The Dialect of Motherhood

meandkids

Happy Mother's Day! I learned how to be a mother from my own mother. New Dialect I must learn my own language of motherhood, find the words that fit comfortably around my tongue. I have listened to the voice of my mother and extracted from her words a version of my own motherhood, separate and different than hers, however … [Read more...]

Parental Security Measures on Facebook

FBsecurity

My kids range in age from 20, 13 down to 11 years old. I have watched the influence of cell phones with text and photo sharing, as well as sites like MySpace, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube impact kids outside of the watchful eyes of their parents. Today’s kids are keeping up with technology and leaving their parents in the dust. Sometimes with … [Read more...]

Make Christmas Memories

churchsnowfamily

Christmas time is full of memories and opportunities to make new memories. In my childhood family we had a lot of Christmas traditions, some we picked up in various countries, some from my parents childhood and others that my brother and I made up. Many of my favorite memories of childhood revolve around the Christmas holidays. I don’t … [Read more...]

Fierce Love Blurs Negative History

momkayla

When I was a child my mother never let me use coloring books. She didn’t want me to learn to color within the lines. She taught me to use the entire piece of paper when I colored. She taught me that the sky should take up at least half of the page and not be a tiny blue line at the top of the page. She taught me to use all the colors in the … [Read more...]

Cats Don’t Have Germs

gogozebra

Our cat Gogo is well known as a troublemaking, food stealing, mischievous character. He is ever present in our house. Where we go, he goes. His involvement in our day starts at the crack of dawn until he safely puts us to bed having supervised our every move. We have all learned to carefully guard our food, vitamins and drinks from Gogo. … [Read more...]

My Favorite New Moving Tip

moving tape

To say that I have moved a lot would be an understatement.  I’ve lived in at least 27 different homes over my 44 years.  I didn’t count the temporary housing, short-term and transitional housing along the way.  Needless to say, I’ve learned a few things about moving, but with this summer’s move I learned my very favorite moving and … [Read more...]

Towering Cupcakes

Caiden's Birthday Cupcake Towers 2012

My daughter checked out the book Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie, Oh, My! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson from the Crossroads Christian School library last year and started dreaming up what she wanted made for her birthday cupcakes to bring to school.  Eventually, I broke down and bought the book so we could return the book to the library.  We … [Read more...]

The Real Life of a Dance Mom

cvalda

Ever since the TV show Dance Moms came on TV I find myself being asked, "Are you a dance mom?" It isn't a casual question. It is filled with intrigue and scandal. The show Dance Moms has made dance moms look loony, domineering and downright selfish.  But the reality is that most dance teams in America are filled kids and parents who love and … [Read more...]

Marriage for a Lifetime

marriage

Today marks fourteen years since I married my husband Dennis.  I never imagined what the years ahead would hold.  Who really does when they are standing at the altar promising, “to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death us do part.”   Dennis and I had … [Read more...]

Braver :: Smarter :: Stronger Than We Think

Tigger

"A deus ex machina literally 'god from the machine' is a plot device in which a person or thing appears 'out of the blue' to help a character to overcome a seemingly insolvable difficulty." I have a teenager. Enough said. End of sentence. No explanation needed. Everyone who has raised a teenager, everyone who is in the midst of raising a … [Read more...]