It is incredibly scary to consider that with just one tap of a finger, our children have access to everything good and bad out on the internet. My son is 12 and my daughter is 10. They both have birthdays in the next two months and I’ll have a teenager and an 11 year old! About a year ago, I came to the realization that the oversight of my children’s use of their iPads was not sufficient. I could not be peeking over their shoulder every minute of the day, making sure every website they visited was safe. This past […]
Read MoreThe Kitchen Is Not Just For Cooking But For Connecting
{Cue the Confetti!} We are to our final week of the Making Your Home a Haven Series! Next Wednesday, we’ll begin a special Thanksgiving Series to keep our candles and prayers going! This week we are focusing on the kitchen – the heart of the home. At the bottom of this post you will find this week’s challenge, some fun conversation starters for kids and Women Living Well’s Favorite Recipes! The kitchen is not just for cooking but for connecting. God created taste buds, the sense of smell, and the eye that is drawn to beautiful things – to please our senses. […]
Read MoreThe Power of a Positive Woman in Her Home
Sometimes life throws us a curve ball. As we seek to make our homes a haven, reality strikes — headaches, hormones, financial pressures, and difficult relationships stand in the way of our dreams. Recently, I was listening to a speaker who said, “we should balance every negative interaction with 10 positive ones”. Our negativity can become like a heavy cloud in our homes when we are expressing frustrations (not just about our husband or children) but with the world in general. We can seem unhappy and make others feel like they are walking on egg shells when they are around us. […]
Read MoreIntroducing…Our Puppy!!!!!
Snowball has arrived and stolen our hearts! She is now exactly 4 months old. Back in April I wrote a post titled “What I’ve Feared All My Life.” The secret is out – I’m deathly afraid of dogs! But I’m hopeful this puppy will help me face my fears. This is my first pet (yep, never even had a goldfish friends) and google has been so helpful! So do you want to see how this adventure is going for us? How the housebreaking (gross), groomers (there’s blood involved) and vet (hello – cats!) have been going? Lexi and I made […]
Read More4 {Radical} Ways To Love Your Husband & Children
The modern women of today, want it all. We want husbands, children, college degrees, corner offices, a big house, weekends away with the girls, designer bags, a size zero waist, no wrinkles and to be –world travelers. But keeping a family together in the midst of those pursuits…is tough. Let’s face it – husbands and children get in the way. Husbands take time, compromise, and energy to please. Children stretch our waist lines and fill our designer bags with diapers and sippy cups – hardly the life we imagined. And so when reality sets in that our husbands and children […]
Read More10 Disney Frozen Party Ideas – Food, Games and Fun!
Last Friday we had a fabulous Disney Frozen Pajama Party with Lexi’s 3rd grade Homeschool Group. (The group is called Classical Conversations – sadly we were missing two of the girls.) Alexis wanted me to do her hair like Elsa’s coronation. So this was our version. (I followed this video >> here <<. There is ribbon in her bun but it’s hard to see.) Pizza was on the menu but is not show below. Here was our menu: Blue Party Punch with snow<<<click on the link for recipe The Craft While waiting for all the girls to arrive, we cut snowflakes out […]
Read MoreHope For Single Moms
Are you a single mom? Angela Thomas was a single mom for 7 1/2 years. Her story and the hope she offers in this video below is simply beautiful. I pray you will find comfort, wisdom and encouragement from her here. (If you cannot see this video – click here) Walk with the King,
Read MoreTeaching Our Children To Judge
A great post by Mitchel Owens at ForTheFamily.org Does the notion of teaching children to judge make you nervous? Does it seem wrong? Aren’t we suppose to love one another, not judge one another? The world tells kids (and adults) not to judge because judging equals intolerance. In an effort to bolster the argument, some may even point out that Jesus said we shouldn’t judge each other. Such reasoning sounds good, right? Wrong. We MUST teach our children to judge if we hope to prepare them to one day stand firm in their faith. The irony of the world using […]
Read MoreFor Moms – Embrace This Season of Life
Mother’s Day is this weekend, so I want to celebrate Moms! Sometimes we can grow weary. The noise and chaos that children bring can make us frazzled. The toys spread through out the house and the dirty clothes pile – it all seems unending… BUT there IS an end. One day the children will grow up, and they will leave. This season of life does not last forever. In our home, the door of the little years has slammed shut in my face. No more Barney. No more Matchbox cars. No more Big Wheels or picture books. I seriously […]
Read More5 Gift Ideas For Your Mom or Dad
Mother’s Day is right around the corner and if you are like me, sometimes I’m stumped as to what to buy for my mother. So here’s a few ideas if you are in this predicament. My grandmother passed away last summer and when we were cleaning out her house – a Mother’s Day Gift our family made for her was on her dresser. I was blessed to be the one who got to take it home. It’s a memory jar. All of the grandkids and great grandkids wrote out our favorite memories on 52 slips of paper so she could […]
Read MoreWhen Your Child Doesn’t Want to Go To Church
