Feathers in Our Nest

a blog about faith, family, food, & more written by a wife and stay at home mom of five

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Old Fashioned Blogging, and Why I Took a Break

July 6, 2017 by Aliesha

You guys. I miss blogging! I’ve been trying to come up with a way to break the silence over the last two months, and I can’t think of a better way than an “old fashioned” blog post of life updates!

In keeping with the old fashioned blogging theme, how about a few comments like the old days? HAHA! I miss the connection that I used to feel when blogging… the comments, the jumping to and from each other’s blogs to read the latest posts and comment… it definitely is a different blogging world now than it was in 2010!

I share a lot of daily updates on Instagram, but I do miss keeping up with this blog, and I hope to do more blogging this summer.

Without further ado… some updates on life!

In May, we finished up our homeschool year! We really loved learning together all year, and it was such a joy to reach the end of 36 weeks of school and see all that we had learned during the year (myself included)! By God’s grace, we’re homeschooling again this year (more on that in a bit).

Also in May, Tad took me on a trip to Charleston to celebrate my 30th birthday! We had an amazing time, and I would love to share more about our time there! Maybe I can pull together a few posts on the trip. Suffice to say, we ate our way through town!

In May and June, we packed in as many day trips, fun family outings, and short overnight visits as we could! I joked that we were packing in a whole summer’s worth of activities to just a month! But with starting school up at the beginning of July, we did want to make our time off count!

We went on vacation with my family for a long weekend, and that was such a fun-filled time of memory-making and pool splashing!  Of course we signed up for the summer reading program at the library again this summer, and it’s been so special to see Vera reading lots to her siblings! She’s just taken off in her reading since school officially let out, and I’m amazed at how well she’s reading chapter books!

I took the kids to visit Tad’s family another weekend (he had to work). We enjoyed spending time with them as well!

As our final “hoorah” to our break from school, we spent a few days in Raleigh while Tad did some work there. During the daytime I packed in as much fun stuff for the kids as I could! Over a couple of days, we went to the mall, the movies, the art museum, Pullen Park, the science museum, another mall, and the children’s museum! Totally wore them (and me) out!!

We started our new school year this past Monday, and we’ve had a great first week! I’m still working on juggling the needs of all my students, but we love how Sonlight allows us to do so many subjects all together. It’s such a good fit for our family!

I tried to make the 4th of July a special celebration in our family! The kids told me it was the best day ever, so I think we succeeded. We had fun snacks, we grilled out, we made s’mores, everyone had special outfits, Tad set off fireworks in the front yard, and of course we read books about our country’s history!

So… are you getting a sense as to why I haven’t been blogging much lately? We have been living such FULL, beautiful days, that I barely have time to Instagram everything, let alone edit photos from my “big” camera and blog about it!

In addition to all these outings and adventures, I’ve been taking meals to friends with new babies, reading library books to the kids, going to the splash pad, organizing the house, exercising, reading (yes, for myself!), planning our homeschool year, ETC.!

Oh, and in January I became an Independent Consultant for Usborne Books & More, and my business has been growing and expanding! In May I promoted to Team Leader and I now have nine girls on my team (and counting!) whom I lead, support, and train.  Our family LOVES the books, and we have been able to add so many new titles to our family’s library since I started this business. So almost all of my free time (time I used to spend blogging) has gone into investing in my business over the past few months! It’s for sure paying off, and I love, LOVE having a way to help advance literacy around the country, get free books for my kids, and earn a little extra money (which we’ve been blessed to use for some of the fun adventures mentioned in this post)!

Also, I am still growing a tiny new baby (in case you forgot since I’ve posted almost ZERO pregnancy updates this time around)! I had a check-up today and baby girl is growing and seems to be quite healthy!

Well I think that’s probably enough updates for tonight! Tell me about your summer! How is it going so far?

Filed Under: everyday, family

The Best Way to Print Instagram Photos

November 10, 2016 by Aliesha

The Best Way to Print Instagram Photos: fast, easy, inexpensive, & the first book is FREE! | Feathers in Our NestIf you’re looking for the best way to print Instagram photos, I’d have to say that Chatbooks is the way to go!  I’ve been subscribed to Chatbooks for over a year now (it’s one of the few subscription services/boxes that I have hung on to for more than a couple of months) and I LOVE getting my photo books in the mail!

Chatbooks is a company that will print your Instagram photos, dates, and captions in small photo books and ship them to you as they are filled up.  You don’t have to do any design work… they do it for you!  However, you can go in and edit captions, remove photos, or add photos if you desire since they notify you before your book goes to press.  You even get to choose the cover photo!

Each book holds 60 photos, so if you Instagram a photo every day, that’s roughly six photo books a year.  (So, $48 to have 365 days worth of memories printed & shipped to you in beautiful little books = a VERY good deal!)  If you Instagram a LOT, you may fill up books more quickly, but it’s really up to you!

If one of your books needs to be replaced, you can easily order a new copy!  (I have a few books that have been chewed on, so I need to order replacements!)  Because they are not too expensive, I don’t mind my kids leafing through them when they want.The Best Way to Print Instagram Photos: fast, easy, inexpensive, & the first book is FREE! | Feathers in Our Nest

We keep a few baskets of Chatbooks in the living room for easy perusal!  The kids love looking back at our family history (well, at least back to when I started using Instagram in the spring of 2012!).

It takes almost no time at all to set up your Chatbooks subscription.  Like I said, they do all the work of organizing the photos into books for you!  So simple for this busy mama.

Chatbooks make great gifts or stocking stuffers as well!

If you use my link in this post, you’ll get your first book completely free!  If you like it, you can keep your subscription.  If not, you can cancel anytime!

Learn more about Chatbooks here!The Best Way to Print Instagram Photos: fast, easy, inexpensive, & the first book is FREE! | Feathers in Our Nest

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I was not paid to write this post, but if you join using my referral link, I can earn free Chatbooks. (So can you, by the way! Subscribe, then share with your friends too!)

Filed Under: everyday, family, gift ideas

My Kids’ New Favorite Activity

May 5, 2016 by Aliesha

So I’ve been sick all week with a raging sore throat.  Tad has taken such good care of me and the rest of the family while I’ve been resting!

I wanted to pop in and share a super fun sensory play activity that my kids did this week.  I kid you not… they played with this for close to three hours before lunch and then another two hours between naptime and dinner!  Aaaaamaaaazing.

The activity?  Water beads!

Water beads can keep preschoolers entertained for hours, providing sensory play and scope for the imagination. | Feathers in Our NestWater beads are a vase filler, but they make a really fun activity for toddlers (with supervision) and preschoolers!

They come in little bags and are very tiny, but when you add water, they grow to be the size of marbles. (This takes 4-6 hours, so plan ahead.)  They are squishy and translucent, and they are so much fun to play with!  I bought mine here (variety pack with twelve colors), and we just used two colors this week.  Each color packet makes about 1 quart.

I put them in a big container, and then set out a bunch of bowls, cups, spoons, and tongs, and just let them go to town!  They ended up getting out some of their play kitchen cookware as well and being quite creative in how they played with them.  (Obviously, if they were entertained for close to five hours!)

You can keep hydrating the same beads for a while and reusing them.  Eventually they’ll wear out (so I hear), but then you just make some more!

Just thought I’d share this with you in case you need a good rainy day activity too!

Feel free to pin for later.Water beads can keep preschoolers entertained for hours, providing sensory play and scope for the imagination. | Feathers in Our Nest

Aliesha Caldwell is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Filed Under: everyday, homeschooling

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