To say that I’m enjoying homemaker life is a bit of an understatement.

I have always loved baking, probably because I love eating sweet things. But there was never enough time when I was working full-time. Or rather, never enough time to really enjoy the process. I was always baking late at night for some event happening the next day… when I should’ve been sleeping. And not getting sleep is all cool when you’re a teenager, but after adulthood, sleep is a necessity. Less sleep = general crankiness.

Now I’m baking because I want to, because I have time and because it brings joy to others (and myself at the same time!).
As we are settling into the autumn season, I am in peach-and-apple season overdrive. There’s a steady thought train of “I love fall! I love fall so much more than I ever did before! Why was I always a summer fan? Fall is the best!!” Autumn means creating my own pumpkin spice lattes (thanks to this recipe!), walking through dying-yet-colorful leaves, breaking out my leather riding boots, finding the boxes of sweaters, slow-cooking butternut squash, drinking fresh-pressed apple cider from the farmer’s market, wrapping up in blankets in the morning and then throwing open doors in the afternoon. Autumn means soup love and hot drink love and baking love.

Now that I’m home, being a homemaker, you might find me slinging around flour in the early-morning hours… while the light is still blue and grey and the sun is still hiding. Or maybe in the afternoon, when my kitchen curtains glow golden from the slanted sunlight. I hum and sing old Third Day songs and then old hymns and sometimes I mutter to the cat as he walks by (he’s only curious about food when I open a can of tuna). I talk on the phone… though not too much when measuring ingredients, because I tend to forget something important.
But I did this recipe right… loved it.. and now I’m sharing it with you!

Peach Upside-Down Cake is the fall cousin of pineapple upside-down cake. Peaches need more respect, because they are deeeeelicious. Because I pretty much followed this recipe to a T, and it worked out great for me, I’m just gonna send you over to the source. Check out Peach Upside-Down Cake from userealbutter.com. And definitely use real butter. It changes everything. ;)

When life is made of little and big challenges, sometimes ya just gotta rejoice in the little victories. Some of these victories are to-do list victories, or frugal living victories (this is what happy-homemakers do to keep their hard-working husbands happy--- keep the budget low!), or baby prep victories, or just Life-Is-Good victories. Enjoy!

~ A friend sent me a coupon code for another FREE Shutterfly 8x8 photobook! Now our New Orleans babymoon / third anniversary trip book is complete and on its way to my happy hands… for just the cost of shipping!

~ One dollar Amish butternut squash + a slow-cooker soup recipe waiting to be made. Nothing says wonderful autumn like squash!

~ A newly painted baby nursery / guest room. Transformed from an aqua-bluish (old roommate’s room!) color to a more neutral tan color called “Imperial Sands.” (Note: I love reading the descriptive terms on paint colors!). The nursery is painted and nothing else done, but I’m holding onto that paint victory! :)

~ Portraits done for a wiggly-squiggly three-month-old nephew and his smiles are worth their weight in gold. *sigh* Babies are so great. (note: retired from professional photography, but I make exceptions for blood relatives. Mostly because they don’t laugh too much when I fall over because I’m 7 1/2 months pregnant and my balance right now is waaay crazy!).

~ Two pairs of maternity skinny jeans (oxymoron, anyone?) in the mail to me for a grand total of $2.48. This is amazing, because I actually cried over the weekend because my ankles were cold. Maybe pregnancy hormones… buuuut it’s fall and I have capris and skirts, but no jeans that fit this pregnant body. So today, I ordered jeans… using a gift card, a coupon code + a standard free shipping offer. Now we just get to see if I ordered the correct size. #firstworldpregnancyproblems

~ Childbirth class homework this week includes practicing “labor comfort measures.” Brandon gets to give me a massage every day! Yay! I LOVE THIS HOMEWORK!

~ I organized the silverware drawer, because I’m slowing making my way through organizing the whole kitchen. Now I smile whenever I open the silverware drawer. Yes, I am happy because of the little things.

