In my last newsletter, I explained that if I look like I have a lot going on it’s not because I’m so organized but because I have a few priorities that I make sure happen each week and I do those things well.

Sidenote: Several of you asked which books I had read on this topic to reach this conclusion and there are several! A few great ones to put high in your list are: Atomic Habits, Free to Focus, 4,000 Weeks, and Digital Minimalism.

One of the things that I do well is planning my week. I would argue that that half hour of planning is what makes my week. Whether I take that hour to plan decides what kind of week I will have: scattered and disjointed or productive and peaceful. While I’m constantly tweaking things, over the years I’ve settled on a process that works well, and I’m happy to share it with you this week!

Use an hourly planner

I often hear people tell me, “You have so much going on and are still so organized.”

For the sake of full transparency I know I am often the hardest on myself, but when I hear comments like that I am never quite sure what to say. If you were a member of my family you would most definitely not think this. I drop the ball constantly.

Exhibit A: Ask my kids how many times the Tooth Fairy has forgotten to visit. (Hint: it’s more than one time each, per child.)

Exhibit B: Laundry. Several members of my house now do their own entirely because it’s processed about thirteen business days faster than I get to it.

Parenting a teenager is hard. (I know that doesn’t really need to be said, but it is.) Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about having a teenager, just acknowledging that the season of fixing a problem with ice cream has already passed me by.

There are plenty of things I absolutely love about having a teenager: inside jokes, independence, and the beautiful mix of clinging to childhood with one hand while grasping for adulthood with the other.

The particular heartbreak for me as a parent is that I can’t snap my fingers and solve the problems she brings to me anymore.

It’s hard to know what to say that will be helpful. It’s hard to know how much sleep she actually needs. It’s hard to be the bulwark against more screen time, a phone-sized computer in their pocket, and the constant phrase of “but I don’t want to.”

Tried and true, that’s what this week’s newsletter is all about. Here’s a few things that this mama would give “Five Stars” to, hands down.

High-Low-Buffalo

A few months ago my second grader came home from school and announced at dinner that we needed to play “High-Low-Buffalo.” What is this game you ask? Exactly. We asked that too.

Apparently it’s a game her second grade teacher taught them. Here’s how you play at your dinner table (or on the drive home from school). Each person gets to say three things. Their “High” is something pretty good that happened to them that day. Their “Low” is something not-so-good or bad that happened to them that day. Their “Buffalo” is the best thing that happened that day.

I can’t speak for other homeschoolers out there, but there’s a phrase I hear at least once a month thatI think is one of the biggest mistaken homeschooling assumptions out there.

Ready for it?

“How are your kids going to be socialized if they don’t go to school?”

Or a variation of that (since my kids do go to a brick and mortar school building once a week).

Make your own bacon: a complete (and delicious) guide

You heard correctly. You can make your own bacon. At home, in your kitchen, for a fraction of the price that you pay at the store. Caleb has been making bacon for our family for over a year now. He agreed to write a guest post this week to share the process with you. So, here you go!

I suppose I’ve always known that food made from scratch is better than what comes ready-made from the store. But with certain things I think I figured the old-fashioned way had been superseded by some newer, better way.

Have you seen the cost of eggs lately!?

In 2006 we were in our early 20s, newly married, having just graduated from college with student loans, a car payment, and with four years of graduate school staring us in the face. I remember the first time we pooled both of our “budgets” together (which, let’s face it, were not actually budgets) and realized that we needed to sell a vehicle. Immediately.

About the same time we read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover and started our own debt snowball complete with cash envelopes and everything.

The concept of delayed gratification, saving for things, not freaking out when egg prices double overnight, and paying cash for monthly expenses has been something that has stuck with us since 2006.

Solo Parenting Rhythms

Caleb doesn't travel all that often now, but when our kids were little there was a season where he traveled pretty frequently. Travel like that took a big adjustment.

