Farewell

It was a quiet and slow drive home last night, after an unexpected late Thanksgiving with friends, through dense fog and as Nathan concentrated on getting us home safely, I sat quietly with tears streaming down my face with thoughts and emotions flooding my mind and heart. 

It's beginning to hit, like a ton of bricks... We are leaving.

We are leaving our family. 

They may not be blood related, but our friends here have become our family.  And now we have to say good-bye.

Good-bye to friends who have watched our children grow up from infancy.  Who have walked with us through so many changes and growth.  Friends who loved our family and encouraged us in our walk with the Lord.  Friends who were there when we moved from our home just prior to the flood and then tirelessly and selflessly helped us when we began the venture of building our house.  And now the Lord has called us somewhere new, to new beginnings and it's time to say good-bye to our friends... our family, here in North Dakota.  

This weekend we watched the Lord work all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.  Our little Elijah got sick two days prior to Thanksgiving which made us cancel our plans last minute to head to Minnesota for a couple days to spend with extended family.  With our kitchen almost fully packed and no plans we spent a quiet Thanksgiving home alone as a family.

It was hard.  And I wondered why.  Why did Elijah have to get sick now when we want to make the most of our time with friends and family here before we leave? 

But then we got a call Saturday morning, an offer to join some friends for a late Thanksgiving get-together.  So we headed out to their home for the afternoon and were so blessed by the opportunity for one more evening spent together.

And as we drove home that night I knew I had just witnessed some "lasts".  You see, things change.  And while change is a good thing, it can also be very hard and very sad.  And while I know our friends here will be lifetime friends, the dynamic of our relationship will change.  Especially for my children.  And I think that's where my heart begins to hurt the most.  Because I know they won't remember after time has passed. 

It was the last time McKenzie would run into Marissa's arms and follow her wherever she goes, a precious young lady who loved my daughter and showed her such kindness.  It was the last time my kids would jabber with excitement the whole hours drive on our way to see the Morrows and Nelsons.  It was the last time my kids got a chance to play with all their friends whom they have made their first memories with.  And for them, being so young, time will steal those memories and fade their love for our precious friends.  And while they may not forget completely things will not be the same and that is where change can be so hard. 

My heart is filled with so much love and gratitude towards all the families we have come to know and love here in Minot. 

I am learning that it is hard for me to say good-bye.  To express to each of you just how much I truly love you and how thankful I am to the Lord for bringing each of you into our lives.  The love you all have shown our family here has blown us away.  We were without family and you became our family, took us in and loved us and our kids unconditionally. 

We are eternally grateful to each and every one of you!  We love you all so much and will miss you terribly! (and truly hope to see you all again!)

So we leave you with this, and ask the Lord to bless you far beyond what we could ever do!

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”
Numbers 6: 24-26

Revamped Household Binder

There were a couple of you who asked to see inside my revamped household binder, and I would love to share with you the pages I've added, and how I use it.

This time around I decided that time is money in this case and went ahead and purchased the "Personalized Household Binder" from iHeartOrganizing's Etsy shop.  She had a lot of pintables that I loved and worked for what I wanted in our household binder.
You can check it out HERE. 

Also check out this link HERE, which she shares on her Etsy shop at the bottom of the Household Binder page, which shows a complete image gallery of the pages offered in her binder.  You can refer to this link when I talk about her pages that I use in my Household Binder.

Everyone runs their household differently.  So everyone's household binder would likely look a little different.  There are a lot of options out there for household binders and many people offer their pintables for free as well.  Check out Pinterest!

Anyways, I debated making all my own pages.  I've done it before for my Daily Planner, but the amount of pages I wanted for our binder would have taken more time than I wanted to spend.  So when I found iHeartOrganizing's binder I fell in love with it.  It's beautiful!  And I love things to match and look pretty.  It inspires me to actually use it as well.  I'm just weird like that. So I went ahead and purchased it.

There was one more purchase I made and that one is for our Homeschool Section.  I wanted a Homeschool Planner and Confessions of a Homeschooler has a couple of awesome planners!  I know she also has one right now that you can download for free!

These pintables that I purchased are downloadable PDF files and what is so fabulous about that is you pay for it once and have the pintables forever.  So you can constantly reuse and reprint the pages you need.  I won't ever need to get another homeschool planner because this one is reusable and I would just have to print out a new one for each following years. 

So enough talking, let me get on to showing you all the added pages that I personally made to add to my binder!

I have 10 Sections in my binder.  They are: Schedules, Homeschool, Home Maintenance, Menu Planning, Kiddos, Ministry, Travel, Important Info, Finance/ Medical, and Projects/ Holidays.

