The Sunday Journal: Issue 01

What I want to remember from February 2025

I came across this feature on Abode Abide and I love this as a way to chronicle the rhythms of our daily family life.

When I started this Substack, I envisioned this to be a place where my husband and I could share our journey of building our family, our dreams and our legacy.

But, I've had a hard time finding the balance of sharing our lives with maintaining our privacy, especially since our kids came into the picture. Much of my writing has been more me processing my thoughts on various topics instead.

Which has been an amazing outlet, but I also want to capture this season of life for our family because we are in the middle of building so many amazing things and I want to document this to remember later.

So, maybe this monthly column will help encourage me to slow down and write what we're living. I envision this as a roundup of mini essays, capturing moments from the month that I want to remember.

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Welcome to The Sunday Journal (inspired by Lish Andres). Published every other Sunday, this column chronicles our life building a family & legacy in rural Missouri.

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I like that this column is named for Sundays. It's a day that's growing on me - I say that because I have always struggled to rest. Weekends have always been two days for me to catch up hobbies, work, writing, chores, errands, etc.

But I've been working on embracing Sunday as a day of rest, especially since it's often the only full day we're all together as a family at home.

Daniel and Levi go to the Seed House on Saturday mornings. The highlight for Levi is going to Casey's with dad to get biscuits and gravy and a donut, and then getting to ride his balance bike through the big barns at the Seed House.

He came home from "work" the other day and I asked him if he sold any seed. "Levi didn't sell seeds. Papa sold seeds," he says in an earnest voice, and it brings me so much joy that this is his childhood. That he gets to grow up in our family business.

While Daniel and Levi are at work, Luke and I hold down the fort. I feed my sourdough starter on Saturday mornings so we have fresh bread for the week.

I also try to bake something most weekends. The second weekend in February I made strawberry cinnamon rolls (something my husband has been asking for often recently), and they were the best cinnamon rolls we've ever had. I'm not much of a baker, so that says a lot!

While Luke naps, I'll either bake, catch up on chores, or work on my writing projects. Once he wakes up, he'll join me to prep lunch or we'll do our weekly grocery run (Daniel and I alternate who gets groceries each week).

It's silly, but I'll imagine I'm in my own homemaking vlog as I putter around the kitchen on Saturday mornings.

Growing up, I worried that I would not enjoy motherhood or homemaking. Neither of those things came naturally to me, and honestly, I could think of a dozen more interesting things to do with my time like sleeping in and then spending an hour doing Bible study and journaling, reading, writing, holed up doing creative work in a coffee shop, browsing a book store or an antique store, brunch with my sisters or friends, etc.

That's what my Saturdays looked like as a single woman. Not going to lie, I miss Saturdays like that, but I'm grateful for a husband who helps me carve out time to do those things occasionally. It's a bit harder now though since we live in the middle of nowhere and there's no coffee shops or book stores to cozy up in.

But that's okay, because I'm finding I love this version of Saturdays too: a baby on my hip, or under my feet, or sitting in his dumbo seat on the kitchen counter as I mix up some sourdough bread, clean or bake; sitting on the living room floor reading a book with Luke or watching him play; rotating how I spend Luke's Saturday morning with homemaking one weekend and my writing projects the following weekend. Saturday afternoons doing home projects and lounging as a family.

Turns out, once I sorted through all the noise trying to tell me how to live and what to be as a woman, especially as a Christian woman, I am settling into the best me. She's not exclusively the homemaker and homesteader I thought I'd never be, but also not the ambitious career woman I thought I would be.

Instead, I'm discovering a happy medium where both homemaking and my work fill different parts in me, and I'm grateful for the privilege to do both.

February is always a tease in the Midwest. We're almost always guaranteed to yo-yo between two extremes: ice and/or snow with freezing temperatures, peppered with the occasional perfect spring days in the 60s and 70s that make you (falsely) believe that spring is around the corner.

