It’s the holiday busy season and I used to love and hate it at the same time. I hated the busy expectations of Christmas but loved the moments we could slow life down and enjoy life. One of our favorite simple Christmas traditions is decorating the tree with memories. For me, decorating the tree helps kick start my “holiday spirit”. My brain seems to use the tree as a way to organize my internal Christmas checklist of “all the things” that need to get done. When I have the tree up I can then start to prepare mentally for the extra busy season ahead. I’m feeling a bit weird to…

Finding fun in your marriage, when life is busy, can be difficult. However, the kids will grow up and the only two people left will be the two of you. Finding ways to enjoy spending time with each other is the best way to stay connected and have a strong marriage that outlasts the empty nest. I’ve seen marriages struggle because each person has their own separate passions and they do NOTHING together. They come home from work and are in separate areas of the house and on weekends they go their separate ways with other people doing activities they personally enjoy. Marriage for these couples was easier during the…

Old Dominion’s song, “No Such Thing As A Broken Heart”, is one of our family favorites. It is not only a catchy tune but there are 3 life lessons from Old Dominion embedded in the lyrics. When you can find a song that helps you parent teens it can be a lifesaver. This song hit the radio waves when we had a teen recovering from a heartbreak. It was the perfect way to engage in a conversation to help him through it and open up conversations with our other kids. As busy parents sometimes we are overwhelmed with life and it can be hard to notice the little signs that…

It’s Canada Day and it is a tradition now for me to post this picture on my social media. The maple leaf is a symbol of Canada, but in this picture, it is imperfect and torn, yet still beautiful. In many ways, this picture represents relationships with family and friends. Learning how to build strong relationships has more to do with accepting imperfection to find the beauty within each other. There is so much hate on social media and the news. People always quick to judge others. Are we bringing that mentality into our personal relationships too? It was this very reason that I try to shield myself from negativity…

The pressure of being the best parent includes endless after-school activities for the kids. Let’s rethink parenting and stop over-scheduling the family. As young parents, we were told to keep the kids busy and they won’t be bored enough to look for trouble. This is true to some extent but overdoing it hurts the family. Like anything in life, there must be a balance to strive for and this balance is different for every child and every family. There are 5 red flags when you need to stop over-scheduling the family. The kids suddenly hate every after-school activity. They miss their friends from school and the neighborhood. The kids don’t know…

Parenting is not easy and it is especially difficult watching your child feel rejection or pain over a lost friendship. Let’s be honest. Some kids are mean, hell there are mean adults out there too! Teaching kids about true friendship can be hard, especially when the lessons we have learned over the years can be difficult for your little one to understand. When you are a new parent you aren’t prepared for the challenges of navigating your child’s friendships. There seems to be endless drama around friendships when the kids are growing up and trying to figure out how to coach them through those friendship issues can be challenging. [click_to_tweet…

Hours and hours spent in the vehicle every week, driving kids from one activity to another. You are exhausted and run down. Changing the way you think about your Mom taxi time can help you learn to love Mom taxi time again. This simple change in thought takes dreaded Mom taxi time to cherished Mom taxi time. I find that Spring is the busiest time of the year, and Fall is a close second. The Fall reminds me of a wave of cold water hitting us with after-school activities and new schedules. Spring has new spring activity schedules and winter wrap-ups rolled into hours and hours spent driving kids from…

Do you know people that are constantly negative? Don’t smile, or laugh easily? They see the glass half full all of the time. Do you follow those people on your social media? It is easy to get sucked into that environment if we aren’t careful. Surround yourself with great people; it is these positive influences that lead to a happier life. How resilient you are by the influences of others will vary from person to person.  There are people that just ooze sunshine all of the time. I personally am in awe of these people. They seem to be always happy and bring light into the world where ever they go.…

We were 19 and 20 when we married and it will be 27 years ago next month. Life hasn’t been perfect but through everything, our marriage is stronger than ever. Over the years, friends have asked how we did it, what is our secret? We don’t have a secret, because I’m willing to tell anyone what works for us; how to grow a strong marriage. Have you ever felt like you were roommates with your partner? You live together, raise the kids together, pay bills, fix up the house, clean the house, and do the yard work. Life goes on, but there isn’t a connection. You are two adults living…

The typical morning routine consisted of watching television and then ended with her scrambling to try and remember everything she needed for school and her afternoon dance classes. She was stressed every morning and would end up running home during her short lunch because she forgot something. As the school year went on, her stress levels increased and she was burning out quickly. One morning I sat her down and we came up with this kid-friendly morning routine, one that would help fix my forgetful kid. The Hard Truth We sat down and talked about how she woke up really early in the mornings, but still continued to forget things. In this…