The children are hungry….mommy is tired….and yet we crave the ability to provide our family with healthy, nutritious, simple snacks to keep us all going. What do we normally turn to in this dilemma? Junk food potentially?
Katie at Kitchen Stewardship has just released a wonderful little ebook sharing a collection of 20 scrumptious healthy snack recipes that are ready for your on the go needs. This helpful (45 page) ebook includes 14 variations of a homemade Larabar recipe, in addition to 20 other simple recipes, with an assortment of alterations for those on allergy restrictions, including gluten, dairy, and grain free.
All the recipes contain only real food low cost ingredients with simple instructions. Many of the recipes are not cooked preserving the nutrition of raw ingredients. And another helpful feature is that each recipe is quick and can easily be assembled in a few short minutes.
Desire to have this helpful guide by your side?
Katie is offering 5 copies of this ebook for us to giveaway!
It has been a full and eventful weekend with the launching of our updated blog design on Friday night, a quick day trip up to Seattle on Saturday to visit relatives and a celebration of the engagement of Aaron’s brother, Nate, on Sunday, so I am just now sitting down again and sharing with you all.
I am so blessed to see another month pass by and reflect on God’s goodness once again to our family! We spent a weekend at the beach this month enjoying a time of rest and lots of reading (our favorite activity!). Aaron and I have been prayerfully working on developing our family mission statement, which we were able to make significant headway on thanks to the inspiration of Stephen Covey in 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families. Thanks in part to Kat’s inspiration, I have also been working on my own personal mission statement, which has been so refreshing and edifying. What a difference it makes when you define your mission and develop purposeful plans to accomplish that mission. We also did some thorough decluttering around the house this month in preparation for a garage sale this week. I am blessed!
You may have wondered with the new update that I changed the byline of my blog slightly to: Loving simple, natural, and intentional living. Why the change? What is the significance? By “intentional” I wanted to encapsulate more fully my goal to live a purposeful, God-centered, mission-minded lifestyle. My hope is to continue to use this blog to inspire women to be intentional in every action in their homes – to cultivate strong relationships with our family and others, inspire our children to love and serve the Lord, pursue joyful homemaking, being good stewards of the earth, and opening our homes to minister to the lost and needy around us. I like to call it “missional” living or missional homemaking. When I shared what the Lord was opening my eyes to see in What is the Purpose of the Home?, I was aiming to pass on the challenge to maintain a high and holly calling to be purposeful in all things that we are called to. My goal is to encourage us all to ask ourselves in everything we do, from natural living to simple living, to making a home, to making decisions, what has this to do with the goal of glorifying our Lord and furthering His kingdom? That is what I mean by living intentionally. It reminds me afresh of the poem: Only one life, twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last. Let’s labor together to live without reserves or regrets.
April Reading
7 Habits of Highly Effective Families by Stephen Covey – fascinating and insightful, this book delves into dissenting the popular 7 Habits in their application for the family. Stephen talks about the value of developing family mission statements, being proactive in relationships, and being quick to listen and understand and slow to offer exhortation or advice in the lives of our children. These are just three of the habits discussed in this book. I was very challenged to be more intentional in developing together with my husband what we want to be our family mission and how we will aim to accomplish it. A big book but an excellent read!
Ministry of Motherhood: Following Christ’s Example in Reaching the Hearts of Our Children by Sally Clarkson – another excellent classic for mothers by Sally Clarkson. I loved her challenge of seeing our children as our disciples and following the way Jesus carefully nurtured, patiently loved, and guided His own disciples before sending them out to accomplish His mission. She shares the value of imparting the gift of grace, inspiration, faith, training, and service and how adopting these five truths can impact our children’s lives. I love how she describes motherhood as not just a job, but a calling. Each chapter is short with discussion question so it is an excellent Bible study companion or for a group study. Another favorite to add to my annual reading list!
