“A world without friends, I don’t think I could bear it.”

California, friends, funny stories, homeschool, Jennings, parenting, photography, pictures, sea lions

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”  (Unknown) Jennings and I have been friends since I was 19, and Jennings was 18. Now we are in our 30s. We have gone from bright-eyed, hard-working college students, who both seemed to hardly ever get a date, to what we are now…..one married mom of four and one successful flight attendant and aunt extraordinaire. Jennings […]

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The Boldest Thing I Ever Did for Love

about, Alan, friends, funny stories

Today, as I sat rocking my sweet, snotty little JD to sleep, I was reminded of a part of my love story with Alan that I don’t think about much. It’s a story I don’t recall sharing on my blog, about the boldest thing I’ve ever done for love. Bold, outspoken, and controversial are not words that I believe apply to me, especially when I was young. When it came to boys, romance, love, and all of those sorts of […]

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Making Transitions and Solving Sleep Problems

answered prayer, arthritis, blogging, funny stories, Jennings, John David, kid quotes, moving, toddlers

I’ve been talking a lot about my hermit problem, and I want you all to know that things are getting so much better around here. The boys are finally opening up a little more at tutoring. I had to practically drag them away from there today! Even John David doesn’t cry when I drop him off for the tutoring childcare! We have all met plenty of people that we truly like, and the fact is that I haven’t met one single […]

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Focusing on the Positive of Each Child

blessings, parenting

My goal for February is to focus more on the positive things that I love about my children. There are SO many, and as parents, I firmly believe we should be praising them way more than we are correcting them. Why does that sometimes seem hard? It’s all in how we think, isn’t it? I do not want my children to remember me as the mom that fussed at them all the time! Kids thrive on positive feedback. I know […]

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One Does Not Simply Take Four Boys to the Beach

4 kids, accomplishment, California, funny stories, homeschool, little boys, New Year's goals, parenting, Point Lobos
One does not simply take 4 boys to the beach

When we first moved to California, I was so EXCITED!!!  I live within 10 minutes of beaches, swimming pools, hiking, an aquarium, glory, glory, glory!!! This is going to be FUN. We are going to take exciting field trips all the time, I thought. We are going to be pros at this. The boys will get to see how the beach is different every time you go. We went to the store and purchased wet suits. We had BIG plans. […]

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The God of the Living, with the Queen of Bizzaro

Bible, Bible verses, exercise, faith, God

Occasionally, I think about how bizarro some of my steeped-in-the-Bible thoughts may sound to my non-Christian friends that read this blog. Even more occasionally, I exercise! And today I did both! I went running, something that I used to LOVE, but never do anymore. Don’t you do the best thinking and praying when you are out walking or running? I certainly do. Before I went running, I was reading Matthew 22. That’s all part of my plan to study Jesus […]

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What did I expect this beautiful mess to look like???

4 kids, attitude, blessings, family, homeschool, housekeeping

BOOM!! bounce bounce bounce The school day is done, and I was answering blog comments, and I heard this loud noise. Don’t worry. All is well. I ran to check it out. I scanned the front yard. No one there, but it sounded like someone had hit our house with a basketball!  Weird! Just then, Joshua barged in the back door and proudly proclaimed, “I just kicked a soccer ball OVER the roof! I’ll go get it!” Big boys. I […]

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Review Olympics. Hot Lava Required.

accomplishment, art, centers, Classical Conversations, home school, homeschool

We had a surprisingly fun day of school today at Ants in Our Pants Elementary School! 🙂 We introduced all of our new memory work for the week, and then we spent about half an hour on reviewing work from past weeks. I’ve been wanting to do this game that’s been floating in my head for weeks, and we finally did it today! The Review Olympics!! It’s more like a centers relay race, only I had the boys do it […]

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You know they aren’t all going to be this good, right?

babies, baby milestones, being frugal, John David, parenting, toddlers
You know they aren't all going to be this good, right?

It all started with Caleb’s scooter accident on Sunday…apparently that was an omen of sorts. The next big challenge was that we promoted J.D. to a toddler bed. This has never been a big deal for us. I remember Joshua was so good at sleeping on a toddler mat,

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Squashing Fear and Walkin’ On

Bible, Bible verses, faith, Jesus

Lately I’ve felt a little discouraged by the national and international news. Ugh. I hate to think about all the problems we are not dealing with and are instead handing down to our children! How do we keep on going and enjoying life, and not shutting down every social media account that we have in the face of great fear and opposition? How do we resist the urge to lock our children up in their rooms and bolt the doors? […]

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