Monthly Archives: February 2017

On my side gig…

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Although I wasn’t even considering DoTerra as a business when I first started using their amazing essential oils – what has grown from just sharing my excitement with friends and family has grown into a beautiful network of mamas, teachers, entrepreneurs, and generally awesome people that I love spending time with!

I get to leave my house every once in a while, sit around tables and living rooms, enjoy some cocktails and appetizers, meet amazing women working their butts off to keep their families happy and healthy….and then educate and empower them to make over their whole lives with natural wellness products.

The ripple effect of all of this fun networking is that I make enough money to make a big impact on our family’s ability to create awesome memories and enjoy experiences together. My hubby and I decided last year to combine his overtime paychecks and all of my DoTerra earnings in order to save for the Disney cruise we gifted the kiddos with last Christmas. We are so excited for this family trip of a lifetime AND extra excited that we didn’t have to sacrifice household expenses to make it happen (especially with our surprise house buying adventure – that might not have been possible if we hadn’t been saving!).I am super grateful for my mentors, Amy and Jodi, for supporting me throughout this journey and I love love love ALL of my oily tribe that are having great experiences with the oils and having some fun right along with that. Hearing their stories of how the oils are positively impacting so many emotional and physical ailments in their home makes my heart incredibly happy and increases my passion for getting this information out into the world!!!

A few links to how I use essential oils in my home:
OIls for Mama
Oils for Hubby
Oils for Kiddos

I’m always happy to share more about the business side of DoTerra if you’re interested. It doesn’t take any inventory or extra costs to start sharing so many people experiment to see what they can do in a short period of time and then take it from there! (Please excuse a little sales pitch very now and again here and on my FB – I’m too excited to keep it myself!)

On the transition…

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Many people have asked how the transition to the new house has been on our sweet little Wonders. I had this post scheduled for today with only pictures (mattress store selfies while Dad does the shopping negotiating everything else less important than laying on beds and taking pics with the kiddos) but then wrote it last night when a few other transitions had popped up to cope with and process as well.WonderBOY was extremely anxious about moving. He was typically pretty anxious in our old home, never wanting to be on a separate floor from us and on most nights, ending up on the floor in our room or at the top of the stairs sleeping so he can hear us watching tv downstairs. I remember the day that Scott got our keys to the new place and started moving our first load…..we came in after the packing and as soon as WB saw the “empty” living room, he just started crying. The fear of not knowing where “our things” went was very hard for him.

The deep fears of loss and abandonment not only get attached to people, but to belongings that hold memories and comfort for this little man. Assuring him that our things were indeed at the new house and even his self-packed boxes were waiting for him in his new room were not enough…..after another load was packed, he was filled with relief and joy when seeing his new room and his “stuff.” So excited in fact, that he didn’t even look at the rest of the house and got to work right away organizing his room. So sweet…..since settling in, he has started to feel more comfortable and has even tested out sleeping in his own room (even though we are on separate floors now and out of earshot). Throwing our big “snow week” into the mix after the move may have done more damage than good with transitioning as my little man craves structure and routine and that week had absolutely ZERO of that. I am looking forward to a few weeks of normal schedule here to get us back on track.WonderGIRL has loved the move to our new house, due to the fact that she has some fun girl friends she already knows that live close by (thank you coaching world for inserting players and their younger sisters into our tribe for this very benefit). Working on her room together and giving her more independence with the kitchen and more breathing room is going to be such a positive for her.

WG has been praying for more “foster siblings” since we moved as we had to renew our home study and paperwork last week. In a fate-filled turn of events, two sweet young girls came home with us for a short-term stay (on the very date WG and WB came home with us three years prior – crazy right?). The one thing WG thought she was missing from her life came with some very hard feelings when the reality of that wish came true. Feelings of “being replaced” and jealousy toward the other girls in the house were big topics of conversation as we cared for new friends in our home and shared our rooms, our meals, and our love. I have faith this will get easier for her as we continue to open our homes to children in need and start trusting that she is ours forever and ever, no matter who we get to love on and care for temporarily.

As I shared the news today with my Wonders that our new friends wouldn’t be coming back home with us tonight and that they were waiting for a new plan at the CPS office, WG promptly replied “Shouldn’t we go sit with them? They are probably so scared.” Tears start forming as I remember this because I knew they were scared too but didn’t have the same panic response as her who lived it and endured it a few years back and THAT breaks my heart and makes me love her so so much all at the same time. It is moments and statements like these (which I NEED) to remind me that this girl is:
1. a fighter and has endured tragic events so much worse than I can even imagine.
2. ready to care for others (probably better then she can care for herself).
3. learning about compassion and perspective taking in some big ways.
4. someone that can use her trauma to help others, maybe only to inspire them when she thrives as a hopeful story but also to connect in ways that may of us truly can’t understand.

