control and I need to trust Him.

After all this I feel better now. I was talking to my husband in the car yesterday how I don't feel so rushed to move. Maybe it is the right thing to stay where we are at. I need to do my job as a wife to make our house a home. I need to put my creative self to use.

Eden sleeping in our room won't be forever. Eventually she will get older and will be able to sleep in her brothers room. Josiah will get older and be able to sleep through his sisters small random whining through the night. 

We won't always be in debt and if we stay where we are at our debt will be gone much quicker. 

We can save for a down payment to buy house much quicker and won't have debt to hold us down.

**Sigh** To be debt-free?! I really am looking forward to that day!

PS, We also decided to home school Josiah, so now I REALLY need to be creative with my organizing!

Follow me on Instagram jessicamommy22 for updates on organizing, the kids and our life!

  Love, 

Jess

Homeschool: Why?

Yep, you read that right. Ben and I are seriously considering homeschooling our children.

Well, actually...

It's more like,  yes! We are going to start with homeschooling our children!

We have been talking, and praying, a talking some more and researching and we prayed some more. We feel like this may be a real good decision for our family.

We understand the pros and cons of homeschooling. All of which we took into serious thought. 

Ben and I both when to public school!!! So its not anything new to us what goes on!

Also I went to a private school with home school like curriculum for all my high school. So that is nothing new to me. We have the best of both worlds in our family. :) 

One of the biggest things that we have talked about is the social aspect of it all. We definitely did not want our children to have a hard time with talking and connecting with people of their age. Ben is more concerned about it than I am.  I already take the kids out a few times a week to do activities with their friends, go to the library and we recently just started doing Mrs. D's music class together as a family. On top of that, with church on Sundays, I am okay with how much social interaction my kids have. 

The second thing that really concerned me was Josiah and how often he gets sick. Probably once a month during the cold times of the year we take him to the doctor for his breathing. This takes a lot of time and after the visit it takes a few more days after that to get him back to being his awesome boy self. ;)  We barely go outside when he is like this because the cold and running around make it much worse and takes longer for him to get better. 

Can you imagine if he is still struggling and had to go to public school? He would miss so much and I wouldn't doubt that he would fall behind and would have a difficult time keeping up with his classmates. 

At least with homeschooling he can learn at home and if he does get sick a few days of getting better won't hurt his lessons.

Those were the two biggest reasons for us to want to home school.

The way that we are going to go about it is we are going to take it one year at a time. 

Preschool? We will see how it goes! If I am still confident that I can do it when he is finished with his preschool lessons then we will move on to kindergarten. 

Kindergarten? We will see how that goes!

So on and so forth. It will get easier and once I get the hang of homeschooling Eden, it will be a breeze.

There was the discussion on "What if our kids really want to go to public school?"

Well, when they are at that age that they really want to and ask us if they can we will tell them why we chose to home school them. 

We will give them awhile to think about what they asked and if they still want to go to public school we will enroll them into the new school year. I am not going to hold them back from what they really want to do. I just want my children to be strong in their faith and be able to handle the peer pressure that goes along with it. I understand that homeschooling may not be all the way to graduation. I am prepared for changing things up so that my kids excel the best they can in school whether public or at home. 

So far home school seems like something that will work for our family. I am really excited to get started and learn how to be a teacher to my children. 

The home school curriculum that we most likely be starting is the ACE(Accelerated Christian Education) program. It is the same one that I did all through out my high school. I love the scriptures that they put into the booklets(they call them PACEs). I am really comfortable on how the system works and since I am the one going to be teaching our children, I think that I have the say on which program we use. :)

I'll include the link to the program here

I ordered some information from them and they have a quick start kit for just under $20. 

I can't wait to talk about our new home school journey with you all! 

I am so excited!!

Love, Jess

2014 New Years Resolutions

Normally I don't make a New Years resolution. In fact I haven't made one ever since before I have been married. Not unless you count the single one that I made in my head at the beginning of 2013 which was have my daughter Eden! Not an easy task but it was a predictable one!

I just didn't see the point in have a list of goal for the New Year. I always figured that if you are going to make the change then do it! Why wait till the beginning of the year to start?

Well, today I made a list.

What I need to improve on.

What I need to start doing.

What I am doing now that I want to continue because they have been greatly beneficial to our family.

What is going to happen anyway and I wrote it down because I like making lists and I am weird like that. ;)

1.) Move out of our apartment. Not sure when in 2014 this will happen, but I would love to live in a home that has a fenced in yard and has more storage like a garage or shed. We are outgrowing our beloved town home.

2.) Keep up with couponing. I have been clipping and printing useful coupons for the the last several months and we have seriously saved at least a couple hundred dollars. I have been able to keep our food budget at $200 a month for a family of 4.

3.) Lose 10 or more pounds. I have been doing pretty good in the fact that I have already lost 3 pounds before the new year even started. I hope to be at my goal weight before summertime. Breastfeeding and having 2 littles has really helped with the weight loss.

4.) Get Josiah into a big boy bed. Yes, I know, this kid is almost 3 and he is being stubborn about the way his bed is. Technically he is in a toddler bed, but its turned the other way around so that the opened side is against the wall. He still likes the crib feeling. For his birthday we have decided to get him one with a frame and he can pick out his favorite bedding. 

5.) Less TV during the day. In all reality there really isn't anything on during the day. So why do I have the darn thing on? What will I do instead? Probably clean, bake, play with my kids....there is a lot that I can do before the kids go down for their nap. :)

6.) Do something active everyday. I try to do Zumba every morning. Josiah seems to really like dancing with me. When it gets closer to the warmer months we will probably engage more into outside activities.

7.) Do a daily devotional. Something that I want to keep doing. I feel that it really has helped keep my spirits up during the day.

8.) Keep up with the housework. 

9.) Eat less bread(gluten-kinda). We have been slowly cutting back on the breads and pastas. If we do eat them then we try and stick to whole wheat bread and brown rice/vegetable pastas. People are getting really great at coming up with all veggie casseroles that taste wonderful!

10.) Be a better wife, mom, friend, sister and daughter. Because we all need to strive to be better people.

That is it for my New Years resolution! Did any of you make one up for the year 2014? 

I hope that you all have an awesome New Year.

I probably won't be able to stay up till midnight. I think that I would rather go to bed with my husband and start 2014 off like that. 

;) 

Good night all!! See you next year!

Love, Jess

What's for Christmas?

Christmas with a Family of Four

Just a few of our Christmas pictures this year! Enjoy!