Family
I’m Bored….
Summer is always one of my favorite times of year. Sunshine, long days, a house full of laughter and non-stop activities. Although we usually had a less structured schedule during the summer months, we did have a constant flurry of sports practices and other commitments with four busy daughters but the underlying feeling was one of excited contentment. When my kids were young, summer was a time for freedom, adventure and all kinds of new experiences. Being “bored” was not an option.
Boredom is defined as the condition of being bored-tired or wearied by dullness, tedium or unwelcome repetition. In our culture, instant gratification is an expectation. We have so many ways to satisfy that need for constant stimulation because most people have a smart phone, computer, tablet, radio, or television easily accessible. But these technologies, although wonderful in many ways are a cheap substitution for real life experiences. Summer is the perfect time to learn how to use other modalities for acquiring new skills, obtaining further knowledge and discovering your hidden talents.
This summer, when the kids say, “I’m BOOOOORED!” get out a piece of paper and spend time together brainstorming and writing down all the fun things you could possibly do together before school starts back up in the fall. Use those wonderful computers, smart phones and tablets to search the web for options. The sky is the limit.
Here is a list of ideas that might help you get started:
Call your local Parks and Recreation department to find out about all the classes they offer.
Join a community pool.
Sign up for tennis lessons.
Join a local sports team or a Community Recreation league.
Vacation bible school-attend or serve at your local church.
Do “Fix-it” projects around the house together.
Check out your local library for …
Family MealtimeTable Manners
Summertime brings opportunities for extended leisurely dinners, outdoor barbecues, picnics at the park and more casual family supper time fun. Incorporating a time to practice mealtime manners can be a natural part of your family’s summer routine! My husband and I are spending the week helping our daughter, Jess, take care of her four children while their daddy is out of town. We had a barbecue the first night and the children were excited to tell us all they had been learning about mealtime manners. Their mommy had received a gift from a friend that is a cool placemat with a “roadmap to manners” design on it. 
We talked about chewing with your mouth closed and no elbows on the table, not talking with your mouthful and making sure to thank the cook for dinner. My favorite was taking turns asking about each other’s day. It was wonderful to watch the interaction of the 5 year old and his two almost 3 year old siblings having a fun competition trying to remember all their manners they were learning.
For more information about the placemat or other ideas for mealtime manners, go to www.mothersfriendSOS.com and have a fun summer practicing mealtime manners!
How has your family practiced mealtime manners?
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Mexican Summer Salad
When the summer days warm up, a great option for an easy dinner is this delicious and nutritious Mexican Summer Salad.
Ingredients
1 (15 oz) can sweet corn, drained and rinsed
1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed
½ red pepper diced
½ cucumber diced
2 cloves garlic minced
3 Tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
¼ cup fresh squeezed lime juice
¼ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
Optional: 1 tomato chopped and 1 avocado cut into small pieces
Drain cans of beans and corn and add all the remaining ingredients. Stir and chill at least an hour or until ready to serve. You can serve this as a side dish with quesadillas or barbecued meat. We cooked up some seasoned ground meat and had a build your own Mexican dinner salad picnic with lettuce, meat, salsa and chips.
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Sister Encouragement
I love having sisters and being able to share interesting and encouraging things with each other. Yesterday, Jess sent us a text of a photo with a few verses that were such a great reminder of how our Heavenly Father cares for us!
In God’s heart, you are…
CREATED
“I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:14
CHOSEN
“The Lord has chosen you to be His treasured possession.” Deuteronomy 14:2
CELEBRATED
“He will take great delight in you…He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17
CHERISHED
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3
Take these to heart and remember how much God loves you! Also, never forget how much a quick text can mean to someone! Even just a short hello or an encouraging Bible verse can make a huge difference!
and 
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Read MoreEstablishing Family When Your Family Is Not Around
My husband and I arrived back in the states a few days ago after living in the Caribbean for two years. Although we are glad to be back and excited for the next step in this medical school journey, there are also a lot of things we will miss about our life in Grenada- the beaches, the warmth, the beauty…but most of all we will miss our Grenadian family! When you live on a small island where most of the people you interact with are in the same life experience as you, you are bound to make friends. But, we were blessed with so much more than just friendship! Our core group of friends really became our family! We celebrated holidays together, we were in Bible studies and book groups together, we laughed with one another, and we cried! We encouraged one another on our “I hate Grenada” days and we prayed for each other! These friendships were definitely evidence in my life of God’s abundant faithfulness! It still has not fully sunk in that our little family will no longer be on the island together, but I am excited to see where we end up meeting up next! Because when we all left Grenada, I said my “See you later”s, not “Goodbye”s!
If you are in a time of your life of many unknowns or you have just moved to a new place or you are just feeling lonely, keep your eyes open to the friendships God is giving you! See God working in your life through the encouragement of friendships and be a light in those friends’ lives, as well! And, always remember to be the kind of friend to others that you would want to have in your life!
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Summertime Scheduling for Success
When my girls were growing up, I was one of those moms that was completely excited for SUMMER VACATION!!!! I cherished all the time we would have together during the summer. Although our girls were very involved in community sports and church activities during the summer, we loved the more relaxed schedule. We filled our days with a balanced combination of creative projects like learning new skills like cooking, sewing, crafting, gardening and unstructured outdoor fun with friends swimming and having barbecues and sleepovers. Summer was a time to use the local resources for educational opportunities. We joined the summer reading programs, and looked for art, music and dance classes available in our community. The opportunities are endless but it does take some planning. The other day I heard a wonderful program on the local Christian radio station that was giving tips for summertime survival, so I thought I would summarize a few of the points.