Caleb helps out a ton around our house. I've mentioned before he cooks the majority of our meals (which wasn't always the case). We do many things together as a family and in general, when it comes to parenting, we are a team—especially when it comes to mornings, dinner, bedtime, and discipline. To have half of your team absent is hard.

Over the years I developed a few rhythms that helped make it easier when he traveled.

Four years on the flip side

This Facebook memory gets me every year.

The photo was taken four years ago. It shows the day that Eva had her final chemo appointment.

Resetting some good habits

During October and November of last year Caleb and I completed a Whole30. If you aren't familiar with a Whole30, the goal is to eat real food that is minimally processed. Basically: no grains, no sugar, no legumes, no dairy, no alcohol. For 30 days!

We completed our Whole30 Challenge right before Thanksgiving (perfect timing, which was planned, yes) and enjoyed the holidays and all the relevant treats.

While my waistline really enjoyed the Whole30, the thing that I loved the most was the way I felt. I had a lot more energy, more focus, much better sleep, I was more emotionally even, and had better homeschool days.

Open After Christmas

The first time Caleb invited me to "Plan my Year" with him I was skeptical.

A lot of times New Year planning sessions (which sound a lot like goals, which sound a lot like, yeah, resolutions) seem to start out grand with lots of gusto and then fade by January 15. And that sounded like a waste of my time.

I was also tired of failure. Year after year we were generally happy as we reflected on December 31, but we always seemed to find ourselves reacting to what was happening around our family and always (naively) a little shocked when another New Year's Day came around and we had a list of trips we didn't take (because we didn't talk about them), parties we didn't plan (because we didn't set aside the time) things we didn't save for (because we weren't on the same page), hobbies we didn't pursue (because we didn't communicate the desire) and generally a whole list of things that happened to our family (mostly good upon reflection) but all unplanned.

Saying Yes

When my kids were toddlers I heard an excellent parenting tip.

Say yes. As often as you can.

I can't remember where I heard that bit of advice, but it's served me well over the years.

It is all too easy to have a pity party, especially when life is busy, kids are sick, or you feel like every little thing is working against you, not for you. It’s easy to dwell on the list of things not going right in life, what’s not going as planned, stuff that’s just “unfair.”

I don’t think this sentiment is unique to me. Our human nature tends to focus on the negatives and the “if onlys.” When things are not going well it’s much easier to be drawn into a downward spiral of negativity than to find blessing in the broken.

Years ago, shortly after my daughter was diagnosed with cancer, I realized my heart naturally wanted to dwell in my own personal pity party: if anyone had earned the right to be upset, angry, whine, or complain, it was me.

It was about this time six years ago that I forced myself to start making lists.

A Few of Our Favorite Things for 2022

Every holiday season I see a flood of gift guides hit my inbox and my social media feeds. Typically it seems like most gift guides are actually a wish list of items people would like to have under their tree, themselves, rather than items that are tried and true in their home.

I’m also sharing a gift guide. But, to go against the grain, I’m sharing only items that we have used (and loved) for over a year. The items on these lists (all linked below) are items we actually own. They are gifts my kids still use years later. They are items that still bring my husband joy or that I still rave about.

These are a few of our favorite things.

Blessings in a corner of chaos

The entry to the back door looks like this on any given day of the year.

Some days when I walk past a similar version of this disaster I get so irritated as I trip over shoes that I impulsively want to kick a few just to see where they land. I know it won’t make a difference and the owner of the shoes won’t even notice.

3 Things I do in November for a better December

There is nothing that I enjoy more in December than not being frazzled.

I love to enjoy every fun tradition with my kids. I want to be present for all our family activities. I don’t want to lose my cool while baking Christmas cookies last-minute. (This will happen if you leave all your Christmas cookie baking until December 23rd. Trust me.)

One way that I've learned to set myself up for success in December is to check a few items off my list in November. Quick wins, if you will.

An unpopular opinion

Here’s an unpopular opinion from a homeschool mom. It’s OK if your homeschool has curriculum, structure, and routine.

