see all the action live

There's no hiding my love for instagram. 

I don't think you have to do everything online. But woosh, instagram is a goodie. 

And now - with videos? I love it even more. 

Here are a few of my favorite videos I've uploaded recently. 

Meet you on instagram? 

This one is a preview of our Influence Network Worship night. 

Whitewash Films will be doing the real videos!

This video I've watched over and over again when feeling a little lonely in 

these early days of church planting. The Morgans (our partners in business/life/allthethings) 

came to visit a week or so ago and it was such a blessing. This video makes me smile. 

and lastly, this one is me lip syncing in Trader Joes. 
To the song I sang to Nick at our wedding reception 8 years ago. 
Enjoy:) 

don't be scared of summer + Albion Fit Giveaway

I have something to confess. 

For the bulk of my adult life, I've had a straight up fear of summer. 

Sure I love picnics and sun and playing -- but I hate bathing suits, shorts, and near nudity. 

I'm a modest kind of girl who feels like my stretchmarks are best kept to myself and, you know?

And then I found out about Albion Fit and I have to be honest. 

Now, I'm not scared of summer! I have to REALLY believe in a company and love their product to review it here, and I promise you - this is a product I love and am excited to share!

Albion Fit is a company that provides women's fitness and swimwear and nothing looks like it was made for a 12 year old. It's real, luxurious women's workout clothing and bathing suits that fit well and flatter your body. They asked me if I'd like to try something from their product line to review and since I knew I'd be in chilly Indiana for a bit - I chose the Balboa Tunic Dress.

I absolutely love this tunic because it can easily be worn two ways. When I'm in South Carolina in a few weeks, it will make the perfect blousy coverup to wear for hours and hours on the beach or while my kids play in the sprinklers in the backyard. BUT while I'm here in Indiana - I can wear it with long pants as a boho-ish type tunic dress.

Here are a few other of my favorites from Albion - the blousy bathing suit top and I love their hoodies! The gals from Albion are feeling super generous so they're giving one of you the Black Balboa Tunic as well AND a 15% discount for EVERYONE off the whole shop using coupon code NaptimeDiaries15. 

Follow the directions below to enter and head over to Albion Fit to use that discount!
None of us should be scared of summer, you know? 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

our healthy dream | an essential oils giveaway

I'm a dreamer. Nick and I dream on datenights and I dream while I run and I like to ask people about their dreams. For me, it's not always the crazy outrageous stuff - but I just like to hear the commonplace, "this would sure be a sweet life" dreams. For example, for awhile now - I've had a simple dream that our kids would grow up with really comfy beds. Not extravagant. Not expensive. Just a comfy mattress with some sweet clean sheets. I dreamed that they'd look back on their childhood and remember peaceful nights in their beds. 

This kind of dreaming is so good in small doses, because it jars us into reality about taking steps for the simple dreams. I don't want five years to pass by and realize I've been so caught up in the day to day and the big endeavors, that my kids didn't have sweet and simple beds and clean sheets, you know? 

Anyhow - this isn't a post about beds. But it is about a dream that I'm taking baby steps towards. In all honesty, when I dream about ten years from now - I want to be really, really healthy. I don't want to be really, really skinny or worship health - because it's not the end all be all, but I do want to know that I'm stewarding my body well and raising my family in simplest, healthiest way I can. 

Our family has had a windy road to health and wellness. A few years ago, we had a really standard american diet with lots of diet coke and boxed pizza (not that there is ANYTHING wrong with occasional diet coke and boxed pizza) and very little thoughts of health mixed in. Then we went into an intense phase of natural living - gluten free and vegan and making our own soap. Since then, we've been kind of finding our way - what works for us and what doesn't and what matters to us and what isn't so important. And every once in a while, we have to do these little checks to make sure we're on the right path. 

That's where Jodi comes in. I met Jodi through The Influence Conference last year and had an immediate connection with her. Just before Christmas, our family went through a horrible horrible season of sickness. I was having pregnancy complications, we all went through the flu, the stomach flu, multiple colds, and more than our fair share of puking. It seemed like we were always on another antibiotic and I didn't know how to get out of the crazy cycle of sickness. During this season, sweet Jodi emailed me and began to tell me about essential oils. She offered to send me a complete set of the Young Living Everyday Oils completely free, no strings attached, just to bless us. We were skeptical but desperate. 

