I am so happy to announce our first giveaway in months, and it is an EXCITING one, just in time for Christmas!

***This post and giveaway are sponsored by Picturesongold.com. All opinions are my own.***

Let me tell you all about what you could win in this giveaway from PicturesonGold.com.

This is a $140.00 value sterling silver locket with your chosen photos laser engraved into the locket. That is my favorite part about it. You do not have to go hunting through your house for some tiny pictures. This is the problem with me and all those “personalized Christmas ornaments.” Who has time to go hunting for photos?

With this jewelry, you upload the photos you want in your locket straight from your phone or computer. I customized mine using the photos on my phone, and it took all of five minutes. Most of those minutes were spent just deciding which pictures to use.

First, you get to pick your locket shape and cover.

They have circle, heart, oval, dog tag, and square lockets. You can also order all sorts of pendants or bracelets, but this giveaway is for a locket. There are so many choices!

Choose whether you want gold or silver. I chose sterling silver.

Then you choose what you want engraved on the front. I am a sucker for a monogram, so I went with that on both my necklace and my mom’s.

Isn’t the monogram so pretty??

I ordered mine back in 2017, and I wrote about it here. This year I designed one for my mom, and it will be her Christmas present this year.

Personalized gifts are such a significant thing to give to your family and friends. I am a total sucker for a #1 Mom necklace or jewelry with my kids’ birthstones. This locket goes even above and beyond that with photos that feel like a hug each time you wear it and open it up and look at their smiling faces.

Choosing which photos to put inside is always the hardest decision for me. I was designing mine for my mom. Who do I choose?? She has so many of us to love!! I chose group photos to try to include as many family members as I could.

The photos in the locket turned out well, but it was hard to get a good picture of the engraved pictures. The one on the left side of the locket is of mom, dad, my brother and his wife, and my husband and me, along with our two-month old first baby. That was an extra merry Christmas, with the addition of the first little grandchild.

The picture on the right has all five of mom and dad’s grandchildren, all together for last Christmas. Plus, it was a good picture of everyone, which is always an amazing accomplishment in itself.

This locket holds up extremely well.

I still have mine that I ordered in 2017. In fact, I am wearing it right now, and it is still in perfect condition, though I did change out the chain this year for a shorter one.

Be sure to enter the giveaway, so you can win one of these beauties for yourself or to give as a gift this Christmas!

***Rules to Enter***

-Must be 18 to enter and win

-Must be U.S. resident

Don’t wait for the giveaway though. Check out all the ways you can make photo-engraved jewelry for your family this Christmas here: PicturesOnGold.com. Here is a discount code just for my readers: FESTIVE10

The post The New Perfect Christmas Gift Giveaway 2020 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Have you had to look a little harder for joy over the past few months of pandemic? Do you find the coronavirus and the news to all be a little discouraging?

Feeling down and being in a place of seeking joy has happened to me many times over the years, not because I am totally Sadness all the time because I am not. It is just that hard times call for digging a little deeper, and we are definitely in difficult places these days. There have been months where I sat down and searched out instances in the Bible where it mentions joy, just to teach myself and help pull out of the funk from moving year after year after year as an Army wife.

That is why I was excited to write out this booklet to share with you what I have found in my own joy-quests. Each of the eight days focuses on easy ways to refocus your mind to a calmer, more joyful place. 

And yes, of course, 8 Days of Finding Joy During a Pandemic is free for all my readers. It is an easy read too, at only 25 pages long.

Here is an outline of what you will find in this booklet:

• What do you enjoy?
• The Importance of Joy
• One Simple Lesson that Brought Joy Back to My Life
• What are you focusing on?
• What is it that we long for?
• Don’t let your joy rest in the hands of others.
• Thinking Positively When You Feel Surrounded by Negatives
• Don’t let the news drink your coffee.

Save it to your desktop while you go through the chapters this week to make it easier to find each day. I decided to give you the whole thing at once because who wants eight separate emails? 

Now, of course, we are not about to solve all your problems with a booklet.

…But I am hoping it will be a pick-me-up/encouraging read for you.

I would love to hear from you all about your answer to the Day 1 prompt, so if you’d like to share, send me an email or a blog comment, and tell me what it is that you enjoy doing.

To download the Choosing Joy booklet, sign up below, and it will be delivered to your email:

And of course, if you are already one of my newsletter subscribers, I have already sent this out to you. Check your inbox!

The post 8 Days of Finding Joy During a Pandemic appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

2020 has to be about being positive. Maybe our brains just believe whatever it is we tell it. Let’s not tell our brains we “didn’t do a good job,” or “we wish we’d done better.” Instead of focusing on our shortcomings this year, let’s give our brains some building up instead.

I’ve been listening to Rachel Hollis on the YouTube, and she’s all about telling yourself good things, which seems like a healthy idea for someone who can be a bit of an Eyore like me. How do you spell Eeyore? I’m going to have to look it up…. It is in fact “Eeyore.”

How did you do with your goals or to-do lists last week? Did you have any?

I did smashing. I rock at goals. It’s hard to say that with a straight face, but there, I said it anyway.

Here’s how I actually did with last week’s goals:

#1. Re-lose those 2 pounds I lost last week and then gained back this weekend.

Oh, well. I ate too much. I was doing AWESOME about exercising, and then I crippled my feet, and now I’m supposed to spend a whole week off of my feet completely, so I’m not even going to bother to hope for weight loss until I get my heel healed.

#2. Exercise every single day, with one day off. Do not go to bed until this is done

Sigh. See comments for goal #1. When you look at it this way, I am obviously a smashing success as a motivational speaker because I’m making you feel so good about yourself in comparison to me. Ha! That’s something.

#3. Keep a food log on 3 days. 

No, I forgot that I really hate doing that.

#4. Intermittent fasting Tues.-Fri. and Sunday.

I’ve decided to go a different way.

#5. Study with each boy about 15 minutes/day.

Yes!!! Finally. Yes! I did do this!!! In fact, my unmotivated son crushed his science test thanks to how much he studied with me.

#6. Mail Mom’s calendar to her. I accidentally shipped it to my house.

Oops. Move this one to this week. Mom says it’s really just for looks anyway.

#7. Cook dinner every week day and Sunday lunch.

Pretty much, yeah, I did this. I even baked Danish pastries for the first time, so pat, pat, pat my back.

#8. Clean house 1 hour/day. 

YES! I did this too. Wahoo! By Friday, the house was a thing of beauty. Then the weekend came, so let’s start all over. I wonder how much cleaning I can get done this week while I’m “staying off my feet.” Yikes.

#9. Get 10,000 steps/day most days, for a total of 70,000 in 7 days.

Yes and no. I started out well, but then the heel problem began and then I was living in fear of walking. The more I walk, the worse my feet hurt. The doctor took an x-ray and gave me some medicine and exercises to do. He said I have a bad case of plantar fasciitis and possibly a bone spur. I won’t know about any bone damage until after the x-ray results come in. Either way, the recovery plan is basically the same.

#10. Blog at least once.

Yay! Done! I even edited 243 pages out of 310 of my upcoming ebook on my trip to Israel.

This Week’s Goals

#1. Stay off my feet.

#2. Continue studying with each boy.

#3. Blog at least twice this week.

#4. Go to the doctor.

#5. Go to John David’s parent day at school

#6. Find easy meals to cook, so I can “stay off my feet.”

#7. Finish reading Little House in the Big Woods with the younger boys, finish reading Girl, Wash Your Face, and finish reading Anne of Avonlea.

But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear;

Genesis 50:19-21

The post Progress and Problems with My 2020 Goals appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.