God bless you all this month! My little girl, Karis, turns 3 on Tuesday! Wow! Time flies…
We are excited to announce that our new blog design is live! Welcome to the new and improved Passionate Homemaking – a place where you can be inspired to live a more natural, simple and intentional life as a wife, mother, and homemaker. We have redesigned the site to make it more clean, simple, and easy to navigate. We hope you find this useful!
The drop down navigation above will give you access to all the resources we have compiled for this site, including recipes, natural living links, local food sources (for those in the PDX area), and my recommended reading lists (including my lists from 2008, 2009 and the lastest 2010). You will find updated simplified category buttons on the right, and a new tab box below it including our most popular posts, the latest posts, and recent comments. We will also be adding my twitter feed here eventually. Our site is now really easy to subscribe to with our new social media buttons!
We wish to give a hearty thanks to Katie at Flibby Pie Design for her kind assistance in designing our new look. It was an absolute pleasure working with this young woman! My husband, Aaron, as well deserves my undying love and thanks for his faithfulness in being my web developer and making everything work! I love him so!
Please let us know if you find anything on the new site that does not work…as there are still a few kinks and bugs. We also love to hear your feedback! Take a minute to look around and let us know what you think!
Thank you to all our lovely readers for your continued support and encouragement! It has been a rich blessing!
What do you like? What do you not like? What would you like to see added?
Thanks to Paula’s Bread for their continued sponsorship of Passionate Homemaking! They have also generously contributed towards sponsoring me to the Relevant 2010 conference!
It has been a true pleasure to work with Paula Sutton, co-owner of Paula’s Bread, over the last several months since they began advertising with us last fall. Paula is a loving Christian wife, mother to nine children, and homemaker. She started Paula’s Bread as a Bosch distributor in 1987 and has expanded to include numerous kitchen resources and tools for natural food preparation. They offer Bosch mixers, grain grinders, stainless steel bakeware, cookware, and various kitchen gadgets. It is a family run business purposing to provide high quality service and products. Today they would like to offer a Bread Making Kit to one of our readers, which includes:
Bread Making Kit ($39.99 value):
Whole Grain Basic Bread Making DVD (not pictured)
SAF active dry yeast (1 lb)
dough enhancer (16 oz)
vital wheat gluten (27 oz)
bread bags (100 count)
This combination special is enough ingredients for 50 lbs of wheat and will provide the perfect texture you desire. The Breadmaking DVD will give you a thorough tutorial into making whole wheat bread with all the visual tips and tricks for successful breadbaking. With this DVD, you will learn how to make bread, cinnamon rolls, mock rye bread, pull aparts, pizza… all with one basic whole wheat bread recipe!
Currently, they are running a special combo deal on the Bosch mixer and Nutrimill. If you are in the market, check it out!
To Enter:
1. Leave a comment below and share your favorite bread making tip or what you love about home baked goodies.
2. For a second entry, sign up for the Paula’s Bread newsletter to hear of special promotions, tips, recipes, etc in their monthly newsletter. Come back and tell us about it!
3. For a third entry, follow @passionatehome and @paulasbread on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway, sharing the following:
Enter to win a Bread Making Kit from @paulasbread at @passionatehome!
Thank you to Graham Gardens for your sponsorship of Passionate Homemaking for the month of April! It’s giveaway week at Passionate Homemaking!
Graham Gardens is a family company based in Pennsylvania that has uniquely created an assortment of lovely all-natural wholesome skincare for the whole family. Their products contain only natural ingredients without fillers, or other preservative ingredients.
I had the privilege of sampling an assortment of their products and have been very pleased especially with the moisturizing butter bar – it is delightful and very effective for dry skin! I eagerly anticipate using the natural bug bar this summer to keep mosquitoes away! The natural lip balm selection is also wonderful.
Graham Gardens would like to offer TWO gift baskets to two different winners with several of their natural skin care products which values around $70 dollars. It contains:
1 Large, Fresh Butter Bar
1 Small, Natural Butter Bar
1 Lavender Body Oil
1 Large Healthy Skin Salve
1 BugBar
1 Peppermint Candy Lip Balm
1 Orange Sunset Lip Balm
1 Adventure Bay Lip Balm
TO ENTER:
1. Head over to Graham Gardens and check out their list of products. Select the product you are most interested in trying and come back and share it in the comments below.