When I first started homeschooling I sought advice from seasoned homeschoolers. I visited popular blogs and I asked friends who were already homeschooling: If you could give a new homeschooler one piece of advice, what would it be?

Everyone seemed to agree: don’t make homeschool feel like school because homeschooling isn’t school.

A picnic with a view, and a recipe of mussels for you

After sixteen years of marriage I still look forward to going on dates with Caleb. In fact, it's one of my favorite things to do.

As our kids have grown, our date nights have changed. When our kids were younger we'd either get a babysitter and head to our favorite restaurant or have a "date night in".

But now we can leave our kids alone in the morning, noon, or night. And for long periods of time, too. We don't have to escape to a restaurant because we aren't exhausted from the grind of raising small children. We have more energy to be more creative in our date nights.

The sound of October

“I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be. This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages – the delayed adolescent, the childish adult – but that they are in me to be drawn on.” — Madeleine L’Engle

I came across these words a few weeks ago and they struck me.

Each year another 365 days of memories and experiences is layered into what has already been. The optimistic seven year old sits next to the moody fourteen year old who is sandwiched between the twenty-two year old; excited for her first job, looking shockingly at the twenty-five year old and wondering how on earth there is a baby in her arms: they let you walk out of the hospital without your mom?! But she is side-eyeing the thirty five year old who, indeed, has “a few” gray hairs along with more than “a few” battle-scars from the past decade.

Third Grade Dreams Realized

When I was in third grade, Scholastic Book Orders had a special sale where for several months they gave National Geographic trading cards with the purchase of any book. There’s one card I vividly remember.

It was a picture of a car driving through a Giant Sequoia in Sequoia National Park. As I sat in my third grade classroom I knew that I wanted to visit a place that had trees so large an entire car could drive through them with room to spare.

As an adult I realize just how touristy this dream was, but my third grade dream came true last week.

Proof of Life

Hi! Hello! It’s me!

Proof of life that I survived the epic road trip that I alluded to in my last newsletter. And really it was far beyond just “survival.” It was a more than two weeks of road trip that encompassed fifteen states, came in totaling over 5,000 miles, and left us filled to the brim with memories.

It also left me a lot of time to think in the car as we drove across the country. Somewhere in the middle of Kansas I had almost talked myself out of writing this newsletter and letting it quietly fade away to be filed under the category of “Things I Did During That One Season.” However by the time we had been home for a few days I had talked myself out of being talked out of it.

I’ll pay for your gas

As we pulled into the Oceanside In-n-Out on Friday I noticed a man sitting on a rock near the driveway entrance. He had his dog with him, A bowl of water was on the ground. He was holding a sign, but I didn’t catch what it said.

I parked and walked across the parking lot, dodging all the cars coming and going. In-n-Out is always busy.

As I approached the man, he jumped when I called out, “Sir! Do you need lunch?” It was like he was startled that someone had spoken to him, that someone had noticed him.

Putting my finger on it

Last week my two oldest flew across the country, solo, for the first time.

As we drove down to the airport I tried making chitchat about how exciting their trip would be, but they were surprisingly quiet. Nerves because they were flying solo for the first time.

The lack of chitchat caused my mind to wander as it sometimes does along that stretch of freeway. Oftentimes it wanders back to my first Southern California memory: the first time that we drove that stretch twelve years ago. I remembered that there was just one small little girl in a red booster seat in the backseat of our tiny little car. She wasn't yet two. And in the throes of surviving days with toddlers, days like last week seemed too far on the horizon to even dream about. ⁣⁣I was too busy potty training and raising babies to even grasp that a day like today would exist. ⁣⁣ When I watched them walk onto the jetway with one last nervous wave back at me, I found myself standing alone at the gate and surprisingly emotional, and I couldn't put my finger on why that was because I was genuinely excited for their adventure.

Pizza’s Perfect Pairing

I am not the cook in our family.

