{Just Us Kings}

A Normal Family

Mrs. King — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:00:36 +0000

So, we made our first YouTube video. You have to watch it!

Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments. Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Change of Pace

Mr. King — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:00:12 +0000

It’s been over a month since either of us has posted anything on here. I have not twittered much, haven’t posted on Google+ much, and I’m hardly even on Facebook. I’ve barely picked up a book and have fallen asleep at my computer late in the night more than I want to admit trying to get things done.

I feel chaotic right now. I’m praying for peace. I’m asking the Lord to help me slow down. I want to soak in His word and rest in His presence to gain comfort.

In case you weren’t aware, I’ve recently taken on a new full time position and stepped away from full-time ministry. It was a choice of necessity that was motivated by finances. I am still serving in a part-time capacity in sports ministry. I love it, I always will. I miss doing it full time.

My new job is keeping me very active and taking a lot of time. I’m settling in and looking forward to seeing how God uses me in my new environment. We are all in ministry every day, where ever we are. Some of us get paid to do it full-time and others find it in our everyday vocations. This is were I find myself now. I have already had opportunity to talk about God with people and God is providing new opportunity all the time.

I want to be very real when I write here. I want to share how work, ministry, passions, family, faith all come together and flow with each other. When Jesus is at the center of our lives, we don’t compartmentalize, but view all of life as a response to the gospel. That is my challenge to myself and my challenge to you.

A Homemade Father’s Day

Mrs. King — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 23:02:19 +0000

PAUSE. We are taking a little break this week from our Meal Planning. I have the meals planned in my head of course and it is called, “easy, easy, easy.” Our weekend was stocked FULL of fun but whew are we ever worn out. We camped, went to a wedding, had a birthday party, and hosted some besties at our house. And let me say we are hitting the ground running this week. So here is a little something I wanted to share with you last week (but never did) Enjoy!

Now that all the “Father’s” in our lives have received their gifts I can share with you what we made! It was so much fun.

We love making and receiving homemade gifts over here. There is something to be said about taking the time to make a gift for someone! Each of my littles, minus little B, picked someone’s t shirt to be the “artist” for. They all drew out their picture onto freezer paper, and then I made a stencil out of their drawing and painted it (using fabric paint) onto the t-shirt. After drying and setting it with an iron it was donezo. I think they turned out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself!

Artwork of Little A

The artwork of Little C

Artwork of Little E

Thanks for stopping by. Have a blessed Monday!

xoxo – Mrs King

Traditions

Mrs. King — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:48:43 +0000

Over here at the King house, we love traditions. Early, early in my parenthood I got wise teaching from Donna Otta. (She is passionate about teaching Mamas (and Papas) to be intentional about making memories, setting traditions, eating together, etc.) Donna taught me that when you intentionally make traditions for your family, it will draw your family closer together. Especially when your kiddos become teens and then adults, having family traditions in place will keep them coming back. (Yay!)

Of course Mr. King and I have our favorite family traditions from our families of origin. So we have kept some of those and have come up with some new ones that we wanted to be in our family. ( Some traditions haven’t been born yet into our family and I am excited about that too – the fact that you can start making memories and traditions any ole time you want to.)

All that being said, I wanted to share with you just one of our family traditions, which is, camping in the backyard. This one is a summer time favorite! We started this when little C was 2 years old and each child after that has graduated to this good ole time after their 2nd Birthday as well. (I think little B is already excited for her chance next year.)

Sitting in front of the tent

Little C and Mr. King have always set up the tents. Yes now we have more than one tent. (We really need one of these pretty soon I think. The set up time is just what we need.) Then we get our cookout on. And smores, yes please!! Of course the kids drag everything that they find “necessary” out to the tent and get it all cozied up. We catch fireflies, lots and lots of them. And then we end the night reading to our hearts’ desires. This year little C had his head lamp on, which makes reading in the dark and in bed so much fun! The best part of camping in the backyard is that the bathrooms are close and clean (well, pretty much) and no bugs are flying and crawling around. Eww.

Little B having a treat (you can't see it though)

Do you have favorite traditions in the summer? Share em if you’ve got em. And if you don’t, just start something and if you like it bring it back time and time again. Your family will look forward to it!

Yay to Summer!

The campers

On a side note, just look at little E’s jammies. Her top is borrowed from her little sister and her bottoms are borrowed from her big brother.

Now that is style. Hehehe.

Meal Planning Monday

Mrs. King — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:16:21 +0000

Click on me

Thanks for coming along again for Meal Planning Monday. Seriously y’all, you have helped me stay on task with my meals… so I just wanted to say thanks. I hope that you enjoyed celebrating the men in your life for Father’s Day this weekend. Our plans got rearranged due to some crummy weather but needless to say we enjoyed the “Dads” in our lives!

