New title and description. Why? Well, I love that my blog helped a few frustrated step parents along the way, but the winds have changed for me. While I continue to be a very passionate and involved step parent, I am also a mother to two (in January) other children. After pinning a few posts on pinterest, I have gotten thousands of hits on my blog and don't want to limit what I write about. I want to keep that momentum going and be able to rant on about what is pressing on my heart, not to be limited by a category as specific as step parenting. Mothering is a mission, and I am excited to write about my journeys.
Thanks for reading!
“The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” Matthew 9:38
Have everything you thought you always wanted, but still not happy?
There is a huge problem with depression in today's society. More then ever, people are turning to medications, drinking, and unhealthy relationships in order to "solve" their problems. Some of us don't do that. Some of us get the life we always dreamed of, and then find that it is not all it is cracked up to be. We have the job, husband, house, money or kids that we once fantasized about, but for some reason there is no satisfaction in it. Why? We are always working towards something and when that "something" is complete, then we will be happy, right? No, wrong. Happiness is a journey...
I am convinced that everyone feels a little lost at some point in their life, so if this is you, guess what? You are not alone. This is the point where you decide if you are going to rely on outside sources (drugs, alcohol, relationships, material items, a degree etc) for your "happiness" or look inside yourself and find the reason God put you on this planet. Nobody is here by accident, and until you stop looking at happiness as a destination, I am convinced you will never find it. The journey of finding your purpose is an interesting one, and just when you think you have found it, something pulls you in a new direction.
How do you know what your passions are? What haunts you, makes you sad, pulls at your heart strings? If you had all the money or resources in the world what would you do? There is where you will find your answers. These are the steps that will help you start your journey:
1. What keeps you up at night? This is a loaded question.. For some people, unforgiveness, anger, jealousy, or finances would be the answer. If that is you, the first thing you have to do is let go.
2. Forgive. No matter how inexcusable someone's behavior might be, there is no reason to allow it to consume your peaceful time. Why do we dream at night? This is supposed to be our peaceful, pensive, development time. If it is anything but that, you have some work to do. Forgiveness can be a process. Even if it means seeking outside help, DO IT. Reclaim your peace.
3. Once you have a clean slate you can begin to paint the canvas of your future. It is the time between your crazy day, and when you fall asleep that you will find the starting point on your journey. Slow down. Stop filling your days with so many useless things, and figure out what is TRULY important. Only do those things.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.." Jeremiah 29:11
Enjoy the journey. Every struggle, every obstacle. Some days I want to pull my hair out with kids demanding stuff, bills piling up, or any other bump that shows up in the road. Sometimes it feels we aren't even going to get through the day, much less work towards a higher purpose! That's ok. Don't be so desperate for the "better days" ahead that you can't enjoy the little things in THIS day. The daily moments I treasure are, hearing my baby girl sing, feeling my baby kicking and growing in my belly, hanging out on the couch with my husband after the kids go to bed, learning a new thing I read, and laying down to sleep, peacefully.
Tomorrow, the journey continues. I encourage you to start yours too :)
Generation spoiled rotten
Every parent, for the most part, wants to give their kids the best of everything. The best food, clothes, education, and medical care. I find myself reading, researching, and constantly searching for answers on every little thing in order to make sure I have no regrets after my parental duties are over and my kids are on their own.
One of the most important things to me and my husband is making sure our kids have what they need to take on the world that they will grow old in. It will be very different than it is today, and while I might not being able to change the world, I can change the influence that my kids have on it. The majority of kids today are learning bad habits that will turn them into self serving, materialistic and entitled human beings. The question is why? Well I could write a whole blog on how family life these days has got to crap, but that is for another day ;) For now I will just share a little story, along with an epiphany I had the other day.
On Sunday we had a birthday party for my step daughter. Invited her friends, family, neighbors etc.. The fancy cake, special themed plates and napkins, balloons, you name it. I think every parent knows that when it comes to birthday parties, even simple ones, you still spend a small fortune and lots of preparation time. It was a great day, Bre got loaded with all kinds of new gifts and had a fun time. When everyone left I was sitting on the couch decompressing from the craziness and she says to me, "You didn't put any decorations on the windows." I said, "Well we just did the balloons for decorations instead." Her response, "Well it wasn't pretty." I sat there shocked because Bre is not a bratty kid. She wasn't even saying it in a snotty way, but after ALL of that the only thing she had to say was that the decorations weren't "pretty"?
What have I done wrong? Being a step parent has more challenges then a regular parent because you have all the influence but none of the control. I realized that this really isn't her fault, we have set such high standards for her that we can't even keep up with ourselves. I couldn't shake it. My husband tells me that I let these kinds of things bother me too much and that it was just a comment, but I can't help but feel like we are setting her up for entitlement.