Some great encouragement for all of us as we begin to plan for a successful summer:
DAILY PAUSE-Take time each day to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. Spend some time listening to the birds, looking at the clouds, smelling the flowers that are blooming. You can easily do this in your own back yard or at the park or just schedule in a regular time to go on a walk each day and practice using your 5 senses to discover the world around you. A daily pause can also be practiced in the form of an informal check-in with each one of your children. Around the breakfast table as you go over your schedule for the day you can make sure to connect with each child. A daily pause might work better for your family in the evening around the dinner table …
Read MoreSpring Survival-Long Days as a Mom
Before I became a mom, I had a very romantic view of parenthood. I imagined my husband and I having so much fun as a family, going on lots of outings, and just feeling happy all the time. This is definitely a part of parenthood, but so are long days, hard work, and loneliness. Being a mom can be very isolating. However, the more moms I talk to, the more I realize we are all in this together!
Many of my friends have husbands who commute and work long hours or are in the military. Regardless of your situation, there are going to be long days when you need some ideas in your pocket to make it to bedtime.
I asked some friends to share their favorite ways to survive long days.
Here is a list of our tips and suggestions:
– Easy Dinner – make sandwiches or pancakes.
– Utilize free events and story times at your local library. I used to do this all the time with Ellie.
– Host a play date. Then you can still have company without leaving your house!
– Join a Mommy Group. This is definitely what saves me most days. You can join shared interest groups, find groups on Facebook or Meetup, or a become a part of a church group like MOPS. I have many virtual friends that support me through our talks and sharing on Facebook.
– Utilize technology: text, FaceTime, Skype. Kids love to see family. Ellie and Hanna love to FaceTime with their Aunts and Uncles.
– Do a house project to pass the time and stay focused on a task.
– Plan something for yourself at the end of a long day: a Mom’s Night, wine and a good book, a prerecorded favorite show, or a nice …
Read MoreSpeaking Encouragement-Be Balcony People
Bethany and I had the awesome opportunity to speak to a group of young moms yesterday at a group called Mother’s Together. There were so many things we wanted to share with the gals to encourage them in their marriages, their parenting, their friendships. We will write more about the event in the weeks to come, but we thought it would be advantageous to repost a piece I wrote on being Balcony People. I trust this will challenge you and bring you hope in all your relationships.
It may be just a WORD spoken to you or an hour of TIME that a friend or family member gives to you, but both are forms of ENCOURAGEMENT, a much needed gift; to give and to receive. Encouragement does not always come from the person we need it to come from or at the exact time we need it or in the form we expect, but it will come. I am a natural encourager. I love to look for the “good” in people, finding ways to build them up and help them see their potential. I love to come along side young people who are dreaming of their future and discovering their passions. 
Being an encourager involves developing a relationship of trust. Even if you do not have a temperament that naturally encourages people, you can learn to support and inspire others. You have to take the time to really get to know the person you want to encourage. Be an active listener. Learn what they like, what drives them, their goals and their dreams. Find ways to instill hope and boost confidence. When you have earned the right to speak life and encouragement into another person, you have joined their team and become someone who cheers in their balcony.
It is …
Read MoreNot Your Typical Date
As a parent of young ones, it can be really easy to get in a dating rut. Recently, we’ve even had a few nights where we were so eager to get out we found ourselves out, kidless, with no idea what to do. We once just wandered Target and grocery shopped. Yes, the time away together was still great. However, sometimes dates need some spice to spark conversation and fun that can be hard to find time for while raising a family.
I am very blessed to have local in-laws who are always willing and ready to help out with the girls during the day when I need help and in the evening so we can go on a date. This past weekend, they even watched the girls for the whole day – over 12 hours!!! Don’t worry, we took full advantage of the day.
What did we do with all those hours? Why, we had a wonderful day at Wondercon in Anaheim!
Every moment was just so great. We loved being together, we loved the event, but even more than that it was so nice to just take care of each other – the two of us – for a whole day. We splurged on yummy food and took time to see all the things that looked interesting. We stood in a line for autographs, saw famous people, and went to a panel about one of our favorite cartoons.
Although there were many great parts of the day, one of my favorites was posing with the people in costume. We took a few pictures of character we liked, and then I sent one of me with a princess to Ellie. She liked it and asked for more, so I proceeded to track down every princess I could find. Sometimes …
Read MoreInfluence of being together
This is a simple picture, but I love it. A family, holding hands, TOGETHER. There is a reason storks don’t just drop babies off in the middle of nowhere to fend for themselves. (Disclaimer: there is a bigger reason that storks don’t drop off babies at all, but for purpose of this paragraph, we will use that picture… and for those of you who think that is actually where babies come from, you may want to do a little research on your own… :)) But getting back to my point. When babies are born, they were created to be taken care of. Hopefully, they are born into a family. And if not, we hope they are placed in a family or having a loving father or mother that will care for them. We were created to be in relationship, in community, TOGETHER. The structure of a family is a picture of togetherness. (Now not all families act in this way, but there is a reason family is a unit. It is supposed to act together). Parents have a role in caring for children, and bringing them up into a world as a unique individual, but still as a part of the family. We were not meant to figure it all out on our own. We were not meant to be alone. When a baby is born, he or she needs to be fed, changed, nurtured, taught, disciplined, and loved. There is a process of growing and developing that parents have the privilege of walking with their child and cultivating the person they are becoming. There are many many lessons learned along the way from both sides, as parents, and children. But through it all, we learn TOGETHER.
But here’s the problem: We live in this individualistic culture that preaches that …
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