The first weekend in February was one such false spring day in Missouri. Daniel found a hunting spot on Army Corps land right near the lake. There's a hiking trail there too, so to embrace the warm weather, we packed up the jogging stroller and the kids, and went for a hike.

Daniel and Levi pretended to hunt along the way, and when we got to the top of the hill overlooking the lake, we put down a blanket and just sat together for a bit. The boys explored the area: Levi building "roads" for his toy dirt bike and Luke digging around in the grass.

It was one of those moments when everything feels right in the world and you make a mental note to do this more often once true spring arrives.

Speaking of spring. Daniel and I have started to dream and plan of what we want to plant in our garden this year.

Last year we (by we, I mean Daniel. I was way too fresh postpartum to be of much help) planted corn, tomatoes, and lots of flowers.

We're on the fence with what we want to plant. We live in an area where in the summer and fall, we can get fresh veggies and fruit from local farmers for a really good price.

We also don't have the skills to preserve what we grow, so in the past, when we'd grow our own veggies, a lot of it would go bad because we couldn't eat it all fast enough but it also wasn't enough to share with others.

I’m adding “learn to can” to my 2025 list. My mom cans every fall so I’d love to join her this year and learn her ways. It’s a memory I have from childhood and something I hope to add to our annual family rhythms too. Btw, if you also want to learn skills of our moms and grandmothers, check out my friend’s Substack on this topic - appropriately called “Lost Skills”.

February is mile marker month for us. It's the month we became parents, so everything feels anchored around mid-February when we celebrate Levi's birthday.

We're not big themed birthday party people, so from the beginning, we've aimed to celebrate small but thoughtful: a donut cake with candles, a garland and balloons to align with what the boys are loving this year (farm animals his first birthday, John Deere tractors his second birthday, and a hunting theme this year), one meaningful gift, and a special outing (a trampoline park, cake with church friends, etc).

Since we moved back to be near family last year, we want to celebrate with them, but if both of our families gathered, it would be like 30-40 people plus over a dozen small kids, so it's a lot. Instead, we're thinking of alternatives - like joint outings to celebrate multiple birthdays since I have several nieces and nephews with birthdays also in February.

This year, we happened to be near my in-laws the weekend before Levi’s birthday so we spent a few hours celebrating with them — my sister in law made dirt cake (Daniel’s favorite as a kid) and my MIL made honey cake, a Slavic staple for any celebration.

Mid-February, we took a weekend trip to the Lake of the Ozarks to attend the Missouri Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers and Ranchers Conference (our first time!). While Daniel was attending seminars and networking, the kids and I hung out at the indoor water park, our hotel room or running circles around the lobby.

Since it was a family event, there were a lot of couples around our age also with toddlers — it was life giving to be in a room with 700+ like minded people who are also into building legacies, stewarding the land, and raising country kids with good old fashioned values.

When we go to Slavic events, we always get comments about how cute our little cowboys are and our boys definitely stand out. But this weekend, they fit right it. It was “their people.”

This made me think of Psalm 127:4-5:

“Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.”

I talked in my postpartum Ebook about how this passage is often taught incompletely in Christian circles, but seeing so many small kids looking like little cowboys and cowgirls made me grateful for the choices we’re making to raise our kids in the country. That this is the path we’re setting “our arrows” on.

Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it. —Proverbs 22:6 (NLT)

From a young age, country kids grow up loving the outdoors, animals, hard work, and surrounded by a tight knit community. Even when they’re little, you put a little boy in jeans, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, and they walk with the most confident strut. I see it with Levi and it saw so cute to see it in other little boys like him at this conference.

The “soil” you plant your kids in, what you “water” them with, the environment you choose for their childhood — it’s all shaping the adults they’ll become.

Regardless of where and how you choose to raise your kids, I hope you make the decision intentionally to align with the kind of legacy you want to leave behind; that it’s a decision you make, not one that’s made for you by how others around you are living or what someone told you that you should do.

