Mild Mama

This morning we were sitting around the table eating cinnamon rolls and drinking some coffee when I decided to ask my 3 year old daughter what to write my blog about.. "hmmm," she says "I think you should write about, 'if your kids are mad at you.'" I initially laughed and as I sat there I thought - 'well, there's not a lot you can do when your kid is mad at you. You have to correct them. You have to be the bad guy, sometimes. You have to steer them in the right direction, from time to time.' But as I thought on it a little longer I was brought back to this memory of Emma, disobeying for the 100th time that particular day and me completely snapping. I lost it, I yelled, I told her to get on her bed and not get up, that her privileges were being taken away because she was continuously refusing to listen. She walked to her room crying, obviously upset about losing privilege but also upset because I had lost. my. cool. You see, mild mama is what I...

Lets talk about you & me, lets talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be.... Thanks Salt N Pepa for the intro. I was talking with my sister yesterday about my blog and all the things I want to open the discussion on. I want to be able to give insight on things that I've learned in my few years being a full time wife and mom! One of the things that I think most people feel uncomfortable talking about is, you guessed it, S. E. X. If you're like me, you grew up with it being something extremely private and not to be talked about. I grew up in a christian family, I went to private school, these things were not just openly discussed. I feel as though that can put an unspoken shame on something that is so amazing. Yes, I said it. Sex is amazing. There is nothing shameful about it. It is natural, good, and beautiful within the confines of marriage. Annnnd thats what I want to hit on today specifically. I truly believe, the best sex will come from being...

Lets rewind. Picture this, 6 years ago, Sam and me sitting in our marriage counseling session. We were talking through some things that needed to get worked out before making our commitment to one another. My sister and her husband were awesome enough to take the time to help us & prepare for what we were diving into! As we all have heard, marriage is NOT 50/50.. As my sister was saying that - I said "Oh I know this, marriage isn't 50/50 because its 100/100! You both have to put in the full effort for it to work out." Me in all my pre-marriage knowledge was soooo confident that I knew the key to success. I was ready to give. it. my. all. Especially if he was going to give 100, too! Here's the thing , marriage is NOT 50/50, but it is also not 100/100 either... The thing that stuck out to me in all of my marriage counseling sessions was this... marriage is 100/0. Yes, you read that right. 100 to 0. How does that make any sense? I'm not going to sign up to ...

I had no idea what I was going to write on today... Then something happened this morning that just made it click for me. The kids woke up at our usual time, we sat down and had some greek yogurt with bananas. Cyrus seemed off from the moment he woke up - fussy, whiny, argumentative. Everything was bothering him. I looked at him and knew that he was still exhausted. My 1.5 year old little boy is still taking two naps a day. I have tossed around the idea of cutting out the first nap for a couple weeks now, but every time I do - the afternoon nap isn't as successful because he's over tired. Today, he walked into his room grabbed his stuffed fox and his binky (which he is only allowed to have at nap time.) I held him and asked "Cyrus are you ready to go down for a nap?" "NO!!!" he screamed. I put him down and took away the binky. "You know you can only have this for nap time, honey- are you ready?" "NO!!!" came another scream. I put the bink...

Wow. I never thought that I was a nitpicker until last night... I was walking around the house picking things up, my husband was sitting on the couch burping our newborn after already putting the other two to bed. (He's the best) But as I was walking around, seeing him sit on the couch watching basketball started to annoy me. Even though he had managed getting everyone ready for bed, those things were not on my mind. I walked to the kitchen and noticed he washed off the high chair tray but there was still a little ranch on it from Cyrus dipping his pizza in it. (Sam even insisted we order pizza so I didn't have to cook after our weekend away, what a guy) I see the ranch still smeared on the wet tray and I think to myself "seriously? When you wash something off, make sure you get it all" I was juuuust about to open my mouth to tell him that he had missed the ranch when I realized - oh my goodness... I am LOOKING for a reason to complain about him to him. I wipe down...

If you know me, you know that I am an empath to the core. Some people are taught how to be empathetic, but I was born with the gift/curse. If you're also an empath, then you are very aware of how it can  definitely feel like both. I grew up being very misunderstood because I had BIG emotions, to say I cried a lot is a huge understatement. Everything put me in tears- sad things, happy things, surprising things, you name it. Honestly, I seemed as though I was a mess all the time. After years of people making fun of how easily I cried, I had a sister pull me into the bathroom - she gave me a hug and told me "Kendall, these tears aren't for you, they're for the people suffering. You're picking up everyone's emotions and not knowing how to decipher them as theirs or your own." That was LIFE changing information for me. Right then and there we prayed together for the people who we knew were suffering. Immediately, I felt a weight had been lifted off of me and ...

This morning as I was thinking of what to write on, this phrase came to mind "you can not be a good friend when you're constantly comparing your journey to another.." In this day and age, comparison is the norm because we have social media in our faces with how we should act, live, do things differently etc... We are seeing other peoples highlight reels and thinking 'why can't I be a mom like her, wow her husband treats her well, I wish my house was that clean, why can't I seem to get it all together,' and the list goes on.. Let me just say - we were not made to be clones of one another! The world desperately needs one of YOU! I know this is extremely basic knowledge, but it can be really hard to grasp when we are constantly being fed this idea of how our life is supposed to look. A little bit about me, I grew up in a huge family - 12 kids and I am the very youngest. I loved it, every part of it. BUT I can say that it is was so easy to get caught up...