I toyed with the oils a little before having Cannon, but not much. It wasn't until I came home from the hospital with intense uterine trauma that I got interested and started really asking Jodi questions. I had an abdomen that was bruised and crazy swollen from my complicated c-section. I was in serious pain and doctors and nurses gave me no real solution except to wait for it to heal - possibly six weeks or more. The first night I really tried the oils on my swelling and bruising, I was doubtful and hopeful all at once. I put Panaway and Lavender all over my abdomen and woke up to a stomach that was half the size it was the night before, with most of the major bruising GONE. 

Since then, I've slowly begun to learn more about essential oils and their benefits. I'll be 100% honest and tell you, the husband is still a good bit skeptical, but Jodi recently got him some big legit chemistry books that explain how the oils work and he'll be working his way through in his own time. Now, we're using lemon oil in our water for detoxing our liver and digestion. We're using Thieves for sore throats instead of tylenol. Panaway on sore knees after running. My kiddos are learning to stick their little toes out of their beds every night for their Peace + Calming oil application on their feet. Lavender, Peppermint, even Frankincense on Glory to help protect against seizures. I can't explain intelligently how essential oils work, but I love that we're reaching for oils over our medicine cabinet more often - and feeling more healthy everyday. 

Jodi has been incredibly generous and helpful with us and asked if I wanted to reach out to my readers and give away a set of the Everyday Oils Kit from Young Living, that comes with nine different oils - Lavendar, Thieves, Panaway, Peace and Calming, Peppermint, Valor, Purification, Frankincense, and Lemon. The thing I love about Young Living is that when you get their starter kit - you also become a distributor so you get wholesale prices on oils forever more!  

You can absolutely just enter the giveaway below, but I highly suggest you check out Jodi's site and look through the options of signing up as a distributor if you're at all interested in using oils for the longterm. For us, it's going to be a long road to getting the most out of them - but I am really, really excited to learn and mainly to just gain more knowledge on helping our family be as healthy as possible. 

Excited for the sweet gal who is going to win this package! 
I hope you all have an amazing weekend!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Also! One other little treat - every Friday for the next month I'll be having a giveaway or promotion of some sort. I'm really excited! Check back in for more from Lisa Leonard, Albion Fit, and more!

amazing grace || glimpses of mother's day

When I take in our little family, when I look at them as a whole - one word comes back over and over and over again. Grace. A gift I don't deserve. The Lord gifting me, us, with one another. Husband gifting wife and wife gifting husband. Kids gifting mamas and vice versa of course. I see Grace propelled by the Father. And I am so grateful. I hope y'all had a fantastic Mother's Day weekend. 

Here are some glimpses of ours. 

this guy. this smiley sweet, lovely, cuddly little guy. I spend the first 20 or so minutes of my morning in bed,
with him propped up like this - cooing and chatting away.  

We end most days piled in Benj's single bed together. All six of us. 

Even though I haven't run more than two miles since having Cannon,
I woke up Saturday really wanting to run six.
Nick kept encouraging me to just do it and then he texted me the whole time I was gone.
Love that guy. 

This handsome fella. Growing his beard for Gospel Community. 

Lately when it all feels like too much, we tumble out of the house and go on a short prayer walk.
When we look back, I think we'll see these days were crazy but prayer-filled. 

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me....

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now, I see.

T'was Grace that taught...

my heart to fear.

And Grace, my fears relieved.

How precious did that Grace appear...

the hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares...

we have already come.

T'was Grace that brought us safe thus far...

and Grace will lead us home.

The Lord has promised good to me...

His word my hope secures.

He will my shield and portion be...

as long as life endures.

When we've been here ten thousand years...

bright shining as the sun.

We've no less days to sing God's praise...

then when we've first begun.

chest pains + church planting

The new Exodus 14:14 print in our shop 

Saturday morning I woke up with chest pains. 
In the sleepy space between waking up and actually prying my eyes open, I tried to figure out what the achy pains were. Did I have mastitis? Was it early bronchitis? It hurt, whatever it was. I groaned a little to Nick, "My chest hurts, love".  By this time, my eyes were open and I was about a minute away from web-mding it. It didn't take long for me to place the tale-tell feelings of anxiety. Woosh, well at least it wasn't mastitis. 