Monday:

Breakfast: Cinnamon and Honey Soaked Biscuits

Dinner: Favorite Sandwich Night (this one is fun!) served with fresh pineapple

Tuesday:

Breakfast: Homemade Granola and Milk

Lunch: Empanadas (Filling is your choice) served with Black Beans and Salad

Wednesday:

Breakfast: Applesauce Bread with Scrambled Eggs (eggs made by little C…he is learning!)

Dinner: Grilled Chicken Brats with grilled asparagus and applesauce

Thursday:

Breakfast: Pancakes with Maple Syrup and Bananas

Dinner: Left overs (seriously whatever is in the fridge is a possibility. we hate wasting food!!)

Friday:

Breakfast: Yogurt and Granola with Sourdough Toast

Dinner: Homemade Pizza with Salad and Homemade French Dressing

Saturday:

Breakfast: Banana Muffins and Fruit Smoothie

Dinner: WEDDING

Sunday:

Breakfast: Eggs and Sourdough Toast

Dinner: Crock pot White Chicken Chili (we have church in the morn and a B day party in the afternoon so I need something to throw in a crock pot and not worry about until it’s time to eat!)

Happy Monday! I hope you have a great start to another week.

Meal Planning Monday

Mrs. King — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:00:32 +0000

Hello there! Ready to start a new “work” week? I am not sure I am after the last week we had over here in the King house. Needless to say I can’t believe a week has already gone by. Phew.

But here I am with another addition of Meal Planning Monday! My goal is to eventually put up recipes of some of the things on our meal plan, but I need to figure out the best way to do that. (And I also need to carve out time to do it as well.)

On another note, we have made a decision to do a lot more picnics/eating outside during lunch with it being summer and all. So I am going to be simplifying our lunches in order to easily throw them into a cooler bag and go. This can be tricky because a lot of food that is “easy” to pack are processed food. I am going to play around this and would be up for any suggestions as well. So I guess you could say that I am on a mission to figure out healthy, easy,

You can use me too!

portable lunches.

All that being said Meal Planning this week will be without the lunches.

Monday:

Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs and Blueberry Muffins

Dinner: Ginger Peanut Chicken Wraps served along side steamed broccoli.

Tuesday:

Breakfast: Sourdough Pancakes with Maple Syrup and fresh watermelon

Dinner: Grilled Chicken, Corn on the Cob, Fresh Garden Salad with homemade dressing

Wednesday:

Breakfast: Egg Cups and Muffins

Dinner: Taco Corn Fritters served with Re fried Beans and Salad

Thursday:

Breakfast: Soaked Oatmeal and Homemade Honey wheat Toast

Dinner: Hamburgers on Grill and (possibly homemade buns – I’m experimenting) with Sweet Potato Fries

Friday:

Breakfast: Yogurt and Granola

Dinner: Homemade Pizza with Salad (we love eating raw veggies)

Saturday:

Breakfast: Crepes with fried cinnamon apples

Dinner: Fried Rice

Sunday:

Breakfast: Granola and Milk with Toast

Dinner: Leftovers

Snacks for the week: Green Smoothies, muffins, My Chewy Granola Bars, popcorn, dried fruits and nuts

Thanks for helping to hold me accountable. This helps me to have more “order” in the home which in turn makes me more effective with my time. Speaking of “order” I plan on sharing with you some practical tips on that later in the week!

Happy Monday.

Meal Planning Monday

Mrs. King — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:15:47 +0000

Hey there. It’s Monday and I am gonna start a weekly meal planning session. I hope that this will make me more accountable. Hehe. I LOVE planning our meals because it helps us with the grocery budget and I also know we will be eating nutritious foods. We have recently been switching to less processed food and eating food the way the God intended us to. It is a slooow process but I feel good about it. One baby step at a time, right?! This way leaves me less discouraged for sure. (If you have more questions about this leave them in the comments section and Mr. King and I will answer them as best we can.) [UPDATE] Oh and feel free to download and use the menu I put together here. Or just click the picture!

Get your meal plan ready!

Okay here we go:

Monday:

Breakfast: Homemade Yogurt, Homemade Granola, Whole Wheat Toast with butter.

