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Is Your Parenting Style Hurting Your Child?
This post has been weighing on my heart for a long time…I’m talking years. This particular aspect of parenting keeps creeping into my life and then I get busy and forget about it, but it’s one that I think is important to discuss. Now, this post is mainly for parents, however, I know I have at least a few teen readers out there and I would love to get your perspective on this topic as well. Please don’t be shy! Leave me a comment with your thoughts so we can some more insight into whether or not this phenomenon actually exists and if it does, what we can do as…
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The Mom Machine
Growing up in a large family, our house was pretty much chaos 24/7. I think my mom liked it that way. If the house was too quiet she seemed uncomfortable. She slept with the television on just for background noise…come to think of it, the television was ALWAYS on, not because anyone was watching it but because Mom liked the noise. My mom did a lot for our family. She kept the crazy together if you know what I mean. Dad worked a ridiculous number of hours each week to provide for all of us and Mom kept the house running. It’s just how our family worked. Now that I…
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Baby, There Are Simply No Words…
I honestly don’t even know how or where to start this post. And for a writer, it is a rarity that I ever run out of things to say. Something has been weighing heavily on my heart, not just recently, but for the past 9 years actually. I’ve held it in. I’ve journaled. I’ve cried. And now I share it…with all of you. I had a son. His name was Brendan. He would have been 9 years old this September…actually, he wasn’t due until November. He was a vibrant baby…always kicking and rolling around. The kids were thrilled to be adding #8 to our beautiful family, especially Nathan. You see,…
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Homeschool vs Public School
I am a former homeschool mom. I have been around the block a time or two on both sides of the Homeschool vs Public School debate. Making the choice about how your children receive their education is not an easy one these days. We have tons of options…homeschool, public school, virtual school. So sometimes it’s difficult to feel completely confident in your choices. Here’s our story… When it came time to start thinking about our oldest child starting school, I had mixed feelings about sending her to public school. I was concerned about the environment she would be in, from the bus ride to the classroom. I was concerned about…
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5 Tips For A Smoother Morning Routine
I’m a doer…I like to get things done. Kick butt and take names, yep…that’s me. But when it comes to mornings I’ll admit I totally suck…that is, unless I prepare! With 7 kids, 3 dogs, 2 cats, a husband and about 95 gazillion things going on at once, this girl has got to bring her A-game, especially if the family needs to be somewhere at a certain time. I pride myself in the fact that I simply cannot remember a time in our almost 17 year history of having children when we showed up late for something. It just doesn’t happen. I despise being late. It’s disrespectful. I follow…
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I Caught Myself Doing It Again…
Yep, I caught myself doing it again…being a big, fat negative loser this morning. Let me bring you up to speed… So my 9 year old tells me at 6:10 this morning that, “Oh yeah Mom, our field trip got rescheduled for TODAY! I’m so excited…and we have to be to the bus depot by 7:30. Can I have a banana?” What the what? Now the race is on. It’s too late to have the 2 younger girls get ready fast enough to make the bus, plus I need to drop off cake pops for Teacher Appreciation day anyway…so I guess they are going to be late. Sigh…there goes my…
- blog, Family, Featured, Friendship, General, Inspirational, Kids, Lifestyle, Love, Military, Mom, Relationships, Thought Provoking
Love Grows Best In Little Houses
Well, the latest of our many military moves is nearly over and I have to say, this one was a doozy. Plans changed about 52 times before we finally were able to make a definite plan of action and go with it. As the saying goes “When Plan A doesn’t work there are 25 other letters of the alphabet.” I think we may have been embarking on X,Y AND Z! Such is life as a military family, and we are happy with our choices and ready to move on with life as “usual”. Probably the biggest change we’ve made was downsizing. We started off in a house that was…
- blog, Business, Family, Featured, General, Kids, Lifestyle, Mom, Mompreneur, Social Issues, Stay at Home Mom, Thought Provoking
Why I Don’t Regret Being A Stay At Home Mom
As a writer, I read a lot of various pieces written by people from all over the world. I recently read a piece entitled “9 Reasons Why I Regret Being a Stay-at-Home Mom” by Lisa Endlich Heffernan. While I can certainly appreciate the value in our freedom of speech as Americans, I am also a mom…of seven children. I am a military spouse as well, which means when my husband is gone for work the odds are 7:1 in our house. After our move this summer, we will have relocated our family 11 times. I home schooled our children for 8 years and then enrolled them in public school.…
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The Wife of Noble Character
I have posted here many times about how crappy and unappreciated I feel some days. I mean let’s face it, being a mom isn’t always the most rewarding of jobs. Sure, there are days when we are showered with hugs and thank yous and hand drawn and colored pictures…but there are countless days too when we seem to be “Invisible Moms”. Today my eyes were open to a fact that, deep down inside I know I knew, but today it seemed to hit a little closer to home. It all started with Proverbs 31: 10-31. Now if you don’t have your Bible handy I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version.…
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Who Are You When No One Is Looking?
Last Saturday my son Jonathan and his football team played their first play-off game. These boys are all 6th graders and have worked incredibly hard to get to this point in the season. What is unique about this team, and why I chose to write about them this morning, is the heart inside each and every one of them. Let me explain… This is my son’s first year playing football…and we started him in tackle no less. Jonathan always excelled in the classroom but the football field was a whole different story. We thought he could use a challenge. Jon went through conditioning during the scorching heat without complaint.…
