Hello everyone and welcome to Courageous Homekeeping!  We would like to tell you a little about our website.  The website started as an idea as most things do.  I (Kristi) have been recognizing that all around me women are desiring to turn their eyes away from the work place and back towards home.  We want to be at home and learn how to be Biblical wives to our husbands and Biblical mothers to our children.  And with that desire comes the stark realization for most of us that we just don’t know how!  Many of us were raised in a 2 parent working family and there wasn’t a lot of value in being a stay at home wife and mother.  We never learned how to sew or garden or cook or run a household.  In the last few generations, we have sadly lost the passing on of those skills.

That’s exactly where we hope this website will come in.  We believe strongly that understanding the Biblical principals of being a ‘keeper at home’ are just as important today as they were when the Bible was written.  In Titus 2 it says that the older women are supposed to teach the younger women to love their husbands and children and to be keepers at home.  So we want to inspire and encourage you to learn what God says about being a wife and a mother and what your jobs and roles are as a woman.  And while we’re learning how to get back to those important Biblical principals, we also hope to help you learn practical skills such as sewing, canning and housekeeping etc, with a surprising twist of learning how to take care of ourselves and not allow ourselves to become frumpy housewives!

I hope and pray that this website will be full of things that bring glory to God and encouragement, support and help to any woman who comes across it.  If you ever have any need to contact us, feel free to go to our Contact page and fill out the form.  We’d love to hear from you!  We will always welcome suggestions on how this site can be more helpful to you or suggestions on videos you’d like to see, or subjects you’d like us to tackle.

Thanks for coming– we hope you enjoy your time with us!

The Contributors:

Kristi is a busy “keeper at home” with 5 kids.  2 boys, ages 10 and 7 and three triplet girls who are just about to turn 4.  She has a growing, thriving, almost 12 year old marriage that is getting better and stronger every day.  Kristi loves to read, bargain-hunt, bake and eat cookies, LOVES coffee and just about anything chocolate mint or peanut butter flavored.  She loves to shop, especially for clothes and shoes, but really, even if it’s just at the grocery store.  She has recently discovered a love of gardening…both food and flowers, but has realized that it is definitely a learn-as-you-go process.  She is a true Oregonian through and through, complete with a tattoo, body piercing, love of the rain,an independent spirit and recycling bins.  In the last year especially, God has been working on weeding and cultivating a lot of areas in Kristi’s heart, which has been both painful and joyful.  She is beginning to catch a glimpse of the woman that God wants her to be.  She desires and aspires to use this website to be real.  To be raw.  To show others that life is a journey and so is home keeping.  Over the years there are many aspects of home keeping that she has learned, but many more where she would consider herself a beginner.  But she plans to keep fighting the good fight, just as God has called her to do.  For the beginning of Kristi’s story, please go HERE.

Andrea is a stay at home mom of two beautiful boys. They are six years apart, yet they are fast friends. She is married to a wonderful man who works hard for their family. They married young and have been together for almost a decade and a half! She enjoys singing, decorating, re-purposing, crafting, gardening, sewing, getting back to basics, baking, cooking from scratch, alternative remedies, camping, and teaching her sons to be gentlemen. She has a small jewelry business, home schools one son while attempting to occupy the other, and loves to read and research. She still attends the church she grew up in, and has been on their worship team for over a decade. Andrea and her husband just recently bought their first project house, and they are going through the ups and downs that come with renovating. God has allowed her to go through poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), infertility, agoraphobia, panic and anxiety, and various other ailments. It is only with His strength that she overcame them and it is her desire to help others through that pain.  For the beginning of Andrea’s story, please go HERE.

Leah is a single mom of 2 very active, very amusing, and very loveable children, an 8 year old boy and a 4 year old girl. In 2007 she went through a very painful divorce, through that painful journey she experienced the amazing strength, guidance, and love that God brought into her life.  Leah is a self-described “quiet girl” but loves to laugh and sing as loud as she can in the car – until her children tell her to quiet down.  She loves reading, organizing, cooking, and the Oregon coast (rain or shine!)  She loves chocolate and time with friends – combine those two and she is as happy as can be!  She loves being with her children, watching her son discover sports, playing catch with him (even though he is now the one coaching her when it comes to throwing and catching a football)  and listening to her daughter turn anything and everything into a song.  She is still in awe as God leads her in new and exciting directions, and she is still learning to let Him.  For the beginning of Leah’s story, please go HERE.

Our Monthly Contributors

Carrington stays at home full time with her three year old triplets. She and her husband of ten years recently moved their family to Naperville, IL, where they are getting their first taste of living in the Midwest after growing up in the Northwest and then spending five years in New York City and surrounding areas. She has two daughters and one son who keep her constantly busy and consistently on her knees. She doesn’t seem to have much free time, but in those rare moments she enjoys reading, writing, working out, and the occasional crafting and bargain hunting. Since becoming a mom she has developed a passion for sharing the love of God with other moms and seeing them embrace the joy God has for them through parenting. She is a self-proclaimed thinker who loves to dream, ponder, wonder out loud, and ask the question “why?” She is happiest spending time with her hilarious and beautiful family or on the back of a horse.  You can find her blogging regularly over at Mostly Life.

Courageous Homekeeping photos are courtesy of Colette at Coco Photography Thank you Colette for the fun photo shoot and the AWESOME photos we got out of it!