I do not enjoy cooking and find that it usually creates stress. Like, “the kids are wondering when dinner will be served but I’m wondering why this still-frozen chicken breast won’t sauté.” Caleb enjoys cooking and finds that it usually relieves stress which is why he took over all of the cooking at our house almost three years ago.

He takes delight in the creativity of cooking, especially in finding good pairings.That’s how this broccoli salad came into our lives.

We should have done this ages ago

A few weeks ago we were in Phoenix tagging along on my husband’s work trip. Some friends were there, too, and at our poolside chats the topic of screens, teens, kids, parents, and boundaries came up again and again.This topic is on the mind of a lot of people right now.

I promise this won’t be the topic every week, but I thought I’d share something we started doing this summer that has already made a big difference. It does have to do with screens, but not in the way that we’ve discussed before.

It’s the other screen

Reflecting on the “Walk of Shame”

The library was one of my favorite places to go as a child. My mom would load me and my siblings up and drive across town to the library several times a month. We wandered the stacks, made our selections, and walked out with dozens of books each time. It always seemed like we were first in line to start the library’s summer reading program. We usually had it finished within the first week.

By middle school we had moved to a new town and I was old enough to ride my bike to the library. I would go several times each week and find new favorites. Since I had my own set of wheels I could stay as long as I liked. I spent hours and hours in the reading room.

I have always found the smell of stacks and stacks of bound paper to be like a warm, welcoming hug.. The library is a place you can always find a copy of a treasured favorite or a new read that you can’t wait to tear into.

The Summer Edit

School has finally wrapped up! Now that I’ve submitted next year’s curriculum order to our charter school it feels we can really welcome summertime. Here’s what I’ve been loving after a good week of summer.

Summersalt Swimsuit

You have perhaps seen the ads, checked out their website and balked at the price. I know I did when this swimsuit first came across my Instagram feed. I ended up buying this suit last year and I absolutely love it. It's worth the money. It has full coverage in front and back while still being stylish. It's a suit you can wrangle kids in and still feel like everything is staying put. I'll be purchasing again from this brand!

Follow Up from Last Week

So many excellent conversations stemmed from last week’s newsletter. I knew I wasn’t alone in my relationship with my phone, but it was nice to hear from so many of you and to brainstorm ways that we can protect ‘non screen time” in our homes.

Some of those conversations deserve a followup in this week’s newsletter. Many of the conversations that I had this week asked a similar question: “But what do we do after 5:00 PM, and how do we make sure that it happens?”

Caleb and I have grappled with this in our own home, and while we are far from perfect, there are a few things that we’ve landed on that have been going well.

An Interesting Listen

I have talked about screens, screen time, taking a break from screens, and the balance of screens and family before. While there are some things in this area that our family does well, I am the first to admit that I am not the role model anyone should follow.

We’ve been thoughtful and proactive with some things like screen-time limits, no TVs in bedrooms, no devices or screens during mealtimes, no iPhones for kids/teens, and completely unplugging as a family as part of our routine. On the flip side, thoughtful people will always argue there is room for further improvement when it comes to the virtual world of screens and the physical world of those in your home or community.

My knee-jerk reaction is to feel ashamed when I look at my iPhone’s screen time report each week. If I look at the number of pick-ups I have throughout the day I feel even worse. A little bit here, a little bit there, it all adds up.

Eleven takeaways from the last year

This week I’m one year older and reflecting. Here are eleven insights I've gained over the last year.

1. I now have a teenager and it’s actually OK. When my kids were young people warned me, “Watch out for those teenage years,” or “Just wait until they are a teenager.” Having a teenager has it’s hard moments, but doesn’t every stage of life? I’m seeing years of hard parenting beginning to bear fruit in the character of an emerging young adult. I’m so proud of her. This gives me a little nod that we haven’t messed everything up. We’ve been on a good path.

