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Flipping Out

Let’s just be real here. Parenting with the first child is totally a learn-as-we-go-along experience. My husband and I have laughed many times about our many trial and error moments in parenting! Sometimes things accidentally work out great and other times, even with planning and calculation our best ideas are a giant flop. Don’t worry, we’ve apologized to our oldest child. :) Against that backdrop, we entered into the era of cell phones.  Our then eleven year old daughter was babysitting a lot and many families no longer have a landline, making a cell phone a must. The whole cell phone conversation caught us by surprise and happened earlier than we originally imagined it would. (We seriously thought she would enter the cell phone phase when she got a car.) As we began to look for the best deals on phones, we found several used iPhones at a very low cost. My husband and I are both iPhone users, and know how much we love our phones, so we chose a used iPhone that cost a v...
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Love Is

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I’ve been thinking about how odd it is to put a day on the calendar reminding us to show our love to others. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE holidays, date nights and dressing up! I love celebrating the ones I love, thinking of thoughtful gifts and having a reason to jot down special words for them. I also truly believe celebrating each other, setting aside special times and even funds to share our love will encourage and fan the flames in our relationship, making it stronger over time. Date night! But here's what has me thinking this week… I hope I never need a calendar (or social media) reminder to “love” the ones closest to me. You know, the ones easy to overlook sometimes. I hope to remember that every day is a chance to show love. It’s easy to act lovingly when we feel loved:  when the sun is shining and skies are blue when we’re by the ocean or in the mountains when we’ve carved out time for each other when we feel all the l...
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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Anyone who knows me well, knows December is my favorite month of the year. I am a genuine Christmas fanatic, one of those gals who gets swept away in the nostalgia of all things Christmas: carols, cards, family gatherings, Advent activities, baking, warm drinks on cold nights, fireside chats...you name it, if it’s Christmasy, I probably love it! However, there have been years past when I got too swept away, packing too much into 25 days, stealing the joy of the season, and replacing it with stress. When January 1 came, I was worn out and weary, rather than recharged and full. After experiencing a couple of hectic holidays, I realized a few ways I went wrong. Maybe you’ve been there, too, so I'll share what I've learned. Proper perspective is crucial.  In an over-spending, over-calendared culture, keeping things simple definitely goes against the grain, and treasuring Christ in Christmas is a challenge. However, Christ is Christmas, and that first Christmas was pretty simp...
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The Struggle Is Real

For several months I've seen the hashtag #thestruggleisreal on social media and it got me thinking about something. Don't get me wrong, h ashtags are beneficial, such as when on vacation and looking for good food recommendations, I could search #portland, #goodeatsinportland, etc. But the hashtags that got me thinking are not the serious, categorizing types, but the funny, sarcastic - almost taglines or punch-lines, such as: #thestruggleisreal. This phrase is used in a making fun of ourselves kind of way in all sorts of posts. For example:   A photo of a grumpy, crazy haired toddler, next to a mom holding a cup of coffee, with the caption: Monday morning. #thestruggleisreal. A photo of a Starbucks cup, with the caption: They got my order wrong...again. #thestruggleisreal. A photo of a full parking lot, with the caption: Late to work = parking across the street #thestruggleisreal …you get the idea. These are not a true struggles, in light of real life problems, but more of an i...
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Same Same, Different

The dust gathered around us like a cloud and tears glistened in my daughter's eyes. This was our last day in a poor fishing village, wrapping up our ten-day mission trip to Cambodia. We'd been warned about taking a ten year old on a trip like this - out of the country, out of her comfort zone. Questions about how she'd handle the long flight, the food, the new culture, the "squatty potty", but we felt a certain peace that we were doing the right thing. And on this last day in the village we'd  all  fallen in love with, I'd never been more sure of our decision to take her - honestly, even I was shocked by how exceptionally well she did. The language was a definite obstacle for the adults to overcome, but within minutes Madi was laughing and playing with children she'd never met and could not say one word to. Within the first day she had a best friend for the week and her ability to play with and enjoy the children only grew with time. Just a few ...
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A Season of Celebration

Several years ago, our pastor encouraged our church family to begin observing and celebrating the Lent season.   This was not a part of the Easter season in the churches my hubby and I had grown up in, and we were curious to learn more about it.   We honestly had never given thought to Lent, and were eager to initiate new Easter traditions into our home.   The more thought we gave it, the more it just made sense.   As a family, we spend several weeks anticipating and celebrating the birth of Jesus at Christmas... why should we give His death- which bought our salvation!- less attention?   In the past, we’d talked about the importance of truly focusing our hearts on the Easter season, but had no luck coming up with a way to make it a truly special  season , not just a special weekend. Enter, Lent 2005(ish). We began to look intently into the origination of this special season and it struck a chord with us. As a family, we began observing Ash Wednesday, ...
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The Giving Year

It all started on New Year’s Eve, 2010, when our oldest daughter casually said, “ Why don’t we see how much we can give to others next year? ” Surprised and proud of her, we thought it sounded like a wonderful idea, and we adopted the family motto for 2011 “ How can we help ? ” As a family we decided that when we saw a need, that's the question we would ask ourselves. When we had people over or went to someone's house, our attitude would be the same, "How can we help?" Giving to others takes many different forms and were excited to see what the year would hold. Over the next 12 months, unbeknownst to my family, I made notes of ways we had given each month. I didn’t note them as they happened, but at the end of the month I would brainstorm the ways we had given of our time, resources, encouragement, etc. The goal was not necessarily to make a list (and definitely not to show anyone else the list), but to make our kids aware of what one little family can do, when t...
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