About
Welcome!
Hi! I'm Maria (sometimes called Mama Ria by my little ones) and welcome to my home and my life! I get to enjoy this wonderful, abundant life with my husband and our 7 kids. I hope to encourage you to find practical ways to Make Home Sweet!
I think that everyone needs a place of acceptance, somewhere to belong, and find rest from this crazy world. Home should be the place your family and others are drawn to. Not only because of how beautiful it is or what it is filled with, but because of how they are made to feel while they are there. I'm talking about creating an atmosphere of love and peace, and that starts with me! Perfection is not required but it takes intentionality, time, work, lots of love, and someone to orchestrate the music of it all! We get to color the world for our families and have been given the great task to invest in the lives of others with our homes!
I want you to feel welcomed here! I hope you join us as we do lots of budget-friendly DIY and decorating, share some family tested and approved recipes, hear about our family including our daughter with special needs and the adoption of our sons, and hopefully we will have lots of heart to hearts! I try to have manageable expectations for my home to make it beautiful and achievable. Home wasn't built in a day! I want to inspire you to create a beautiful life for your family and show that happiness really is homemade!
Let me tell you a little more about myself...
I started out my mom life as a teenage mom. A few years later I met my prince charming, the best of all men, and we've been married for twenty years now! We went through a step-parent adoption soon after we were married and learned to come together as a real family. We added more kids to the mix, including a daughter with special needs. Then we finished off our family by adopting two of our sons from foster care.
And now I’m a mom to seven children, ranging in age from mid-20s to 5. I have gone from a teen mom, to a single mom, to a working mom, to a stay-at-home mom, and now to a homeschooling mom for the past 10+ years. I’ve learned to enjoy each day, each season of life, and that everything is made beautiful in its time.
I share about my faith on here. I have experienced what it is like to be loved by Christ when I was unlovable to the rest of the world. He has picked me up and turned my life around and given me a firm place to stand. God is the greatest treasure of my life!
I think some of the most pleasant things in life are big farmhouse tables, wood stoves, flowers from the garden, fresh baked cookies in the kitchen, curtains blowing in the breeze, birds singing outside the window, morning sunshine, and the beautiful faces of my children. I look for the beauty in the chaos and the mundane parts of life and I believe there is nothing sweeter than being surrounded with the ones I love.
Thank you for stopping by! I look forward to getting to know you and encouraging you to Make Home Sweet!
