Fortify Your Family

I fell asleep sitting up in the patio chair … apparently I’ve been tired lately … and woke up to this dreamy real-life scene:

My kids staged the patio table with a propped up new book they knew I was waiting to read, along with a small bowl of cashews and a freshly poured glass of lemon water (with a straw even!).

As I blinked back into reality, I heard something … my trio serenading me! “Mother, I love you … Mother, I do …” I’m not even kidding! Sure, they quarreled over who should hold the songbook, so the song (and kids) became unglued and didn’t finish their grand finale … but REALLY – what kiddos even scheme up such a sweet plan!? They blow me away!

That book I’ve been wanting to pour over … well, I want to introduce you to it (I love it when mamas share their favorite tools with me!) …  52 Weeks to Fortify Your Family by Nicole Carpenter. For the 2015-16 school year, I plan to catapult our days with spiritual thoughts from this book. Each week has a Gospel theme broken down into 5 days of short spiritual thoughts. The weekly themes include aligning scriptures, quotes and thought-provoking questions. I plan to skip around through the book, selecting a week’s theme based on our family needs; then I’ll mark that we’ve completed that week so I can keep track of what we’ve done. Last year I tried something similar to this, but created it from scratch … I love that the skeleton of the discussion is already lined up for us; and we can customize or add to as needed. I think this book would be a great resource for Family Home Evenings too!

Also, Nicole created www.momentity.com, an online community for busy mamas seeking balance. She’s the sweetest thing – and knows what she’s talking about! So, check it out!