~ Also organized the baking supplies, spices and cookbooks cabinets in my kitchen... which is approximately 1/3 of my cupboard space... In the process, I climbed up on a chair (is that a bad thing?) and threw away nearly three trash bags of old cooking magazines, garage sale cookbooks and food that was waaaaaaaay past its expiration date. #dontmesswiththedeclutteringpregnantwoman

And that’s the end for now.
What are your little victories?  #Rejoicewiththemthatrejoice

August has been quite an interesting month for us. We spent the majority of it on the road, travelling from Arkansas to Wisconsin to Arkansas to Texas to Louisiana to Arkansas to Virginia to West Virginia to Texas. We have seen extended family and friends and done a bit of a work/pleasure travelling besides. It’s not a stretch to say that I am SO OVER restaurant food. It doesn’t even sound appealing to me anymore (though that might be also related to the fact that the baby is taking over most of my belly and so I get full a lot faster and most food doesn’t seem appealing… until an hour later, when I’m hungry again).

We finally arrived at our Pennsylvania home late-late-late one evening last week. The little old lady neighbors welcomed us with waves and neighborhood news. We stumbled into our little home absolutely exhausted and noted the evidences of partying-spiders throughout. Falling into our own bed was wonderful…. until I was too excited about being home to sleep! Eventually sleep came and in the morning, the real work began.

Four full days of intense cleaning. I scrubbed and washed and dusted and vacuumed and mopped every single room in our house. Who knew that inactivity could yield such dirt? My inner angry thoughts included; This disproves evolution! and also, next time I’m doing the British thing and draping everything in old sheets!

There were lots of notable discoveries in my cleaning extravaganza.
1. That funny little red-and-black snake that hurried away while I was hanging towels on the clothesline (yay for my clothesline!).

2. The obnoxious wasp nest outside our back door. The presence of said wasps was discovered Friday, but not truly experienced until Saturday when one wasp decided to take up residence inside my shirt. And sting me. #andsobeganamostpainfulfewdaysofmylife

3. House guests (of the human variety) are the best motivation in cleaning. We had folks coming in the first weekend after we were home and so I couldn’t NOT clean. What probably would have taken me weeks to do had to be done in a few days. It was the perfect scenario because Brandon had a few days of part-time work before classes began (this week) and so he helped as much as possible --- moving furniture, carrying the vacuum cleaner upstairs and downstairs, throwing away clutter, giving me hugs when I cried (from tiredness + pregnancy) and “making dinner” for me on the last night of the cleaning extravaganza. He makes dinner by buying me pizza…. and it was awesome! :D

4. I guess food is good motivation (or reward) for me these days. Like this amazing homemade chocolate coconut frappucino. Ingredients include: milk, coconut oil, cocoa, sugar, vanilla, dark chocolate and ice. Blend and drink immediately – especially when you’re hot and sweaty and tired from cleaning. It tastes like heaven in a glass!



I guess to sum up: I am very, very, VERY glad to be home. I’m also very glad to be truly at-home, being a homemaker, for the first time in my life. Our time in Arkansas felt a bit like an extended vacation to me. I did cleaning and reading and walking and some computer work, but always felt a little out of place. Now I’m having revelations of homemaker-life every single day. Like when I realize that I need to make a call about some utility bill and I can take care of it right then instead of doing it on my lunch break and getting a voicemail and having to play phone tag a million times. Or when I open a cupboard and see disorganized pans and realize that I can reorganize them soon, instead of waiting for an evening that will never come because I’m too busy working at my job to really put time into taking care of the extra home tasks that pile up.

Life is different now… really different… and I love it.


Note: Caspian-the-kitty is really glad to be home, too… though he’s not sure what is happening with my lap these days. ;)

The news is out! It’s true. We are expecting a baby come November. It’s super-awesome and super-exciting and all those ridiculous adjectives. And now for the answers to the questions!

How do you feel?  I feel great. There were a couple weeks of feeling icky early on, but I’m pretty sure that my problem was that I wasn’t eating enough calories. Laugh if you will, but prior to pregnancy, I was still trying to lose a few pounds and get in better shape. So I had a little adjusting to do as far as the calorie intake. Also, I’m becoming even more vigilant on the eating/snacking at regular intervals throughout the day and that keeps me pretty happy.

Any weird pregnancy quirks? Well, strangely enough, I currently hate the smell of coffee. I know! It’s crazy! And almost any other strong smell just really bugs me.

I love your baby announcement. Did you get the idea from Pinterest? Haha. NO. I was sitting in bed one morning thinking about how to announce our pregnancy, and that popped into my head and I LOVED IT. Told it to Brandon and he loved it. Then I went to six different stores to find tiny espresso cups that I liked, and finally ended up finding them on clearance at Walmart for $5. Yeaaaah. I have been wanting those little espresso cups for yeeears, so it was the perfect excuse. So I essentially created my own meme by setting up the photo, editing it and adding text. Oh yes, and the background material? It was leftover table runner material from our wedding day. So cute, right? 

