mom
Life as a mom of 4
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Disc Golf and Planning Birthday Parties
December and January are hard months on the wallet in our family. After Nativity (Christmas) come two birthdays, 10 days apart. On the 3rd day of our vacation, our planned activity inspired me for birthday party themes for my soon to be 8 and 11 year olds. While in Morganton, NC, we came across a great park by the river with a fun and large playground as well as a full size disc golf park. We came across a wonderful park near the river with a great playground as well as a 18 hole disc golf park. My soon to be 11 year old loves disc golf which he learned…
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Christmas Tour 2021
Ada (Elegance and Mommyhood) asked me to join her with her Thursday Moda Link Up Christmas Tour special edition! Make sure to visit her blog and see how beautiful her decor is! My decor in comparison is probably very simple since I went a little minimal this year, getting rid of some things that were not my style anymore and just adding a few things. She has some very whimsical ornaments and beautiful trees for different rooms. While the boys do have trees in their room and little villages, today, I am sharing the main living areas as well as our Nativity scenes which I collect. We’ve been putting up…
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Advent Activities and a Date Night Look
Oftentimes when on vacation with some time on my hands I like to plan ahead. It might be meal planning, activity planning or planning for another vacation. During our vacation at the beach, I decided that I want to change up our advent calendar this year by adding service activities to our craft projects. I am trying to stress the real meaning of Christmas/Nativity to the children which is celebrating the birth of Christ as well as fostering the children’s empathy and spirit of giving. I sat with the boys one morning to get some input and ideas from them (both crafts and things that would be helpful to others)…
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Promoting Friendships for Your Children
Lately, the social and spiritual health of my children has been weighing on me. As parents, we guide our children as they grow from needing us for everything as babies, then growing into young children who need guidance and support and then into teenagers and young adults who crave independence but still need that guidance and support but maybe in a less obvious way. I have made many mistakes over the years, starting by being an impatient mom, giving too much independence, not enough, and expecting my kids to do certain things on their own but not realizing that they still need some scaffolding from me to become their own…
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Friday Favorites
I almost didn’t post today but then I decided to share things that made me happy this month. They were not purchases even though those were fun but they were moments and time spent doing things that I love! Outdoors Fire with the Family We’ve been making fires on Sunday nights as hubby is usually finishing work on Friday and we are at church part of Saturday evening. We love this time hanging out by the fire, eating treats, playing games (sometimes) and just hanging out. This past one was even nicer has the weather has cooled off in the evenings. Running Ran my 2nd 5K in 2 months and…
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Come Grocery Shopping with Me
I haven’t been making an effort at budgeting in the past few months and one of the ways that I notice that is that our grocery bill keeps increasing. Yes, the prices of food might be going up but most of what I buy seems to be about the same price and I should not see the large increases in my bill. I shared with my teen how high by grocery bill was last week (before this one I am sharing) and he asked me : “Remember when you were trying to keep your grocery bill at $75 to $100 a week?”. I spent $300 that week and barely bought…
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Planning an at Home Fall Break
We do not have any trips plans until our beach trip for Thanksgiving but the boys have 4 days for a short fall break. I decided to keep the budget low but still have fun: we will make use of those yearly memberships we bought this summer! My brother and family will be spending 2 of the days with us before leaving for their new home. So some of the activities will include them. Friday: Zoo trip with my brother and family. I will bring a picnic so the cost will be only the gas to get there since I have a membership. The 3 older boys will be at…
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Back to School Thoughts
As the summer break ends and we start counting down the days till school starts (for us that is on the 11th), I wanted to reflect about this summer as well as look ahead. This summer has been a little different than the past couple of years where we traveled a lot including some trips to Europe and while I did miss the big trips, I really did enjoy this more quiet summer. We still managed a few long weekend vacations (Tybee Island and Arizona) and we will end the summer with an overnight weekend sans kids! Summer Highlights My brother’s wedding and our trip to Arizona weekend in Tybee…
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Fun Summer Yard Games
I added a few things to our outdoor games and activities this year. While we do not tend to spend large amounts of time outdoors in our yard in the summer (think bugs and humidity) we do enjoy the occasional game and fun in the shade! I made a stop at Walmart at the beginning of summer and we stopped at Five and Below one day and from there came our favorite activities this summer. Badminton Set I think I have shared it in a Friday Favorites post but this badminton set has been gold for us. It came in really handy on the 4th of July and the kids…
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Downtown Bike Ride
Our activities this summer have consisted of a lot free outdoors activities apart from two weekend trips. One of the new to us activities and riding our bikes downtown. We park at a nearby park as the hill to our neigborhood is not fun at all especially after biking and we typically pack some water and snacks or lunch. After doing it with just our oldest, we took all of the kids on our last expedition. From where we park, there are side walks the whole way as well as crosswalks which makes us feel safe. A large part of the ride is also in the shade so a late…