How I Finally Printed and Organized 7 Years of Family Photos

How I Finally Printed and Organized 7 Years of Family Photos

I have long wanted to make family photo albums - not fancy scrapbooks with all sort of fun stickers and notations - just plain old photo albums. My parents used to develop all of the film from the family camera once a year and do a massive sorting of the photos, putting them into albums [...]

A Christmas Gift Guide For The Whole Family

A Christmas Gift Guide For The Whole Family

+J.M.J.+ I am all for less-is-more with gifts. I'd rather find one or two quality items or experiences that actually bring joy or function to the recipient, rather than buying a bunch of random junk so there is "stuff" to unwrap. With inflation and instability rampant right now, remember that "things" may not be what [...]

How We Handle Kids at Holy Mass

How We Handle Kids at Holy Mass

+J.M.J.+ How to handle taking children to Holy Mass is often a challenge for parents to navigate, as well as a polarizing topic amongst Catholics. Obligatory disclaimer: I am not writing this judging other parents and how they handle their children at Mass, or trying to say this is the best way to handle taking [...]

How I Prepare for Postpartum / the 4th Trimester

How I Prepare for Postpartum / the 4th Trimester

+J.M.J.+ There is a lot of information out there on how to prepare for birth (and I have a whole post about how I prep here!), but I feel like a huge aspect of getting ready to welcome a baby is getting ready for the incredibly beautiful and simultaneously challenging postpartum period. Here are the [...]

No Longer Buried: How Our Family Minimized Half of Our Possessions and Reclaimed Our Home

No Longer Buried: How Our Family Minimized Half of Our Possessions and Reclaimed Our Home

+J.M.J.+ A year and a half ago, Ethan and I got rid of over half of our stuff, and we have never looked back. This is the story of our family reclaiming our home, and at the end a list of action steps if you need help starting a similar process. So. Much. Stuff. Despite [...]

Our Catholic Homeschool Kindergarten Curriculum

Our Catholic Homeschool Kindergarten Curriculum

+J.M.J.+My former-school-teacher-husband has been wanting for us to choose an official curriculum for this fall, and Philomena has had such eagerness to get to work after so enjoying preschool. In this post about preschool from last year, I shared what books we used, as well my thoughts on play being the most important work she [...]

My Simple Laundry Routine

My Simple Laundry Routine

+J.M.J.+Laundry is a chore I actually don't dread. The following routine is how I have eliminated endless piles of dirty or clean laundry around my home for the last couple years.This system may or may not work for you, but I hope you find at least a couple tips or ideas to help you with [...]

My Best Tips for Weekend Getaways on a Small Budget

My Best Tips for Weekend Getaways on a Small Budget

+J.M.J.+Last week I shared my best tips for traveling with kids in this post here, and today I wanted to share how we plan little weekend getaways on a small budget. Consider the Location We tend to make trips in a 2 - 3.5 hour range away for weekends. This is close enough that Ethan [...]

What We Eat: Lunch Edition

What We Eat: Lunch Edition

+J.M.J.+ We talked all about breakfast in this last post found here - let's move on to lunch! A lot of people like to make enough of dinner for lunch the following day, but I would rather come up with simple lunches I can throw together and save those precious dinner leftovers for another night [...]