Category: toddlers

A Parent Review of ABCmouse: Keeping Our Brains Working Through Summer

parenting, preschool, toddlers
Parent Review of ABCmouse

  Like most moms, I TRY to keep my children from letting all of their knowledge fall out over the summer. Any “book learnin’” my four boys accomplish over the summer is typically solely because I forced them to do it. Maybe your kids aren’t like mine, I don’t know, but my children never ASK me to do workbook pages and catch up on their reading logs. When I was a little girl, I LOVED doing workbooks, but that is […]

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4 Almost Free Ways to Spend Time Together as a Family + Giveaway

4 kids, big family life, family, fitness, giveaways, little boys, parenting, toddlers, vacation

As much as we’d love to be a Disney family, high tailing it off to Orlando a few times a year, that’s not really practical for most of us, is it? No, and even if you do, there will be plenty of time between to fill up with memories at home. Here are 3 things I’ve found lately to have a BLAST with my children without spending much money at all and without leaving our house. 4 Almost Free Ways […]

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How To Pay For Private School: Changes We Made To Make It Work”

being frugal, family, giveaways, military life, moving, toddlers
how to pay for private school

Our family is living on a budget for the first time…..since 8 years ago when we read that Dave Ramsey book. This year was a huge change. We went from paying about $3,000/year in school tuitions to Classical Conversations and preschool to paying about $15,000/year total in private school tuitions. That’s two full school tuitions plus a partial one for my kindergartener, who has a partial scholarship. It was a big jump. We realized we were going to have to […]

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Changing my Expectations and Opting for Preschool-Mom Sanity!

babies, baby, big family life, toddlers
changing expectations for sanity

While working on improving the blog and sifting through my old work, I came across this OLD post that I wrote in 2013. I emphasize that it’s from 2013 because I do not want any of you to get all excited and start thinking I’m expecting a baby. There’s no baby. I’m so sorry to disappoint you. Ha! I’m sharing this because I want every pre-school mom I know to read it.  Some of you are like me, and you […]

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Disney World’s Animal Kingdom with Toddlers

Disney World, family, toddlers, vacation, walt disney world

Day 2, January 2009 Animal Kingdom was the most important park of all to Joshua, who was still in his obsessed-with-animals phase. Our trip was a lot about the ducks and the water. You just can’t pick your kids’ interests. Some boys are fascinated with trains or tractors. Joshua LOVES animals and the water. We think he may be a Navy captain one day. Day 2: The Animal Kingdom The Animal kingdom was obviously highly anticipated by Joshua. This boy […]

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Exciting News, Dirt Angels, and Checking on Daniel

big family life, parenting, pictures, potty training, summer, toddlers

I’m sitting by the bathroom, making sure JD does not splash while he takes his bath. I can hear some other children of mine downstairs, voicing their disapproval of what I’ve cooked for dinner, and well….I’m thinking perhaps some of my summer vacation plans should be alone….maybe Alan can come, but that’s it. So here’s my EXCITING NEWS. JD suddenly up and decided to start pooping on the potty this week. I’ve died and gone to Heaven, but first, there was […]

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Beauty is no less of a gift than any other.

blessings, Classical Conversations, home school, John David, photography, pictures, preschool, toddlers

Spring is one of those things you can’t help but notice. That’s the way it is with beauty. It is inspirational. When beauty surrounds you, you can’t help but feel better. It’s funny how on my sick days I often feel too miserable to want to do chores, but I’m rarely feeling bad enough to not want to go out for a walk in the sunshine. It’s positively healing, isn’t it? I think that when you are surrounded by small, […]

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DAY ONE OF POTTY TRAINING JD TA-DA!!!

potty training, toddlers

Alan and I agreed that this would be the perfect weekend to begin JD’s potty training. Why? Well, it was because yesterday, while JD was playing quietly in his room, he took off a poopy diaper all by himself, and let’s just say the Lightning McQueen blanket may never be the same… Of course, that was completely forgotten by this morning. I was standing at my sink putting on my face, when JD walked over to the toilet and said, […]

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The Great Toy Overhaul

blog, blogging, family, little boys, organizing, parenting, photography, toddlers

My successful Mom’s Night was made possible due to the Great Toy Overhaul. What’s that, you ask? Prepare to be shocked: This has been bothering me for about 8 years. Five different rooms with toys in them, all reachable by children, all mixed in. Cars in the blocks box, dinosaurs in with the Little People, and basically not a single fun set because what makes sets fun is having the whole set together. But how???? I’ve re-sorted toys a billion […]

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Dirt boy does not wish to go to the potty.

funny stories, John David, parenting, potty training, toddlers

JD is the definition of “all boy”. He requires 2 baths and 3 sponge-downs/day. He plays in dirt, sand, mud, and water. He’s the easiest toddler in the world because you will hardly hear a grunt out of him all day. He wakes up, and he says, “Dirt?” “You want to go play in the dirt?” “Yeth.” “Sure,” and we open the door to our mini-fence. It is literally a mini-fence. It is the size of a bedroom, and since […]

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