Are you going to find out the gender? Yes. I waffled on this for a short time, but honestly, I don’t like color yellow very much and that’s what gender-neutral clothes/nurseries/etc. tend to be. So we’re gonna find out the gender so I can plaster everything in pink or blue (slight overkill maybe/ maybe not).

What do you want? Boy or girl? We want a healthy baby. No gender preference whatsoever. Fo’ real.

Are you gonna tell the baby names? Nope. We’re secretive like that because a) naming our babies only includes two opinions: mine and Brandon’s. And we like to be without everyone else’s opinion until they can’t do anything about it (*insertevillaughhere*), b) our name list is long and want to have the option to change our minds if we want prior to birth, and c) if we’re not waiting to reveal the gender, we want to wait on the name… because surprises are nice sometimes!

Can I touch your belly? NO. Just no. Respect the personal bubble.

Onward to other interesting things….
So that’s the most wonderful-and-delightful news in our world. We are barreling full-speed-ahead towards the end of the semester and into our summer adventure in Arkansas (WOOHOOO!). These are days are full of times of transition. I’m just days away from the end of my full-time-working-outside-the-home career. I’m making jokes about “retirement” and “career changes,” but in all seriousness, this transition has been a long time coming. In one of our first conversations as friends, I remember Brandon asking me about what I wanted to be in life. My honest answer (and no, I wasn’t fishing for a husband---though honesty worked well for me!) was that I wanted to be a wife and mother. I’ve worked full-time since I was 17 years old, graduating from high school early and starting full-time work even before I graduated. I did Bible college on the side, worship and youth ministry on the side and a photography business on the side. I bought a house and went on missions trips and all while keeping my full-time job in accounting. It’s been good, but it has always been temporary. I knew God was eventually gonna take me to home. Not heaven-home. But that the home would be my focus, my ministry, my calling.

Things are getting real around here, and I am so excited that I can hardly contain myself. Though I am also so tired that I can hardly be excited (it’s a difficult paradox). Packing up necessary items for a summer spent in temporary housing and in a far-off place is mind-boggling. I’m contemplating questions like, “can I pack my cast-iron skillet? What about a teapot?”  I am a chronic over-packer and trying to get our life (even only for the summer) in a Toyota Corolla is making my brain hurt. Not like I’ve actually packed anything yet… it’s the thinking/planning/writing out the list part that’s most difficult.

I am a little nostalgic about going away from here, but not sad in the least. Since the door opened to this opportunity, we have both felt a sense of perfect peace. I am thrilled to be living out one of the things that has been on my heart since the beginning of our marriage --- the concept of “I will go where you go.” (Yes, I know that’s a verse from Ruth and it’s not about marriage and I wasn’t using it like that). I’m using it more of a “leave and cleave” concept. Marriage is a lot about leaving. Departing from the familiar, the family, the comfortable, the childhood things… and cleaving to your husband. It’s about leaving one team and making your own team. God designed the covenant of marriage to bring two lives together into one, not meld it into your current existence. Sometimes this means going away. Sometimes it doesn’t. In our case, we’ve spent a wonderful first two and a half years of marriage here, close to my family, entrenched in a life that is familiar to me--- places, people, things… it was all apart of my life before Brandon. In going away---even just for 3 1/2 months---it feels like the newlywed season again, learning to live life with only each other and the Lord to hang onto.
And that’s pretty awesome.

Welcome back, Naomi. It’s been so long, Naomi. What have you been doing, Naomi?

Actually, I have a funny little quirk about people who spend more time apologizing for not blogging than they actually spend blogging. Blog-writing is a luxury – not a right, and I am resolving in 2014 to treat it as such. Blogging because I want to share my life with friends and family, not blogging because I want to maintain a certain image or gain a following… because really, my life is a little too polarizing, a little too boring, a little too common-quiet-homelife-not-glamorous to gain a following. I am certainly okay with that.