The truth is. I'm scared. I'm terrified. 
I am very much in a season of faking braveness in multiple endeavors, putting on a stoic, excited face and plunging ahead like leadership is second nature for me. 

I encourage women and other believers to do brave things that the Lord might call them to, but I think my brave button is worn out. Choosing to host the conference last year was terrifying and I wasn't nearly ready it for it. I learned that leadership meant vulnerability and accountability and critique and not having a clear path of footsteps to follow. Writing the eBook was scary. Launching the network was terrifying. Moving to Fort Wayne with three weeks notice was scary. And y'all, as blessed and beautiful as having a fourth baby was - it shook me to my core. I remember driving to the hospital that morning, with no other options but to put one foot in front of the other and see how it all shook out. 

One thing you should know about me is I absolutely do not approach any situation with confidence. I can put on a mask of "can do", but my greatest fear in America is being found out. Being found as incompetent, being found as not enough, being found as plain old me. There was nothing in me that looked at 2012 and said "Alright, let's do all the things!". Instead I felt like I was always three steps behind the Lord - dragging my feet and wondering when we could take break for water. 

So all that being said. Church planting. Swallow. Swallow. Gulp. Gulp. 
My husband told me back in September that the Lord was moving and it was time for us to plant. It took me till November to tell any of my friends and till March to talk about it online. It's not because I'm not excited - I'm so excited. It's not because I don't think we are called - I really do, in the gut of my heart, know we are. It's not because I don't think Nick is ready or I worry about fundraising or I don't feel like planting. It's none of those things. 

It's because my brave button is wore out and my bones ache with insecurity. 
I want to be called to something that is easy and 3 steps can be completed and given a gold star. I long for middle management where the leader tells you what to do and cheers you on and the lower tier looks at you in awe and hangs on your every word. But it isn't always that easy, is it? 

That night, hours after the chest pains had subsided, I looked at Nick with tired eyes and said, "I'm scared. I'm scared we can't do it."
And nothing was more encouraging than him squeezing me as tight as humanly possible and saying, "We can't. But He can. And He will."
And I was so glad that my brave button is worn out.
Because where Jessi's ability runs out, Christ is there - being more than enough. 

My husband and I are currently fundraising to plant a church in Charleston, SC - we move NEXT MONTH. You can read more on Nick's blog and I'll keep sharing here about our transition. 

too much | glimpses of grace

I always tell people I'm a hope junkie. 

Which is nice, being a believer, knowing there is always hope - right?

Here are little glimpses of hope, which scream God's grace in my life. 

my sisters + nieces. can't believe I'm about to live in the same city with all those beauts. 

my glory girl. today she literally said to me, "thank you for taking care of when my brain was messed up". who says that? so grateful to do life with her. 

writing. currently working on content for the refresh ebook with Hayley. I like writing. 

my bridge. waiting for me in Charleston. (why are we moving to Charleston? see here!)

gals. just very grateful for the gals in my life. these two precious friends who visited from Seattle last week. internet friends to "meet with" throughout the week. fort wayne friends. and two of my dear friends had babies this week! I like friends. 

you? what are you glimpses of grace? 

the things stuck on my heart

Here are the things stuck on my heart right now. 

This line that my friend Sarah wrote about taking a break from blogging. "I'm exhausted of thinking of myself" Blogging is so often that. How do I feel about this? How can I best express it? What do others think of what I'm expressing?I think the opposite of that is holding your hands and words open to the Lord and asking Him what He wants you to say and when He wants you to say it and letting that be it. I'm trying very hard to sit there. 

This Cannon Murray character is 3 months old. How did that happen? Y'all, he's really as cool as he seems. Cooler, really. I feel like his birth and short life has sloughed the dead skin off my tender heart. Holding him and smiling at him has so awakened my mama heart for all my kids. Have I written that enough? Sorry, I can't stop saying it. Thank you, Lord. 

