After huddling down beneath an air mass from the North Pole for the last couple of weeks, the sun has emerged and patches of brown grass are showing through the snow. It’s a balmy forty out and I feel like I’m permitting myself to think about the arrival spring. (Or at least Fake Spring, which […] Read more…
It looks like my winter housekeeping week gave me the momentum I needed to finally close the door on a project that I’ve been working on for a few years now. (Has it really been years?) A miracle hath taken place in the year of our Lord 2021. I always planned on having an organized […] Read more…
An arctic chill has descended upon us (it’s currently one degree outside) and I’m sitting with my back to our gas fireplace wearing the same sweatshirt I’ve had on for about five days straight. I think it’s the perfect day to turn on the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice and attempt to finish a […] Read more…
You know what doesn’t get talked about enough in the homeschooling world? Taking a housekeeping day…or week! I take a housekeeping week whenever I feel overwhelmed with details and to-do’s. It’s my secret to staying energized about homeschooling for the long haul. Remember, effective homeschooling is about sustainability, not perfection. (Professional teachers have a certain […] Read more…
The first year of 2021 has been quiet so far between the four walls of our house (well maybe six walls because this house has a lot of weird angles), but rapidly shifting on the outside. I know we all feel it in different ways. In terms of our personal lives, 2021 will be bringing […] Read more…
Hello, dear friends. I read some important books in December and January that I wanted to share with you. This post will be longer than usual because I would like to offer some back story as to why these two books impacted me so greatly. I think there may be some people out there who […] Read more…
Merry Christmas week, friends! We put up our decorations very early this year and still, it sneaks up on me every time. I have all of our wrapping and baking to do, along with holiday groceries and preparations to leave town for New Year’s. (These are merry activities, I have to remind myself!) We have […] Read more…
November is usually always a stellar reading month for me. This month I read a lot of things, but I abandoned almost all of them for various reasons and ended up only actually finishing one book! I have been following blogger Tsh Oxenreider for about eight years now and have read all of her books, but […] Read more…
Well I didn’t get very many pictures of this month mostly because I was busy doing a lot of administrative projects that took up my creative brain space and well, taking care of all the people in my little world here at home! I am sadly missing all of the Thanksgiving table photos I took […] Read more…
I had all intentions of posting a whole tour of our rental house here in Kansas City, but it’s actually much easier to do room-by-room! I did one of my office/toy room a few weeks ago that you can see here. When we were searching for a rental, of course I wanted a nice bright […] Read more…
October was so busy that I only actually finished one book! Well, I read a lot of things, but this is the book I actually completed, and I read it in just a few sittings: The Paper Solution by Lisa Woodruff. I love books about organizing, I think partly due to my personality, but also […] Read more…
It is a picturesque November Sunday; I just finished a brisk walk, I have the kettle on for tea, and as I look out our front room window I see rows of blazing red leaves against a bright blue sky. An extra hour of sleep must not have hurt my cheery outlook either! To welcome […] Read more…
October in pictures…upon pictures! What a month. We took advantage of the weather and paused school for a few weeks to visit and host family, which filled us all up. First my sister came from Georgia to spend a week here with her kids for a very cousin-y time. After a few days of recovery and […] Read more…
Hello from my fireside! It’s dropping into the thirties and threatening to show tonight. We just returned from a trip to snowy South Dakota, so we have hot cocoa standing by and cold-weather gear ready. I sometimes miss sharing little links and tidbits on my Instagram stories, so I thought I would start a little […] Read more…
With the change of season and all of the unsettling events of this year, I’m just craving some solace and a little something to soothe my heart. There’s nothing that comforts and brings perspective like a great book, but what book? I’ve been simmering on this list for a while, pondering how I would gather […] Read more…
September was a fun reading month for me. I finished three lighter reads and started some other biographical/spiritual books, which I’m still working on and hope to finish in October! Also Amazon sent me an email today to remind me that I have to tell you the links below are affiliate links. (After about […] Read more…
September was so full! Immediately after getting here, David left for California for two weeks (after an epic last-minute and dare I say dangerously enormous Ikea haul), we started homeschool, unpacked the last few boxes, and had family in town from Atlanta. (I got to see my newest niece, hooray!) We also had a mishap […] Read more…
A mother’s corner office: next to the kitchen and the toys, hung with Mary Cassat prints for inspiration, drawers emptied of sharp things and permanent writing utensils, sticky fingerprints atop the desk. VIP (very important papers): school work, paintings and sunday school crafts. Sometimes a change of scenery can make a huge difference in the […] Read more…
It’s our fifth year homeschooling and I’m feeling quite the veteran. It’s actually probably nothing to do with me and probably just the golden years of childhood we’re in right now (five, seven and nine). The “what” of method and curriculum was easy this year. Most of what we are doing are just things that […] Read more…
When it comes to homeschooling and being with kids all day long, I have to do what I can to limit the amount of extra thinking in my day. Second grade math is about my limit, is that normal? (Don’t answer.) Since I can’t skip over place value notation, skipping over standing in front of […] Read more…