It has always bothered me that holidays and birthdays seem to be so focused on gifts and material items, but fighting that in todays society is so hard because you don't want your child to miss out on anything either. The solution: We decided that from now on we are not going to do big, fancy birthday parties every year. Instead we are going to take whoever the birthday kid is, out to do something special with just them, no other siblings. We are going to have 3 and with that many kids it is rare for one to have both parents to themselves.
We want to create memories that they can take with them all their lives, not a bunch of plastic, crappy toys that are just going to get thrown away. After all, a birthday is a celebration that they are here on this earth with us. Do we want to show them that their value is a bunch of toys and material items? This is just one of many ways to simplify our children's lives and set them up for a future full of rich relationships and memories. #simplicityisbliss :)
Hail to the boob!
Warning: I am not going to hold back my opinion whatsoever in this post, so if you are offended easily I suggest not reading.
Lately I have met lots of moms who have for one reason or another decided not to breast feed their babies. I find it ironic that a breastfeeding mom shows up on the cover of Time magazine and people are horrified, yet nobody seems to think twice when you pull out the formula, shake it up and feed it to your baby. Do people know what is in formula?! I read the ingredients on everything, and that may seem crazy, but these days it is a MUST!
The main ingredient in most popular formulas is corn syrup solids. You are thinking, so what? Corn, its a vegetable, right? Well no it is a grain, and it is one of the top genetically modified foods in the country. Genetically modified foods are NOT safe for human consumption, and the fact that the FDA allows them is a whole other rant I won't get into. This may sound like another language to some of you, but if something is going into your childs body, don't you want to know exactly what it is??? I am finding more often than not, people don't even LOOK at the ingredients in formula, much less care what each thing is.
Formula feeders are so sensitive, you can't even HINT that breastfeeding is the better choice. Moms like myself are forced to keep our mouths shut even when we hear about how their babies are allergic to this formula, won't eat that formula, or have health problems.. Breast feeders are forced tip toe around saying that they don't pass any judgement, and each person has the right to choose how to feed their baby. WELL I do pass judgement. My opinion is that your baby should have breast milk, otherwise you shouldn't have babies. Harsh, maybe, but back in the day if you weren't able to do it yourself, you had to find someone to do it for you.
I have lots of friends who formula feed, and I still love them all, but I can't pretend that their decision is what is best for their child. Its not. Every organization on the planet says that breast is best, so for once I don't stand with the few and far between on this issue. If you can't breastfeed (which is a VERY RARE occurence), find someone to do it for you, or learn how to make your own formula from natural, healthy ingredients... Formula is the easy way out, and you will pay for it later when your child is sick all the time and has health issues galore. Formula will sustain a child to survive, but they will not thrive. The fact is that SIDS rates are significantly lower in breastfed babies as well as health and weight problems.
There, I have said my peace. There is loads of information out there on this topic and as a parent it is your resonsibility to give your child the best. Do the research, see for yourself. I promise that you will be conviced that the boob was a great invention ;)
Lately I have met lots of moms who have for one reason or another decided not to breast feed their babies. I find it ironic that a breastfeeding mom shows up on the cover of Time magazine and people are horrified, yet nobody seems to think twice when you pull out the formula, shake it up and feed it to your baby. Do people know what is in formula?! I read the ingredients on everything, and that may seem crazy, but these days it is a MUST!
The main ingredient in most popular formulas is corn syrup solids. You are thinking, so what? Corn, its a vegetable, right? Well no it is a grain, and it is one of the top genetically modified foods in the country. Genetically modified foods are NOT safe for human consumption, and the fact that the FDA allows them is a whole other rant I won't get into. This may sound like another language to some of you, but if something is going into your childs body, don't you want to know exactly what it is??? I am finding more often than not, people don't even LOOK at the ingredients in formula, much less care what each thing is.
Formula feeders are so sensitive, you can't even HINT that breastfeeding is the better choice. Moms like myself are forced to keep our mouths shut even when we hear about how their babies are allergic to this formula, won't eat that formula, or have health problems.. Breast feeders are forced tip toe around saying that they don't pass any judgement, and each person has the right to choose how to feed their baby. WELL I do pass judgement. My opinion is that your baby should have breast milk, otherwise you shouldn't have babies. Harsh, maybe, but back in the day if you weren't able to do it yourself, you had to find someone to do it for you.
I have lots of friends who formula feed, and I still love them all, but I can't pretend that their decision is what is best for their child. Its not. Every organization on the planet says that breast is best, so for once I don't stand with the few and far between on this issue. If you can't breastfeed (which is a VERY RARE occurence), find someone to do it for you, or learn how to make your own formula from natural, healthy ingredients... Formula is the easy way out, and you will pay for it later when your child is sick all the time and has health issues galore. Formula will sustain a child to survive, but they will not thrive. The fact is that SIDS rates are significantly lower in breastfed babies as well as health and weight problems.
