I'm Back?!

Wow, it has officially been "A WHILE"!  Okay, so nearly 2 years....I think that qualifies as "a while".  It has been a very busy 2 years in our family to say the least.
We welcomed our youngest daughter and fifth child in Sept. 2014 and even though that seems like a long time ago I am truly not quite "adjusted" yet. I have had a really difficult time managing my time over the last year and a half and decided that had to change. Call it a New Year's resolution if you will.  It IS my resolution and I am sticking to it. There, I have declared it and now it MUST happen (can you tell I am trying to convince myself here? :)

And, who can blame me for not being able to manage my time away from this cutie? Could you?!

I have documented much of our family life over the last several years including the addition of our little Lily on my adoption blog here. If you would like to see what we have been up to you can catch up there.

(This was taken about two months after she came home - I was heading to a costume party - obviously!)

Now for this blog! I have really really missed writing and want to get back to it. I have also vowed to stop wasting my time on Facebook (not that you are wasting your time if you use fb, but I do - trust me!) so I thought this would be a much better outlet for my daily musings, recipes, lifestyle and beauty posts than signing into Facebook much too often.  I can't and don't post most of what I want to there anyway so the blogging world is a much better space for me. So after the encouragement of a few of my friends and readers over the last few months I have decided I am going to do just that.

I truly do hope that you will enjoy reading this blog. I intend to update it several times a week using my daily life experiences with everything from COOKING (I am constantly creating new recipes and dishes that I would LOVE to share with you and I am a self proclaimed foodie and home chef!), BEAUTY (what woman doesn't want some good tips for this?!), FAITH (I strive every day to grow my relationship with God and be more of who He wants me to be and sometimes I could really use a place to write out my struggles and successes in this walk and I am just starting up a new women's bible study in my home and can't wait to share some of the principles we learn through this!), STYLE (yes, as a mom with young kiddos I spend many days in yoga pants and a tee, but I love having an idea of what I can wear instead to feel just as comfortable and a little more pulled together so I hope to share some of those with you that you!), NUTRITION/HEALTH (I am kind of a nutrition and health/wellness nerd and my ipod is filled with dozens of health & wellness podcasts that I listen to daily), MOTHERHOOD (I am NOT an expert, but I do have five kids ranging from 3-14 and I am sure I can give you lots of pointers on what NOT to do at least and that's half the battle, right?! :), LIFESTYLE (we are a very busy and diverse family and I run across things I want to share from a helpful and inspirational standpoint almost daily and this is where I can share those things!), TRAVEL (as a family we traveled more than 40 total days this year. That may not be a lot to some and to others it may be a ton, but suffice it to say I love to travel and we do so as often as we can!) and MARRIAGE (my husband and I have been married for almost 19 years and I am more in love with him that I have ever been in my life and I am more than happy to share how I think anyone can accomplish this - plus one of the companies we own just happens to be a "relationship growth company" with an app out right now and a couple of more currently in the works! We are kind of really into this happy healthy relationship stuff :).

Okay, well, I think that about wraps it up for today. I hope to be back with a "real" entry before the week's end.  I am really so excited to be back!
Bye for now!
Jessy