Finding Joy in Your Home

We’ve been on a roll talking about Summer things lately! We kicked it off by talking about Summer hospitality, then talked about making memories with your family during the summer and now we are talking about one of my favorite things: Natural summer essentials!

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My Summer Essentials:

Immune Boosters:

Elderberry Syrup

You can buy one or make your own. It's very simple to make your own. All you need it dried elderberries, honey, and some spices. See wellness mama recipe for how to make it yourself. Or get a pre-made one from Vitacost.com (just check all ingredients). 

A Good Probiotic

We love all the probiotics from Garden of Life and they have a ton of options - for kids, for adults, specifically for women, or men, etc. We have started using a different brand though for the kids that we found from Grove.co. It’s the Lovebug brand and we love it! They also have a couple of different strains - they have a cold one that’s targeted for immunity. They have a weight loss one, and they even have two infant ones for 0-6 months and 6-12 months. They even have a pregnancy specific one that looks great. 

Immune Defense Essential Oils

These are great for all around immunity defense! Our absolute favorites are the Plant Therapy KidSafe line of Immune Boom and Germ Destroyer. We use them topically and also for diffusing. 

Goats Milk Soap with Essential Oils

We also started trying a new soap. It’s a Goats Milk soap from Bend Soap Company. We got it in bar form and as a milk bath. You just add the shreds to the bath. It's called All Shield and it's basically like their immune defense essential oil blend in the soap! 

Zarabees

Another line we love is Zarabees. They have natural cold and immune support items for kids. You can find it at places like Target, but my favorite place is Grove because their price is much better.  

New Chapter 

For adults: Grove just started carrying New Chapter brand. It's a very natural and healthy supplement brand for adults and I've been a long time fan. They have multivitamins, prenatals, fermented turmeric, maca and so much more! I love this brand but it's an expensive one. So I was excited to see that Grove is carrying it now! 

Choosing a Natural Sunscreen 

Sunscreen is a big one and a hard one! SkinDeep.org has a fabulous Sunscreen guide that you can sign up for for free!! Their biggest ingredients to avoid are: 

Oxybenzone

Vitamin A (retinyl palmitate)

Added insect repellent

And to look for: 

Zinc oxide

Avobenzome

Mexoryl SX

My staple for the past several summers has been the Honest company spray. With 7 people in the family needing to get sunscreened, the spray has been a lifesaver! But we do go through it quickly and the nozel does tend to get clogged a LOT and we've been through too many bottles to think it's a mistake in one or two bottles. 

Grove has several fantastic sunscreen options as well! They carry Badger brand which is very natural. Babyganics is also rated very well and they have a spray. I'm adding this one to my cart to try next! They also carry several kinds of Alba Botanicals. I'm actually very impressed with their natural sunscreen selection and I will be trying several new ones to see if I can find one that works better than Honest.

The summer is the perfect time to be intentional with family memories, making time for family, and slowing down (just a little bit). But if we are not very careful, it's easy for our entire summer to go by before we know it. So this summer, we are working on being intentional with our time, energy, and resources! Come along to listen: 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

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What we are focusing on this summer

Our Morning Basket Routine: 

This is the newest thing in our routine and it's a fun one!! We started implementing a morning basket time. My #1 goal with this is to sing a hymn or two with the kids (and get them to memorize more songs) and do our Bible reading together. But we also have a poetry book, a book about how things work, some fun chapter books, and more in it. 

The goal is to cycle through a couple different books each day (but not all of them each morning)! We are implementing this right after breakfast and it's been a fabulous habit to start cultivating. 

You can check out a great podcast on the topic: Your Morning Basket episode #1. And my friend Victoria does this for herself with a Bible basket. 

Being More Intentional To make memories as a family: 

Here's a quick list of what we want to implement more this year! 

More trips to the parks in the evenings (eat dinner at the park) 

Picnics outside on our lawn

Roasting marshmallows on the deck

The boys want to watch the stars one night on the trampoline

Letting the kids do a "sleepover" on the floor

Doing a few camping and day trips

Summer Hospitality:

I have a lot of fun family plans this summer, which are important! But I want to make sure I am making more time for hospitality as well. 

We just got a Hibatchi grill - makes hospitality so much easier (You can also plan a BBQ!) 