Lunch: Fruit Smoothies

Dinner: Grilled Chicken Salad with homemade dressing

Tuesday:

Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Sourdough Toast and Pineapple

Lunch: Chicken Salad melts on Sourdough with carrots sticks

Dinner: Blackbeans with Homemade Whole Wheat Tortillas served with cheese, yogurt (in place of sour cream), and lime juice

Wednesday:

Breakfast: Breakfast Cake and milk

Lunch: Homemade Tortillas with butter, carrots and grapes

Dinner: Pizza Spaghetti (using whole wheat pasta) and Salad

Thursday:

Breakfast: Whole Wheat Pancakes with real maple syrup

Lunch: Grilled Cheese on Whole Wheat

Dinner: Chicken and Noodles served with Salad

Friday:

Breakfast: Banana Bread and fruit

Lunch: Turkey roll ups and cucumbers

Dinner: Leftovers

Saturday:

Breakfast: Granola and milk (whole and/or raw)

Lunch: PB and J on Sourdough (using natural Peanut Butter and Jelly with natural sweetners – read the labels)

Dinner: Ham and Beans with Homemade Cornbread

Sunday:

Breakfast: Toad in Hole (toast and fried egg)

Lunch: Leftover Ham and Beans

Dinner: Homemade Pizza with Salad

Snacks for the week include: Homemade Popcorn, Homemade Granola bars, Fruit, Cheese Sticks, Homemade Cheese Crackers -

Hopefully you too have your meal plan together for the week. You will thank yourself. I know I do!

Remember Nivar?

Mr. King — Wed, 25 May 2011 17:21:34 +0000

Do you remember last year, when I bought these shoes through Buy Shoes. Save Lives. that saved a child’s life in Iraq?

These shoes saved a child's life

At the time I purchased my Klash the child who was going to receive surgery was named Nivar. I attached myself to this little girl because I could see her, follow her story and ultimately put a face with what I was supporting through my purchase.

Well, It’s been 10 months since Nivar’s surgery and I wanted to share a follow-up story that talks about how she is doing now. This picture below will take you to the article.

“]Remember Nivar?

You can get involved too. Visit Preemptive Love Coalition and see what they are doing to help change the lives of children in Iraq who are affected by heart disease. You can support their Remedy Missions which bring doctors into Iraq to do more surgeries in a month than they used to do in a year by taking kids to Israel and Turkey.

More Training

Mrs. King — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:53:00 +0000

If you stick around here long enough, you will see that Mr. King and I are passionate about training our little people! One of the areas that we are training in is doing tasks/chores/upkeep of our “ship.” Three years ago we were conflicted about whether or not to give an allowance for bed making, room cleanliness, and the like. Today we stand in a much different place. Our family is a team. This team has to work together to maintain order and peace in our home. So EVERYONE has responsibilities depending on their age. Therefore we do not give an allowance for the upkeep in our home. However, we do reward or give an allowance for that which is above and beyond their day in day out “jobs.” They LOVE being able to receive money for helping Daddy with yard work and things of that sort!

Teaching these duties to our little people takes time and patience. It takes planning and organization. That brings me to the present. Yesterday I told little C that his new responsibility would be cleaning our bathroom. We use the acronym MAWL (model, assist, watch, leave) when training new tasks. I gave him a basket of the supplies he would need in order to do his job. (No more chemicals thanks to Norwex)

Basket of supplies

I also gave him photos of our bathroom, laminated them, and put them on a ring so that he can visually see what needs to be done and what product/cloth to use on that part of our bathroom. On the flip side I described what to do. This little check list of cards is also in his supply basket.

Side 1 of card

Side 2 of card

I excitedly told little C he was responsible enough to have the privilege of helping out our family by maintaining cleanliness in our bathroom. He is also responsible for keeping our bathroom stocked with toilet paper, tissues, and soap. (Also in his cards.) I was amazed at how excited he was to learn this new task! I modeled how to clean while he watched, eager to do it on his own. I could sense his pride and ownership of an area of our home that was fully “his responsibility!”

I am looking forward to the day when I can “leave” little C to this without assistance.

Cheers to one more thing off of my load and all the while teaching and training my little people.

Date Your Bride

Mr. King — Mon, 23 May 2011 15:15:08 +0000

Men, when’s the last time you dated your bride?
Not the last time you took her on a date, but the last time you made her feel pursued.
When’s the last time you approached your relationship with the same intensity and vigor you did when you first met.

Put some thought into it, guys. Plan ahead. Don’t wait until the last minute all the time. Spontaneity is great, but a well thought out pursuit can make your lady feel really special.

It's an honest question

I need to do this more often. I think it comes and goes in seasons but I don’t want it to. I want to make it part of our everyday life. My bride deserves it. My kids, both son and daughters, need to see it. That way he knows what it looks like to love your bride and our girls will have quite an expectation for their future grooms.

Oh, and do it because you love her, not because you’re going to get something out of it. I won’t tell you that you won’t get a return on your investment, but that should just be the icing on the cake.