Tag Archives: busy family

How to Organize Family Electronics for Easier Travel

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I was recently had to travel out-of-town for work. Our family’s penchant for traveling light meant my ninja packing skills fit 3 days of business-casual clothing and traveling-office gadgets into our old Kelty Redwing 40 backpack. (BTW, the new design looks even easer to travel with!) Some of my collegues were amazed–as they wheeled their full-sized suitcases down the hall. As a pick-up-truck family, packing light for travel has always been an issue for us. We just don’t have space for stuff.  Our Spring Break Road Trip really had us paring down to … Continue Reading…

Resources and Ideas for a Family Unit Study on Archaeology

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Well, the school year is starting to wrap up. Now that our Spring Break road trip is behind us, I’m focused on pulling together some unit study materials for the summer. Our family topics this year are marine biology and archaeology, and this year we’re really focusing on professions in those fields. We want the kids to start seeing and understanding what following your passion really looks like, day-to-day. What jobs do people do if they love history or ocean animals? Archaeology started out as a bit of a stretch for … Continue Reading…

Visiting Fort Boonesborough State Park in Kentucky

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About 2 weeks before leaving for our road trip, the boys and I watched the premiere of the new Men Who Built America–Frontiersmen series. Episode 1 was about Daniel Boone leading the first group of permanent settlers through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. The settlement was called Fort Boonesborough, and it played an interesting role in the Revolutionary War. Since we were getting ready to leave for our trip, and Kentucky was already on our route, we Googled “Fort Boonesborough.” Turns out there’s a state park (with camping!) at the … Continue Reading…

How to Have Real Food for Dinner on Crazy Busy Weeknights

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We have been in the midst of a very busy season around here. The kiddos have a summer full of family visits, sports practice, and fun camp experiences, against a background of our two full-time jobs and managing the homestead. I’d love to be able to say that eating a healthy dinner in the midst of all that running around is our number one priority, but can I be honest for a moment? Our #1 family wellness goal in this season has become just not eating fast food every night! … Continue Reading…

Easy DIY Luggage Tags

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As I wrote last week with our Summer Camp Packing lists (did you download your FREE copy?) our kiddos have been adventuring away from home a lot this summer. They visited my sister, my mother-in-law, and now church camp. This is Speedracer’s first year at church camp and we’ve developed several little rites of passage for the first year. One is that they get their first toiletry bag (or shaving kit bag for the boys) and one is that they get their personalized luggage tags. This is an easy and … Continue Reading…

How to Pack for Overnight Summer Camp (with FREE Checklists!)

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Well, it’s summer camp time again! The time when I buy new socks and boxes of Ziploc bags and start the sorting and organizing for the kiddos to head out to church camp for a week. Do your munchkins go to overnight camp? Our kiddos head off for a week each summer with their church group. Sometimes the different age groups go at different times, but this year all 3 of our farm kids are heading off together–that’s a new stage for us! {smile} Our first year I did a … Continue Reading…

Great Football Movies for the Family

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Well, we registered the boys for football this Fall. Practice doesn’t start until August, but we’ve started accumulating their gear. And they are so excited that they’ve started wearing it around the house and to do their chores, especially walking the dogs. You know, just to get used to it. {smile} Speedracer is particularly excited about it and has been filling all his extra summer minutes with football movies–which then inspire him to throw his gear on and run around the backyard like a gridiron superstar. When it comes to sports … Continue Reading…

How to Make a Great Outdoor Space for Summer Family Time

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I’ve written before about how hard it can be to leave the farm for a vacation in the summer time. So we staycation a lot. And honestly, that’s probably more liberal than it deserves. We “staycation” a lot in the summer. On Friday and Saturday evenings. On our own back porch. After working all day. {smile} We’re blessed that the farm provides everything one could need to get a little rest and relaxation without having to go anywhere at all! It can truly feel like a “family vacation” with very little … Continue Reading…

How to Find and Use a Farm Sitter to Enjoy Vacation as a Homesteader

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We don’t go on vacation much. Hardly ever, really. And our version of a vacation is usually just a 3-day weekend visiting family. Between all the packing for five people; all the prep (and cost!) to leave the animals in someone else’s hands; all the stress of getting there and getting home–and worrying about everything while you’re gone!–then all the unpacking, washing, cleaning, and catching up when you do get home…blah! There’s nothing relaxing about it! Besides–we like being at home! But we also like our family. And we like adventuring … Continue Reading…

Farm Life Makes Vacations Hard

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We just got back from a short family vacation over the 3-day weekend and I’m reminded why we don’t all go anywhere overnight very often! {smile} The farm is hard to leave. And the work is hard to come back to! We spent some refreshing time with family at the lake and the crew got to do all-things-water-sports for a couple days. Kayaking, canoeing, boating, some fishing, swimming, even paddle boarding. They got to stay up late and sleep in (a little bit!) and not have to do any chores. … Continue Reading…

Letting the Work Provide the Rewards

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It’s no secret that our farm kids do a lot of work and chores around here. They are preparing to manage their own family and property one day and hands-on practice is the best teaching tool I know of. Our goal is to send self-motivated, diligent, hard-workers out into the world. But it’s easy to get into the daily grind and start to feel like all you do it work, work, sweat, and work, and then you start to lose motivation. I know–I feel it too sometimes! Much like our preferred … Continue Reading…

8 Tips for Carefree Flower Beds for Busy Moms

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I love having beautiful flowers blooming all around the house in the spring and summer, but I’m no green thumb! And a lot of the DIY garden articles I love to read and google do not have the same definition of “low maintenance” or “easy-care” that I do! I don’t even bother with indoor plants anymore and I have a long history of killing outdoor plants by neglect. I just get too busy for all the weeding, trimming, deadheading, watering, splitting and replanting. Besides, our vegetable garden takes up most of … Continue Reading…

BeanBoozled Challenge…Activities for a Busy Family

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As I mentioned before Christmas, we’re always busy (like everyone else in the world!) but we’re also always on the hunt for family time activities to break out of the chores, work, school, chores, work school routine. When looking for fun activities, we’re usually on the hunt for something for all ages, with simple set up and clean up–or simple set up and no cleanup, like our puzzle activities! So while Christmas shopping with Mr. Fix-It, he grabbed a couple boxes of Jelly Belly BeanBoozled for the crew’s stockings. When … Continue Reading…

Building Puzzles…Activities for Busy Families

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We stay pretty busy around here. Especially during the school year. Between school, work, the farm, church, and just trying to bathe, eat, and sleep, we don’t find much relax and hang out time. So we work pretty hard to make sure that we set aside some special “family time” activities to do together at home. This usually involves a lot of compromises. Maybe the house is a mess but we ignore it. Or we let everyone eat dinner in the living room so at least we’re still eating together … Continue Reading…

A Day Together on the Eastern Shore

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Our family and home life has been pretty stressful lately. Just a lot of responsibilities…and a lot of duct tape and wire nuts. Turns out when you buy a brand new house–with all brand new appliances–eventually they’re all not brand new anymore. It also turns out that the lifespan of most major appliances is about the same. Which means all our brand new appliances from when we moved in are now all on their last leg. All. Of. Them. Bless his heart, poor Mr. Fix-It is resuscitating our HVAC on a … Continue Reading…