2. The best part about marrying your best friend is that as our kids get older and more independent we have even more time to spend time together: traveling, camping, hiking, and eating excellent food (just the two of us). I don't take it for granted because there were so many years where it was a logistical hurdle to go on a date. Now it happens multiple times each week.

3. I am a more engaged mom, a more attentive wife, and a more peaceful woman when my phone “sleeps” from 5:00 PM to 8:00 AM. I sleep in my upstairs bedroom, the phone sleeps in a downstairs office.

4. People don’t talk enough about how you can change your homeschool methodology over the years. It’s OK if your homeschool table for your seventh grader doesn’t look the same as it did when she was in first grade. It’s OK if your methodology develops from leaning towards unschooling and unit studies to a more classical education. It’s OK if halfway through it all you layer in Latin, flashcards, and tests. It doesn’t mean one was wrong or more right than the other. It means you adjusted and shifted based on the needs of your children.

5. My favorite way to spend a morning is to wake up well before my children. I arm myself with a hot cup of coffee, meditate on my devotion in silence, calm my heart through journaling, and just generally gather my thoughts for the day. Getting up in the early five o'clock hour is something I never regret doing.

6. I have a limited number of hours in my day. I like to say “yes” when people ask me to do things. I like to be able to do it all. When I say “yes” to someone, I am actually saying “no” to someone else. Thinking more about that unintended “no” has caused me to reevaluate how many times I can actually say “yes.”

7. The foresight I had in teaching my babies and toddlers how to independently play, be entertained, find their own interesting activity, or be alone in a room without me, has reaped countless rewards over the years. This year it allowed first graders to find their own entertainment so that I can teach pre-algebra without interruptions.

8. Middle schoolers don’t actually need iPhones. I admire other parents who have withstood the astounding amount of relentless wearing down pressure a pre-teen/teen can apply on this subject. You are my heroes. Keep it up.

9. I don’t like cardio workouts but I need them for my physical and mental health. Hiking mountains is my current cardio. I can do harder things today than I could a decade ago—like the time we hiked 19 miles to the 10,000+ foot summit of Mt. San Jacinto. It’s OK that my cardio isn’t a spin bike, an elliptical, or jogging. I am not competing with anyone else, and I’m proud of myself.

10. It is actually incredibly rewarding to sit with your children in church, hear them sing, whisper to you “I remember this story,” hear them recall bits of the sermon later in the week, and make a connection to their lives. The years I spent in the cry room wrangling loud toddlers and disruptive preschoolers were proven fruitful despite making me feel fruitless at the time.

11. I thrive on routines and predictability (and so does my entire family). This past year we’ve embraced it. Waffle Weekend, Friday Marvel Movie Night (with a bath for mom), Friday Beach Day, Sunday Morning Cereal, Thursday night Cocktail Night, and Saturday date night in. There’s more, but I’m stopping there. I used to think it was lame to have such a routine, but I actually love it. It gives all of us a framework for our week, something to look forward to, and has knit the fabric of our family experiences tighter. I wish we had started this years ago.

Snippet of my week

A Birthday Staple

My birthday is this week, but we won't be talking about which year I'll be celebrating.

Instead, let's talk about my favorite birthday staple...cake!

I've been making my own birthday cake since I was in middle school. (I realize that sounds maybe a bit depressing, but when you have always loved baking you don't mind at allI will happily let someone else cook my birthday dinner, but I'll take care of the dessert.)

The year the peonies bloomed in June instead of May

Whenever I see peonies for sale I have to buy them.

This May, sixteen years ago, a woman tended her garden as she always had. Among the many flowers she cultivated, the peonies were her favorite. But that spring sixteen years ago she didn’t see a single one of her prized peonies bloom in their beds.

She picked each and every peony when it was just a blossom. She wrapped them in paper, put them in pitchers full of water, and stored them in her refrigerator while they were still curled up in a budded ball. There the peonies waited for weeks.

The scenic route

Last week I joked with a friend, “When you live in a state as large as California, it’ll take a decade (or more) to chip away at the ‘bucket list’ of things to see.”

