don't be scared of summer + Albion Fit Giveaway

I have something to confess. 

For the bulk of my adult life, I've had a straight up fear of summer. 

Sure I love picnics and sun and playing -- but I hate bathing suits, shorts, and near nudity. 

I'm a modest kind of girl who feels like my stretchmarks are best kept to myself and, you know?

And then I found out about Albion Fit and I have to be honest. 

Now, I'm not scared of summer! I have to REALLY believe in a company and love their product to review it here, and I promise you - this is a product I love and am excited to share!

Albion Fit is a company that provides women's fitness and swimwear and nothing looks like it was made for a 12 year old. It's real, luxurious women's workout clothing and bathing suits that fit well and flatter your body. They asked me if I'd like to try something from their product line to review and since I knew I'd be in chilly Indiana for a bit - I chose the Balboa Tunic Dress.

I absolutely love this tunic because it can easily be worn two ways. When I'm in South Carolina in a few weeks, it will make the perfect blousy coverup to wear for hours and hours on the beach or while my kids play in the sprinklers in the backyard. BUT while I'm here in Indiana - I can wear it with long pants as a boho-ish type tunic dress.

Here are a few other of my favorites from Albion - the blousy bathing suit top and I love their hoodies! The gals from Albion are feeling super generous so they're giving one of you the Black Balboa Tunic as well AND a 15% discount for EVERYONE off the whole shop using coupon code NaptimeDiaries15. 

Follow the directions below to enter and head over to Albion Fit to use that discount!
None of us should be scared of summer, you know? 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

shake it up.

Wanna know a secret? 
This life, it is not all inspiration and excitement. 
I try not to be the wompy girl on the internet, or for that matter the wompy girl in the human world - the one who points out the bad and focuses on the sticky points of reality. But that doesn't mean I live a life that isn't filled with normal and mediocre and tired and stressful. 

Hayley and I are working hard on our Refresh eBook and the biggest thing I'm learning as we're genuinely trying to experiment with refreshment and bless other ladies with it, is that sometimes the biggest and hardest and most important step to experiencing refreshment is to stop thinking about how icky you feel and just do something. 

It's Wednesday. Are you tired? Worried? Sad? Burdened? Bored? 
Here is my casual and quick list to shake it up. 
Go on a walk. 
Write a letter to a friend. 
Put on this song real loud. 
Play hide and go seek with your kids. 
Try some abstract painting. 
Make a smoothie. 
Read a book. 
Take a nap. 
Do a little dancing in a room by yourself. 

There it is. My prescription to shake it up today. 
What helps you? 

Also?! Today's the last day of our MOVING SALE - 40% off in our shop! 

Last big sale till November! Ah! Don't miss it! 

MOVING SALE!!!

Y'all. We gotta pack up our office and print shop before we move. 
And we have a lot of paper. And a lot of shipping supplies. 
And we're not having a sale this big again until Black Friday. IN NOVEMBER. 

Frequently Asked (or anticipated) Questions: 
The sale will last until midnight Wednesday the 21st. 
You enter the sale code AFTER you enter your paypal info. 
The sale is on ALL products INCLUDING BUNDLES!

Head over there, enjoy 

and tell your friends! 

our healthy dream | an essential oils giveaway

I'm a dreamer. Nick and I dream on datenights and I dream while I run and I like to ask people about their dreams. For me, it's not always the crazy outrageous stuff - but I just like to hear the commonplace, "this would sure be a sweet life" dreams. For example, for awhile now - I've had a simple dream that our kids would grow up with really comfy beds. Not extravagant. Not expensive. Just a comfy mattress with some sweet clean sheets. I dreamed that they'd look back on their childhood and remember peaceful nights in their beds. 

This kind of dreaming is so good in small doses, because it jars us into reality about taking steps for the simple dreams. I don't want five years to pass by and realize I've been so caught up in the day to day and the big endeavors, that my kids didn't have sweet and simple beds and clean sheets, you know? 

Anyhow - this isn't a post about beds. But it is about a dream that I'm taking baby steps towards. In all honesty, when I dream about ten years from now - I want to be really, really healthy. I don't want to be really, really skinny or worship health - because it's not the end all be all, but I do want to know that I'm stewarding my body well and raising my family in simplest, healthiest way I can. 

Our family has had a windy road to health and wellness. A few years ago, we had a really standard american diet with lots of diet coke and boxed pizza (not that there is ANYTHING wrong with occasional diet coke and boxed pizza) and very little thoughts of health mixed in. Then we went into an intense phase of natural living - gluten free and vegan and making our own soap. Since then, we've been kind of finding our way - what works for us and what doesn't and what matters to us and what isn't so important. And every once in a while, we have to do these little checks to make sure we're on the right path. 