Another thing I noticed at the conference is how many farmers and ranchers are “team” couples — where both the husband and the wife (and the kids!) all pitch in every way. Many of the wives I met were homesteaders and mamas, but also worked part time or full time.

Most couples also had multiple income streams, businesses and were either part of a multi-generational legacy / farm / ranch or on a path to build something to last for generations.

Country and farm life is not perfect - nothing in this world is — but it’s a good, simple, full life, and I’m glad it’s what we’re choosing for our boys even if it’s going to take us years of hard work and sacrifice to get to where we want to be.

I have moments when I look at my kids and wonder how they're mine. Or I’ll see the rare photo of me with both boys and it’s like whoa, I'm someone's mom!

I'm a mom to a now 3-year-old and in a few weeks, a one year old. I haven’t fully processed that.

Daniel taught Levi to say, "Mama, you're a beautiful queen!" He'll randomly shout it out at me and it legit feels like my heart is going to burst out of my chest.

Image via Pinterest.

We've finally upgraded Levi's crib to a toddler bed, so he's been asking for me to lay with him before bed.

It's becoming a routine for me to squeeze into his bed (and hope I don't break it) to cuddle and sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" over and over again. Levi saw a video in our family group chat of his cousin, S, singing the song and now he insists on learning it too.

The other night, I lay next to him in my workout clothes. I try to work out once Luke goes to bed, and on this particular day, one thing after the other held me up and I wasn't sure I'd get a workout in since it was almost 8:00 pm and Levi kept insisting for one more song before bed.

"Mama, you going to exercise?" Levi asked. I told him probably not because it was getting late.

"Go exercise, mama."

"Are you sure? I can lay with you a little longer."

"No, leave, mama. Levi going to sleep. Go exercise with Papa."

If it isn't our kids who hold us accountable, huh?

I’ve been working out pretty consistently for 20-30 minutes, 2-4 times per week, since mid-December and it’s been so good for my mental and physical health (even tho I don’t see much physical progress yet, which is frustrating but I am felling stronger and even if that’s a placebo effect, I’ll take it!). I alternate between strength training and walking on the treadmill at an incline.

A small thing that has helped me build this rhythm of moving my body (other than a toddler holding me accountable) is telling myself that "I am a woman who exercises regularly" and "I am someone who walks on my walking pad while working." If you say it enough, you become it?

We have a sandbox next under a giant oak tree in our backyard. It's the boys' favorite play spot lately.

I keep having this visual in my mind - an out of body view of me standing next to the sandbox, engrossed in my phone, while my kids play in the sandbox. And the thought: when they look up to show me something or make sure I saw what they just built or did, will my eyes be on them to meet their gaze?

My tendency to take my phone out and scroll or get things done while with my kids is something I'm not proud of, and my heart hurts every time Levi will say, "Mama, look at Levi!" Or “Mama, watch!” when he notices my attention shifted to my phone.

In the past few weeks, Luke has also started noticing when I'm on my phone and will start whining and climbing all over me to bring my attention back to him (this reel explains what happens to our babies when they see us on our phones - I tested it out on Luke, and it is so true?!).

I hate social media, phones and what they're doing to our brains, relationships and families, and yet, I fall into the scrolling trap of distractions behind that screen every single day.

I know it is impossible to always keep our eyes and attention exclusively on our kids. There are chores to be done, meals to be cooked, laundry to be folded, work to be done; and independent play is vital for healthy child development.

But it's one thing for our children to see us working with our hands vs. scrolling and viewing how other people - even strangers on the internet - are living and saying.

None of us like it when someone we're talking to or spending time with is engrossed in their phone, so why don't I show the same respect to my kids?!

I want my sons to know my eyes are always on them.

No matter how busy or full life is, or if my hands are otherwise occupied, I want my sons to know that when they look up (or down once they're grown and taller than me), they'll find their mom ready to listen to their woes, celebrate their wins and comfort them with a hug.

