Hey you, hope you are doing alright this week!

For me, this week is going better than last. Let me catch you up! 😍

Cam’s Work Trip

My husband, Cameron, is in video post production (and sometimes production). Don’t ask me too many questions because I don’t 100% know what he does all day. What I do know is that he’s really good at his job. He takes video and scripts from a client and creates a commercial or short video for them. So editing, some graphic design, light animation, that sort of thing.

He has worked for himself a good portion of our marriage, including the whole time we have lived in Louisiana. That’s GREAT for us because we homeschool too, so if we want to take a trip, we can usually just go - we don’t have to request time off or wait for any sort of school breaks. It’s been incredible for me because if I am having a particularly tough day, he can usually pop on over and give me a break. I’m SO grateful for our setup and relationship!

The downside, though, is that he is 100% responsible for finding 100% of his clients and work. That means some months he is super busy, and other months he doesn’t really have any work. It can be really stressful in those off months, but he’s been amazing at going with the flow over the years, through the ups and downs.

Last week, he took advantage of two opportunities — one in Savannah GA and one in Charleston SC — to meet a lot of potential new clients. It meant that he was 14 hours away for 6 days and nights! While I’m so glad he was able to go and meet some folks, it was a loooong week for me and the kiddos here on our own!

We made it, though 🙂 The kids and I had some yummy food, did a few things in town, watched some extra movies, and had a lot more treats than usual.

A few other updates

I watched an awful movie last night… The premise is great. It sounds so good on paper, but it was just not great. I did finish it because I really needed to know what happened to the wife and daughter😄 It’s called On The Line, on Netflix.

Finally, baby is gonna be here in less than 3 months. It seems like I was stuck at “about 6 months” for soooo long. I purchased 2 courses from this group called Christian Hypnobirthing. They offer a lot of great resources, not just for Christians! It’s a page that supports the kind of birth I would really like this time. Their courses are typically $99 each, but they had a $10 sale going on, so I got both courses for $20. Now, I just need to carve out some time to read, watch, learn, practice, etc.

The house add-on project is underway! They have concrete poured and some beams in place (our house is off the ground, on these beam things...). Any day now, they’ll start building the framing. Woohoo!

I’m doing a baby Whole30 2-week plan. I have been craving sugar and bread constantly, and I have restless legs every night, heartburn all the time. That’s my body telling me I need to clean up my act a little bit. Doing a shorter version of a Whole30 usually helps me refocus and reset. I just started it Monday (today is Wednesday). And of course, Crumbl Cookies decided to put out their most epic week ever (according to the Crumbl review people on TikTok). 🥲

Fun things you might like too

My sewing friends! This skirt from Two O Nine was fairly simple (it’s the Hanbok Wrap)! It took me 4-5 hours, including measuring and cutting fabric and all that. AND my dang machine kept screwing up, so I had to keep re-threading it. Without those issues, it would have been even quicker. You can also just try following the YouTube video without purchasing the printed instructions.

I think this is such a fun idea for kids. You grab a book and then add some props that go along with the story. I consider myself pretty creative, but this kind of creative does not come natural to me! So I really appreciate people who put the time and thought into these projects to share with other people. Click here for the blog post that goes along with that Facebook post!

Yesterday, I took the kids to pick strawberries at a little orchard pretty dang close to us. It’s SO early for strawberries! But they said their strawberry plants are overflowing. We decided to take a little time and fill up our 2 buckets. We ended up with about 10 lbs of strawberries. I washed and trimmed them. When I asked you guys on Instagram for ideas, you gave me a lot of them! Turns out, 10 lbs isn’t THAT much, so we will have to go back soon and get more berries! Here is what I did:

• roasted strawberry butter (or from his website)

• strawberry jam

• ice pops (strawberries, coconut milk, and honey) - here’s a link to those molds shown above! They do not leak: we’ve had them a few years!

And the rest are just in the fridge for snackin’!

