Holiday Blessings From Our Family to Yours!
Abbie at just over 6 years old has a Christmas wish this year and she’s been singing it to anyone who will listen,
“All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth, my 5 front teeth, my 12 front teeth!”
Her lovely toothless smile is now missing 5 teeth, with one more wiggly one, which could leave the poor girl with a gap of 4 missing teeth in a row! I keep telling her to stop losing teeth or she’s going to have to subsist on yogurt and applesauce!
Caden, our busy 3 1/2 year old, is almost impossible to get a decent picture of but this is a recent one of him and Johanna playing together in a suitcase that happened to be in the living room. They had a blast, “hiding” from us all!
This picture of Johanna in her Christmas dress shows her doing what she loves to do best… climb. She’s 16 months old now and that girl can get away from me (and get up to a high, dangerous place) faster than I can blink. Every parent has to have at least one child that gives them regular heart attacks, right?
Lucky for her she’s just so darn cute the rest of the time that we can overlook her heart-stopping antics!
No pictures of my husband or I to share, but he is doing incredibly well with his music school, Resound School of Music. The school has grown to over 120 students in one year and continues to grow. I’m so proud of all of his hard work, and grateful that God is blessing the work of his hands.
The Lord has richly provided for us this past year. It has been a difficult and draining year in many ways, and yet He continues to show Himself faithful to us over and over and over again. His mercies are new every day. We are so grateful for his care for our young family, and we are very much looking forward to spending some time together as a family this Christmas, celebrating all that Christ has done for us and resting as we look forward to what the New Year holds!
The Team Here at Keeper of the Home
It has been an eventful and very full year at Keeper of the Home as well!
Two new staff members have joined our team:
Abby W:: My faithful administrative assistant. She may answer one of your emails, she helps to maintain things like the Recipe page, she sends out the books you buy, and so many other behind-the-scenes tasks. I’m thankful to have her on board!
Kate Tietje :: Our newest addition, who came on board in October to work as our Advertising and Giveaway Manager. She also runs her own fantastic blog at Modern Alternative Mama and serves as a contributing writer here at KOTH.
We have also added 10 incredible writers who regularly contribute articles along with myself:
Shannon @ Nourishing Days
Beth @ Stewardship not Convenience
Sharon @ The Good Woman and Franziska’s Pantry
Kate @ Modern Alternative Mama
Cara @ Health, Home, and Happiness
Emily @ Live Renewed
Meg @ Cracking an Egg With One Hand
Sherrie @ The Proverbial Woman
Stacy @ Delighting in the Days
Stacey @ A GOOD and SIMPLE Life
I am so delighted with the wide range of perspectives, knowledge and experience that we are able to offer with this array of different women and I hope that you have enjoyed the more varied content that the blog has seen over the past several months!
Thanks to Our Sponsors
One of the ways that Keeper of the Home continues to run day after day, putting out hopefully helpful and encouraging content for free, is through the sponsorship of the businesses that advertise both on the sidebar and in sponsored posts and giveaways.
Whenever you choose to visit our sponsor’s site or make a purchase through them, you help to keep this site going, so thank you!
Thanks to this year’s fabulous sponsors:
- ListPlanIt
- Plan to Eat
- Fertility Flower
- MadeOn Hard Lotion
- Bulk Herb Store
- Steady Home Deals
- GNOWFGLINS Sourdough eCourse
- Strawesome
- Fashion and Earth
- NaturoKits
- Spoonk Accupressure Mats
- Marie-Madeline Studio
- Graham Gardens
- FBS Books
- Moody Publishers
- Cupboard of Blessings
- Just Bumming Around
- HopeInk
- Moukisac
- Vintage Remedies
- Eden Sustainable Cloth Diapering
- Excalibur Dehydrators
Enjoying the Holidays
This will be my last post from now until sometime in the first week of January, although there will still be posts from other writers in the meantime. My husband and I will both be taking a full week off from our businesses (much-needed!) to enjoy a blissful week relaxing, celebrating and having fun with family and friends.
Praying that you have a blessed celebration of the birth of our Lord this Christmas! Praise God for his magnificent gift of Jesus!