2. For a second entry, follow @passionatehome and @grahamgardens and tweet about this giveaway. Leave a second comment letting us know.
Thank you to FBS Books for your sponsorship of Passionate Homemaking for April!
FBS Books is a Christian family run business offering homeschooling curriculum, Christian living books, parenting, and preschool materials of all kinds. They have a wealth of excellent good books! It is in the second generation of being a family owned and operated small business in Orlando, Florida.
Taraleigh, the co-owner together with her husband, shared with me their vision: I love books and love to read and have been working on putting items on there that have impacted me personally as well as books that I am excited to read soon. My children are ages 9,6, and 4. It is a full life that I love, but I know how much good books can be a means of grace for my own soul to help equip me for this task of being a wife, mother, and teacher. I would love to pass that on to others as they are ordering their curriculum over the summer. We try and offer the most competitive prices that we can, even with being a small company.
FBS Books would like to offer a $50 gift certificate to one lucky winner this week!
They are also offering a coupon code discount to Passionate Homemaking readers of $5 off a purchase of $75 dollars or more. Simply enter: passionatehomemaking in the coupon box at checkout. They also offer free shipping on orders of $25 or more!
TO ENTER:
1. Check out FBS Books and find your favorite choice resources and come back and leave your selection in the comments below.
2. For a second entry, become a fan of Passionate Homemaking and FBS Books on Facebook. Come back and enter a second comment letting us know that you did it!
Spring is here and the weather outside has been truly delightful! I love those first sprouts of warmer days, spring walks with flowers blossoming around you, thoughts of summer, and true gratefulness at the beauty around me. I have been blessed this month to celebrate our son’s first birthday, have some spring family photos done (thanks to my wonderful sister, Christa), and continue to adjust to cultivating more of a simplicity and intentionality in my homemaking.
I did have another bout of insomnia this month, but the Lord is again graciously carrying me through this trial and helping me work through my emotions and struggles. My husband has been so supportive and encouraging.
Aaron is thriving at his new job and loves the corporate environment! His job has provided stability in our finances more so than we have ever experienced. Direct deposit is a wonderful gift. With this blessing, we are purposefully paying off the remainder of business debt that had accumulated and get into a purposeful savings plan. We love Mint for our financial tracking…it’s free!
The kiddos are doing very well. They love routine more than I ever realized. Since we are limited to one car for the time being, we are staying home a lot more. We established a good morning and evening routine. Taking a daily walk (along as the weather proves endurable) with the kids helps refresh our spirits and get us tired for good naps. Karis and I have a quality learning time together each morning now, doing a focused learning activity, reading, baking, or simply giggling over tea. I love it! I have learned the importance of scheduling in these times together or they get forgotten. I am blessed with two lovely children that love to smile!
Titus & Karis
Welcome Contributors!
I am excited to announce that I am welcoming three new monthly blog contributors to join me here at Passionate Homemaking! Please welcome Vina, Kat & Ann – three amazing inspired women! They all equally have a passion to encourage women in all things natural, simple and mission-mindedness. I am thrilled to have them join my team. Please check out our new contributor page which includes their bio’s and personal blogs.
New Blog Design!
Another exciting event in process is the redesigning of our blog! Yes, it has been a long time in coming, and we hope to launch the new site by May 1st. I am simply thrilled!
Relevant 2010 here we come!
I stumbled upon the Relevant Conference 2010 this past week and just fell in love with the vision and theme of this conference. It is all about purposeful, intentional, real blogging. I love the mission statement:
The Relevant Conference exists to offer a place of face to face interaction with Christian women bloggers who want to be relevant in the larger blog and social media world. Our goal is to go beyond the surface into intentional blogging and real life living. We support women turning their hearts toward home and using their blogs to bless their families while also engaging the world for the glory of God. Relevant is a one-of-a-kind conference that seeks to engage women by teaching blogging techniques and social media skill while also urging and encouraging women to live fully integrated lives with their faith and family.