From our guest Lynn Donovan: Wow my friends, one week passes swiftly. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for welcoming me to your home here on the web. Thank you Courtney for allowing me to be part of your amazing family. I love you! I remember a time when my daughter said “Mom, I don’t want to go.” I stood staring at my daughter’s small face glaring back at me with pinched determination, her arms crossed in a defiant stance. In that moment I felt a panic creep up my neck, followed by a twinge of fear; but […]
Read MoreNotes From the Sally Clarkson “Mom Heart Conference”
Me and Sally Last week I flew to Dallas, Texas to Sally Clarkson’s Mom Heart Conference. I was blessed to get to spend the weekend with Angela and Whitney. And lots of other friends: {pictured below – top row L to R: Kristen Kill, Chrystal Evans Hurst, Kat Lee, Angela, Whitney; bottom row: Deb Chapman (mother of 11 – wowsa!), Me 🙂 } As I wait to catch my plane home, I’m reflecting over my notes and want to share some of the key thoughts on motherhood that challenged or blessed me this weekend. Motherhood is from the cradle to the […]
Read MoreThe Women Living Well Book Club – Chapter 15 {School Choices}
Let’s Discuss Chapter 15 If you want to start disunity in the body of Christ…just talk about school choices. Ugh. I am aware of this, so I tread very carefully into today’s blog post 😉 As chapter 15 says, I’m a product of public schools. My parents walked alongside me, discipling me and teaching me how to be a light in darkness for 12 years and when I graduated, I was on fire for Jesus. My parents lived out Deuteronomy 6:6-7: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to […]
Read MoreWomen Living Well Book Club – Chapter 14 {When Moms Lose Their Temper}
Let’s Discuss Chapter 14 Do you struggle with losing your temper –you are NOT alone! Long ago I turned to the book of Proverbs in my Bible, grabbed a highlighter, and marked every.single.verse that referenced how I am to communicate with others (there’s a TON of verses between chapters 10 and 31 regarding our speech). Some of the verses I both marked and committed to memory are: “He who guards his lips guards his life, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin.” Proverbs 13:3 “A quick tempered man does foolish things.” Proverbs 14:17 “A gentle answer turns away […]
Read More“Your Parenting” Webcast & Extra Resources
{image credit – Jen Thorn} I just love today’s webcast featuring Ruth Schwenk from TheBetterMom.com and FortheFamily.org. Her keynote runs for the first 15 minutes. Then Darlene from TimeWarpWife.com and Angela join me on the couch to talk about Motherhood. (if you cannot see the video – click here) Here are some extra resources from TheBetterMom.com From Grouchy to Great – a 30 day series to help moms overcome grouchiness What Every Weary Mom Needs to Know Bi-Weekly Whole Food Meal Plans A Dozen Little Ways to Connect With Your Teen Casting a Vision in the Heart of a Child Lighting […]
Read MoreWomen Living Well Book Club – Chapter 13 {Motherhood Mess-Ups}
Let’s Discuss Chapter 13 “Have you ever lain in bed awake at night and wondered, Why me? I don’t understand these circumstances, God! Have you ever felt like a failure, as if the rest of the world has it figured out, and you are the only one who just can’t seem to pull it together? Your two-year -old won’t let you buckle her in the car, your three-year-old bites, your four-year-old hits, your ten-year-old struggles with reading, your teenager is defiant, or your grown child is making poor decisions –you sit there, helpless.” ~page 133 Oh friends – have you […]
Read MoreThe Women Living Well Book Club – Chapters 11 & 12 {Motherhood & Technology}
Hooray! We are at the half-way point. We have completed the first half of the book Women Living Well – on Your Walk with God and Your Marriage. Now we are up to the section titled: “Your Parenting.” Let’s Discuss Chapter 11 – A Mother’s Influence In Chapter 14, I write about the influence of a mother. Abraham Lincoln reportedly said, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my mother.” The Statue of Liberty was said to be modeled after the sculptor’s mother. When Super Bowl football players look into the camera – they don’t say […]
Read More10 Ways to Protect Your Children On-Line
My computer vomited on me – and my kids. It was a big picture of a beautiful…naked young girl! {so unexpected and my kids were beside me!} I shrieked in horror – quickly clicked away and held my breath – oh dear. What do I say? So we had a little pow wow – me and the kids. And after I was done talking with the kids about mommy’s massive mistake {face palm}, I went back to the computer. And I felt dirty. Dirty from the image that had vomited on my children. It came in the most unexpected place […]
Read MoreWhen Kool-Aid Matters & Your Legacy
6 days before the conference…we buried my wonderfully strong and Godly grandmother. It was a shock when she passed away…even though she was 90 years old. Her hands were gnarled from arthritis – Yet she continued to work with limitless energy in her home until the day God called her home. Grandma lived alone up until 4 months ago, when my sister’s family went to live with her. My sister is in the midst of building a new home and so grandma opened her arms in hospitality to her family during their temporary stay. Actually, grandma LOVED the company – […]
Read MoreThe Day I Met My Hero
In 1994, Elisabeth Elliot came to my college, the Moody Bible Institute, to speak at a conference AND to our dorm floor for a visit! Elisabeth is someone I highly admire. This is a blurry picture from the day I met her. I’m on the left and on the right is my roommate – Jen. And sweet Elisabeth Elliot is in the center! Before meeting her, I had read her book Passion and Purity and I had read her book Through Gates of Splendor, which was her biography of taking the gospel to the Auca Indians in Ecuador. Her husband was […]
Read More