3 year live-a-versary!

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3 years ago today, WonderGIRL and WonderBOY got to come home with us. The first couple of days were a lovey, chaotic blur. Interested in the whole story? Click here to relive that weekend.

Saying yes to “an short term” emergency weekend stay for the Wonders was preceeded by an activity inspired by a church sermon at Cornwall, encouraging us to surrender our plans and our control to God. These paintings were an artistic outlet for me in processing that message and making it apply to my life. Little did I know that three days later, I would be asked to surrender in a HUGE way and then be rewarded in an even GREATER way than I could have imagined. (Also surrendered in the process – sleep, scrapbooking, my sanity, faith in my abilities to keep a kiddo with trauma safe, time to get ready, and date nights but who’s keeping track). We have created so many fun memories together on our “live-a-versary” celebrations (monthly for the first year and now annually) – the following pictures are from our secret weekend field trip from last year to Seattle. The year before that, we traveled to Friday Harbor, a favorite date spot of Scott and I.This year, we will have a quiet celebration at home followed by a bigger celebration this coming weekend as we get to celebrate our official adoption and welcoming our loved ones to our new home.

Funny story – I’ve been trying to plan our adoption party for quite a few months now…..venues and dates just never seemed to work out for all sorts of silly reasons. In hindsight, I attribute this to another reminder that God is in true control as now we have the perfect “party house” for the perfect “party” reason on the anniversary weekend of what turned out to be the perfect way for us to start our forever family – all which were causing my constant need for control personality quite a bit of anxiety. Perhaps I need to listen to that “I surrender” message a few more times…..

Back to the dale….

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These past two weeks have been full of surprises – a super fast close and move date and then a whole week off with snow to settle in! As many of you know from the paint samples that were on our old living room wall for well over a year, I have some commitment issues when it comes to decorating a house. This week with our snow-mageddon storm, I had some time to work all of that out and start making our HOUSE a HOME. Part of that included quite a bit of Amazon shopping which then I felt super guilty about – sorry beloved delivery people – your sacrifical efforts this week to get to our house in the weather and bring me my furniture were SOOOOOO appreciated.Still deciding if I like this headboard or not with the navy and white decor. Perhaps with the wood dresser and some cooler nightstands – it will go better? Feel free to weigh in – it helps with the indecisiveness.Love love love the sliding barn doors on our closet – poor Scott is living out of a different closet since this one is a bit small but so cute to have a little nook all to myself.Did I mention that our downstairs has a FULL KITCHEN??? We love all of the possibilities that this opens up, including keeping the kiddos contained during snack and breakfast times. Scott found this adorable little table and chairs to perfect their personal “kid cafe.”I know many of you saw the progression of WonderGIRL’s room unfold over Instagram posts, but today we added real mattresses and bedding and the inner 14 year old me is uber jealous about this whole situation (although the real 14 year old me should be extremely grateful because I had a huge room, bathroom, and most importantly, the DJ Tanner phone in my room where I could sneak three way calls after bedtime with all my homies – so thank you Mom and Dad).We don’t have much in our upstairs living space and I hope to build the room around this amazing vintage-y piece of goodness I found at our local furniture store. I am so excited to actually get to put my scrapbooks on display versus hidden in my craft room. Don’t mind the cluttered mess on top – I’m feeling out what looks good and where all my “mantle” decor from the old place can go.I used to be utterly ENAMORED with these old Bobbsey Twin books on display at my Grandma and Grandpa’s house growing up. After the passing of my Grandpa and my Grandma moving out of their beloved home, I was the lucky recipient of these gems. I feel honored to get to display them for future generations of readers to lovingly peruse while visiting my house as well. The copy of Gone with the Wind shown on the right is from 1913 – how cool is that????

As many people have mentioned, the renovation that the previous owners did on this house are beautiful and PERFECT for our family. We are extremely grateful to them for putting such care and attention to detail in so many place throughout the house – hopefully they catch this post and others on FB (the previous owner is a childhood classmate of mine) and can see some of the results and love come out of their amazing efforts in fixing up their home for a future family.