That's where Jodi comes in. I met Jodi through The Influence Conference last year and had an immediate connection with her. Just before Christmas, our family went through a horrible horrible season of sickness. I was having pregnancy complications, we all went through the flu, the stomach flu, multiple colds, and more than our fair share of puking. It seemed like we were always on another antibiotic and I didn't know how to get out of the crazy cycle of sickness. During this season, sweet Jodi emailed me and began to tell me about essential oils. She offered to send me a complete set of the Young Living Everyday Oils completely free, no strings attached, just to bless us. We were skeptical but desperate. 

I toyed with the oils a little before having Cannon, but not much. It wasn't until I came home from the hospital with intense uterine trauma that I got interested and started really asking Jodi questions. I had an abdomen that was bruised and crazy swollen from my complicated c-section. I was in serious pain and doctors and nurses gave me no real solution except to wait for it to heal - possibly six weeks or more. The first night I really tried the oils on my swelling and bruising, I was doubtful and hopeful all at once. I put Panaway and Lavender all over my abdomen and woke up to a stomach that was half the size it was the night before, with most of the major bruising GONE. 

Since then, I've slowly begun to learn more about essential oils and their benefits. I'll be 100% honest and tell you, the husband is still a good bit skeptical, but Jodi recently got him some big legit chemistry books that explain how the oils work and he'll be working his way through in his own time. Now, we're using lemon oil in our water for detoxing our liver and digestion. We're using Thieves for sore throats instead of tylenol. Panaway on sore knees after running. My kiddos are learning to stick their little toes out of their beds every night for their Peace + Calming oil application on their feet. Lavender, Peppermint, even Frankincense on Glory to help protect against seizures. I can't explain intelligently how essential oils work, but I love that we're reaching for oils over our medicine cabinet more often - and feeling more healthy everyday. 

Jodi has been incredibly generous and helpful with us and asked if I wanted to reach out to my readers and give away a set of the Everyday Oils Kit from Young Living, that comes with nine different oils - Lavendar, Thieves, Panaway, Peace and Calming, Peppermint, Valor, Purification, Frankincense, and Lemon. The thing I love about Young Living is that when you get their starter kit - you also become a distributor so you get wholesale prices on oils forever more!  

You can absolutely just enter the giveaway below, but I highly suggest you check out Jodi's site and look through the options of signing up as a distributor if you're at all interested in using oils for the longterm. For us, it's going to be a long road to getting the most out of them - but I am really, really excited to learn and mainly to just gain more knowledge on helping our family be as healthy as possible. 

Excited for the sweet gal who is going to win this package! 
I hope you all have an amazing weekend!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Also! One other little treat - every Friday for the next month I'll be having a giveaway or promotion of some sort. I'm really excited! Check back in for more from Lisa Leonard, Albion Fit, and more!

make it cute.

Hello, loves! I have a quick little businessy tip and trick that I'm excited to share today. 
Something we encourage gals with in The Influence Network is to have multiple streams of income/ministry/business - essentially, have a few different things going on online. I absolutely subscribe to this belief and I love having my hands in a few different things and projects on the world wide web. 

There's always a line to draw where you're not doing all the things, but you are participating in the endeavors that are life giving to you. For me, not everything I do online makes money - but it is all life giving. And when I find that it no longer is or I cant' sustain it - I usually faze it out. Anyhow, today's tip is for all ladies, whether you have a lot going on online or offline or WHEREVER. 

I don't have all day to sit on my laptop and I know you don't either. I decided I needed a little inspiration to keep me going when I sat down - to help me think through and pray for all the things I have my hand in, but also make me smile. 

So I made this little cutey!
I'm going to walk you around it clockwise.
A little virtual walk through my online things, if you will. 

It starts in the top lefthand corner with a scripture I'm praying over my online ministry. 2 Corinthians 10: 13-15. I literally just took a screenshot from esv.com. Next, the naptime diaries logo - reminding me to stay on my blogging schedule + keep handling the creative direction of the shop. Beneath that you'll find a SUPER SECRET first glance at our new Influence Network branding. Shhh.... Don't tell anyone I showed you. Below that, SheReadsTruth - a great reminder to finish up my research/writing for our most recent plan. Under that - the Gospel Community logo to remind me to pray for our church plant. To the right of that, the eBook cover for the eBook I'm finishing up with Hayley this month! The flowers just remind me of feminine goodness and look super inspiring. The shoes get me pumped about running and The Mama Shred and the picture of the bridge in Charleston gets my little heart thumping for our future city and the people within it. 

So there you have it! A fun, fresh, inspiring desktop background. 
And if it looks pretty, it will help you keep it clean, which will help your computer not crash. I genuinely think my husband would rather see our bedroom untidy than my desktop all cluttered. This helps me help him! 

What's inspiring you these days?