There, I have said my peace. There is loads of information out there on this topic and as a parent it is your resonsibility to give your child the best. Do the research, see for yourself. I promise that you will be conviced that the boob was a great invention ;)
Finding your happy place
Step parenting doesn't come with a hand book, but it sure would be nice! This past November we gained half custody of my step daughter and right away we knew that things were not going to be the same as they were when we only had her weekends. Normally she is a well behaved, happy and upbeat kid, but things seemed to take a turn for the worst. She acted depressed, whiny and impossible to please. What happened to the little girl we once knew?
For the first few months I did absolutely everything in my power to make her happy when she was with us. I took her to do fun things, bought her stuff, went out of my way to make her feel special, and it was all helpful in the moment, but the minute we were back to "regular life" she would fall straight back into crying for her mom and acting depressed. She was completely unreasonable. She would use our phones to call her mom at all hours of the day and night (let me remind you she is 5) and every time she got off the phone she would sob for the next hour. We tried making mommy pictures, little notes, phone calls, special "talks" and none of it would help.
I was on the verge of losing my mind. Having a miserable and difficult kid not only is hard on them, but it is hard on the other kids and parents. There is no worse feeling then trying your very hardest to make someone happy, only to see them worse off every moment. One day I had the most beautiful epiphany. I can't make her happy, and it is our job to create the environment, not allow her to create it.
That day started a new chapter in all of our lives. I was done. Done catering to nasty behavior, done going out of my way to please her, done stressing myself out, I quit. Dustin and I laid down new rules.
These are the rules:
1. No more calling mommy without our permission- We would allow her to call once a day, but not when she was exhausted and going to throw a royal fit when she got off the phone.
2. No more crying for mommy- I know this sounds harsh, but we told her it is ok to miss mommy, and if she wants to cry for her she can go to her room and do it. We told her that we were all happy and when she was ready to be happy she could come out and be happy too.
3. No more killing myself trying to keep every minute of her day occupied- We can't change our whole lives every other week to accommodate Breanna. We love when she is home, but this is our life and she has to learn how to be happy with that life, even if some days we just hang out around the house.
Within two weeks of these new rules she was back to her old self. The first couple days she might go in her room and cry for 5 minutes, but once she saw it wasn't phasing us, she stopped. She started playing with her sister nicely, reading her books, and playing with her toys again.We even got good reports about how well she was doing at her mom's house. Not only was she happier, but she rarely says she misses her mom, or wants to call her. She has learned to enjoy the time she has here. She still has a struggle or two here or there, but nothing we can't handle.
It amazes me how kids need guidance in every area of their lives, even emotionally. We had to teach her how to properly control her emotions. It is a hard lesson to learn at such a young age, but it is her reality. She has two families that love her and want to spend time with her, some kids don't even have one. Splitting time in two different homes will always be a challenge, but as a step parent I am thrilled to say she has the best transition possible into our happy home.
For the first few months I did absolutely everything in my power to make her happy when she was with us. I took her to do fun things, bought her stuff, went out of my way to make her feel special, and it was all helpful in the moment, but the minute we were back to "regular life" she would fall straight back into crying for her mom and acting depressed. She was completely unreasonable. She would use our phones to call her mom at all hours of the day and night (let me remind you she is 5) and every time she got off the phone she would sob for the next hour. We tried making mommy pictures, little notes, phone calls, special "talks" and none of it would help.
I was on the verge of losing my mind. Having a miserable and difficult kid not only is hard on them, but it is hard on the other kids and parents. There is no worse feeling then trying your very hardest to make someone happy, only to see them worse off every moment. One day I had the most beautiful epiphany. I can't make her happy, and it is our job to create the environment, not allow her to create it.
That day started a new chapter in all of our lives. I was done. Done catering to nasty behavior, done going out of my way to please her, done stressing myself out, I quit. Dustin and I laid down new rules.
These are the rules:
1. No more calling mommy without our permission- We would allow her to call once a day, but not when she was exhausted and going to throw a royal fit when she got off the phone.
2. No more crying for mommy- I know this sounds harsh, but we told her it is ok to miss mommy, and if she wants to cry for her she can go to her room and do it. We told her that we were all happy and when she was ready to be happy she could come out and be happy too.
3. No more killing myself trying to keep every minute of her day occupied- We can't change our whole lives every other week to accommodate Breanna. We love when she is home, but this is our life and she has to learn how to be happy with that life, even if some days we just hang out around the house.
Within two weeks of these new rules she was back to her old self. The first couple days she might go in her room and cry for 5 minutes, but once she saw it wasn't phasing us, she stopped. She started playing with her sister nicely, reading her books, and playing with her toys again.We even got good reports about how well she was doing at her mom's house. Not only was she happier, but she rarely says she misses her mom, or wants to call her. She has learned to enjoy the time she has here. She still has a struggle or two here or there, but nothing we can't handle.
