it's life. Loudly

It's that time of year to get your kids signed up for 'All the Things'.

It's been a hot minute. Here's a life update!

Make sure you start with Part 1. Here's the rest of our journey on how their story becomes part of our story!

By popular demand, I snagged Kacie for an interview all about being a foster care parent! People have often asked us questions about the foster care system and how it works to become a foster parent, but Dalton and I did not take the traditional route when going through adoption so we do not have all of the answers. Thank you Kacie + Eric for accepting the call that God had for them and saying 'okay' to what He had planned. Thank you to Kacie for sharing her part of the story with us!

A little bit unorganized, but today we're going to walk through what we feel like is the hardest job you'll ever have - parenting. Too many people are not honest with one another about how often life is crazy, messy, and an overall hot mess. It may look like we have our ducks in a row, but we don't even know where our ducks are half of the time. There is an insane pressure in our culture to always be 'on' for our kids and doing the absolute best 100% of the time. To have this put together life that gets showcased online. We're here to tell you that it is totally okay to just be 'fine'. Let's be more honest about our chaos and hot mess so that we can support ourselves better individually and as a community. Parents, it's okay to take care of yourself so that you're bringing your best self to do the hardest job. Here's your permission to give grace.

We interrupt this regular program with a random rant about tables that no one asked for. It's calving season! We have calves on the ground so the seasons are turning. Let's chat with Rancher Dalton about this season and some wild calving stories.

I've partnered with a company I have been using for years. Shaklee is a health/wellness company that provides us with cleaning supplies, supplements, household products, skincare and all the things. I started with one product and have now replaced so many products in my home with a better option. Now we've found so many other companies with better food alternatives and better products for our home and family. It's seems overwhelming at first but you just have to change one thing to solve one problem for a healthier home, family, and lifestyle.

We've been asked the question on how we censor media in our homes. We'll talk books, movies, TV, cell phones, screens and all the things. Do we know what we're doing? Absolutely not. This is trial and error every day as the world throws more things at us and our kids. Hopefully you have more tips and tricks to add to help us out!

Let's just rant and get some things off our chest, shall we?

We had a FULL two weeks over Christmas and it was for sure living life LOUD!From snow to sunshine we left the North Dakota cold and headed to the heat of the Dominican Republic. In this episode we recap our full two weeks of travel.

Listen along as we walk through our 2025. We're going to talk through month by month, our 2025. It's easy to get caught up in the daily grind and we overlook all of the amazing things we did in the year. Let's relive it.

Christmas season is here! Today we're talking about our opinions on gifts, and some of our favorite and not so favorite gifts!

We're chatting about how we get ready for Christmas, our traditions, and the fun things we do around the holidays!

So excited for Mr. and Mrs. West but boy was the traveling interesting...So thankful for my amazing assistant for sticking through this with me. It was a weekend to remember!

If you didn't listen to part one, go back and listen. Here's the rest of our conversation with our friend Coke!

It's Coke!Dalton's friend Cole (coke) joins us to chat all about hunting! An episode that Dalton has probably been dreaming about for a long time!

We missed a week! We made sure it wouldn't happen again this week. This week, we walk you through the roller coasters we are living right now and how we handle it. Not sure if everything we do is always right but we try to do what's best for us in the season we're in. If you're living in a roller coaster right now... we're hear for it.

We shared a lot about what faith looks like in our family and how we find support to make that a priority. Someone in the crowd asked us to share our testimonies more personally and how we even got to this point. In this episode, we walk you through our personal faith journeys, how they connected to each other, and key moments that helped define where we are today. If you've never shared your own testimony, take this as a gentle nudge to start giving it a try! Your story might be the inspiration that someone else needs in their own testimony.

It's a Who Knows Who Best special! We tried to challenge each other with some questions - all just for fun while going LIVE the first time on the podcast. Take the POLL at the end!