In the first section, Schedules, opens up my binder with my Daily Goals sheet that I made.  I also chose to laminate this page so I didn't have to constantly reprint it for each week.  I use this page as a weekly form but it could easily work to be filled out for each day.  My days are much the same right now and pretty simple with all little ones around so it works well for a weekly page for me.

I have it as an open spread with our "Family Schedule" page that I also made, which is a schedule of our basic Monday through Friday week.  I originally read the book "Managers of Their Homes" by Steven and Teri Maxwell, and that is where I learned how to make a family schedule and use it.  Now that I know how to put one together for our family it's a synch to change it when our family routine changes.  Which is pretty often with the addition of babies who grow into toddlers quickly.  Now this is by no means a 'law' in our home, and to be honest a lot of days don't necessarily look like this.  It's a goal.  Something to fall back on if things start to get out of hand.  It's definitely helpful to have a bit of a routine, but there can be much freedom with one as well.  We only have 24 hours in a day.  And if we are not purposeful with our time, it will slip away and we will likely not do what is most important. A friend recently shared with me a worksheet entitled "Twenty-Four Hours Is All You Get" by Susan Bradrick.  I would highly encourage any mom looking to be wise with her time to go through this 5 page worksheet.  It's A-mazing!  It makes you really think about what is most important and how to manage your time accordingly.  (there is a provided link to download the worksheets for free under the 'Description' section.)

Right behind my Family Schedule page I have a "Family Routines" Page.  You will notice on our Family Schedule that I have listed 'Morning Routines' or 'Morning Chores' and this page spells out what those routines are.

This next page I have used in the past and look forward to when I get back into this routine.  Right now things are not normal by any means.  We're in the process of trying to sell our house and packing and hoping to move soon so it just isn't worth trying to keep this routine right now.  A personal choice.  But I made this schedule with the use of "Managers of Their Homes and "Large Family Logistics" by Kim Brenneman  which can I say I would highly recommend buying or borrowing this book and reading it!  It's a fabulous book with a totally different outlook on how to manage your days!  In a nutshell you manage your major tasks into days.  A Laundry Day,  a Kitchen Day, a Town Day, etc.  This page is also laminated to easily re-use each week.  Another idea would be to put it in a picture frame and use a dry erase marker to mark off what you've done.

Then the final pages in this section are the 'Monthly Calendar Pages' from iHeartOrganizing's Household Binder. 
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The next Section is our "Homeschool Section".  The only personal added page to this section is my Scope and Sequence.  I've decided to mix and match our homeschool to put together what we feel is best for our kiddos, so I made my own Scope and Sequence page that I can fill in as time goes on and we decide which curriculum to use for each subject in each grade.  Every other page comes from Confessions of a Homeschooler Colorful Lesson Planner.  I didn't use all of the pages she offers, just the ones that applied to us right now.  But I just love this cute, fun and colorful planner that will work for years to come.  I also keep any Book Lists or any other homeschool related papers in this section.

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The 3rd section is our "Home Maintenance Section".  Again I only added one page to this section of my own, the rest are pintables from the iHeartOrganizing Pintables.  I made up a Laundry Protocol sheet, in case someone comes to help out after a baby is born or for some reason Nathan needs to fill in on laundry help or whatever the case may be.  The rest of the pages are yet to be seen how I will use.  I really like iHeartOrganizing's 'home maintenance checklist' as a go to for making sure you stay up on your major home appliances etc.  And I'll have to see if/ how I will use her 'cleaning checklist'.  I like the idea, I just need to figure out how to fill it out with what works best for our family routine right now.  I might revisit this page once we are moved and settled again (whenever that might be) since everything is crazy on the home front.  With the constant cleaning of the house for being able to show it on a whim and packing up much of the rest of the house I'm just not in a spot to use this right now. 

 

 

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The 4th section is the "Menu Planning" section.   There are some pretty complex menu planning pintables and options out there.  I'm not very complex in this area.  I just need a shopping list and a Meal Planning Calendar.  So I'm just using iHeartOrganizing Pintables here.  And I laminated her Meal Planning Calendar to avoid having to constantly reprint this page.  Also I chose to only use her Freezer Inventory page since we have a deep freeze and things tend to get lost in there.  And it's helpful to know when we are running out of meat or a stock item that we keep in there.  I did add a "Favorite Recipes" page of my own.  We all have our favorite meals that we like, so this is where I keep a list to go back to.  Sometimes you come across a meal that everyone loves so it will go on that list.  Other times we get stuck in a rut and need to be reminded of other ideas, or I may just need a quick meal idea for the night, I can check this sheet for that purpose. 