Driving on Highway 1, which hugs the California coastline, has been on my California bucket list for years. Last week Caleb and I found ourselves without our kids attending a wedding near San Jose, and decided to make Highway 1 our route home.

We started in Monterey with breakfast overlooking the bay. Afterwards we popped into Paris Bakery for a fresh baguette (for our picnic lunch), a few treats (the chocolate truffles get five stars), and coffee. From Monterey we headed south, taking the scenic route of Highway 1 instead of the more direct route through the Central Valley.

Challenge Completed: 100 days in the Same Dress

I mentioned how I came across Wool&, a merino wool company (do those Instagram ads get you too?) that had an interesting challenge: to wear the same wool dress for 100 consecutive days. Last month I shared that I had started the challenge, you can read about it right here if you missed it. On March 31st I completed my 100 Day Challenge (and celebrated with a Negroni).

In the last few weeks I’ve had time to solidify my reflections, gather questions from readers (you had so many!), and am sharing my final thoughts on the challenge this week.

The Bassett Homeschool Bookstack

One of the perks of homeschooling is that we can complete our schoolwork in much less time than a traditional school day. This means more free time. (But, to be honest, sometimes this is also a downside—like when the kids use their free time to pick fights with their siblings.)

One thing my kids do in their free time is read. A lot.

It is not uncommon to see a dim crack of light under a door long after bedtime. My oldest two daughters have each set a goal to read at least forty quality books this school year. While they are reading multiple genres, their favorite is historical fiction.

Audra's (Very Basic) Guide to Disneyland

Because our family goes to Disneyland frequently people often ask me to help plan their trip to the park. I don't mind helping at all. It's fun to share some of the tips that we've picked up along the way. Save this for when you are planning your next trip, or forward it to a friend who is planning to go! If you do have questions, please ask me. It is honestly so much fun to give others helpful tips so that they can have the most magical day, too.

So, here’s “A (Very Basic) Guide to Disneyland.” It can’t cover everything (it’s Very Basic, you see), but it’s enough to get you started.

Arrive early

A Heart Check

As this stack of books on my kitchen counter grew taller this weekend, I found myself getting more and more frustrated. ⁣

⁣ Each book and each page is a small gathering of the work we have accomplished in our homeschool this year.

Because we partner with a charter school we have to be in compliance with the paperwork required by the State. So six times a year I page through each of my kids’ books and select a sample of their work. I add their name and date to the top right corner. I give them a grade. Then I scan and upload the files for our teacher.

An Easter Roundup

I know Easter is a few weeks away, but in the past two years I have found that I need to decide and shop for things earlier than ever. (Supply chain. No need to say more than that.)

As I was making my Easter lists last week, I thought I would share a few of our traditions with you! Some of our traditions have been around for over a decade. Others we have left behind as our kids got older. I know I am always on the lookout for ideas that layer in a little more meaning to the holidays that we celebrate and I hope you are able to get a few new ideas from our family this week.

Teaching the Easter Story

Well that's handy

Here’s something that makes me happy: finding little "life hacks" that set me up for success or propel me a goal.

I had started using a helpful little habit app right before the pandemic started, but quickly fell out of the habit on Day 2 of we-are-all-staying-home-all-the-time-forever-and-ever. (Remember those days?!) At that time all the "good habits" that I wanted to develop basically went out the window at least for a season.

One of my Instagram friends recently inspired me to dust off this helpful little app, give it a little update, and put it back in daily rotation.

A Recipe Roundup

I tend to trust recipes more if they come from a friend rather than a random recommendation from @SusiesKitchen1973 on the internet.

If you’re the same, then you are in luck! This week I’m sharing a few recipes that have been a big hit around here lately (and that’s saying something when it comes to getting six people to agree on anything these days).