Are you familiar with Rube Goldberg machines? I’ve always been really into them. It’s just a contraption that turns a simple task into a complicated one. For example, this guy who goes by Joseph’s Machines (here’s his Insta) creates some really great ones, like this one that washes his hair. My kids have been trying to create their own Rube Goldberg machines the last few days - they are WAY harder to design and build than you’d think. But they’re super fun to watch!

TikTok round-up

1. I never skip a James Day video. I love trivia, and he does these music trivia videos (he plays the first few seconds of a song, and you have to guess the song) that I really like. Have I shared one of his before? I might have.🙃

2. These two ladies are on a walk and challenged themselves to greet each person they come across with a different greeting. The only thing is, each greeting has to start with a new letter (from A to Z). It cracked me up!

3. Just a silly dog video 🐶

4. What do your kids watch?? It changes around here, but we’ve definitely gone through the phase of watching some random dude play with Paw Patrol toys, somebody playing with slime, Vlad and Niki… So this video made me chuckle because I could relate to it!

5. Color theory is so interesting to me! A friend of mine in town just recently did a color analysis with her daughter, locally, and now I would love to do the same. I can’t see it on myself - I’ve tried taking pictures in different shades of red, green, whatever, and I can’t easily see which ones work best with my hair/skin/eyes. But I think it’s so fascinating!

Easter stuff

As a Christian, Easter’s one of the biggies! A quick overview if you aren’t real familiar with the holiday. Here’s what we believe: Jesus died on what’s called Good Friday. And then he was resurrected — came back to life — 3 days later, on Easter Sunday. That’s the short version!

A little more context: back in the day, when sins were committed against God, an animal sacrifice would have to be made. Depending on the sins, you would have to use a particular type of animal, and you’d have to do it in a certain way. When Jesus came, he was a perfect person, the son of God, and so his role was to take on all sin - past, present, and future - and become the ultimate sacrifice. It was a gift from God so that the people would not have to continue sacrificing animals; they just had to (and we just have to) accept the gift. If you wanna chat more about it, I would be more than happy to!!

Besides the Christian aspect of it, there are plenty of traditions that people have, whether or not they celebrate the Jesus part of it. We are really not great at traditions in our house - every time a holiday comes around, we’re like “what should we do this time?”

Growing up, my mama always got us new Easter outfits. And my brothers and I would wake up Easter morning to a big basket of goodies at the ends of our beds. And of course we’d go to church - a few churches we attended had a sunrise service. Instead of a regular service at, say, 10am, it would be at 6:30 or 7am, usually somewhere outside.

This year, mama got my kids new church outfits for Easter, per tradition (she likes matching outfits, and I don’t usually think about it!). And Cam went to the store today and picked up some other things for their baskets:

• Peeps (I think they are awful, but the kids like them!)

• Pringles

• Cadbury eggs (top 3 fav candy!!)

• Egg-shaped gum

• New toothbrushes

• Pens and pencils

• Scissors and tape (don’t all kids love office supplies, or is it just mine?)

• Books and stickers

• Two little baskets* that will hang on the wall (for the big kids, not Charlie)

*Whenever I buy myself some new pens, highlighters, scissors, they always end up in the kids’ room. I literally just bought a 12-pack of black pens about 6 weeks ago, and this morning I could find only 1 of them in the drawer where they should be.😅 So I told Cam, get 2 cute baskets, plus some office supplies, and they can each have their own personal stash so they can stop taking mine all the time! We’ll see if it works.

In addition to the baskets, I always hide eggs around the house and sometimes yard (weather permitting). Half the time, the eggs are empty - they just really like hunting for eggs!

Until next time

A HUGE thank you!! to Nicole who bought me 3 coffees last week! What a lovely unexpected surprise!

I hope you and yours have a great week. Please let me know if you need anything from me: prayers or suggestions or encouragement or anything.

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Much love,
Bethany