 

 

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The 5th section in my revamped Household Binder is my "Kiddos Section"! This section is totally my own.  And I am so happy to have this place two keep ideas Nathan and I have in ways we want to grow as parents and ways we want to serve our kids and grow as a family.  We want to pour into our children, they are precious gifts from the Lord and we want to make the most of the time we have with them, we are entrusted with their care for a short amount of time, we need to be seeking the Lord for His help and wisdom and we train and instruct our kiddos.  Here are a few pages I have in this section: 

A Family Rules page, qualities and things we want to remember are important in our family life. 

 

Also a list of positive character qualities and personality traits we see right now in each of our kids.  We want to be aware of their God-given gifts and strengths and encourage them in who they are in the Lord.

 

Then there is our "Hope List for our Children".  As parents we often say, we should do this with our kids.  Lets try this idea in training them, etc.  This is a place we can list those ideas to help us make it happen.  Some ideas right now are personal 'dates' with each of our older kids so we can have one-on-one time with them.  Also this Christmas we want to get a couple gifts for Gospel for Asia, so we want to earn money as a family to provide these gifts to people in need.  Things like this get written on thing list.

 

I have a list of Character Qualities that I downloaded and printed from the Duggar Family website.  You can check it our HERE.  I also have a few other lists (I'm not sure where I got them) of Character Qualities with definitions and Bible verses for each quality.  This is an area we want to strive to grow and nurture in our kids.  Speaking the qualities and encourage our children, and ourselves for that matter, to grow in these areas.

 

I Heart Organizing has a few Free Printables on her website that I've used as well.  One of those is her "Size Detail" page for keeping track of what size clothes and shoes my kids and in.  This is a totally awesome chart because there are times I just can't remember where each of my 4 kids are at, and when my mom calls to double check their currents sizes I can simply flip open to this page and let her know.

 

We also keep an "If / Then chart to reference for consequences so we stay consistent as parents when it comes to that part of training.

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Section 6 is our "Ministry Section", another section I constructed on my own.  This is along the same lines as our Kiddos section.  Sometimes life can get the best of you and hospitality can get thrown to the wind.  It's times when we say," It's been awhile since we've had such-and-such family over for dinner, or "I need to get our neighbor who just had a baby a new mother care package", etc.  This "Hospitality List" is the place it gets written down and not forgotten! 

We also have a "Hope List" for our family, a list of things we want to do, maybe as a family or as a couple or whatever might fit to be written down so it's not forgotten and planned to be accomplished. 

I also put the "Our Commitments Worksheet" from Confessions of a Homeschooler's Homeschool Planner here.  It's a list of our family commitments and it asks the question 'does this benefit our family?'.  It's a good way to evaluate what we are doing with our time.

I also keep a "Prayer Journal" pages here, to write down prayer requests we are praying for as a family, for others, to remember to continue to pray.  And a way to look back and see how the Lord answered prayer requests. 

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This 7th section is a real time saver to our family.  This is the "Travel Section".  There are a few key pages in this section that are awesome to pull out when our family is about to head out on a vacation or a babysitter is coming over for the evening. 
First is iHeartOrganizing's "Outing Ideas" page, a great place to write down places you want to visit or things you want to do as a family, or even date night ideas!
Then her "Babysitter Notes" page is next, and I totally love this page, great just to pull out and fill in for the evening when you are headed out on a date and couple's weekend getaway.
She also offers a "Travel Checklist" which works great for our day trips when I just need to write down some items we'll need for that day. 
But I made two "Packing Lists" for our family a while back.  One for a regular trip and one for when we go camping.  I just grab out these pages and check off the items as they get packed and ready for our trip.  Absolutely love these and it saves me so much time when getting ready for a vacation as I don't have to re-write a packing list each time!
Our Camping Packing List:

Our Regular Vacation Packing List:

I Heart Organizing also has a super cute "Our Family Funcation" Kids Travel Pack as free downloadable pintables for the kids while you travel in the car.  I keep these handy as well to grab if we head off on a long car ride!
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This next section of "Important Information" are all from iHeartOrganizing's Household Binder Pack.  I thought a lot were a good idea to have and fill out.  There is an "Important Home Info", "Important Auto Info" etc. Also a page for "Important Dates" by month, where I write down birthdays, anniversaries and special holidays to remember on a yearly basis.  She has a form for "Contacts" which I chose not to use since we have another system in place for keeping that info. But another awesome page she offers is a "Checkout System" form for if you loan out a book or item you can write down who you loaned it to and when so you can track it back down.  And the final page is a "Password Log" to remember all those passwords and usernames for all those sites we log onto. :)
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The 9th section is for "Finance and Medical" info.  Right now Nathan is in charge of keeping our finances in order and he has his own system, but I like the pages she offers.  We'll see if we incorporate them eventually.  And I also put our "Medical" info here since our medical provider will be changing soon and we will have more responsibility in keeping track of everything.  So that will evolve to fit our new way as time goes on. 
My only added addition is a "Doctors Log" to keep track of our doctors visits since, like I already mentioned, it will be more our responsibility in this area.

