Category Archives: Parenting

Kisses after bedtime

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I’ve always been a bit infatuated with taking pictures of my WonderBOY sleeping – I think as all boy moms can attest to…..when their energy, rough edges, fart giggles, and aggression wanes for the day and their sweet vulnerability shines through, they are kinda irresistible.

We are in a rough season with this little guy right now…..seeing some regression in behaviors along with an increase in violence toward us (but mostly me – his safe person) and sometimes when he’s sleeping, I lean over to kiss him hoping they seep in through his cheeks and into his brain to assure him that he is loved, he is safe, and that he can forge a different path than what his genes are telling him to.

I  pray these kisses travel into his REM cycles and steal the scary nightmares around us leaving, us dying, and people from his past hurting him that cause him to wake up countless times in the middle of each night.

I fantasize about each kiss taking a false wiring of his brain and re-wiring it to a new belief that he can solve problems with his words and his wit. That they wrap his new learning in hugs and safety blankets to save them there forever.
And mostly, I give him kisses upon kisses because soon he will not be sleeping in my bed when Daddy is at work…..he will not come snuggle me at school because he got mistreated at school and chose to fight back instead of tell an adult…..he will be too embarrassed to seek me in public when scared or overwhelmed – I count these moments and save them in my brain forever because I know they will not last.I can’t wait to watch him grow up and become the man that he was created to be. But with that is fear that we can’t rewire fast enough….that we can’t teach him new ways complete enough…..or sometimes just that we might just not be enough. I am trying to combat this with reminders to increase my faith and trust and prayers….and until those produce an outcome – let the snuggle and smooth therapy continue.

On saving time in the morning….

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As hard as I try to be a “lark” (morning person) and do all the things I see other peeps doing like running, quiet times, peaceful coffee dates with themselves in the morning…..I just cannot pull myself out of my super comfy bed. But as my “owl” like self dreads…..morning always comes and with it comes so many dang things to do in so little time!!!!

Here are a few tricks to try if your mornings look like a zoo on a full moon too.

Sunday prep:
I set aside time each Sunday to prep both breakfasts and lunches. Each week we rotate between different main meals (sandwiches, pitas with hummus, wraps) and then the sides remain the same options. Putting those things in numbered bins in the fridge helps by 9 year old WonderBOY not just pack 5 granola bars and a piece of candy (making his school counselor Mama look awesome btw). ?‍♀️

These containers also help with food portions and variety in lunches and have been fairly durable so far (note to my past self/YOU: explain to children these do not get thrown away ahead of time).

The instant pot (find it here but seriously…..you don’t have one yet????) makes hard boiled eggs literally perfect every single time so each Sunday I boil 15-18 for the week so all of us/any of us can grab these for a breakfast or lunch option.

Smoothie hack:
The girls have to get up extremely early to look perfect put together enough for a day in the life at high school and many times, they skip breakfast. This start to the day with some protein is especially important for kiddos who struggle with anxiety and attention issues (ahem…..ahem….everyone in my house) so I hate when they skip it. I have started helping them make smoothies the night before and like to add all sorts of healthy stuff like kale and fish oil (this brand tastes like orange and adds an awesome flavor) without them knowing.

We pour them into mason jars and without having the cool straw hold lids, I just cover with foil and they poke re-usable straws in the top when they are ready to drink (thank you Capri Suns for the inspo). So far, the girls have been sucking them down and hopefully feeling better set for their days, both physically and emotionally.Any good morning hacks that I’m missing out on???? Enlighten me people that have their stuff together…..I need you.

On family storytelling….

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Although I do really miss the process (and excessive amount of paper products to buy) of scrapbooking, I have been loving the digital apps that make it easy to get the bajillion photos I take with my phone out of the cloud and into print form. I love when families’ stories can live on through pictures and stories in this way for generations to come…..here are a few products/apps I love with some freebie/discounts if you’re interested in them too!

CHATBOOKS:
What I love about this app is it automatically tracks your Instagram account and when you get to the next 60 pictures, it prints a book automatically (if you set it to that setting). You can also customize and make your own books if you wanted to just add them from your photo roll. The quality of pages is great and the small book size looks so cute on bookshelves or a coffee table! If you want your first book FREE, click here!

Groovebook:
These little books are perfect for documenting our families’ fun adventures one month at a time and with a very small price point ($2.99 per month, subscription style), feel free to order one for each kiddo or send some along to the grandparents who will love glimpsing at your life one month at a time. The paper quality and color is not great (you get what you pay for kinda thing) but our kiddos absolutely love these, especially for craft projects using the pictures…..if you want to sign up, use the link in the bottom picture and get a FREE Groovebook!