We are in the season of transition of all transitions. Did you know we're quite transient people? We've only spent two subsequent Christmases in one house and we've officially lived in seven house in seven years of marriage. This June, we'll move once again (after only being in Indiana for a year and a half) back to South Carolina to plant a church and enter into a totally new season - living in the same place for many, many years. I'm really grateful God has sustained us and enabled us to thrive through so much transition and so many different communities. But I may be writing about that a good bit in the coming month. 

And now in my caution to not exhaust thinking about myself I'm off. 
What's stuck on your heart today, friend? 

refresh day two | get radiant

We're so glad you're joining us for Refresh! 
If you're lost, catch up here. It's essentially two ladies on a experimental quest to refresh all the things. We started with our hearts yesterday and we're moving slightly north today. 
To our faces. 

I don't know about you, but when I'm in an off season - the first thing to go is makeup. When I'm in a sweet or spunky season of life - it's the first thing to come back. If you look back through my personal photo albums, truly - you can almost tell what kind of day/month/year I was having by whether or not I was wearing lipstick. 

The past few months have been marked by many blah days for me. Hair up + chapstick kinda days. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs those days. But for me, now that I'm ready to really refresh and move forward with some spring in my step - the first thing I needed to do was get my face situation worked out. I knew exactly who to reach out to - Nicole from Radiant. I emailed and basically asked her, "what would you suggest every lady needs?" She walked us through three looks and I'm so grateful. 

But, first. I gotta get brave. 
To show you a true transformation, we had to start with a blank slate. 

No comment, y'all. We're REALLY friends now. 

So first, we made a look that was doable EVERY day. It took about 3 minutes and I immediately felt better. I LOVE Radiant's foundation (I used LC1) and I'll never go back now. To that I added just a little bit of concealer, their peony blush, the georgia eye shadow all over, with the penny lane shadow lining the outer 1/3 of my eyelid. To make it real simple, my friend Meg drew me a picture of how to do it. 

Second, I needed a punched up look that would make me feel fresh heading out the door for a little bit. Basic, but not quite. For this face, we added a little bit of gel eyeliner and a lip gloss in Rue. I cannot get enough of the gel eyeliner. I've never been an eye liner girl, but you won't see me without it these days. I'm realizing how much more AWAKE I look with it on. And the gel aspect just makes it fun to put on and hard to mess up! 

Lastly, we added my absolute fave. A STRONG lip. I went with Radiant's matte lipstick  in Madrid and I was not disappointed. I'm a sucker for a red lip and the matte made it look so much more modern and so much less fussy. I can't do fussy. I also added just a bit more blush to equal out the lip. 

I'm really grateful for the gals over at Radiant helping us with this part of refresh. Not only did I need someone to hold my hand and tell me exactly what to wear without trying to sell me 15 products I don't need, I just happen to love their company a ton. They donate 20% of profits to fight human trafficking and they are working hard in the fight to combine business + justice in a creative way. All that and a funky, punchy red lip? I'm sold. 

How do you use makeup to refresh? 
Need help finding one or two or three products that will get you started on the road to feeling fresh-faced again? Holler at the Radiant girls on twitter or facebook and they will NOT disappoint. I promise. And you can trust me because I've shown you my face sans-makeup now. That's REAL friendship. 

Thank you for joining us today gals. Can't wait for more refreshment tomorrow! 

links to love, ladies.

Happy Friday, friends! I'm back with a few fun links + products for you to check out this weekend! I don't think you'll regret perusing these goodies for a few minutes!

The Tethered Crate is a business dreamed up by two women I really like a lot. Megan and Jessi saw all these subscription box services happening and got the beautiful idea to make one that brings handmade goods to people AND supports a non-profit cause each month. For $20, you get a sampling of products from a few different sources to try out + get to support a cool justice organization. I loved my first crate and I love this business. 

Megan, from The Tethered Crate was also a part of my small business mentorship group this past fall and I have been SO thrilled for her business' success! Her blog + shop She Does Justice makes a slew of products and when she told me about these t-shirts, I freaked out. The second they were in her shop, I ordered one! I got it this week and I'm in love! 

Lastly, here are the books I'll be reading on my analog weekend! 

Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches (borrowed from my friend, Lauren)

More Peas, Thank You (written by my dear friend, Sarah -- more on this soon!)

Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World (research for a year-long project)

Hope you enjoy these and most of all, enjoy your weekend! 

seven sweets about Cannon

Let it be known. This post is nothing but Cannon-filled. 
Seven things I want the world to know about Cannon Murray Connolly. 
One of the perks of being a blogger is taking up your own space to show off your baby cakes, Right? 

1. We call him all sorts of names. 
Squeaky (because he makes crazy noises).
Fluffy (because after his bath, he looks like a fluffy).
Cannon Bo Bannon. 
Cann-it (because Elias can't say Cannon). 

2. He doesn't cry a ton, but when he cries - HE CRIES. 
He screamed for the first two hours after he was born and I thought we were in trouble. He only really cries 2-3 times a day, but it's epic every time. 

3. He's a choker and a spitter. 
We literally had to call the ambulance + take him to the ER when he was about a week old because he choked and couldn't breathe for a few minutes. It's nerve-wracking to say the least. Now that he chokes less, he just spits up. An epic amount:) But it randomly smells real sweet, like almond milk. Creepy, huh? 

4. He's just started cheesy smiling real big. None of us can get enough of it. 
I think Glory, Nick, Elias and I are in a constant competition to get him smiling. Nick always wins. He loves to snuggle and sleep with mama, but he likes to be awake with Daddy. 

5. Speaking of sleep, he's slept twice through the night. Woohoo! He's kind of slept through the night (without eating) since he came home from the hospital, but he's not been able to sleep through the night without being held. He's now done two nights of 10pm-5am in his own bed, without being held. Mama kinda misses him. 

6. He has dark, dark blue eyes. Blonde-almost-ginger fluffy hair. Long fingers. Long feet. 
Y'all, the pictures don't like. He's crazy handsome. 
If you saw us out in public, you'd ask, "why is that insane woman kissing her baby fifteen times in a row?". 

7. We're madly in love. 
Him + I. The family + him. I think he likes us ok. 
We're really, really, really grateful for him. 
I wish you could all hold him and bury your faces in the folds of his sweet chubby cheeks. 

happy, #2.

A quick update of things that are making me happy today. 
Sidebar: the thorough talker in me feels the need to go into an extra theological conversation about the word "happy". I mean I'm not over here striving for "happy". Joy, joy is what we're after? Contentment, yes. But whatever. 
Here are some things that make me happy. 
And that's ok! 
Theological overthinking done. 

Melody Joy is a dear friend to me and another small business owner! 

She makes these beautiful nest rings + she is having her big sale of the year right now - buy two get one free. You absolutely have to check these beauties out. They're lovely and meaningful and the perfect gift for mamas and mamas to be. 

Analog Weekends are an idea that The Tiny Twig dreamed up and I'm following! Until further notice, I'll be off social media from about 5pm on Friday through Sunday night. No instagram, no twitter, no facebook. I literally delete them off my phone. Just to live real life quietly and genuinely and make sure we're LIVING. I've done it two weekends in a row and I start to crave it now! We'd love for you to join us!

Lastly, when I am on social media - I've been loving instagram lately. It's just such a sweet place to be! I just started to realize that a lot of my instagram followers didn't even know we ran a print shop so I've been doing some little friday promotions on there to bless the insta-people! If you don't follow over there, please do! Each Friday in March, I'm doing some promotions and sales that I'll only post there! Last weeks was 3 exclusive prints for CHEAP. 

I'll see you over there! 

Alright y'all! 

Hope you're joyful, content, and EVEN happy today. 

5 things about Glory

all photos in this post are by Hannah Arnold at Visions Photography

I dedicated a little bit ago to start writing more about my big kids. I explained then, it's not that I don't WANT to write about them or that I don't think about them, but they feel like this real and sacred part of my life that is worth much more than the little words I can write about them. 
But still, it's worth a shot right?

Today is my Gloriana's fifth birthday. 
Gloriana Eloise Connolly. If you think her name is elaborate and beautiful, you can't begin to imagine her personality and all it entails. Glory. Our glory girl. 
For the past few weeks, Nick has been bringing up her birthday and fake crying about it to make her laugh. The truth is, when her dad and I get real quiet, we could work up a few genuine tears about how grateful we are for her, how surprised we are by God's grace and goodness in her life, and just how terribly happy we are to be her parents. 