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The final section is our "Projects/ Holiday Section" This section also contains all  pintables from iHeartOrganizing.  Some come from her purchased Household Binder Set and a few she offers for free from her website under Free Pintables tab..  When we move I'll have a whole new set of projects lined up to make our new house a home.  These pintables are awesome to keep everything in order.  She also offers a Paint Project Reference Sheet to keep track of all your used paint colors.  Awesome! 


So there you have it.  My Updated Household Binder!  I hope this helps.  It's a great system and helps keep track of some important info.  But by no means does anyone need one to have a well run home.  I just like organization and work best with tools like this to help me.  Not every mom is the same, nor do any of us run our household in the same manner.  And how awesome is that, there should be no comparison of each other, just encouragement that we are each loving our husbands and our children and serving the Lord in running our home.  I hope this is only encouraging to any of you who read this post.  If this system in no way would benefit you, don't feel like you need it.  Just thought I'd share in case it might be helpful to some. 

You all are doing a great job, mom's!  Keep on serving the Lord in all you do! 

On the Market

This past month in a half has been crazy.  Crazy as in getting back to the good ol' days of building the house crazy.  Once we got home from Idaho and made the decision to move as soon as possible, life jumped into full swing with finishing up everything on the house that needed to be done before we could sell it.  It's amazing what you can live with when you are living in a house, and quite frankly just don't want to take the time to do it, especially after two and a half years of work that was already done on the house.  I could care less that all my interior doors were just primed and not painted white to match the trim and the rest of the house!  But to sell, it had to be done.  Along with hooking up our in floor heating, and putting metal siding all along the outside bottom of our house to cover the last of the showing house wrap, and caulking ALL the trim! Ugh, talk about not a very fun job!.  We put the trim on our kitchen cabinets and painted the backsplash.  Our original plan was to tile the backsplash in the kitchen but that was nixed once we decided to sell.  Also, our garage doors that looked like they were on and worked from the outside, were actually just nailed up from the inside.  So those had to get installed correctly, and can I just say that it is one of the most awesome things to have a working garage!!  Oh man!  That was a little treat.  After 6 and a half years of living in freezing cold and muddy Minot, ND with 4 little kids we now have a garage to park in and we're moving!  I may or may not have considered not moving for a split second.  :)  And many, many other big and little projects were completed as Nate worked tirelessly finishing up the house to get it ready to sell.  And I just have to mention that one of those jobs that needed to be done was mowing down our 7 foot weeded lawn.  Yep, that's right folks, you read that correctly, our whole front yard was consumed with 7 ft. weeds.  Thanks to Dwight and Nate, I'm sure our neighbors are SO happy we finally did something to our yard.  And while I know no one will be buying our home for its amazing looking yard, it looks a hundred times better than it did!  The Lord thankfully sustained us as we worked on the house non stop and dealt with a terrible "week long" flu bug that plagued our family soon after returning home from our trip to Idaho and Canada.  Like I said, it was crazy and rough, but we've made it!  We are on the other side.  

Our house is FINISHED!!! 

It's quite an amazing feeling.  To not have to worry about it any more.  Well, okay, any homeowner knows that statement isn't exactly true but we are glad that it's ready to be put on the market.

Which is exactly what happened at the beginning of this week.

Our house is officially on the market!

And our hope and desire is that the Lord would chose to sell it quickly, but we are also putting our trust in Him that His timing is perfect and whatever He sees fit for the selling of this house we are okay with.

Please join us in prayer that the Lord would allow our house to sell quickly.  His timing is perfect and that we would trust Him in this process and have the peace and joy of the Lord amidst it all.

Also, if you know anyone looking for a home to buy in Minot, ND, pass along our listing to them because we have a house for sale with a pretty incredible view and we would love someone or some family to enjoy it as much as we have!!

Here is the link to our listing: http://www.minothomes.com/cgi-bin/property.pl?action=details&property_id=14175

Here are some random photos of some of the projects that have been worked on and completed this past month.