I like the stereotype of a homemaker. Bare hands kneading bread dough. Tulips in a mason jar by the sink. Daily cleaning schedule followed routinely. Fluffing couch pillows, cozy throw blanket draped over the end. But that is not my reality. My reality is kids fighting over who gets which toy shopping cart, or dinosaur figurine, or baby blanket for their doll. My reality is impatiently flipping quesadillas in a skillet while my oldest kids are told for the tenth time to finish their math and my youngest child pulls on my shirt, screaming, wanting a nap. My reality is tulips on kitchen counters ..read more

As I write this, duffel bags stuffed full sit in piles around my living room floor. My kids have been wiling away these below-zero Minnesota days playing “Airport.” Unopened packages of diapers and wipes, baby dolls, and papers with ticket numbers and gate designations are also strewn haphazardly throughout our entire main level. A mound of pillows and blankets rises up from the bottom of the stairs (not related to the Airport game), and the kitchen counter is covered in watercolor paint. These are the remnants of a homeschool day. I verbally and intellectually assent to one of the benefits o ..read more

Last year, my “word for the year” was Hope, and it was sooooo applicable, and helpful, and I probably reminded myself to Hope in God and Not Give Up at least once a day, if not multiple times a day. Because it was a haaaaaaarrrrrrrrddddddd year. Like, the hardest of my life. Not the hardest in the sense that at any one thing really hard happened — for example, not like the year my mom died, or the year I had a miscarriage, or the year I had emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy. But hard in the sense that Travis and I were both stretched beyond our limits, every day, without reprieve. A ..read more

To follow up my last post about relearning the same old things, I thought I’d share a couple of the new things I’ve been learning over the past six months or so. Bad Days Don’t Have to Turn into Existential Crises Recently, all my kids (9, 7, 4, 18 months) sat through a church service with minimal drama or chaos. I was pleasantly surprised. This past week, I planned out meals Sunday night, picked up a Walmart order on Monday, and we had non-frozen-pizza dinners the whole week. Bedtime on Monday night with my husband gone actually went really smoothly. Our three older kids all share a bedroom r ..read more

Do you ever feel like you keep learning the same lessons over and over again? Like you have a certain struggle, pray about it, journal about it, and finally have an “aha” moment, only to discover some time later than you had actually learned that same lesson six months earlier? Just me? It happens to me all the time. Just tonight, I was going through old files in my Dropbox account, and read a gem from 2014. Here’s the context: “The first 3 months of the year were spent getting our house [in Denver] ready to sell, selling it, and moving 1,000 miles. The next 3 months were spent living with Tra ..read more

I’ve never been much of an intentional-routine type person. And even when I’ve tried to implement more intentional schedules or routines, they usually fall by the wayside within a week or two because #life and because it just doesn’t come naturally to me or my hubby. We are very spontaneous, game-time-decision kind of people. But having four kids has forced us to get better about routines. For the past 4-6 months, we have doing a few things that have made a big difference in our home life. We developed these routines over time, based on what we were actually kind of already doing (it has never ..read more

Tomorrow, Neola will have been in a hip spica cast for hip dysplasia for six weeks. She only had dysplasia in her right hip, so her bright pink cast is not symmetrical — it’s down to her toes on her right leg, but only down to above her knee on the left. It also goes up to about her armpits in the back, but curves down in the front, low enough that we can see her belly button. Tomorrow she goes back to the doctor to get a new cast (there is a small possibility she will go straight into a rhino brace, but we are mentally preparing for another 6 weeks in a cast.) I did a LOT of research online ..read more

I failed at writing a post about Neola when she turned 11 months so there’s a lot to write about in this post! 11 months12 months Size Neola is pretty much all in 18-month clothes these days. She can still technically wear 12-month sleepers, but they are getting too small. I need to put them away. She’s still in size 3 diapers though, and size 3 shoes. Compared to our other kids at this age, Neola is kind of a string bean. At her first birthday party (a party to celebrate all the kids’ birthdays since they are all only 1.5 months apart) I haven’t scheduled her 1-year well-child check yet… We ..read more

Neola is 7 months old as of December 12. Size Neola is starting to outgrow her 9-month clothes, and can easily wear her 12-month clothes now. She’s still in size 3 diapers. Sleeping Oh man. Sleep with this girl is rough. This past month, she has had a few 5-hour stretches but more often than not, she’s up every 2-3 hours. I definitely think she’s getting some more teeth (I recall from our other kids that teething can last for a month or more before the teeth pop through!) so I do give her ibuprofen every night before bed. But I’m also wondering if her poor napping habits have something to do ..read more

Neola is 6 months old already! Such a fun age. I love it when kids get old enough to start entertaining themselves a little, and when they start eating solid foods, it’s such a game changer. I don’t, however, enjoy the teething process, but what can you do? Neola’s nicknames these days are Babaduke, Babadoo, Babby, Bibby Babby, and Babbalicious. Size At her 6-month well-child appointment, Neola was 17 lbs 8 oz (74%), 26.25 inches tall (62%), with a head circumference of 17.48 inches (95%). She weighs more than Emma did at 6 months, but less than Annabelle or Corbin did. She’s also about 1 ..read more