Blog2Print:
If you do have a blog or any sort of online story tracking system (even if it’s just private for your family)…..it’s great to put these stories into print just in case something happens to the online space that those memories are held in. These are ones that our kiddos always look at and read. I love that they get to read some of my perspectives and thoughts on their childhood…..and I’m especially excited for their grandchildren to read about THEM as children and so on and so on. When you register and sign up, you get 20% off your first book. They always do an awesome 10 day New Year deal which is when I have my biog from the previous year printed.

How do you keep your families’ memories alive and in print around your home? Would love to see and hear new ideas…..

One Little Word 2018

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If you’ve been reading this little blog for a while, you know each year I try to pick a word to focus on with intention for the year. Here is last year’s post……

This year, my word will be spark….the verb version to be exact. I’ve always been a pretty big idea person. I have a ton of ideas rolling around all the time….some I verbalize to people and some I don’t. Over the years, I have realized that I don’t always have the power, the people, the time, or as of late, the energy to make all these ideas happen so verbalizing them is not always good. It results in me sometimes appearing to have a lack of follow-through…..again, something I am very aware of. At work, I try to compensate for this by making an extreme amount of lists and constantly asking co-workers to remind me of my own ideas later so they don’t fall off the face of existence.

My word this year embodies action. Bold action that is fiery and bright. I like to think of a camp fire with the flames so brilliant and bright….the sparks are flying off in dramatic fashion. I hope the passion and fire I have for different roles I have in my life spark off into the world in this same way. Here are some ideas real steps I hope to take this year to live out this word:

More action, less hesitating
More finished to-do lists
Planning ahead so busy schedules aren’t a barrier
Not being afraid of people judging, disapproving of my actions
Collaboration with other fire-starters
More time to plan – morning or evening quiet times, monthly solo reflection time
More transparency on social media – the real stories
Commitment to blogging – cementing stories in history of our families’ journey and broken road to healing

Getting my family involved – still loving these Daily Goal-Trackers from Elise Joy

What is YOUR word for 2018???? Happy New Year to all of my readers and loved ones – fingers crossed for your best year ever.

Looking back on 2017

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We had a year full of WONDERful milestones, new experiences, and growth (both physically and emotionally).

Some of WonderGIRL’s favorite memories:

  • Disney cruise
  • My 15th birthday at Camp Firwood
  • My whole summer – going to Silverwood, BraveGIRL coming to live with us
  • Starting high school!
  • Moving into our new house and painting my cool wall with Mama
  • Rexie Roo
  • My family and Kanani (her counselor) help me with my actions/choices
  • Getting our hot tub

Wish for 2018: I want my behavior to go in a better direction so I can earn things like keeping my phone and getting Snapchat. Through Kanani’s help I can trust my parents so then I’m ready to trust a boyfriend. I know that I need to put in hard work to earn this stuff.

WonderBOY’s favorite memories:

  • The cruise – spending all my time in Kids Club and meeting Braylon my friend from Colorado
  • My first flight
  • Rexie Ralphie coming to live with us
  • Getting our hot tub
  • Making a new friend at school this year
  • Moving to our new house
  • Getting a new room and Daddy painting my closet like a basketball room
  • My electric scooter, hover ball and BB8 (Christmas presents)
  • Our first dinner in the new house and then it snowed for a whole week
  • My birthday party sleepover nerf war
  • Daddy getting me new Crocs

Wish for 2018: To have a good 10th birthday

BraveGIRL’s favorite memories (even though she admits this year “kinda sucked”):

  • Going to Bloedel this summer, being in the water
  • Not quitting basketball and actually enjoying it
  • Being able to see my boyfriend on the weekends
  • Having friends and family be there for you even when you don’t think you want them to be

Disney Cruise highlights

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So much fun to share – it may take many blog posts to fully do this magical trip justice. Also, I realized on the ship the beautiful irony of us being aboard the Disney WONDER celebrating the adoption of our two littles I chose to call my “Wonders” here on the blog almost 4 years ago. ❤️ Here are a few highlights:

