Stay At Home Series- Kaylee from Life Chasers

This week I'm focusing on stay-at-home moms.

In case you're now catching up here are the posts that have been up so far this week.

A post talking about why I'm doing this series.
A post telling my ow personal story about staying at home with my kids.

A guest post by Alex from Peppermint Plum.

And today I've asked Kaylee to share a bit about her story.

This girl has blessed me so much the past few months.

I keep finding myself wishing we were next door neighbors:)

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Hello! I am Kaylee over at Life Chasers.

I am a wife to a hard working man and momma to two silly girls.

I grew up as a big sister to 11 kids with a mom who was always home with us.

When she could, she would help my dad run our dairy farm.

But really, we were all heavily involved so I kind of got to have both of my parents at home.

I never knew it any other way.

We were home-schooled and there was always a lot of emphasis on building homemaking skills right along with academic skills.

It was never forced, but I just kind of decided from the beginning that I wanted to be a stay at home mom.

When I was about 18 I seriously thought about going to school to be a large animal vet.

But the one thing that kept me from persuing it was knowing I wouldn't get to spend the time I wanted to with my someday kids.

I always wanted to have a trade or a skill that I could have that would accommodate being a mom.

Photography was just that thing.

I began doing that 7 years ago and will do a shoot here and there for fun.

It has allowed me to feel like I can 'help out' but not take away from my primary job as a wife and mom.

I really love it.

The time I get to spend with my girls is so precious to me.

When we lived in Washington we were surrounded by places to go and people to play with.

And we did just that.

But now, we live in an extremely rural area so our 'activities' are pretty limited.

We spend the majority of our time at home, doing projects here and there or playing outside.

It has forced me to get creative with our time, and I am still learning!

I so desire simplicity and don't want to fill our time with 'stuff'.

I want it to be productive and build character.

(in both my kids and I).

I want to train them the same way that my mom trained me,

to keep a home, to make meals, and to be a blessing to others.

While this is my heart's desire, it doesn't always come easily for me.

Yes, there are days when I wonder what it would be like to go to work somewhere else.

But I know that I couldn't take being away from my girls.

When those thoughts come in, it usually just means I need a half hour to myself.

There are also days where I am so tired that we don't do anything.

Those days are fine on occasion, but here is a recent revelation I had.

For those of us that are called to stay at home,

it's our job.

It's not an excuse to stay in our sweats and feed our kids at lunch time.

1 Corinthians 10:31 says,

"So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God."

We are to strive for excellence in all that we do,

and that goes for our work at home as well.

This is still a challenge for me but I'm working at it every day.

I remember right before we got married we were told that marriage is the hardest work we would ever love to do.

I think the same goes for being a stay at home mom.

There are days I just cry, but I wouldn't trade it for a second.

My encouragement for you would be to do it with excellence.

Not perfection, but strive to make each moment count and do it for the glory of God.