A family, ministry, & business update – Hf #82
Today is a little big different. Instead of talking about a homemaking topic, I’ve got Jason with me today and we are going to share a little update about our family and our ministry.
About 18 months ago we shared a ministry update in episode #26. This was our announcement that Jason had left his full time job in sales to run our ministry full time. So that was a fun announcement but a LOT has happened in the last 18 months. So we wanted to do a NEW update on what’s going on.
Listen to the Podcast:
We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both
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Listen to the full interview above with Jason and I and then skim through what we talked about below.
Family & Ministry Update
We had a busy 2016! We started off the year with a bang and went right into our kickstarter campaign for our online training academy, My Homemaking Mentor. The kickstarter campaign was a giant success and in July of 2016, My Homemaking Mentor was released to the public.
Psst: My Homemaking Mentor is currently closed down for enrollment, but will open up again in the Fall of 2017. You can sign up here to get notified when enrollment opens.
Then in August we rolled right into our Homeschooling Conference and got right into preparing for our 2016 Homemaking Ministries Online Conference. This was our third annual online conference and it was amazing! Then this carried us through the end of October and into Christmas.
We had a great full year of business and running it full time. It was a really exciting and full year. But for our family, we also had some exciting things happening.
Our Growing Family
In the first week of May 2016, we got a very special surprise blessing. Malachi & Micah were 3 years old and Remington & Ryder were only 9 months old…and we found out we were expecting!
We later came to find out that we were expecting a single girl due in January 2017. She is now 4 months old and doing so well!
We were not expecting to be pregnant in our first full year of business but we are so thankful now that God’s plans are not our own plans. It made 2016 a little tricky in certain ways, but we are loving our family with five kids four and under.
2017 and Beyond
It’s June now and I feel like each day is getting easier and easier. Malachi and Micah are almost 4 and a half. Remington & Ryder turn 2 in about 2 weeks. And Magnolia is nearly 5 months old. We are all setting into our new normal and picking our routines back up.
On the business front, we have some exciting plans for 2017!! Here’s a sneak peek of what we have coming up:
Homemaking Ministries Store
This is kind of my baby project this year that I am pouring a lot of love and time into. We are working on building up our store with physical products!! Right now we have Christian t-shirts and Scripture memory cards. But we are slowly working on building our store up into 15-20 items by the end of 2017.
In fact, we have a shipment of new products on our way to our house right now! It’s been so fun play with mailing out these amazing goodies! Jason and I have some really incredible plans and ideas for this store for this year.
Homemaking Ministries Online Conference 2017
TICKETS are coming SOON for our 4th annual online homemaking conference! Sign up here to get notified when tickets go on sale!!
Our Work at Home Life
Jason’s big project for this year is our brand new website: Our Work at Home Life. We have been working hard for about a year on this new venture and we are so excited.
Jason and I both have a passion for helping families build up their own online businesses. Whether you want to make an extra $300 a month to help with groceries, or you want to cover your mortgage payment, or you want to replace your or your spouses full time income…we are here to help!!
We want to teach others to do what we’ve built up over the past few years! You can hop over and discover what we are working on and sign up for our FREE 3 part video series on how to start a blog or business from home.
What we are currently reading:
Jason and I both have the insane goal of reading 104 books this year, which breaks down to 2 books a week! We are both behind on the challenge, but not as bad as I thought we would be at this point. Jason has read 38 books so far this year and I’ve read 31. You can follow me on Goodreads for book updates.
At the end of the episode, I asked Jason what he is currently reading and loving and he gave me three books!
- Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray
- Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
- Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris
I am currently in the middle of about 15 books! But the ones I’m working on wrapping up are:
- The Lifegiving Home by Sally Clarkson
- No Little Women by Aimee Byrd (I highly recommend this for women in ministry)
- Housewife Theologian by Aimee Byrd
- Theological Fitness by Aimee Byrd
Meal Planning Help:
I am really excited to share with you the sponsor of today’s podcast episode: PrepDish! If you ever feel like you wish you had a little help in your meal planning, then I highly encourage you to check out PrepDish. They offer gluten free meal plans and paleo meal plans.
But you don’t have to eat a gluten-free or paleo diet in order to take advantage of all that PrepDish has to offer! In fact, almost half of their customers don’t eat those diets. The meals are healthy and non-processed and work well for anyone who is trying to eat a healthy diet. And PrepDish is offering a super special TWO week free trail when you sign up through this link (how awesome!!)
When you sign up, you’ll receive an email every week with a grocery list and instructions for prepping your meals ahead of time. After only 1-3 hours of prepping on the weekend, you’ll have all of your meals ready for the entire week. I absolutely love how easy they make it.