mom
Life as a mom of 4
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Playing with your Toddler: Finding the Balance
The more you have children the more you learn, the more you change and do things differently. With my 4th child being now 3 years old, I am trying to find a balance with his independent play and time with me playing with him. I definitely have become more relaxed with the amount of tv he watches as it gives me some me time and the amount of time he spends on his tablet too. So everyday, I spend some time playing with him but also try to get him to play by himself. Today, I am sharing some games that we play together and some things he likes to…
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My New Craft Cabinet: Organizing my Home
My favorite floor is our house is our first floor: when we moved to our house 3 years ago, we decided to use our old couch in the media/game room upstairs and we sold our dining table. That meant we were buying some new furniture, furniture we chose as a couple versus using hand me down from our family or when we were single. We love our farmhouse table (which we found on Craigslist), our little buffet tables that we found at a local shop and our leather couch which gives a nice contrast to that furniture. My husband made a set of barndoors for his mom’s room so everything…
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Cooking as a Hobby
Do you enjoy spending time in the kitchen? For me, it comes and goes. Sometimes, I wish I didn’t have to cook while other times, I get in a cooking mode and try new recipes several times in the same week. So one night you may see us eat hot dogs, box mac and cheese and steamed broccoli while another night may look like the pictures below: quiche, tomato soup and Boston Butt! I always have had a love/hate relationship with baking too so I choose recipes that are simple and quick. I enjoy cooking more when nobody is in the kitchen aka everyone is entertained somewhere else and when…
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Baking Bread
Having grown up in France, I have always been very particular about my bread: when you grow up in a village in the south of France able to walk to the bakery to pick up a fresh baguette for your breakfast, American sandwich bread does not even compare even nice bread from the grocery store. So every so often, I will bake a bread at home, trying recipes from Pinterest. I do have a great baguette recipe from my friend in France but I have not idea where I put it! The following linked recipes are my favorites from Pinterest and both very easy. The best breads are cooked at…
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Friday Favorites
It has been a while since I did a post about some Friday favorites. Today, I wanted to share some Christmas gifts that I really enjoyed. Echo Dots I had heard of echo dots but hadn’t really thought about how they could be useful in my house. My husband surprised me with two of them and at first I looked at him confused about how these were a good present for me. He then explained how apart from being used for music and other things, they could be used as intercoms. We have a true 3 story house and my teen’s room is on the top floor. I spend a…
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2021 Goals
My main goals are typically similar each year but with each year, I hopefully gain some wisdom, learn some new skills and tools to reach those goals. My two main goals have to do with the blog and my spending. Budget Clothing With a more flexible income and budget often comes more spending! I was disappointed in myself last year with how much I spent on clohtes. I did not add it up like I planned to but I know the numbers would be scary! So this year when I record my spending in my ledger, I will be highlighting my own clothing purchases as a category. Highlighting it in…
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20 for 2020
Today I am joining Carrie at A Stylish Fit with a 20 for 2020 post. Please visit her post and link up! I thought this would be a nice way to remember 2020. While there were some definitely stressful times in 2020 in our family (unrelated to Covid), it was actually a good year for our family. Since this is a lengthy post, I am not going to use full size pictures as it would take quite a while to load up and scroll down. Please remember that we tend to share the good stuff but it isn’t the full picture of our life. I don’t want you to compare…
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Holiday Sunday Showcase: Fun Christmas Traditions and Link Up
While we do different things in our family to remember what the real reason for the season is: the celebration of the birth of Christ (such as reading excerpts from the Gospels, going to church, looking at and playing with our Nativity scenes), today’s post is about the silly and fun things that we enjoy doing during the month of December leading to Christmas/Nativity. Ada (Elegance and Mommyhood) and I are sharing some fun Christmas traditions new and old. Don’t forget to stop by her post to see what they do the month leading to Christmas. Hot Cocoa Bar We had a few nights of hot cocoa last year but…
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Nativity Scenes from Around the World
Today, I thought that I would share my Nativity scenes with you. I like to put them up at the same time as the rest of my Christmas decor so the boys remember the real reason for this time of celebration. I am resharing last year’s post with the addition of one more. Italy This is my oldest nativity scene. When my oldest son was 16 months old, we traveled to Italy during the Christmas break to visit my younger brother who lived in Rome at the time. It was fun celebrating Christmas in Italy and we had many fun adventures. I found this small clay nativity scene in a…
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Sunday Showcase: Christmas Home Tour and Link Up
Welcome to my Christmas Home Tour! Today Ada from Elegance and Mommyhood and I are sharing our Christmas decor and giving you a little home tour. I like how just like clothes can share some of our personalities with others, that Christmas decor can do the same. Don’t forget to stop by her blog post to see more pictures of her home decorated for the holidays! You can also join us with the link up by adding your recent holiday or fashion posts. I would describe my decorating style as minimalistic but festive. I enjoy decorating but I do not like clutter so I had festive touches every where in…