From Susan Merrill
Time for Easter. And you know what that means? CHOCOLATE! Well, maybe not quite. My friends know that I am obsessed with chocolate and my kids are convinced that all I eat are chocolate covered almonds. However, as much as I love chocolate and all the chocolate Easter has to offer, it is not what Easter is all about for me or the kids! Easter is about Christ. No two ways about it.
Read Post →Every child must learn to make choices on the path to adulthood. Little children make little choices and are rewarded by being given bigger choices. The problem arises when little children are given the opportunity to make big choices or lots of choices—or worse, they contest a choice their mothers have already made—difficulties may arise. Here’s an example: MOM: Honey, we’re going to the zoo, so please put your sneakers on. CHILD: I don’t want to wear my sneakers. I want to wear my sparkle shoes. MOM: But we’ll be walking a lot, and your tennis shoes are comfy. CHILD: So are my sparkle shoes. MOM: I don’t think they are . . . and we need to go. CHILD: But, Mommy! MOM: Okay, okay. If you think you will be okay, wear them. Two things could happen here… To read more of this post, visit my guest post on my hubby’s blog!
Read Post →Have you ever been derailed in life, by life? Getting off track seems to happen to me often, so you’d think I would be used to it. But how do you get used to something that is constantly changing like life? The 4 things that tend to hi-jack my train are:
Read Post →One of my favorite new sites for kids is My Kids Adventure. They are big on family. Today, I have a post on their blog that was an idea from my friend Nancy. How do others celebrate Easter and how can we make that international experience fun for kids? She found some interesting Easter goodie traditions from around the world and Andy from our office and his little bits made them. I wish I still had some little bits, sigh, sad face. Here are some Easter fun ideas for you to check out and have some cultural fun this weekend!
Read Post →Lately I have been doing a little spring home organization blogging here. Lest, you think I am an organized person as one mom who reads my posts and commented to me–I want to make a huge disclaimer: I am NOT organized! Sometimes out of sheer desperation I stumble upon an organization/housekeeping tip. This bathroom organization trick came to me when we moved back into the house after the flood. I was unpacking dishes and lamenting the fact that my overabundance of coffee cups were hogging valuable cupboard real estate. I finished the kitchen and moved on to my bathroom. Ugh, too much make up. By this time, I was wearying of sorting and purging and my brain just could not whittle the pile down. To make it worse, the plastic trays I had used for my make up before looked frightfully yucky in my new clean drawers. No, no, no I thought. I am not going to run out and spend $50 on trays that no one sees but me and don’t work well anyways in my deeper second drawer because the make up piles up and I can’t see below it all. Inexpensive bathroom organization! Then it hit …
Read Post →Come play in L.A. with me and my husband, Mark! For real! We are giving away an entire trip including round tip airfare for 2, 2 nights in a hotel, 2 tickets to the movie premier of Moms’ Night Out, 2 tickets to the premier post party and $200 spending money for meals. Can I hear a WOOHOO?! But really, it’s a whole weekend away — good for two people. I love Jon Erwin, the producer, and his wife Beth and I hope to introduce you to them. You can enter to win by clicking on the image below and sharing a picture of why you need a Moms’ Night Out on our Facebook page. So easy! Go, enter, win and we will have an amazing 2 night’s out as we play in L.A.!
Read Post →When we discussed today’s iMOM Espresso Minute topic in our brainstorm session I was convicted. I am a bossy wife. And I know it. I am not terribly bossy just generally. Offhand I couldn’t quite put my finger on how or why I am bossy, my gut just told me the title fit. So I asked Mark because that is just wrong. It is really wrong to know you are doing something wrong and do nothing about it. I want to stop being bossy and the only way out is to face it head on. So I asked my hubby, “Can you tell me what I do that is bossy?” And this is what he said: You are bossy when you instruct me as if I am one of our kids. You are bossy when I do something and you instruct me on how I could do it better. You are bossy when you instruct me to do chores that I clearly know I need to do. I did find a common theme in his assessment–instruction. I need to dial that down a bit. I am on it. Right now, as I write, I am looking out the window at our …
Read Post →I’ve always been impressed with my friend, Jill Savage. And I can’t help but take a second to brag on her a little bit. Jill gets the whole “mom perfection” thing – the way we are so hard on ourselves about doing everything just right, every day. Now in her latest book, No More Perfect Kids, Jill gently shows us how we can let go of the perfect kid idea too. Jill encourages moms to let their children become who they were designed to be. In Jill’s words, “We want them to fully come into their own.” That sounds a whole lot better, healthier, and freeing to me than the pressure of trying to raise perfect kids! To celebrate the release of No More Perfect Kids we’re giving away two signed copies. To enter to win your copy, just tell me in the comment section below how you are trying to break the “perfect kid / perfect mom” habit. Winners will be selected on Monday, March 24, and announced Tuesday, March 25, 2014. And if you haven’t let go of the perfect mother idea yet, Jill’s book No More Perfect Moms will help you trade perfection for peace. Thank …
Read Post →I don’t give a lot of practical household advice because I am not the queen of clean! But we were sharing a few tips during an iMOM content brainstorm and I realized I have a couple good ones that came to me out of desperation. With 5 kids I had to develop a laundry strategy out of self defense! This first trick developed because my kids wore white uniform shirts to school that were daily be-speckled with food. I simply cannot stand dirty white shirts, spotted with who knows what. They made my kids look dirty before they even walked out the door in the morning! Throwing a cup of bleach into the white load did not work for me. The leftover bleach would somehow drip onto the next load in the washer which was never white and spot the colored clothes. And the cup of bleach once diluted in water was not strong enough for each and every spot. Lastly, the kids uniforms had a colored emblem on them that over time would turn pink from that one cup of bleach. My Stain Solution for Whites My laundry solution is to keep a fine tipped squeeze bottle filled with bleach on …
Read Post →My son was just 4 years old. It was his first year in preschool and the very first week. I got a phone message from a mom inviting him over to play with her son. “This is wonderful!” I thought. “He is being sought out and may already have a friend at school.” I immediately shared the good news with him and got back an equally immediate, “I don’t want to go.” Yikes! I thought, “He just does not have the maturity to understand the importance of having good friends at school.” So, I explained to him that while his sisters also had felt a little intimidated by all the new people at school, he would feel more comfortable after he got to know some of them better. He looked at me unmoved and expressionless and said flatly “I don’t want to play with him.”
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