With love,
What a beautiful family you have been blessed with!! My second daughter is 16 months, like Johanna, & she loves climbing too. Last week, I left her in the family room and went to stir the soup in the kitchen, literally 30 seconds, & I found her on the dining room table looking very proud of herself. I need eyes in the back of my head. Hope you have a lovely holiday.
Merry Christmas to you and your wonderful family. Have a blessed week off!
Sarah M
Stephanie- thank you for all that you do. I always look forward to reading what you write! Your blog is one of my favorites. Its even more dear to me since I was able to spend some time with you in Nashville and my home. 🙂 I hope your family has a very Merry Christmas!
God Bless-
Amanda Brown
@Amanda B, Nice to hear from you, Amanda! I had such a good time visiting you and your family. Merry Christmas to all of you, too! 🙂
I also have one of those heart attack inducing children. I found her on a windowsill at 13 months! She is now 4 1/2. Many other people will see her doing (insert any sort of crazy physical feat here) and look at me like I am crazy for allowing her to do it. I forget that other people aren’t used to her antics and haven’t had to relax as I have or risk constantly depleted adrenals. 🙂
I really enjoy your blog and the varied articles posted here. I only wish I had found your blog sooner!
Praying you and your family have a very blessed Christmas and New Year!
@Tanya, I’m with you, about letting her do crazy things and other freaking out. Both my husband and I are very relaxed about it (unless she’s deliberately disobeying), but we don’t rush to rescue her from precarious situations very often. She usually gets herself out of it or starts whining for me to come and rescue her, but she rarely gets hurt. 🙂
My daughter LOVES to climb too. Nothing stops her. She’s almost 3 and gets into/onto nearly anything. We can’t hide stuff at the top of the pantry or on a high shelf in the kitchen because she’ll just find a way to get up there. Every time others see her climb they rush over and want to “spot” her in case she falls, they are about to freak out. While I’m doing nothing because actually, through all her antics, she’s NEVER fallen. As long as it’s not something inherently dangerous, I just let her be! My husband wants to gather some scrap wood and carpet pieces and build the kids a climbing thing, and put it in their playroom over a foam mat. Let ’em go all day. Might be nice…. 🙂
@Kate, My friends actually have a big outdoor plastic climbing play thing with a slide on it in their large entrance room (probably meant to be a living room or a formal dining room- instead it’s a jungle gym!). Our kids adore it!
My 2-year-old is a climber. He and his brother share a bunk bed, with him on the bottom. At night we block the ladder so that he can’t climb up it, but recently he has been finding other ways to try to climb up. The other night we heard him crying in his room, which isn’t too unusual. He is a night owl and stays up messing up his room after his brother has gone to sleep. We let him cry for a few minutes and I finally went in because he started sounding desperate. I found him hanging from the top bunk by his hands waiting to be rescued. He had pushed his little table over to climb up the end and then slipped off and was dangling just out of reach of the table. Sheesh! I am surprised that he has not gotten seriously hurt! It is impossible to constantly watch him though!
Have a Merry Christmas Stephanie! It was wonderful getting the chance to meet you, and I pray you enjoy a memorable and rich time with your family during your time off. Your kids are adorable 🙂 (My sixteen month old is a little monkey as well..so I particularly enjoyed Johanna’s “action” shot.) Blessings!
@Leah, Thanks, Leah, and Merry Christmas to you, too! I also had a wonderful time meeting you. Maybe we’ll get to connect again next year? 🙂
Great to see the pictures. Love the teeth one. Poor kid! 🙂
My youngest is also a climber (oldest one wasn’t). I should have known when she climbed upstairs and dissapeared when she was 8 months old! I didn’t realize it and was asking her sister “where did she go” not thinking it was even possible!
@Nola, She’s actually beginning to have problems with chewing some foods, so we hope that come back in quickly!
Stephanie – Thanks for sharing such precious photos of your children. They are so cute! Many blessings! I hope that you are having a very relaxing week!
@Becky @ Our peaceful Home, Thanks, Becky! You, too!