Friday Favorites #32

Happy Friday!

My goodness has this seemed like a long week. Iowa got hit with a blizzard on Sunday and our kids were pretty pumped to have a snow day on Monday. Who wouldn’t enjoy an unexpected 6-day Thanksgiving break? So basically, any chance they have gotten to be doing this:

they have been. And there are forever tiny puddles of snow everywhere in my house. Which I then step in when I’m wearing socks.

Love that.

Wet socks aside, I’m here today linking up with  Erika, Narci and Andrea for a really good batch of favorites!

Officially, Advent starts this Sunday and we are more than ready for it in my house. If you are looking for a way to keep your Christmas preparation Christ centered with your family, check out this new addition to my Etsy shop.

I’m all about a good Santa focused Christmas movie or story, but it’s so important to me that our children understand and live the true meaning of our Christmas prep and celebration. My Nativity Advent Calendar Cards have 25 days of Scripture verses from December 1 through Christmas Day that tell the story of Jesus’ birth. Each card has an adorable Nativity character and a verse for the day. It comes with an optional file to print the verses on the back or you can choose to list daily activities or something else of your choice on the back.

It’s a $5 instant download in my shop. Ready to print and cut at home!

And – if you are looking for a great Advent Devotional, I loved this one last year. The reflections are short and they list optional readings you can do if you are looking for a little more each day.

I chose this one for this year. I love Max Lucado and am hoping I love this one too!

A few months ago while experiencing a lack of judgment, I promised my best friend that I would train for and run a 7 mile race this summer with her. Before babies, I loved to run and would run 7 miles on a Saturday for a good time. That was 4 children ago. But I love her. So I will run (or at least attempt to).

I’ve started running low mileages on the treadmill but needed something to help me get back into shape on my off days. One of my friends told me about fitnessblender.com and I LOVE it. They have a ton of free workouts on their website that you can filter by time, intensity, etc. and have everything from strength training to kickboxing to yoga. I’m obsessed. If you’ve been looking for an easy way to exercise in these winter months, this is an amazing option!

This was one of my favorites last year at this time and it still is! A few years ago, I found this amazing free gift app called Santa’s Bag. We typically buy for our families, teachers, etc. every year plus our older boys have birthdays right around Christmas. I struggle to keep track of what gives we have yet to plan and purchase.

This app lets you enter a budget and divide it among the people you are buying for. I even include everything for the season like birthday and Christmas gifts, Christmas cards, stocking stuffers, gifts for charities at the boy’s school, etc. You add in the gifts, cost, and what stores you plan to purchase at so you can sort your master list by any of those categories. You can even mark the status of each gift: need to buy, purchase, and wrapped and sort that by list too! The app is free (with an optional choice to upgrade to save all gifts from year to year) and I have not found a better way to track gifts! I just love it!

This weekend during our snowstorm, I was trying to encourage our second grader to spend some time reading. He sat down with his book and I grabbed One Beautiful Dream off my waiting to read stack to sit with him. We read for 20 minutes and then I could not stop. I haven’t finished a book in only two days since the last Harry Potter book way back in the day. (That brings you back doesn’t it?) It was amazing. You know those books that just speak to your soul? This one did for me. Hands down the best book I have read this year.

I highly recommend for those of you who are trying to balance motherhood and all the rest you dream about for yourself- especially if it doesn’t look the way you thought it would. It was SO SO good. Anyone else a Jennifer Fulwiler fan?

Finally, Josh and I watched the newest Netflix Christmas movie this weekend and loved it. It had really cute story and Kurt Russell as Santa was perfect! If you haven’t seen it yet, you should!

Full disclosure: you may want to preview it yourself before watching with young kids. We started watching it with the boys and I ended up stopping it after a few minutes and choosing another movie. There was a bunch of Santa belief talk at the beginning (and some slight language throughout) that our kids weren’t ready for. It probably depends on the age/nature of your kiddos!

Those are my favorites this week! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!