3 Simple Ways to Worship God with Your Toddler

We've been doing family devotions at home with Anna since she was about 12 months old, and I wish we had started sooner!

Not only does our 3-step approach allow God time to minister to my heart and my husband's heart when we were otherwise skipping over family devotional time, but it lays a foundation for our daughter to know God's love for her.

Family Devotions at Home with a Toddler

There's not much to it. The best part? It takes 5-10 minutes and can be achieved in three easy steps:

1. Sing a song of praise
2. Read a bible verse out loud
3. Say a prayer

Sing a song of praise

We are lucky that my husband plays guitar. In fact, his talent for music is, what I believe, a blessing from God, but he has gone years without playing it. The act of doing this with our daughter has brought his guitar out of its case on a daily basis.

Matt and I will pick a song for the week and sing it every day with Anna. Sometimes, it's a favorite hymn. Sometimes, it's as simple as Jesus Loves Me.

The point is that we are worshiping together, and God loves that, no matter how simple the song.

If you don't play an instrument, play a recording of the song and sing along!

I recommend doing this step first as most toddlers can't resist a good song and opportunity to get the wiggles out.

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Books for Babies Under 1 - October Library Book Haul

Finding books for babies under 1 seems like an easy task, but when you want to be intentional about the things you're reading to them while also holding their attention, you often find some books just don't engage babies very well - or mom and dad for that matter. 

The result? You find yourself knee deep in baby books that no one wants to read. 

The library has been a godsend in terms of exploring new titles before we make a financial commitment. It's no secret that I'm a book lover raising my daughter to love books too, and I really want to work on building her a permanent collection of children's books that are not only appropriate for the current stage she is in, but also remain engaging as she gets older. 

One of the things I enjoy doing with her is visiting the library weekly. The children's section of our local library has a shelf dedicated to baby board books. Anna loves crawling over to the shelf to practice standing while I select some I hope she'll enjoy. 

Last week we checked out seven baby board books, and below, I'm sharing why I picked these books, along with Anna's reaction (or as much as a reaction a 10 month old can have), and my final thoughts on these books which will reflect if I found the book worth adding to our permanent collection.

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Preparing for Baby: How I Reduced Stress During Pregnancy

Stress during pregnancy is inevitable, especially if you're a first time mom, and I had my fair share of it. With so many life changes hitting me all at once (like moving to another state, selling our home, quitting my job, and having a baby for the first time), I was having a hard time handling the transitions. 

More than ever, I needed to figure out how to reduce stress during my pregnancy not only for my own sanity, but for the health and well being of our baby. 

When I was pregnant, I ended up developing a mood disorder that remained with me six months postpartum and was officially diagnosed as Postpartum Depression and Anxiety. During my pregnancy, it manifested itself in severe anxiety that often left me struggling to sleep at night, not knowing when the next panic attack would show up.

How I Reduced Stress During Pregnancy

1. Limit Daily To-Do List to Three Essentials

When I would share that I was struggling with anxiety, a few people said it was normal during pregnancy, that hormones are just all over the place, but Matt and I knew that something was off. I know for some, they just wanted to help me feel better about what I was going through, but often, I left the conversations feeling misunderstood.

In the end, it was my concern for my baby that put me in front of a therapist. I wanted her to have a healthy mother.

The therapist helped me give myself permission to relax. We looked at what was causing me severe anxiety and she helped give me the tools I needed to handle it in healthier ways.

One of the areas of anxiety for me was being overwhelmed with the amount of tasks and chores I felt I needed to be doing, so one of the tools my therapist helped me with was to limit my daily to-do list to three essential things where one of those essentials needed to involve some kind of self care.

For me, those three essentials were getting out of the apartment, preparing for the baby, and completing a house task (like dusting or doing laundry)

I would also add some lavender essential oil to my diffuser during the day and have it on while I completed my tasks to help me stay calm and relaxed.

Tip: If you have a scent that you associate with happy memories, find a way to have it near you throughout your day whether you wear the scent or burn a scented candle. For me, my cousin gifted me a lavender scented moisturizer that I also used on my honeymoon. Ever since, lavender has been my signature scent that transports me to a joyful and peaceful time.

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DIY Book Page Art - How to Print on Book Pages

Did you know you can print on book pages? It's rather easy. You just need access to a printer, a graphic of your choosing, and book pages. I've put together this step-by-step tutorial to walk you through the process. When you're done? Frame it for a great gift or practically free wall art in your own home!


I love a good gallery wall, don't you? Whether we own our house or are renting an apartment, I always have at least one gallery wall going on which means I need a lot of unique wall decor to mix and match depending on the layout and needs of a room.

A couple of years ago, I made these quick book page art pieces to fill in a few gaps for a gallery wall and they've been such an easy, neutral addition to any room.

This project is SO EASY. No need for photoshop. You can do this DIY project in Microsoft Word for the cost of some printer ink, a picture frame, and a few ripped book pages.

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10 Newborn Essentials We Needed After the Baby Arrived

Before Anna was born, newborn essentials meant finding the most beautiful-yet-comfortable-welcome home outfit for our little baby.

It also meant countless hours of finding the safest-yet-affordable-yet-stylish baby gear.

While I'm happy to say all of our baby gear selections turned out to be great for us, I still had no idea what daily life was going to be like. Once we got home from the hospital and lived a week or two with our little baby, there were definitely a few key items we were scrambling to acquire after we brought the baby home.

If you're looking for a beautifully curated collection of perfectly matching items, this isn't the place to find them.  If you're looking for a post providing a million research-backed analysis on baby items, this isn't the place for that either. The following items were purchased out of exhaustion and desperation. These items are no-fuss and served us well in our need to problem solve on a whim.

Here's a list of 10 newborn essentials we bought after we brought Anna home

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases through some of the links in this post. Thank you so much for supporting me!

1. Seventh Generation Diapers

We started out with Pampers Swaddlers for sensitive skin, but around 1 month, we noticed a heavy duty rash appear no matter how clean we kept her. By accident, we ended up with a huge supply of Seventh Generation diapers which we didn't like at first as the newborn size was huge on her, but they turned out to be the only diapers that didn't irritate her as we fought night and day to get the diaper rash to go away. These diapers were also the most affordable disposable option in terms of bleach-free, all natural materials.

2. Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment

To help ease the diaper rash, we use Aquaphor. No fuss ingredients and it keeps moisture at bay without drying her skin. One tub got us through 2 months and for at least one month, we were applying it at every diaper change.

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12 Days in Italy: An Itinerary

Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links

It was the end of twelve glorious days in Italy with my husband, and we were sitting outside a tiny cafe on one of the oldest highways in the world: the Appian way, eating croissants with the rest of our Walks of Italy tour group. A young couple was mid-way through their one-week blitz through the country, and I was dizzy from the sound of their itinerary.

"You're going to visit how many cities in six days?" I nearly choked on my cappuccino. I felt like we barely saw the country in two weeks of travel, so I couldn't comprehend how this couple was going to visit twice as many places in half the time.

I made eye contact with Matt and smiled. I knew he was thinking about that day in Positano he wanted us to do too much and how, after we left that beautiful town, he would have been just as content sitting on our hotel balcony the whole time, soaking in the beautiful Mediterranean view. There were definite moments during our 12 days in Italy where we wasted more time trying to figure out how to "see everything" than actually seeing everything.

But the key to travel is always less is more. This isn't your how-to-see-ALL-of-Italy-in-12-days guide. This also isn't the perfect guide to Italy either. We made a lot of mistakes, and some of those mistakes turned out to be our favorite memories from the trip. Here's how we explored Italy along with a few recommendations and highlights.

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