1. The room – I was so impressed with the room…. super comfy beds, fairly spacious bathrooms (one for toilet, one for shower, both with sinks and mirrors), and plenty of storage space for clothes and toys. Since my kiddos needed down time each day we did spend a fair amount of time in ours and especially loved the non-stop choices of Disney movies and shows on our tv. 2. The dining experience – it’s really not enough to just say the food. Although the food was soooo delicious, the ambiance in each of the three themed restaurants coupled with a waiting staff that stayed with us every night was awesome. Our sweet waiter Sean from Ireland had Shirley temples with extra cherries waiting for Tre each night and Alvito brought me every single dessert to try even when I tried to say I only wanted one. Our favorite restaurant was Tiana’s place set out of New Orleans – it felt like Mardi Gras. In one of the restaurants, our drawings came alive in real animation alongside Disney characters! How cool is that?!?3. What to do, what to do – Disney really has the activities thing nailed down on these cruises. So many choices all throughout the day and night – it was hard to choose each morning how to schedule our days! Both WG and WB absolutely loved their own spaces and the activities for them (and meeting new friends from all over there). Everything was seamlessly scheduled and organized that it could be relaxing and busy all at the same time! We loved watching movies both in the fancy movie theatre (Coco and Last Jedi) and on the Jumbotron at the kids pool/deck. 4. Bahamas beach time – as many of you know, WB loves the sand so spending an entire day in Nassau was quite a treat. Unlimited coconut drink for Mama, water and sand time for the kiddos! 5. Characters and shows – at Disneyland the lines for meeting characters are so long, it’s hard to justify missing out on rides for the autographs and pics. On board, there are multiple meet and greets every day AND the characters interact in the kids club all day alongside the kiddos so those long lines aren’t even necessary. I loved how the characters changed outfits according to the daily themes (pirate, Christmas sweaters, beach day). The broadway level shows in the theatre were also amazing – it even snowed inside during Frozen!If you are thinking of a family cruise, you must consider one of these Disney options – soooooo worth the money for the quality of the cruise (rooms, programming, food) but also for the magical memories of doing all of these things together. Talking about the kiddos club activities each night was my favorite part of the day! And plus, there was lots of time for adult time in our private pool and area along with adult only programs and bars (4 different adult bars on board!) while the kids are away enjoying every moment. (this is us on Christmas Day watching the NFL game in our private booth with our own TV, beers and snacks)

And I almost forgot – they always have professional photographers on hand to capture these moments. Since we have never gotten official family photos done (and we don’t get dressed up all that often) – I loved this option and can now use some of the images for New Years cards since Christmas cards didn’t happen this year. Thanks for making your way through that novel. Happy New Year to you and hope to “Sea”? ya in 2018!!!

On being the keeper….

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This Facebook post got me to click….and keep reading….and feel united with millions of other keepers around the world and I so appreciate these gems late night in bed while my brain is refusing to shut off. 

It also got me thinking about my own journey with the “weight and overwhelm” of being the keeper and how surprisingly, it has felt far from heavy on most days. In the past year, some amazing books have stumbled across my path that have helped me review and re-align my life and my time management especially now with kiddos in our mix. The messages from these authors have shifted my mindset of time (and stuff) from one of scarcity (needing more) to abundance (I have what I need). 

I won’t go into detail about each one but will let you peruse if wishing to do so (or if you have time to do so) but I did post them in rank order of how much I would recommend it – happy reading and happy “keeping” all!!!!

On hospitality….

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A few years back, Scott and I took a class at our church diving deeper into our faith and as most reflection classes do, this class encouraged us to explore what our “spiritual gift” was and how that played out in our life. At the time, I thought “teaching” or “leadership” would totally be on top of my list and since I always guessed my Seventeen quiz outcomes correctly…..surely this would turn out as I wished as well (spoiler alert – the answers are on the next page). But as the final page popped up and right at the top of the list, winning by a long shot was HOSPITALITY, I remember being severely disappointed.

“Really God? I’m good at throwing parties? That’s not going to change the world!!!!” I thought and as any good 3.98 high school graduate student would do, I promptly went back to the start and took the quiz again so I could get more right answers than I got before. I changed at least 10 of my answers and still got HOSPITALITY. Grrrr…..

And then I moved on from that harrowing experience of not being able to retake a quiz for “more credit”….because well adulting means those stupid quizzes don’t matter right?

Fast forward to NOW and the act of HOSPITALITY is quite possibly the foundational piece of my home, my heart and my marriage and something we live out (and have to remind ourselves is a GIFT) on a daily basis. By definition, hospitality means “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.” We generously give what we have (right now rooms and beds in our home, our hearts to kiddos who need it the most, and our resources to whoever and wherever needs it). So…. long story short (k 500 words short)…..as a message at church a few weeks back encouraged the congregation to use their gifts and not hide them within themselves, my memory of this test from years before and my utter disdain at the results was ironic to say the least.

