Send Ants Marching with Cinnamon EO!

As usual in Arkansas, this winter has been wet and muddy. Just when the yard starts to dry up, we get more rain. An unfortunate side effect is a line of marching ants along our window sills, walls, doors, floors and even kitchen cabinets!! 

Yuck! 

These little guys can multiply fast! Give them a teeny tiny crumb and suddenly a hundred of their buddies have joined the party! With the three little mess makers we have living here, there is no lack of crumbs! 

This is my go to concoction I use to rid the house of these little marching lines!

Cinnamon Bark essential oil (you can buy them here), water and a used Thieves Spray bottle.

Simply fill the Thieves Spray bottle with water and add 10 drops of Young Living Cinnamon Bark EO.

Shake and spray on location. It usually takes a few times to complete the job. 

You can literally see the ants start to die as you spray them. Not only does it take care of the current residents, but keeps more from joining the party.

How awesome is that!?!

I love that this is a non-toxic alternative to use in my home! I also love that I can successfully avoid nasty chemicals that have negative side effects on my family and pets! 

Not to mention, my house now has the delicious aroma of cinnamon throughout! Yummy!

To learn more about Young Living essential oils you can go here or here.

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you! 

Moving Forward- Update 1

So we are 9 days into the new year… and thought I'd give a quick update on how I've started working on my goals for this year.

If you missed it, here is the post with my goals and plans for 2016. 

Of course, I know it will take a bit to get into a routine. We started back to school, homeschool co-op and therapy this week. We had multiple showings (or almost showings) on our house sprinkled among these activities.

Somehow, I managed to keep up with my YL business, follow the daily bible reading, and make some plans for some projects I'll share here.

I am giving myself some grace as I work up to incorporating all my goals into my daily and weekly routines. Honestly, it has been challenging!
I feel like my life is being consumed with cleaning and making sure the house is perfect. I want to be ready the second someone wants to see the house. Having three small children is like having 3 tornadoes in the house! They have done surprisingly well with helping for their ages.
Eli and Brooklyn understand that a clean house equals a better chance of selling the house. They both are looking forward to moving so that helps.
Toddlers are a different story! Haha! It takes Jude one second to draw all over the bathroom sink and counter!
I have to remind myself daily, "He is only two, he is only two"!
Here he was sitting on his poor kitty! Oh boy…

We did get to the Zoo yesterday with some friends! It's nice to take advantage of the 50 and 60 degree January Days!




I have been really excited to get more into the scripture! I love using the YouVersion Bible app on my phone. It has The One Year Bible plan. All I have to do is select the day and start reading through the passages for that day. If you get behind…cough...like me…it is easy to catch up. Since Scott and I are both doing the plan, we are enjoying bouncing thoughts off each other. Scott has a bible degree and has more knowledge on the context and history of each book. It's nice to have him around to ask historical and cultural related questions! ;)





Looking forward to next week, I want to add my yoga workouts, do more YL class planning and work on my vision board.


How has this first full week of the new year treated you? Are you working on some new personal goals?

A Joyful Heart

One of my favorite words is  joy. I even gave my first daughter the middle name Joy.

My Brooklyn Joy!

Studying what it looks like to have joy, I have discovered there is much more to this little word then we first give it credit for.

What is Joy really and what does it look like?

According to merriam-webster.com, the definition of joy is:

-a feeling of great happiness.

-a source or cause of great happiness: something or someone that gives joy to someone.

-success in doing, finding, or getting something

All these definitions are great and even believable. I agree joy can be a feeling of happiness and I sure feel happy when things are going well! I use the word when I am feeling happy, elated and joyful. But is that all? Is there more to this little three letter word?

Everyone loves to have joy in their life. But how do we get joy in our lives? 

Do we find it, earn it, buy it or are given it? 
The world would like you to think this is how you get joy. 

10 Tips to Host an Oily Make & Take!

Soon after we found Young Living essential oils, I was finding ways to make my own nontoxic alternative products with the oils. After experimenting a little a friend and I thought we'd plan a Christmas Make and Take oil style! We did have a blast and the event was fun and successful. However, we quickly discovered the event was a lot of work and we decided to not do another for awhile.

Fast forward to last summer. My team was asking for another Make and Take and I hesitantly did a summer themed event. This event was larger (28 people showed up!) and had more take homes. 

I was overwhelmed to say the least, but everyone had a blast and the event was a success. 

Pretty last minute, my friend and I started planning another Christmas event. Our mission was to keep it simple, fun, educational, and easy. We made a few changes and we both agreed we managed to perfect the experience.

I wanted to share a few things we have learned and maybe help someone else looking into hosting their own oily event! 

1) Keep it simple! Avoid projects with lots of ingredients or steps. I found if there is one I'd like to share, but it will be pricey or time consuming, I'll make one at the event and then give it away as a door prize.

My Oil Story and Goals For 2015

Last year I made a giant leap and bought my first essential oil kit from Young Living Essential Oils!

We had a sickness go through the house and the baby ended up catching a bad head cold. He was miserable and we were up all night and he couldn't breath with all the yucky congestion. I reached out to my friends on Facebook to find a natural remedy to help him get some relief. My dear friends brought me essential oils. I followed the careful instructions of my friend and used diluted Peppermint and Thieves on my little one. Literally within minutes his congestion was clearing up and he was able to sleep! I was amazed! Why had I never heard of these wonderful drops of God's medicine? We survived that illness and also found essential oils!

I saved some money up for a couple months and was able to purchase our first set of oils with the Premium Starter kit. We chose the Premium Starter kit because it came with 11 oils, a diffuser and a wholesale membership.