Our Favorite Dinner Rolls

Up for a challenge

Last fall I discovered an interesting challenge from Wool&, a company that designs, produces, and sells garments made from merino wool. The challenge is pretty straightforward. You wear (and document that you’ve worn) one of their wool dresses for 100 days straight and they send you a $100 gift card in exchange. The challenge is designed to prove that wool is versatile enough to be the foundation of any outfit.

To be honest, I thought that was pretty intense at first. 100 days in a row is a pretty long time to wear any article of clothing. But the renewed popularity of the whole high-waisted, “mom jeans” vibe from the 90s made me think twice. #hardpass

Besides the appeal of being able to side step around said “mom jeans”, I also liked the idea of buying less “fast fashion,” the kind of stuff that loses its shape after only a few wears, or doesn’t come out of the wash with the same fit. I also started to love the idea of building a capsule wardrobe, that is, a small collection of timeless essentials that don’t go out of style. And the idea of a daily “uniform” really appealed to me.

Gain vs. Gap

Seven years of homeschooling has taught me to focus on the gain, not the gap.

I remember stressing myself out when my oldest was learning to read. In first grade she wasn’t technically “behind”, but she wasn’t where I thought she should be. That first year of homeschooling I remember measuring my worth as a teacher to the results she produced. I was focused on the gap.

Even after teaching classrooms full of kids, I’ve realized I can’t make learning happen. It will happen when the child is ready. I can create an atmosphere of learning. I can plan the best lessons. But I can’t make learning happen. Teaching my own child led me to this stark discovery.

Regrouping, reflecting, and a Happy New Year

I know I'm not alone in using the week between Christmas and New Year's Day to reflect. I know you also probably use that week to take stock of the blessings (and struggles) of the past year. It’s a time to celebrate the wins, to acknowledge the losses, and to fix our eyes firmly forward–on 2022.

Last week I reflected on my family, my marriage, my health goals, my business goals, and I also thought about you and this little corner of the internet that fills your inbox each week.

I am exceptionally grateful for this newsletter. I am grateful for you. You allow me to serve and encourage you each Tuesday morning. I am thankful that you chose to spend your time reading something that I had written. I have appreciated the many replies you sent my way and each connection that I had with you as we corresponded.

When I was first married, my husband and I had fewer than 15 “real” ornaments for our tree, all of which were childhood ornaments that our parents handed down. Our first tree was sparse. Our first tree also felt strange to me because I didn’t recognize half of the ornaments! I wondered if perhaps my parents were missing the eight ornaments that they had carefully wrapped the Christmas before and handed over to me to hang on my own tree together with my husband’s. Our tree that year was a blank slate as a new family started.

Each year we add ornament after ornament to a freshly cut tree, but I still think about that first tree. Now, after fifteen years our tree is full of ornaments. Our tree is laden with memories. Many ornaments are also milestones: the first ‘married’ ornament, the first ‘baby’ ornament, ornaments from all the trips we’ve taken together, preschool handprints, keepsakes from aunts and uncles and grandparents. But I still put up a few bits of ribbon I had tied to that first, sparse Christmas tree, to make it look more full. It’s a reminder of those earlier years of marriage when our budget was more about paying tuition than decorating for Christmas.

Over a decade of Christmas memories, all on one tree. I am happy every year as we pull our eclectic set of ornaments out of their box, each one the overture of a story or memory or smile.

A hot chocolate bar in five minutes

You could find some pretty elaborate set ups for a hot chocolate bar if you searched Pinterest. That isn’t quite how I roll, though. I need something that can be whipped together fast because I remembered that today was “open hot chocolate bar day” just five minutes before heading out the door to pick kids up from school.

I didn’t really expect my kids to be so enthralled with the idea of a hot chocolate bar, but it’s become a fun little tradition that they look forward to each year. So! Here’s how to set up your own hot chocolate bar (in five minutes).

A Few of Our Favorite Things

Every holiday season a flood of gift guides hits my inbox and social media feeds. Typically it seems like most gift guides are actually a wish list of items people would like to have under their tree, for themselves, rather than items that are already tried and true in their home.