I immediately felt like the Lord wanted me to attend this conference. My husband was supportive and in one day, the Lord provided my airline ticket and registration! Paula’s Bread is assisting me with sponsorship, and they provide safe kitchen appliances for your kitchen (including Bosch, Nutrimill and other stainless steel gadgets). Please check them out!
My amazing hubby and I!
March Book Reviews
Steady Days: A Journey Toward Intentional, Professional Motherhood by Jamie Martin – a short and sweet read (I read it in one day!) with creative ideas to organize your life, create memories, and build a learning environment in your home. I love her idea of a learning board and memory books. Such a sweet mama!
Sacred Influence: How God Uses Wives to Shape the Souls of Their Husbands by Gary Thomas – I gave a more thorough review of this book last month, but I did complete it and cannot say enough as to how valuable this book has been for our marriage. Gary lays it out there before you from a man’s perspective, giving you a peek into the man’s brain, and I was blown away. I discussed each chapter with my husband through the process of reading it and dialoged extensively. At every point, my husband heartily agreed with this man! If you want to strengthen, protect, and grow your marriage…then you must read this book!
Dancing with My Father: How God Leads Us into a Life of Grace and Joy by Sally Clarkson – Sally is one of my favorite authors on the topic of missional motherhood. Her book, The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child’s Heart for Eternity, is on my annual book reading list. Dancing with My Father is her newest release and it focuses on the topic of cultivating joy in the weariness of life. It mainly shares her own personal stories, but there is valuable studies at the end of each chapter for you to personally search the Scriptures more thoroughly. If you are struggling to remain joyful as a wife and mother, please read this book (along with Choosing Gratitude)!
Many blessings upon you all! May you have a glorious Easter weekend, enjoying the beauty of our Savior’s resurrection!
Thank you to Trill Fitness for your sponsorship of Passionate Homemaking for March!
Trillia at Trill Fitness is a professional fitness trainer offering exercise, health and diet training and education in one place. She loves the Lord and has compiled a wonderful CD titled, In His Strength, which is a remix of ten worship songs from the music of Sovereign Grace Ministries. Remixed by deejay essence, In His Strength is great to accompany you in your workout in the gym, at home, or to listen to at work. It’s formatted perfectly for step, conditioning, and strength classes. All profits from the CD are donated to the Sovereign Grace Mission Fund.
Trill Fitness is offering 10 copies of this CD to give to our readers this week! That means we will have 10 winners!
To Enter:
1. Leave a comment and share your favorite tip about exercising.
2. For a second entry, head over to Trill Fitness’ facebook fan page and add a comment. Come back and let us know you did in a second comment.
Thanks to The Cozy Bunny for your sponsorship of Passionate Homemaking for the month of March!
The Cozy Bunny sells high quality natural wool mommy and baby products including wool blankets, diapers, changing pads, crib bumpers, and so much more.
They are offering a small wool puddle pad (size 18” x 27”, $14.99 value) to one lucky winner this week! What’s a puddle pad? Here’s their description:
“Our wool puddle pads are very functional & versatile. No need for the plastic puddle pad to lay under your baby, just use a wool one instead.
But won’t it get dirty? Well, yes, but if it gets wet, simply let air dry & if it gets soiled, just spray off, use soap if needed. Very easy & best of all, wool is very absorbent & antimicrobial, so it won’t get smelly. They have many uses; cover your lap, floor, shoulder, wherever your baby’s little booty happens to be.”
Sounds like an excellent alternative to those plastic diaper bag changing pads!
To Enter:
1. Simply leave a comment below and share a creative idea of how you might use this puddle pad, if you like.
The children are hungry….mommy is tired….and yet we crave the ability to provide our family with healthy, nutritious, simple snacks to keep us all going. What do we normally turn to in this dilemma? Junk food potentially?
7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
Ministry of Motherhood: Following Christ’s Example in Reaching the Hearts of Our Children
Thank you to 
Thank you to FBS Books for your sponsorship of Passionate Homemaking for April!
