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Joy's Fun Stuff

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Holidays

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Gifts

Deep Thoughts

Mom Hacks

Food

How I Only Do a Couple Loads of Laundry a Week (with a family of 7)

How to Decorate an Awesome Party on the Cheap: DIY Ideas, Tips, and Examples

10 Fun & Easy New Year's Party Activities to make all your wildest dreams come true

Top 6 Easy Ideas to Rock Your New Year's Party with Kids (why is it only a WEEK after xmas?!!)

Super Easy & Fun Way to Celebrate Veteran's Day (and it doesn't cost a thing!)

Top 4 Tips for Packing School Lunch

Top 4 Tips for Packing School Lunch

Want to know the biggest trick I have up my sleeve for packing school lunches? 1. Make the kids do it. Ha! I come from a family of 8 kids and I never remember packing a single lunch growing up. Seriously, my mom is Super Woman and packed a lunch for all of us and my sweet dad every single day. I have no idea how she did it. Just thinking about it makes me want to order a pizza. That worked for her and I certainly wasn't complaining about that set up as a kid. But after a few

Rocking It: Easy Activity for a Laid Back Day

Rocking It: Easy Activity for a Laid Back Day

At Costco a few weeks back we found a cool little painted rock, and by "we" I of course mean a few of my kids. I saw said rock but didn't care enough about it to even register that it was a thing. My boys, however, excitedly picked it and found a magically handwritten note glued to the underside telling us we could keep it or rehide it. Being the fun mom I am, I suggested hiding it right back where we found it, but the boys so adamantly insisted that it was pocketed and admir

Top 5 Easy Kid Activities that Don't Make Me Crazy

Top 5 Easy Kid Activities that Don't Make Me Crazy

I kind of hate forts. The kids love them but it's just a matter of WHEN the fighting will start. Then there's the chairs and the blankets... Sigh. That is not one of my activities of choice, but I'm probably in the minority there. I just hate 1. fighting and 2. messes. Summer is quickly coming up and we will soon find ourselves with a new schedule and random chunks of time needing filling. While much of that time will be kids running and being free outside, sometimes we find

Dried Black Beans are Bomb

Dried Black Beans are Bomb

Full disclosure: I haven't menu planned in a while. Since I did a post on how easy and wonderful it is and how essential and blah blah blah, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that here. But it's true. We've been flying by our seats and while I hate it, I'm obviously not hating it enough to quickly do something about it, as I am writing this instead of pounding that out. Last night at about 4:45 it suddenly occurred to me that food was shockingly needing to be prepared yet agai

Anger-Be-Gone with 1 Magic Phrase

Anger-Be-Gone with 1 Magic Phrase

We all have times when we are barely getting by, where microwaving dinner sounds just too hard. As pathetic as I am, I have just been through a week of that. Matt's had a business trip for 6 days and I'll tell you what, it is no joke. I have NO IDEA how you single/military/husbands-work-crazy-hours moms out there function because I'm. So. Dang. Tired. Matt occasionally takes work trips but its been a while since he's been gone this long. And I certainly didn't have all of my

Top 6 Easy Meals to Make with a Rotisserie Chicken

Top 6 Easy Meals to Make with a Rotisserie Chicken

Meal prep is the bane of my existence, along with laundry. And vacuuming. Not ironing, because I don't do that, but if I did, it would be too. But anything I can do to simplify and streamline the old daily grind of getting delicious food on the table and into our bellies brings joy to my soul. Enter the rotisserie chicken. Precooked, it can be the solution to your dinnertime woes. However, it can also be $5 in the garbage can if you don't actually use it One of my Costco stap

Top 10 Dollar Tree Finds, Part 2

Top 10 Dollar Tree Finds, Part 2

Yesterday I got my oil changed, which is not really noteworthy or anything. But Matt kept the kids and I had a whole hour and a half to my lonesome, and THAT was exciting. Being the wild woman I am, I seized the day and walked a block to the Dollar Tree. Carpe diem, baby. Couple Points here: 1) If you're interested in reviewing my somewhat creepy fascination with this store, Part 1 is here. 2) The Dollar Tree is NOT sponsoring this post. I'm not cool enough for that reality.