You can host a potluck! 

Make good use of Crockpot meals during the hot and busy months

Host a Smores dessert fellowship

Use paper plates - and make it easy! 

Host a Watermelon party - This is a fun tip that I got from Katie and I think it’s brilliant!! Invite people over in the evening after dinner, and crack open a watermelon. Let the kids run around and play in the backyard and enjoy a sweet (and inexpensive) treat!

Make meal time EASY with our new sponsor! 

Please welcome our brand new sponsor to the show, Hello Fresh! They are a meal kit delivery service that delivers fresh and delicious ingredients to your door that you can make into meals in about 30 minutes or less. 

We got our first Hello Fresh box last week, and honestly, I had no idea what to expect. I've been intrigued by these box meal kits in the past but with so many options, it felt a little overwhelming. So when I got the chance to try Hello Fresh, I jumped at the chance. 

Well Jason and I both have been extremely happy with the box! It has been really fun to cook with Hello Fresh! Okay so how does it work? You get three meal options to choose from: Classic, Veggie, or Family. We got the family box and as a huge plus, all of our kids devoured the meals!! 

Each of the meals comes packaged in it's own bag with all the ingredients in the perfect portion for that recipe. So you literally just pull the bag out of the fridge for that recipe and everything is ready. I did not anticipate this being one of my very favorite things about the service. 30 minutes before dinner,

Today we are chatting about a topic that is always on my heart and mind this time of year. Hospitality and how summer is the perfect time to start practicing hospitality or begin again.

Summer is the perfect time for fun and easy hospitality ideas! Listen in today: 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Challenging ourselves to selfless hospitality

"Offering radically ordinary hospitality is an everyday thing at our house. It starts early, with minestrone soup simmering on one burner and a pot of steamed rice warming on another. It ends late, with Kent making beds on the couches and blowing up air mattresses for a traveling, stranded family. A truly hospitable heart anticipates everyday, Christ-centered table fellowship and guests who are genuinely in need. Such a heart seeks opportunities to serve. Radically ordinary hospitality doesn’t keep fussy lists or make a big deal about invitations. Invitations are open." - Rosaria Butterfield

Cultivating a heart of service

"In radically ordinary hospitality, host and guest are interchangeable. If you come to my house for dinner and notice that I am still teaching a math lesson to a child, and my laundry remains on the dining room table unfolded, you roll up your sleeves and fold my laundry. Or set the table. Or load the dishwasher. Or feed the dogs. Radically ordinary hospitality means that hosts are not embarrassed to receive help, and guests know that their help is needed. A family of God gathering daily together needs each and every person. Host and guest are permeable roles." - Rosaria Butterfield

Hospitality begins with humility:

"Clothe yourself with humility (1 Peter 5:5) as you extend biblical hospitality. Walls are built when we think that we have all of the answers or our choices are the best choices for everyone. Learn the difference between biblical mandates and preferences and then expand your borders to include people of differing socioeconomic levels, family size, school choice, and even theological persuasions. Proverbs 27:17 reminds us that as believers we should sharpen one another. There is no better way to abolish cultural differences between families than to purpose to dismantle the unbiblical walls we have constructed. Food is always a good lubricant to assist in the demolition process." - Pat Ennis and Lisa Tatlock

An open letter to a hesitant host: 

"Dear friend,

Are you busy? Are you important? Do you work on a tight schedule? Are your boundaries well-fortified?

Those are not, in and of themselves, bad things.

But they will become idols if you don’t add something: Christian hospitality—the scriptural command to regularly, transparently, and sacrificially come together in homes over a meal, gathering with neighbors and brothers and sisters from the church, and welcoming strangers....

...Over the years, we have come to learn this. What stops us from practicing hospitality is our plenty, not our lack. We have too much, and we love too much what we have. Statistics have borne out this truth: meager homes and poor churches give and gather more; wealthy homes and upscale churches horde and micromanage more.

Daily ordinary hospitality, practiced for Christ’s glory, sanctifies your boundaries and fortifies your faith. It also exposes the idolatry in our hearts that falsely declare our homes our castles and our time our own. Hospitality combats the crushing loneliness that too many brothers and sisters in Christ bear by offering basic care: a meal, a hug, a prayer.

