I had been looking for the right bible for me for a while and one of the versions I learned more about was the CSB. Thanks to my friends at BH/LifeWay I had the opportunity to try out three different bibles they offer. I have now experienced the CSB Reader’s Bible, the CSB Notetaking Bible,…
I’m so very excited about the Bible Activity books I’m sharing with you today. Ryan and I love having a variety of engaging ways to share the Bible with our kids. Our kids love doing a variety of activities and when I saw these books available, I decided they were a perfect addition to sharing…
*Disclaimer: The Precious Moments figurines were supplied by Precious Moments for today’s post. All opinions, experiences and imagery belong to JoyfullySmitten.com and are my own. Thank you. Precious Moments were a staple of my childhood. I had a Precious Moments Bible, figurines, christmas ornaments, a soft back flip book, stuffed animals and countless other items….
I had such good intentions of sharing all about the camping trip of our summer. I got a great start and then time got in the way. You can read about this camping trip here and here, if you haven’t already. Today I made time to share this particular sweet story with you because I feel like…
As soon as Christmas has come and gone the next holiday that really gets into my heart is Easter. Sure, there is Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day sprinkled in between that I like to make fun for the kids too, but Easter is the next big one. The one full of extra fun, tradition and…
Happy Wednesday, friends. A couple of weeks ago I shared this on Instagram: “Occasionally I let A get a Lunchable at the store…… And every time she gets the it out of the fridge the next day, she opens it and takes out the cookies and puts them on the counter until she’s eaten the…
Blessed. That’s exactly how I would describe this life I live. I have a handsome husband who knows me and gets me better than anyone else and loves our family so well. A healthy, smart and darling daughter that wows me every single day. A healthy growing baby boy in my belly preparing to make…
The other day, A and I spent some time outside planting flowers, pulling some weeds and I did some trimming on our lavender bushes. Doing these things usually helps me put stress to good use or just puts me in a great mood. Not to mention, it usually gets my brain turning. So, I was…
I was supposed to write a blog post yesterday. I found myself last night at 11:30pm on a Saturday night scrolling through Pinterest just to find a quote to toss up, anything that I could put up there just to say I got a post up for the day. And I found one….and I posted…
It was a.day. The kind of day where I found myself in the kitchen at lunchtime with my baby boy needing picked up, the dogs whining to come inside, lunch needing stirred and my daughter wanted to be picked up because “I just want you mommy” all while battling a migraine and this toothache that…
Sometimes saying yes means letting your toddler have a tent in the living room for a few days. Eventually that tent has to come down though, especially when house guests are due to come and your living room is already small. I was prodding A along to get the stuff out of her tent so…
This week has started out kind of…frumpy. We got a very short, very lovely thirty-six hours with Ryan before he was pulled away to work 1800 miles away for another two weeks. The first few days after he goes out of town there is always something a little off about the energy of the house….
Smart feeds and algorithms are going to fail us. Follower counts and likes are going to fail us. People will undoubtedly fail us, whether they intend to or not. More importantly – the expectations we create in our heads that revolve around those things will cause even bigger disappointments, leaving us feeling failed even more than we…
When we bought our house we knew the Carpet needed replaced and we decided we would put new carpet in the living room & bedrooms, then lay hard surface floors in the kitchen, dining room and hallway. Ryan worked that week and A & I were at the new house preparing it to move into…
Today I celebrate 5 years of marriage with my very best friend, the one who compliments me in the best kind of ways and I’m thankful for every day. I know that sounds cliche and that it’ll all sunshine and roses. The first sentence is the absolute truth but that doesn’t mean we don’t drive…
Maybe we are like mosaics, filled with things that have broken us in the worst possible ways and wrecked us in the best possible ways with a flexible mortar that bends and molds for more pieces to come flooding in throughout our lives shaping us into what makes us who we are in the rawest…
We have been here before, twice now, the limbo of the waiting game; walking the line of anticipation and potential disappointment. Part of me most of me is bursting at the steams with excitement, the tiny remainder is a quiet, reluctant caution that makes us unsure that a celebration is coming instead of another let…
Weekly I get an email called MOMentum and a few weeks ago I read something that I needed to read but not for the context it was sent. In the email there was a poem: The small woman Builds cages for everyone She Knows. While the sage, Who has to duck her head When the moon is…
A few Saturdays ago, I was finishing up a custom piece with the background noise of music playing over our home stereo system and the sound of Ryan and A playing and giggling in the other room. The sun poured into the room that is my makeshift studio/guest room/storage room and I was waiting on a…
For as long as I can remember I’ve always had the desire to help others. My passion for others has always outweighed gaining income from it, which has made things less than easy from time to time since life calls for monetary means. That said, I’ve always been happy to help where I can whether…