Our life ebbs and flows to the schedule of Penn State University. I wouldn’t go so far to say that it revolves around PSU (as it does for many Penn State football fans. hehe), but for sure, the seasons of our year are strictly defined by the college schedule. We push through the deep mire of mid-terms and spend the evenings surrounded by textbooks and math scribbles and lab reports. The truth is that Brandon presses through and I spend my free moments picking him up from class and packing lots of food to get us through the day – because he has to work late, so we pack both lunches and dinners. Makes for some long food prep at night, but that’s what this season demands so we both work to make it through the season. By the end of the semester, we are tired and feeling more than a little deprived of rest. We are always grateful for Sundays – the one day of our week that is sacred. Set apart. For rest and for worship and for time spent with each other, but in the deep dark semester nights, I long for those Jewish festivals that no one celebrates anymore… for Sabbath weeks! Yes, days upon days of rest and feasting. Doesn’t that sound amazing? Really, really amazing. The closest we get to such things is Christmastime. The semester breaks just in time for us to come to a crashing halt from our daily life and rest and worship and spend time with each other.

Oh Christmastime.

Christmastime for us is always bittersweet. In the sugary-sweet-Hallmark movie times, I am constantly reminded of the loss we suffer. Because of the estrangement from our family (due to the church that he grew up in), Christmas is the time that I am most aware of the family traditions that I am not apart of, that I have never (formally) met Brandon’s parents, that we are excluded from those family gatherings, that I should have friendships with my mother-in-law and sis-in-law, that there is a little nephew that I’ve never met, that those silly-awkward-funny family jokes I only hear about when Brandon is in a reminiscing mood. Don’t get me wrong, folks – I’m not complaining. We all have our own trials in this life – our own crosses to bear. I do not think that our particular trial is the worst of all. I’m just saying – Christmas is when it hurts the most. Christmas is when I cry for grace the most. Christmas is when I think about forgiveness daily.

This year was especially painful because of the recent loss of my uncle. My dear aunt and cousins travelled to Pennsylvania to spend Christmas with us, and it was a sweet, fun, happy and sad time—all rolled into one. And Brandon and I spent even more time than normal up ‘on the mountain’ (our silly little phrase that refers to my parents’ home on the top of a mountain). Family Christmas dinners and slow Christmas days and get-togethers.

Christmas gifts time – we are ALWAYS happy to get coffee, especially when my parents bring it back from a business/vacation trip in Costa Rica!
Little nieces received prairie dresses for dressup! – also love the golden retriever photo-bombing. (note: no face shots in respect for hiding little kids’ identities on my blog)

Puzzle time!

My cousin, Michelle, handcrafted these amazing dolls for each of the little nieces. I was in awe. And so were the little girlies!



Even the boxes were specially handcrafted!

Speaking of hand-crafted, I “made” one gift for a family women’s gift exchange and my sister was happy to end up with it. Naomi’s tea-time recipes cookbook! Because I like tea-time and making food to go with tea-time and taking pictures of such things, so it made sense to create my own little cookbook.

Our times together were filled with eating (of course), winter-walking (a.k.a. hiking – which I did not participate in, but Brandon had fun!), Apples-to-Apples playing, fireside chatting, tea-drinking, and in typical family fashion – Christmas carol singing!

And because it’s so rare that my siblings and I are all together and forced into taking a picture, here ya go!

So that’s the extended family portion of Christmas.
Brandon and I’s own little family Christmas was much quieter. It’s always much quieter in our house, since the only small being residing in our house is a kitty. He only meows when he’s hungry or when he just wants to be annoying. For real. Most of the time, he just moves around the house doing this:

Caspian the Kitty experiences Christmas holiday rest all year ‘round. (*shaking my head at cats*). At least he’s not crowding baby Jesus anymore (see instagram for photos).



We read the Christmas story by the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree, munched on appetizers on Christmas Eve (always with cheese – everything wonderful includes cheese or chocolate), and spent long hours in conversation or reading. We joked about the emptyness of our Christmas stocking. We opened no gifts on Christmas morning because we had done our Christmas shopping early and were already using/wearing our gifts… new Old Testament commentaries for Brandon and new black leather knee-high boots for me! But Christmas was filled with happiness and joy and enough precious words that we didn’t feel deprived in the least.

I am blessed. Incredibly, amazingly blessed.

Blessed by life and love and God’s gift of joy that endures through hardship, through long semesters, through family estrangement, through emotional losses, through financial lack and financial blessing, through change, through cold winters and dark nights and tough workdays, through misunderstandings and intentional woundings, through pain and suffering, through simple pleasures and the intricate web of God’s provision, through difficulty and desire, through mountains and valleys, through magnificient strength and utter weakness, through all these things, I do not ever doubt this one truth:
Our God is faithful.

And Christmas 2013 was a perfect time to reflect on God’s faithfulness.
Merry Belated Christmas from us.