I've been sharing a lot lately about how our family has been grinding our own grain this year...and how much we LOVE it!! Back in episode #19 I shared our routine for doing this and how it's actually very easy to do even with a houseful of kids and a busy schedule! 

Since that episode, I've had a ton of questions about grinding your own grains and decided to do a follow up episode answering those. Listen in here! 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Get a GREAT deal on a Grain Mill! 

There is an amazing Mother's Day deal going on for the Nutri Mill Plus grain mill (the one I have and LOVE)!! They say it's a mother's day sale so I have no clue how long it's good for (the website doesn't say). You can get the grain mill and my FAVORITE cookbook for an excellent price. 

This grain mill is normally $219 which is pretty much the standard for this kind of mill. But for mother's Day the Nutri Mill Plus is on sale for only $159! 

THEN you add Sue Becker's cookbook (my VERY favorite cookbook for using freshly ground flour. It will teach you everything you need) to your cart and use coupon code MOTHERSDAY to get it FREE with any grain mill purchase!  

You will get both the grain mill and the cookbook for just $159 (PLUS FREE SHIPPING ). When we purchased these just 6 months ago, it was $242 for both!! :) So exciting!! 

Freshly Ground Grains FAQ 

Question: "I want to get started, which grain should I get first, what is most versatile?"

If you only want to get one for now, I would get hard white! It’s more mild and you can use it for a ton of stuff!! If you want to do things like cookies, coffee cake, etc. then the next one I would get is soft white. It’s more of a pastry flour ? 

HoneyVille offers organic and non-organic hard white for a fantastic price plus flat rate $4.99 shipping! 

How do you know the conversion amounts from whole grains to ground flour? Like if a recipe calls for 3 cups of flour, how many cups of wheat berries do you grind?

It's actually very simple! 1 cup of dried grains will yield 1.5 cups of flour. So if you need 3 cups of flour, you would grind 2 cups of dried grains. 

I am wondering can I use the fresh flour in my normal recipes or will I need to switch to recipes that call for fresh flour?

Yes! It's just normal flour :) Freshly ground flour can sometimes get a little thirstier so you might need to add a little extra water into your recipe. And if you are converting recipes that you normally use white flour then you might need to do a little tweaking to get the taste you want, but overall, it's basically the same thing. 

How long is the whole grain shelf stable? Also is it possible to use this in freezer meals ie freeze bread/muffins or a pizza crust?

The hard grains will last up to 25 years if stored properly in an airtight bucket with no moisture or bugs getting into it. The softer wheats will last around 5-6 years because they have a higher moisture content. 

We go through a 50lb bag of hard white in about 2-3 months. So you should be able to use it in plenty of time. 

Yes! You can use freshly ground flour for all of those needs and it all freezes very well!! I routinely freeze things like: Banana nut bread, muffins, pancakes, waffles, bagels, etc! 

We haven’t done a ton of grinding our own wheat but I was told before hand that you kind of have to work up to it because it can be hard diges...

I am a big believe in creating manageable routines for your family and I think they can have a huge impact! But they have to be simple, doable, AND firmly in line with God's priorities for your life. 

That's why I am so excited to chat with today's guest, Kat Lee! She's sharing the secrets behind her 3 minute morning routine and I think it's a fabulous idea to get re-motivated in forming better habits and routines in your home. Listen in here: 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Links & Resources Mentioned Today: 

Find Kat's new book Hello Mornings

Kat's Blog Hello Mornings

Her old podcast: Inspired to Action

Kat will be speaking at the 2018 Enjoy the Word Online Bible Conference

FREE Mrs. Meyers Cleaning Kit! 

For all of my listeners, Grove is offering a wonderful Spring cleaning kit for FREE! All you have to do is check out with $20 in your cart (see all of my amazing suggestions above) and your order ships for FREE with your $20 order PLUS the spring cleaning kit. 

If you are wanting to try out Grove or you just want to take your first baby steps to healthier living, then this is an awesome deal! Here’s what you will get: 

Free Mrs. Meyer’s Hand Soap

Free Mrs. Meyer’s Dish Soap

Free Mrs. Meyer’s Multi-Surface Spray

Free Grove Walnut Scrubber Sponges

Sign up for your FREE spring cleaning kit here!