Joyfully Thriving

Grace-Filled Frugal Living

Valentine’s Day Books

It must be the early childhood teacher in me because I love pulling out themed book collections to read with my children! Valentine's Day is one of those fun holidays - especially when you are little and there are so many cute Valentine's Day books out there! I spent some time looking through our Valentine's Day children books and picked out our favorite books for this holiday. I put these Valentine's Day books in a box at the beginning of February and we read them almost daily for a couple weeks. Some of these Valentine's Day books are newer but many are classic books worth reading each … Read More...

Sausage Filled Crepes

Growing up, when we had company over, Mom had two stand-by "company" dishes that I recall. One was her delicious poppyseed chicken, and the other was these equally as delicious sausage crepes. Looking back, I think these were standbys because they could be prepared well ahead of time. Mom got this sausage crepe recipe from friend and fellow pastor's wife, Laurie Claasen. I like serving these cheesy sausage crepes because they look fancy and have a unique flavor without requiring a lot of work. I have never seen anyone else make a crepe recipe quite like this one! Plus, like my Mom, I … Read More...

Setting a New Grocery Budget in a New Year

I do a grocery audit and set a new grocery budget every January. I'm a grocery geek in that I absolutely love crunching the numbers and seeing how low I can get our budget. I am also a grocery geek in that I actually enjoy grocery shopping and I love finding the best deals! I know many of you do too, because I get more comments on my grocery posts than any other ones I share. I think these posts are popular because we all want to save money on groceries we have to buy every week. Here's an example of one shopping trip for me - from Kroger trip on April 18 where I spent $50. I love … Read More...

My Goals for 2019 & 2020

I love the fresh start of a new year. I love the chance to dream big and imagine what the year will hold. As our Christmas taught me, I am glad I don't know what the future holds and this makes me  more determined than ever to simply make the most of each day. Whatever it brings. I always have lots of little goals and projects each year. You know the type. I want to organize things and declutter rooms and cook healthier and walk more. These are things I will still work on throughout the year but I choose to focus on a couple big goals throughout the year.  I always try to focus on a … Read More...

Our Christmas 2019

As a school teacher's family, we always look forward to Christmas break and the time we have together as a family. This year, Andy and I have remarked several times that we didn't know all Christmas break would hold before it began. I'm sharing this all as an honest glimpse behind the scenes of life in our house this Christmas! Our December started with us hosting the St. Paul's faculty party of which we had a great time with Andy's fellow teachers and their spouses. It was nice to have our house clean and decorated by the 14th too so we could maintain it through Christmas! (Sometimes … Read More...

Most Popular Posts of 2019

One of my favorite parts of the end of the year is to look back and reflect over the previous one. I love looking back to see what people are reading on Joyfully Thriving. It's been quite the year here with writing new blog posts and updating old blog posts and fulfilling over 250 custom book orders. There is so much more I want to do in 2020 and we shall see what the new year holds blog wise. I always start with looking back to see what the most popular posts of the year were. What were people reading the most on Joyfully Thriving? There was a bit of overlap with the most popular posts of … Read More...

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