In today's episode we are talking about all things health. We start off with our minor aches and pains from childhood and lead into our more major health events that have happened in the last few years. Some of it is kind of comical on how it all played out but in the end we're both grateful that we have our health and our new habits to keep us in routines that will help us in the future. Resources:Megastrong Fitnesswww.megastrongfitness.com/Shaklee Health Productsus.shaklee.com/en_US/ksteichen/

We were asked the question - "What are things you are doing with your family to keep FAITH a priority?"It's been a journey and it is always changing with the ages of our kids. Today we're going to talk about our faith journey as a couple and the things we've incorporated in our home and life to keep our faith a priority. We've learned that it is less about the list of things we do, and more about the people we've surrounded ourselves with and the daily modeling opportunities that have fallen right in front of us.

Today we're going to spend some time catching up on what's been going on the last few weeks as well as dive into a conversation on teenagers!We met when we were about fifteen years old and started our relationship shortly after that. Maybe this is why we feel that we can still relate to teenagers and their issues. Being a teenager can be messy and confusing and we remember it well. In this episode we talk about how we met and how we kept our faith at the center as we grew up together. Relationships and friendships are so important during the teen years.Whether you're a teen yourself, or you know a teen, or maybe you parent a teen, let's let them be messy as we help guide them in the right directions and listen along the way!

Go back and listen to Part 1!Here's Part 2 of Marriage Conflicts!If you are struggling in your marriage, please find a space where you can get help. Reach out to use - we love chatting about marriage!

On this two part episode we are talking about some of the top marriage conflicts. We'll walk through what we think about these things as well as give some examples of how we've experienced these in our own marriage. Part 1- Household Chores + Responsibilities- Interests + Hobbies (Principle of Sharing "A Severe Mercy")- Harmful Behaviors- ParentingPart 2- Communication- Finances- Extended Family- Intimacy

In this episode, we are going through The Marriage Journal. This is a journal that couples should do every week in order to stay connected. We walk through the questions and how we would answer and discuss normally. themarriagejournal.com

In this episode, we dive into what life was like during our big remodel several years ago. The more we talk about it, the crazier it sounds. Also, we're big dreamers over here so we always have something up our sleeve for what's next.

First SOLO episode! I am an excellent record keeper and I love diving into old family albums, ancestry, and anything from the post. Today I am talking about my process for record keeping and how I keep track of ALL the things for my kids and family. Here's a peak at the resources I will be talking about. Promptly JournalI've replaced 'baby books' with these journals. These journals are from ages 0 - 18 with great questions to keep you guided for each year and answer specifically so there's nothing you need to create yourself. The Short YearsI use their school kits in order to keep track of school art, writing, and projects. They're neatly labeled and have fun back to school questions for your kids. It comes with the folders and file box so all you have to do is fill it with memories. MixbookThis is the program I use for our family photo albums. I've been using this program for decades and I make a book every year. Movavi This is my video program that I use to put all of our video clips together from my phone and video camera. So at the end of the year, we have a full film that captures our year.

Just a few updates as we head back to school!Any of you have any back to school traditions?Let's bring on the season of change!

Today we're looking at some of the most common debates in family, marriage, parenting and just daily living. Do you side with us or do you have your own views. Be ready because some of these things will seriously make you laugh out loud.

While we're visiting Dalton's college roommate and good friend, we decided to sit down and reminisce about college days, living together, working together, and some shenanigans these two got into together.

We have not been on a road trip in a LONG time! Lately when we're in the car, or just have a spare minute, we've been playing some comical word games. The FRDi show guys have had some fun quizzes, word games, and puzzles so we've started playing some too. Also on this episode we take a trip down memory lane and talk about our favorite road trips and vacations as kids and as a couple with our family.

Today we're talking about what happens when you change your mind and then change it back. After six years of teaching, Kristen left that role to do other things but then headed back into the classroom two years later. Listen to the story and be encouraged that it's okay to not really know what you want and it's okay to change your mind.

We've made it to YEAR 10! We're going to walk through the last ten years with one of our favorite resources - Memories of Us : An Anniversary Journal. Find it at beating50percent.com

We are continuing our adoption story in this episode and getting to the big finale of Adoption Day!

We're diving right in to chatting about our story with ADOPTION! It's something we've been asked a lot of questions about so come along with us as we relive that time in our lives that was incredibly crazy, wild, and LOUD!