I am proudest of this gift and how it lives outside of me in the following ways:

These three little beings below filling our home with love, laughter, and the need for protection and the hundreds of others I get to generously welcome and love on at school. Meet our newest special houseguest, BraveGIRL…..one of WG’s friends that we’ve loved for many years and now we get to love her tighter and closer (plus look what she does for our collective height average).

One of my FAVORITE parts of my career as an elementary school counselor in the past couple of years has been WELCOMING new counselors or interns into the field and mentoring them through their first year(s) of what sometimes is a heart-wrenching, “who would want to put themselves through this?” kind of job. Pictured below are a few school counselors in my new district that I am very excited to work with this year.

I’ve said this many times before, but I do long for people stopping by my house whenever they want to and coming in for coffee/wine/Cougar Gold cheese/free scratches from our devil cat or whatever your heart desires. Now you know the true reason behind this longing…..well God told me I was good at it and sometimes, you just can’t retake the quiz and have to be okay with the results.

 

Summer 2k17 in photos – August

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Such a fun month as summer training for volleyball dies down and we get to cram in a bunch of fun family memories! This year, we traveled to Idaho to visit Silverwood and it was a hot, sweaty blast. I am pretty sure WB’s version of heaven would include a lazy river and WG’s would include death-defying adrenaline-overload rides so 2 days here were just perfect.

Celebrating our 5 year anniversary (and the welcoming of WG’s friend – BraveGIRL, to our household making us 5 deep as a family) by getting some ice cream on a lazy day – everything I dreamed about for summer. Pajamas, no schedule, ice cream – check!My favorite part of the end of summer???? The start of volleyball…..we have a new floor in our gym and I have a brand new team to love on and develop and after one week so far, my heart is happy with my current group (and their super supportive parents) and all of the hard work they are putting in (both mentally and physically during our two-a-day practices). To say I am excited about this season is a true understatement….it’s going to be a good one. You should probably look up our schedule and write some games in your planner now.

My move to a new district brings me a new team to work with and it’s been so fun getting to know these women and plan what is going to be quite the adventure this first year together!

WG has been trying to earn a little pink hair this entire summer and finally got her wish (thanks to WonderGRAMMA) this week. Both her and her daddy are loving the new style and it’s safe to say this little one is sooooo ready to take on freshmen year!

GLS – Day 2

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Some more recaps of the sessions I was honored to listen to at last week’s Global Leadership Summit.

Laszlo Bock (Google advisor) –
Nuggets: Meaning matters – figure out what career/job means to person. Are they values we talk about or values we live?
Action: Keep each players’ objective and key results visible and check in on them often.

Juliet Funt (CEO, my favorite speaker!!!) –
Nuggets: Taking time during day for “strategic pause” is where ideas can grace us with their presence. We are too busy to become less busy. White space is the oxygen that allows other things and ideas to catch fire.
Action: I love this whole idea and have read other Personal Development books about how important space and breathing time is for our brains and our bodies, especially in today’s world. I am excited about bringing this to my work with my own kiddos and at school. This should probably warrant it’s own post because I love talking about it so much.

Marcus Buckingham (author) –
Nuggets: Make the individual feel special WHILE integrating into the team. Me and We is equally important. Human beings are unreliable in rating other humans. Most success found by having frequent strengths-based check-ins about near-term future work.
Action: Give attention, not feedback to my players. Have them rate their own feelings on team values and individual strengths. (I’m really excited about following this adventure/research project).

Angela Duckworth (University of Penn researcher on GRIT – one of my favorite topics as many of you know) –
Nuggets: Talent x Effort = Skill, Skill x Effort = Achievement (Talent does matter, but effort counts twice). “I love you so much that I won’t let you quit just because you’re having a bad day.”
Action: I already am all in on the GRIT front but if you want to assess your own grit go to this website and see how you measure up.

Gary Haugen (CEO, International Justice Mission) –
Nuggets: All learning is useless if fear is present. Most powerful force between knowing and doing is how much fear is present (“fear is the silent destroyer of dreams”). Increase the community of courage around someone when fear is present.
Action: Decrease fear in players and students I work with. Teach staff about fear robbing the brain of it’s capability to learn/act/follow directions, etc. Take quiet time in mornings to “prepare my interior” for the day. Label fears when they creep in and make a plan to defeat them.

Whew!!!! That was a lot but if any of it intrigues you, I HIGHLY recommend you google some of these speakers and websites and see what you can glean for your own leadership or personal development.