Blog & Blogging News: My Summer Blogging Plan

About 5 years ago, I started taking time off from blogging every summer. I started with just a week, then quickly realized that in order to get a true break, I needed to take 3-4 weeks off.

Yes, that's a lot of time, but it really is worth it for me and for our family.

This year, however, I've decided not to take several weeks off during the summer months because I definitely want to take time off after the baby is born at the end of September — and it's probably not super smart for me to take a month off in July or August, and then more time off in September or October!

My plan is to continue sharing 5 new posts every week… but ONE of those posts will be a "week in review" of sorts. I'll go back through my archives over the past 7 years of blogging and share links, photos, and snippets from posts I wrote that same week in previous years.

For example, today I'm sharing several links and photos from posts I wrote between June 11 and June 17, 2010 through 2016. I'll also share a quick summary of current life in the Dekker house.

So far, it has been lots of fun for ME to go back in time and remind myself what was happening back then. Plus, I figure it's a great way to resurrect a handful of the hundreds and hundreds of posts in my archives.

Hopefully it will be a nice refresher for you to re-read some of these as well!

2010:

One of the very first blog posts I ever wrote (I think it was my 4th post) was all about my closet… it's almost embarrassingly horrendous to look back on now 🙂 I thought I was so cool for putting borders around all my photos — which are tiny and not super clear. My how times have changed!

Also, for those of you who might be confused, these are pictures of the closet at our first house, not our current farmhouse.

2011:

All week long, I hosted a Huge Birthday Giveaway Week with 26 giveaways for my 26th birthday. It was crazy, it took SOOOOO much time and effort, but it was really fun (and I didn't have kids at the time so what else did I have to do… right! 🙂

I also ironically shared our new closet at our current house! We LOVE this closet set up!

2012:

My hair is kind of wind-blown, but this has always been one of my favorite pictures of me with Nora (roughly 7 months old).

These 5-Minute chocolatey pretzel bites are still one of our family's favorite snacks — the kids love to help make them now too!

If you're looking for a simple, practical wedding or bridal shower gift this summer, here are a bunch of my favorite ideas!

2013:

Here are 5 financial lessons I hoped (and still hope) our children will learn from us.

I still love this post about the Good Old Days — and the cute picture of Nora I used in the post! She went months and months refusing to wear anything but a pair of bright pink water shoes. It lasted well into the winter months too!

And now, James is almost the same age as Nora was in the picture above… and the exact opposite — requesting his winter "bootsies" EVERY single day, even in the middle of summer!

2014:

These super simple DIY garbage disposal tabs work wonders to clean and freshen stinky disposals!

I loved writing my birthday post that year — all about how I don't need gifts or flowers to feel loved.

And here's the link to my most favorite Strawberry Pie (which I'll be making tomorrow, after we pick fresh Michigan strawberries!)

Here's another one of my favorite photos!

2015:

I still love making our own (very frugal) foaming hand soap — and our kids still LOVE the foam!

2015 was the spring/summer we did TONS of house and yard projects in hopes that we'd have lots of time to rest after James was born. I shared all about our massive list of projects in this post — including a mini bedroom makeover for Simon (which is the exact same room we gutted and are now almost finished renovating for Nora!)

Here's how it looked 2 years ago when we moved Simon in… I can't wait to share pictures of the newly renovated space in a few more weeks!

2016:

I shared our kids' bedtime routine — and how they were finally all going to bed early and sleeping really well. I won't lie, this past year of super early bedtimes and kids sleeping all night long has been absolutely FANTASTIC! Sleep deprivation is the one thing I'm totally dreading with the arrival of another baby — we'll just take it one day (or night) at a time I suppose!

For those of you looking for fun ways to entertain young children (without a ridiculous amount of prep work or creativity on your part) here are 12 of my favorite ideas — including "playing beauty salon"!

I also shared one of our most favorite dips for chips — I still look for any and every excuse to make this!!

2017:

So far, our week has been filled with caulking, puttying, sanding, and painting — and adding all the finishing touches to Nora's new bedroom upstairs. The carpet was installed yesterday, and we will hopefully get the mini loft bed installed ASAP (here's one sneak peek!!)

I've also been busy preparing and freezing a bunch of food and snacks for an upcoming cottage vacation with my family. We'll be fairly far away from most restaurants and grocery stores, so my goal is to make as much of the food in advance as possible.

Oh, and here are a few of my favorite pictures from earlier this week 🙂