It amazes me how kids need guidance in every area of their lives, even emotionally. We had to teach her how to properly control her emotions. It is a hard lesson to learn at such a young age, but it is her reality. She has two families that love her and want to spend time with her, some kids don't even have one. Splitting time in two different homes will always be a challenge, but as a step parent I am thrilled to say she has the best transition possible into our happy home.
Natural teeth whitener!
Make your own natural teeth whitener! Cheap and healthier way to whiten your teeth with stuff you probably already have sitting around!
2 Tbsp Baking Soda
2 drops lemon oil (lemon juice will work too)
1 drop water (enough to make it into paste)
Get your teeth as dry as possible and gently brush the mixture onto your teeth. Let it sit for a minute and then repeat until desired whiteness is achieved!
The cost of a stamp, 40 days of give it away!
Here I am about 18 days into the 40 day give it away challenge and even though I still have 22 days left to go I am still amazed at the changes I have made in my thinking. They say it takes 21 days to form a habit and I can see how this has already proven true. Throughout the last 2 and a half weeks I have made an effort to give something away no matter what. I have paid for peoples drinks in line behind me at Starbucks, done a little volunteer work, made cupcakes for the neighbor, and somedays I just gave someone a compliment for no reason. Giving is a mentally not just an action. I am now constantly thinking of ways in which I can give to others. I am not proud to say, this was rarely on my mind at all before.
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(Bre at the Feeding the Children Everywhere volunteer event, in her lovely hair net)
In the last couple weeks Dustin and I have had a few financial blows that had me discouraged. I was starting to wonder if maybe I should postpone this challenge until we were more stable, but I got the reassurance I needed to keep going...
It was later in the day, the kids were cranky and Hazel was exhausted and screaming in the back seat. I needed some stamps for mail Dustin asked me to send that day. I went to 7-11 and asked the lady if they sold stamps and she said no. UGHGH!!! They used to sell stamps! How annoying, I was already in a bad mood and just wanted to get home and this didn't help. As I was leaving, another lady was going out the door the same time as I was and told me Publix had them. I told her thanks and went to go drag myself and screaming kids over to Publix to get the stupid stamps.
Just as I was closing my door the lady came back over and asked me how many stamps I needed. I counted my letters and told her, "four." She said "Oh I will just give them to you" and went back to her car to see if she had that many. She had exactly 4 stamps left, which she gave to me. I thanked her oohhhhh so much and went back to my car. God bless that lady.
I know a stamp is only about 44 cents, but it was not the point. That lady had never seen me in her life, but she was generous enough to give me stamps and save me the hastle. It made me realize that even though somedays when I only have 4 stamps to give, it still makes a difference. It encouraged me and made me realize that its not about the money, it is about the gesture, the kindness, the outward thinking.
I have learned a lot about myself in this process so far, but the biggest thing I realized is how desperately I needed to think outside my four little walls. Imagine how different this world would be if everyone looked after others and took the focus off of themselves? I never plan on going back to my "old ways" and will continue searching for opportunities to give whenever possible..... Even if it is just a stamp.
In the last couple weeks Dustin and I have had a few financial blows that had me discouraged. I was starting to wonder if maybe I should postpone this challenge until we were more stable, but I got the reassurance I needed to keep going...
It was later in the day, the kids were cranky and Hazel was exhausted and screaming in the back seat. I needed some stamps for mail Dustin asked me to send that day. I went to 7-11 and asked the lady if they sold stamps and she said no. UGHGH!!! They used to sell stamps! How annoying, I was already in a bad mood and just wanted to get home and this didn't help. As I was leaving, another lady was going out the door the same time as I was and told me Publix had them. I told her thanks and went to go drag myself and screaming kids over to Publix to get the stupid stamps.
Just as I was closing my door the lady came back over and asked me how many stamps I needed. I counted my letters and told her, "four." She said "Oh I will just give them to you" and went back to her car to see if she had that many. She had exactly 4 stamps left, which she gave to me. I thanked her oohhhhh so much and went back to my car. God bless that lady.
I know a stamp is only about 44 cents, but it was not the point. That lady had never seen me in her life, but she was generous enough to give me stamps and save me the hastle. It made me realize that even though somedays when I only have 4 stamps to give, it still makes a difference. It encouraged me and made me realize that its not about the money, it is about the gesture, the kindness, the outward thinking.
I have learned a lot about myself in this process so far, but the biggest thing I realized is how desperately I needed to think outside my four little walls. Imagine how different this world would be if everyone looked after others and took the focus off of themselves? I never plan on going back to my "old ways" and will continue searching for opportunities to give whenever possible..... Even if it is just a stamp.
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