The Holy Week Easy Ideas

The Holy Week Easy Ideas

Every year I kill myself at Christmas ensuring that I've provided enough meaningful experiences for my family to both understand the spiritual significance of the birth of Christ as well as enjoy the magic of the season. And then every year on Easter night I kick myself for missing the opportunity to do the same for Easter. It's just a shame. Last year I found this awesome book and fell right in love with it. (not sponsored) It is like celebrating Holy Week for Dummies. (Holy

How to Make Rainbow Noodles

How to Make Rainbow Noodles

Rainbow Noodles, or food-colored noodles, are a magical meal. They are cheap. They are fast. Everyone eats them. It's pretty much a slam dunk here at our house. We save this very special recipe for very special occasions. It's a traditional St. Patrick's Day food here, but these would be a fun colored meal for just about any holiday. Valentines=Pink 4th of July=Red, White (or no color) & Blue Halloween=Orange and Green You get the idea. St. Patrick's Day noodles could either

Baptism Ideas

Baptism Ideas

Our second was baptized this last Saturday, and man, was this kid excited. The next day he tried to convince us it was really Saturday so that he could get baptized again. He is a character for sure. I've learned a few things on the whole deal and thought I'd pass it on. Purpose First off, as fun (or stressful, depending on your personality type) as it is to do all the extras, baptisms are about being baptized. Wow. So insightful, I know, but it's so easy to forget that. The

St. Patrick's Day Decos: Making Life More Complicated, One Holiday at a Time

St. Patrick's Day Decos: Making Life More Complicated, One Holiday at a Time

We have a trickster Leprechaun that comes here every year. He does all sorts of things here while we're asleep and causes mass excitement. Lucky has done some really great tricks through the years, mischief that has endeared him to my kids and helped placed St. Patrick's Day as one of their favorite holidays. The thing he's most famous for with our family are his decorations. This pic is from a few years back at our old house. We called it the Barney Room. Painting the walls

Top 10 Dollar Tree Finds, Part 1

Top 10 Dollar Tree Finds, Part 1

I am kind of a kid's craft supply hoarder, full disclosure. I see googly eyes and alphabet beads and I cannot restrain myself. It's kind of a problem. The nearest Dollar Tree isn’t really close and my local Target has the worst dollar spot I've ever seen. It's like 3 shelves. Horrible. So since we've lived here, I've been really missing my cheap craft fix. I made a little trek to our closest Dollar Tree this week and felt like singing that old song, "Reunited and it feels so

Easy Family Valentine

Easy Family Valentine

15 minutes. That's how long this bad boy took me to make, and that included googling "hand lettering love" for the cheat on those words. So easy and fast. I like to keep a small stockpile of poster boards in my stash (love you Dollar Tree!) for impromptu projects like this, but this idea would totally work with construction paper or even lined paper torn out from that old notebook in the church bag. Basically, this is a place for each member of the family to write things they

Olympics Kick Off

Olympics Kick Off

I'm not sure if you knew, but with the Olympics Opening Ceremonies happening on Friday I thought it was time for me to share that I've been in serious training for about a decade now. Before then, it was just kind of hit and miss, but almost 10 years ago I went into hard core, full time training and haven't looked back. Stating fact here, but I'm pretty sure if I went into competition I would take the Gold. Unfortunately the Olympics Federation still refuses to recognize Diap

Flashlight Tag: The Game of Champions

Flashlight Tag: The Game of Champions

Have you played Flashlight Tag? It's not complicated and it's a hit with just about any group of people you get together: family night, date night, crazy teenagers, family reunion. I first played this game as a teenager on a double date with a married couple and their son, a potentially awkward situation turned completely awesome with this free game. Since Flashlight Tag is mostly in the dark, it brings out the wild side of people so be prepared. Grandma might throw an elbow

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Halloween Gingerbread Houses

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Gratitude Turley

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Veteran's Art Surprise

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Turkey Stick Puppet

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Tape Masks

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