If you don't know a lot about Glory's medical history, you can read here, here, and here to find out why we tend to be very tender when it comes to our gal. We even still sleep with our bed arranged in a way that if both our doors are open, we can see her at anytime of the night - not to mention that she's a five year old who must be listened too all night with a baby monitor. I pray that as diligently as we watch over her health, we'd watch over her heart. I often feel super unequipped for that task, but I praise God that He entrusted her to us. 

Now, on to some sweet things you should know about our Glory-ory. 

1. She's a Cannon lover, through and through. 
We were super nervous after she had such a bad reaction to finding out we were having a boy. She didn't even seem super excited about the baby. But now that he's here - oh goodness, she's smitten. The other night we were putting her to bed and we let her cuddle with him in her bed for a bit. Nick and I caught her saying, "Mommy's here.... Mommy's here.... Mommy's here.....". She was talking about herself. 

2. She is creepily smart. 
She doesn't have a super long attention span and traditional learning is so not her thing right now, but she is an osmosis-audio-learner like you wouldn't believe. We'll leave a store where a secular-radio song is being played and five minutes later realize she is singing it, word-for-word after only hearing it once. She's also super soul smart too. She understands heavy concepts and perceives when people are hurting, sometimes to the point where it makes her super uncomfortable. 

3. Her bottom lip. 
She bites it in passion, joy, anger, and well - passion. It will make you die laughing or run for your life. You'll see it just before she pummels you with hugs and kisses, just before she makes the funniest jokes ever, and just before she punches you in the face. True story. 

4. She says the darnedest things. 
Super embarrassing things like when she filled her playdate friends in on my private anatomy and things she's witnessed when she catches me in the bathroom. (true story) Or when she gets mad and runs to her room and screams "I AM SO MAD AND YOU ARE SILLY." (true story) Or when she got jealous of another little girl for the first time and weepily declared, "Where she exists, there can be no glory." (true story) 

She loves to grab her little notebook and pretend write all around our house. I pray the Lord uses those precious words. I'd love to see her be a writer. Or whatever He wants. 

5. She makes our family just perfect. 
Our fiery little princess. 
So grateful for you, G. 

this fun online life.

Right now I'm prepping for my Handmade: Next Level class with the Influence Network this week and I thought I'd share a little bit about our lives as small business owners as it stands right now. I wonder if our lives will always be like this, so it might be fun to look back eventually, and also - it's one of my most emailed questions; 
what is your life like? how do you handle it all? 

So. Here's what it's like. 
First, our small business/online life has become much more manageable, structured, and consolidated over the last year and that is a goooood thing. As of right now, we run our shop, I write the blog, and we manage the network. I also write for/help manage SheReadsTruth, but that falls more into extra-curricular Jessi-ministry time. The shop feels very much like Nick's job, the blog feels like my job, and the network feels like a team effort. I don't do anything without Hayley and we don't do anything without our amazing team. 

But how does it all shake out? 
I'll tell you... 

Our schedule - monthly/weekly/daily is like a massive puzzle that we work on together. Things are planned pretty meticulously and most of our days are very much on purpose. At least once a week, Nick and I tackle the weekly schedule and talk about the days in detail. Then before going to bed, we kind of review the next day. We share and split responsibilities and we take days and nights off pretty seriously. Right now, Saturday is our only real day off from business, church, and ministry and we're getting better at guarding the mess out of it. But other than that, it's a big puzzle. 

About 70-75% of our income comes from our handmade shop, with the rest coming in from other endeavors and freelance stuff. Since this is our livelihood - we don't just watch what happens and hope for the best. We plan the shop and all of it's promotions and new releases and marketing based off past patterns and the budget. Right now, we almost always have a 2-3 month plan in place, I'd love to get to where I know what's ahead for a whole year, but we're not there yet. 

Like I said, Nick is pretty much 100% the boss of the print shop, even though I'm the mouthpiece. This has been incredibly good for our business. We've established that I have a good grasp on social media and women and their hearts, but when it comes to keeping things running and getting product out - he does the best. About twice a week, he has a packing/shipping session and he actually REALLY enjoys it. It feels like magic when my creative/marketing side and his strategic/logical side meet in the middle. I'm grateful for it. 

