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Celebrating Advent
Guest post by Lindsay from The Oil Aisle. I love to celebrate Advent. The word advent simply means “coming” or “arrival.” The focus of the entire season of advent is the anticipation and the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and the anticipation of the return of Christ in his second advent. I started an “advent calendar” with my son, Carsen in December when he was 19 months old. He really didn’t have a clue that year or the next. But now that he is 3.5 years old he has a much better understanding of the different activities we do each day. Each December 1st, we start our advent season…
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To Santa or Not to Santa
Christmas is one of my favorite times of year! I love to give gifts, and it’s so fun for me to pick out gifts I think each person would love. I also love all the fun stories related to the holidays, and my favorites are about Jesus! So many parents feel divided about what to say about Santa to their kids, so I wanted to share what we’ve chosen to do. Truth or a Fun Story? With so many fun stories in our culture, it can be hard for kids to sort out which stories are true and which ones are make-believe. I’ve had a practice for years now, when I’m…
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Visit the Young Living Farm in Ecuador with me!
We recently had the opportunity to travel to the Young Living farm in Ecuador! The entire trip was an amazing experience, so come along with me for the ride! Young Living pampers its members! We stayed at the Hilton in Guayaquil, ate delicious catered meals, and enjoyed this YL swag bag! (The phone chargers caught the attention of airport security on the way home, but they let me keep it lol). The sunglasses are made of wood, so I can add oils to them and have diffuser sunglasses! We took a tour of the city, including a market to purchase souvenirs and this local city park. Instead…
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Review: Commissioned Board Game
It’s not every day that you get the opportunity to play a game that received 245% of its funding on KickStarter! I love strategy games, and so we were excited to review Chara Games‘ first release, Commissioned. This board game is beautiful!! We kept ooh’ing and aww’ing as we unpacked it, because the design of the game board and cards is so well done. The components are well-made, and the entire game feels very high quality. These are not cheap mass market pieces! The premise of the game is to follow church history and expand the church as in the book of Acts. Players don’t need to know anything…
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How to Slash Your Health Insurance Bill
The holidays are upon us (yay!), and, for many of us, that means it’s time to renew our health care plans. Some of you may have awesome health care, and thumbs up if you do! Many more folks, however, pay at least an arm and a leg (sometimes two arms and two legs) for health care coverage. Almost 4 years ago, we switched a new model of health care coverage that has been AWESOME for us. It’s called a healthcare sharing plan, and we use Samaritan’s Ministries for ours! We pay a flat monthly premium for our entire family, and we can choose any provider we like. My…
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Review: CrossTimber Name Meaning Plaque
Like many parents, we put a lot of thought and prayer into our children’s names! All three of our kids have first and middle names that come from Hebrew, although that was a coincidence! Also, a major coincidence, or “God-incidence”, is that each of them has a name that means “Beloved” in Hebrew. Isn’t that awesome!? I think God is trying to tell us something about these kids AND His people. 🙂 CrossTimber is a business that sprung from a ministry of a homeschooling family. Knowing that names have significance, they began to research them and give out little cards with name meanings on them. Their cards were…
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Review: Middlebury Interactive Languages Spanish II
We had the opportunity to review Middlebury Interactive Languages last year and we loved it. I was bummed at the time because they only offered one level! Thankfully, they developed and released another level of Spanish, so we jumped at the opportunity to review it! We received online access to Elementary Spanish 2 (Grades 3- 5). Middlebury Interactive Languages offers a variety of digital language courses including Spanish, French, German, Chinese. For my 4th grader, Super D, they currently offer 4 semesters of Spanish, 2 semesters of French and German and 1 semester of Chinese. They offer middle school and high school classes as well! If you…
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Review: Online Christian Filmmakers Academy
In my early post-college days, some of my friends started a production company and began making movies. They had talent and creativity, screened several of their films at festivals, and won some awards. My Husky/German shepherd dog and I got to be an extra in a couple of films, and my interest was piqued about the process. Fifteen+ years later, I find myself shooting videos once or twice a week, for business purposes. When the opportunity arose to review the Online Christian Filmmakers Academy, by Family Gravity Media, a division of Families For Christ Ministries, Inc., I jumped at it! I was given twelve months of access to…
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Review: My FreezEasy
I have long been a fan of Erin Chase and her $5 Dinners! I’ve had a copy of her $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook for years now and have enjoyed her meals! Because of that, I was excited to have the opportunity to review her latest offering, MyFreezEasy. We were given the MyFreezEasy.com Freezer Meal Plan Membership to review. My favorite thing about MyFreezEasy is that the recipes are simple – the active prep time is usually somewhere around 10 – 15 minutes, with a 15-25 minute cook time. If you want to prep all the meals for the freezer, Erin teaches you how to make 10 meals…
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Review: Everyday Education (Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting!)
Handwriting is one of those things that we didn’t practice much with Super D. Confession: He’s in 4th grade and THIS is the year that I explained to him, step by step, the difference between uppercase and lowercase letters, and when to use them. Homeschool mom fail? Perhaps. But, we only had to talk about it for 15 minutes, and he’s pretty much got it down! Some things do get easier as they get older. But, there’s still a lot to be said for starting them off right. Sweetheart, my 1st grader, is still in the process of learning to read AND write. She loves to…