I’m also sharing a gift guide. But, to go against the grain, I’m sharing only items that we have used (and loved) for over a year. The items on these lists (all linked below) are items we actually own. They are toys my kids still play with years later. They are items that still bring my husband joy or that I still rave about. These are a few of our favorite things.

If you still have a little shopping to do or are struggling with just one person on your list, I hope this gift guide can help take a little pressure off of you. We love everything on this list and I think anyone you give these gifts to will probably love them too.

An intentional December

I’m not sure what it was, but the Christmas season a few years ago left me feeling massive amounts of (unwarranted) mom guilt (from things I felt didn’t go well) and (not shockingly) depleted from the sheer volume of Christmas activities that I tried to cram in the last six days before Christmas. In hindsight, I think the cause was a lack of cohesion and communication, and also that our family was still establishing our own traditions. My husband has his childhood traditions, I have mine, and our kids have theirs. The years we spent as “new parents” were full of memories that we hoped would become cherished annual traditions. Some become just that, but we also found ourselves trying something out one year, only to not attempt it the next. It took several years to decipher which our core traditions should be.

I became determined to come up with a better system for tackling December. I say tackling, and that may not be the word everyone would use, but if you are a parent to young children you know that if you don’t “plan” December, the month will get away from you. You find yourself agreeing to everything, and before you know it your month is jam packed, you are stressed out, and there was no “Polar-Express-Movie-Night-with-Fancy-Hot-Chocolate” because between the dance recital, putting up lights, and the Christmas program, you simply ran out of free evenings. For our family, those kinds of demands, coupled with my real desire to preserve ample time for our family traditions, are a delicate balance that I’ve found needs an intentional plan.

The Christmas Activity Box was my solution to slowing December down. The box marked our family traditions more thoughtful and more deliberate. It was a way to ensure we did not over schedule ourselves in December. And above all, it was a way to preserve my sanity while forming lasting memories and traditions that we all cherish.

Pecan Pie for a Pie Social

On Thanksgiving Eve we host a Pie Social (yes, we call it that) for our neighbors and members of our church family. Basically I make a bunch of pies (usually ten), our favorite holiday cider, and ask friends to come help eat it all. The house is loud and full, but in the best possible way as everyone chit chats (and eats pie) with old friends or makes some new ones. If it's not raining we build a fire on the back patio. It's just a wonderful evening of hosting friends (while eating pie) before the flurry of the holidays really kicks off and everyone gets busy.

For our family it marks the start of the holidays. And did I mention there's pie? There is. Usually I make about ten pies, five different kinds, and regret nothing.

The first year that we hosted the Pie Social I only made one pecan pie because it's my husband's favorite. About half the pecan pie was left at the end of the night. Pecan pie isn’t as big of a deal here as it is in the Midwest where I grew up. Still, plenty of people had asked about the "pie with no top that wasn't pumpkin."

Work that takes time to produce fruit

Every November the sight of this orange tree makes me thankful.

This tree was already here when we moved in, the foresight of someone who planted it years ago but moved away before she could enjoy the full fruits of her labor. ⁣ A young fruit tree starts very small. You get maybe three pieces of fruit the first year, if any at all. To plant a fruit tree is to recognize that you will wait for years to see a harvest like this. In the meantime there’s so much work to do. Watering, pruning, and protecting the trunk from pests—all without an immediate benefit.

Christmas Without the Expletives

I normally don't dive into Christmas until the leftover Thanksgiving turkey has been in the refrigerator for at least twelve hours. However, If your family purchases a live Christmas tree, then you are well versed in the annual Christmas tradition of "Straightening the Tree" (always stressful, sometimes with guy lines).

I'm sharing this recommendation early because everyone that I know who owns this tree stand finds that their new favorite part of decorating the tree is straightening the tree, alone, single handedly. (If you don't get a live tree each year, read on. This stand makes an amazing and thoughtful gift for someone who does.)