I didn’t document a lot of this month (or this summer) because of moving boxes and paper plates and Chic-fil-a on repeat. It’s been a big blur of unpacking, late nights, and getting oriented in our new space. Sometimes I’m kind of not sure how we got here at all! Yet here we are, dahling […] Read more…
I got pregnant with Levi right in the middle of our kitchen renovation. That seems like bad timing, but it was definitely planned that way! He’s our most planned baby. We had started the conversation over a year before and decided that now was the time to move forward. We were happy with our three […] Read more…
Well, 2020 is coming in full force with the changes. We are moving! This all came about early this year when I requested a trial period of living in another state. I just reached a point where I needed to be within at least a day’s drive of my family for a little while […] Read more…
Before I pack up all of our homeschooling supplies I wanted to give you a little homeschool recap for our year! Well as you all know we had a baby last spring (some about that here), so along with homeschooling the girls, I nurtured a baby in the first year of life. He is […] Read more…
I am really surprised to tell you that Covid-19 threw a HUGE wrench in my reading life! You would think this would be the most productive reading binge of my life. NO. It was terrible! In February we had a busy month with Valentines celebrations, a birthday, sick kids, and work in the evenings! […] Read more…
Are you looking for a little something festive for Valentine’s Day? In year’s past I would plan little to nothing and then at the last minute regret it and scrounge around my house for heart doilies and glue! I’m better about being prepared for Valentines these days, but I try to keep it really simple. […] Read more…
Well friends I did a ton of reading this month! Sometimes I struggle to pick up something off my stack, while other times I get into a topic and I just have to read everything about it. I’m not going to overwhelm you with all of that, so here is what I read last month […] Read more…
January was a tough year, but we made it, amiright? I confess, the holiday blues hit me hard this year and stayed on a little longer than usual. When this happens, I like to torture myself by asking depressing questions like “Will my kids ever have memories of my mom’s at Christmas?” And “Why do […] Read more…
I read a lot this month (see my last post)! We didn’t do any school so I had a lot more margin than usual, and that was really nice. The baby also transitioned into napping on a more regular schedule *yay* so I was really feeling that extra breathing room! Sadly, none of the relaxing […] Read more…
I’m not sure whether to say December should be called lazy or restful! Either way, we paused school for the month and did nothing. We didn’t even get through a full two weeks of Advent! The picture books, Jesse Tree ornaments and crafts went untouched after the first two weeks. I just went into deep […] Read more…
Have you seen this old-fashioned popcorn and cranberry garland floating around Instagram and Pinterest? (Honestly, where haven’t we seen it?) The fruits and seeds hand craft is well-loved for good reason. It’s a really simple, versatile decoration that can be used inside or strung outdoors in a tree for the birds and squirrels. The imperfection […] Read more…
I started many books but finished only three this month. It was a busy, fall-ish month (here it is in pictures) with family coming in to town, getting organized to host Thanksgiving, and prepping for Advent. Perhaps the greatest wrecker of my free reading time this month was a sweet baby boy with a cold […] Read more…
November was a wonderful month. This is when we get fall around here, which is so very welcome after September and October (which are basically just elongated summer months here in the valley!) I learned through reading a lot of L.M. Montgomery how much she hates November, which I guess must be pretty depressing in […] Read more…
As home educators we face the unique challenge of having our homes be our living spaces as well as our classrooms. While there are advantages to having a separate space for school (I sometimes fantasize about how nice it would be to just close the door on the mess), I decided to take a holistic […] Read more…
This post may contain affiliate links. Taking charge of our children’s education can be both empowering and daunting. Many of us turned down this road looking for options in education but found ourselves wading through cluttered websites, confusing curriculum spreadsheets, and state standards that require a degree in Bureaucracy to decipher. While there are many […] Read more…
It’s been SO long since I did a reading post! I missed these! I think the last one I did on the blog must have been a couple (gulp, THREE) years ago! In between time, I did a lot of book posts to Instagram and you can find them archived under my hashtag #fayesreads. You […] Read more…
Hello friends! Are you here from Instagram? A lot of you are because there’s where I’ve been doing the majority of my posting for the last few years! For a while I was really focused on learning Instagram and growing a following there. I liked some of that, but it left me a very narrow […] Read more…
I have so many big thoughts and feelings about homeschool this year that it was a challenge to get words put down, but I think I finally did! To start, this year we will have a third grader, a first grader, and a preschooler. While we now have the added variable of a fourth child, […] Read more…
I felt inspired to write a newsy life update today. I love going back and reading old posts like these. (I actually have about eight year’s worth now!) A lot of this is lengthy notes from Baby Land, where I know I will lose some of you, but my long time followers tell me they […] Read more…
It’s countdown to baby time over here, but I really wanted to get this post up before things get too crunched! (For my readers, but also for me!) I read last year’s post about our first grade plan, and it was fun to see how much things have grown and changed in our homeschooling life. […] Read more…
I know all of you who are familiar with our recent kitchen saga have been waiting so long for a kitchen reveal! I have been dreaming of the day I could write this post myself. Well. It was a very, very slow process. My kitchen is now totally updated and redesigned, but to tell you […] Read more…