How To Handle Extended Family During The Holidays

In every marriage there is at least one fight over who gets what holiday and what it looks like.

For the first few years of our marriage, we tried to do a meal at each home, but found the day exhausting. We knew things would have to change when we had kids.Continue reading

Best Christmas Gifts For Your Young Children

It’s time to start thinking about your Christmas gifts for your little ones.  Below is a great list to help you get started.

Please post any other ideas you have in the comments!  Enjoy!Continue reading

What Moms Need To Know About Self Care

Is it a problem when the nicest things said to you come from strangers?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets beat up by family and ignored by friends. As a mom, sometimes we are the last to be thought of.Continue reading

This Is Why Mothers Feel So Lonely At Times

I laid in bed this morning at 4:45 to my daughter happily chatting to me in baby talk.  Well, it was more grunting and refusing to be nursed back to sleep, but I wanted it to be happy.

I dreamed about sleeping in, not going anywhere, taking a long shower.  The reality was at 4:00 am my 6 month old baby somehow wiggled her diaper down, peed out of it, and all over me.  I had stripped the bed and was at that moment sleeping on a towel, while she refused to back to sleep.

My son would wake at 6:30 and happily chirp “Good morning, Mamma”.  I would shower with my daughter at my feet and my son screaming he wants to go down stairs now. I would spend my day doing a paint project with a mom’s group, chasing a 3 year old around a playground, shopping for fall clothes, and eating dinner out to please my husband.

In my entire day, no one would know about my exhaustion.  Instead, they see my happy pictures.  Watch me laugh at my kids antics, and get on with it.

Because that is motherhood.Continue reading

10 Best Fall Activities To Do With Your Kids

Fall is my favorite time of year.  The weather is nice and there is so much to do!

This is my must do list every fall!Continue reading

Why I Celebrate Halloween As A Christian

Every year right around August, there is a group of very vocal Christians that begin to lecture the rest of us Christians about Halloween and how its an evil holiday.

I won’t lie, there are people who do and support bad things with Halloween. I will also admit there is a history to Halloween, not to mention ghosts, goblins, devils and witches.

So no, it is not a Christian holiday. No one ever said it was. That being said, I do have a very specific reason for allowing my kids to participate.Continue reading

How To Become The Mother You Want To Be

I am not the mom I want to be.

I want to be the Pinterest mom with a cute crafts that I can hang on the refrigerator for my kids. Instead, I am the mom making the cut-out hand turkey three days after Thanksgiving. Did I mention my turkey is green because I don’t have brown construction paper?

I want to be the mom with the beautiful clean kitchen that glistens like there’s a magical light touching it. Instead, I am the mom running around with a vacuum chasing ants off the kitchen floor yelling at the kids for dropping a bread crumb.

I want to be the mom that speaks love and goodness, truth and beauty into my children. I want them to hear great words, rich language, well-crafted sentences. Instead they hear me mutter ‘oh shit’ when I can’t find my keys.  They hear me scream, ‘fuck’ when I drive by the cop going too fast. They hear ‘son of a bitch’ when I can’t get a toy together.

And in a moment of complete honesty, I would say that my son can repeat all the curse words but has yet to memorized one single Bible verse.Continue reading

Why You Need To Raise Independent Children

When I was a little girl, I had a very good friend who was a little boy that was always getting into trouble. He had a saying that he taught me that changed my life.

It was ‘row your own boat.’

So when all the kids were doing the exact same thing, playing the exact same games, going to the exact same movies, having the exact same experiences, this friend of mine was rowing his own boat, making his own path, making his own decisions.

He was never the kid in the middle of the group but always a kid on the outside.Continue reading

This Is Why You Shouldn’t Treat Your Kids Equally

In our country we talk about equality all the time. In America, equality is mostly defined as everyone having the same pay for the same job. Equality defined as seeing people through the same lens. Basically everyone is the same and equal to everyone else.

Yet, when we give everyone exactly the same thing, there always seems to be this underlying discontentment. I think on some underlying level, we know that while we may all be human and share similar basic needs, our needs, wants, desires, hopes and dreams are not the same.

No matter how similar our life is to someone else, we are very different people and this is even more true when you deal with siblings.Continue reading

How To Deal With The Pressure Of Being A Stay-At-Home Mom

Dealing with the pressure of being a stay-at-home mom is like no other.  I was reading a question on a Facebook group yesterday from a new stay at home mom.  In it, she talked about how she stayed up all night obsessing about the areas of her life that she was failing in.  She wanted advice on how to cope.

Unlike the working mom, who is always lauded for balancing life and job and kids, the stay at home mom is held to an impossible standard of perfection.  And we allow it.

Instead of getting advice that she was doing fine, she was giving cleaning day suggestions, activities, and structure ideas.  As stay at home mothers we put a ton of pressure on ourselves. Continue reading