I think having inspirational women that you can look to is super important. There aren't many people who identify with our job/businesses/stresses/joys, but when I find someone - I watch them & draw encouragement from them. These people for me are 

Hayley & Mike: our business partners, of course. Hayley is my friend first, but she also really identifies with my schedule and my concerns and my stresses. It really helps that our husbands also really like one another and can relate to our personal brand of crazy. 

Lara Casey: editor & chief of Southern Weddings, mama, founder of Making Things Happen. Lara just inspires the mess out of me. I've got big hopes to one day 

share a cup of coffee with her! 

Korie Robertson: y'all - Duck Dynasty isn't just a funny show. It's a family business turned national brand. Do you not think it takes some wise women encouraging + serving those camo-clad men? The scenes where Korie comes into the office are usually super cute, but I see past that and I picture walking around our family's office years from now (minus the cameras). I'd love for Naptime Diaries to eventually employ people we love, with all of us working together to get more scripture in more homes in more creative ways. 

lastly, Lisa Leonard is a huge inspiration to me. Not only do I love her jewelry, I love her story. I love that she does what she loves and her husband partners with her and also does ministry. I love that even though she's incredibly successful, her children come first. I love that she is strategic AND kind and both encourage me. 

In general, I have to say - I love this crazy little life. I was telling a friend recently that something has certainly shifted in my head and heart and I rarely feel bitter that I have a lot on my plate and not a ton of people around who understand exactly what that looks like. Now, I just choose to feel grateful. I have a lot to get done every week, I have some very full hands. But I'm really grateful for this life. For sure. It's also sweet to have grace for other women around me, because who knows what they have on their plate that may be stressful for them. 

On Thursday, I'll be teaching the class on handmade businesses and I think there are about 10 seats left. If you're a small business owner who would like to learn more about going past hobby and into profitability, I'd love to have you join us! Grab more details here!

And if you're already signed up for the class, what are some questions you might have? 

I'd love to know!

look who got dressed || a Noonday giveaway

I will be the first one to confess to y'all - it's been no fashion show round these parts the last six weeks. The other day I texted my friend, 

"I'm getting dressed, I'll be a few minutes late!"

Then, I had to text her back a few minutes later and say, 

"By getting dressed, I want you to know I mean I'm cleaning up 

baby spit up off the sweatshirt I've been wearing for 3 days."

In all honesty, I'm a solid 5-10 pounds out from wearing my pre-pregnancy clothes and I just don't feel like buying new ones. But the yoga pants situation was becoming all too much and so this weekend, I did something drastic. 

I got dressed.  

I just went out and put on my big girl face and marched into that forever 21 and put my feelings on the shelf until I found a pair of pants that zipped. I refuse to buy anything more expensive than jeans I could find at forever 21 because these are temporary, you know? 

But I still needed more help.
I needed inspiration.
Enter the big ring. If you've been around Naptime Diaries at all, you know I have a relationship with big rings. They set something going in me that I can't deny. They uproot some deep seated desire to be creative, to express myself, to... get dressed. 

It's the best kind of slippery slope. You put on a big ring. You paint your nails. You can't wear yoga pants + a sweatshirt with a fun big ring and painted nails? Pull out the curling iron and the big girl jeans -  sister, we're back in business. 

And if you're gonna wear a ring, I gotta suggest this beauty from Noonday Collection. I first got introduced to Noonday a few years ago and there is NOTHING on their website I don't love. When you combine beautiful jewelry with providing jobs for artisans in with families living in poverty, families raising money for adoptions, and encouraging women in their creative endeavors -- now that is a company I can get behind. 

Check out Noonday's story for certain and I don't think it would be an awful idea to check out their ambassador program. I have a friend, Kim, who is an ambassador and truly loves the company! Check out her page too while you're at it! 

The gals at Noonday are graciously going to give one of you your own Tagua Ring. Your size, your color. Your very own just in case you need the motivation to get dressed in the morning. If you don't need the motivation, hooray! Just enjoy the ring. If you're like me, put that bad boy on and go about your business. 

Enter the giveaway today and check out Noonday for sure!

And don't judge me if I'm back in yoga pants today. 

One day on, on day off? Is that fair? 

I vote yes. Ah, go get your ring:) 

a Rafflecopter giveaway