Anyhow, I continue to be convicted of my social media usage - it's an addiction / habit not easily broken and on my mind a lot lately.

One of the local churches hosted a women's conference yesterday. I went with a few ladies from church and was pleasantly surprised! We live in a small town, but the conference sold out with over 200 women there. The speakers were a mom and her two daughters (moms to four kids each of various ages).

I have lots of little tidbits I took away from the conference, but one of the last topics covered has been on my mind a lot since. The speaker talked about compassion.

She framed it from the angle of how the numbers show that Christianity in the U.S. is on the decline and is predicted to continue to do so. She then went back to highlights from church history when Christianity grew quickly and a common thread is that Christians were the hands and feet of Jesus. They were Love to their communities: carrying for the sick, the elderly, the orphans, and those in need. They did what Jesus did and fellowshipped with those who no one else wanted to draw near to.

Anyhow, I won't recap her entire talk, but she emphasized two points that stuck with me:

First, to show compassion, you must first see the need. She talked about how you can't see someone in need if your eyes are always down looking at your phone and your hands are holding a phone. You also can't often see someone's hurt and need without putting on your "spiritual" eyes and asking Jesus to show you what you need to see.

Second, she talked about how preoccupied and busy we all are and that showing compassion is often an inconvenience. That was definitely convicting for me, mostly because I heard this message and thought to myself: I should pray for God to show me how I can be more compassionate to those in need in my community and the first thing that popped into my mind is that this is really going to disrupt my rhythms and routines, and how in the world am I going to fit this into my life right now?!

The speaker also compared us to her two year old, who when asked to come give mama a hug, replied with, “No, busy.” I wonder how many times God put an opportunity before me to show compassion to someone on my path, but my response, whether in word or by my preoccupied actions, was: “No, I’m busy.” Or worse, I didn’t see it all because I was in a hurry or scrolling watching other people’s highlight reels on my phone.

Least you think I live for the weekends, I also love the rhythms of our weekdays. They're different now that Daniel works outside the home (for the first three years of our marriage, we worked remotely from home together, sharing an office, with Daniel doing day trips for work occasionally).

We have a wonderful nanny, C. She is truly an answered prayer for our family. Eight months in and Levi has warmed up to C, but Luke's deep in his separation anxiety phase so we're still navigating that. It breaks my heart when he cries watching me go downstairs to work, but if the mom guilt sets in, I remind myself that he also cries if I put him down to go pee or dare walk away to the kitchen to get a drink while he's playing in the living room. The separation anxiety at this stage is strong.

I am so grateful to work from home and keep our kids home with me while I work. I am present to comfort and discipline them if needed, and my work breaks are spent reading a book to them, spontaneous hugs or nursing Luke while listening to Levi share what he's been up to.

It feels like the best of both worlds, but my heart is always rooted upstairs with my family, even as my mind thrives on the challenges of work in my office downstairs.

In other family news, Daniel's discovered a new chicken feed combination that has tripled our chickens’ egg production. We have half the chickens we had this summer, but the same amount of eggs! We went from 1-2 eggs per day, to 4-7 eggs per day!

We thought it was the cold that was decreasing the eggs our chickens were laying, but we had the coldest weeks of winter on this new feed and egg production kept going up.

If you also have chickens, reach out and we'll pass on the recommendations, cause we all have seen the headlines of egg prices going off the charts thanks to the bird flu going around.

We came back from the conference last weekend and immediately got sick with the flu that's been making it's rounds. Somehow, Levi has been the only one who hasn't gotten sick, so praying it stays that way.

Last week, we also got below freezing temperatures and eight inches of snow. Sending this to you today as I watch the forecast go back to the 60s in the next few days - praise the Lord for warmer weather and hopefully all of us recovering back to complete health soon, because we are exhausted, depleted and weak over here.

How was your February? What moments do you want to remember from the last month?

Until next time,

YPS