Big Family Life - What It's REALLY Like

 

I grew up in a big family. It wasn't a traditional big family - my mom had 4 kids, my dad had 3 kids, then they got married and had me. Technically, I have half siblings, but I prefer to drop the half, and just call them my siblings. I grew up in a family with 8 children, but because I was so much younger, I also got to experience life as an "only" child when I was a teenager. It definitely gave me a unique perspective!

I always wanted to have 4 kids, but didn't expect that to happen, so I am definitely surprised that we have more. I know we are considered a big family, but truthfully, it doesn't feel that way. When you grow up with 7 older siblings, a family with 5 kids doesn't seem THAT big. Where we live, however, our family is unusual. 2 or 3 kids is the norm here, and it's hard to find young families nearby with more than 3 children.

We get a lot of questions and comments about our family, in real life and online, so I figured I would give the inside scoop! If you are a long time reader, you were able to watch us go from a family with just two kids and no plans to have anymore to a family with five kids, including one who has Down syndrome. Yes, they are all ours, yes, they are spaced out in age, yes, we know how it happens, and yes, we LOVE our big family. So if you're wondering what big family life is really like, here goes...

Love and Kindness Begins At Home

I love. I love fiercely and I love unconditionally. My family taught me to love others, no matter their race, gender, religion, political affiliation, or sexual orientation. They taught me to always be kind and respectful. They also taught me to speak up when something is wrong. Love and kindness filled my childhood, and I carried that with me as I grew. Now I put my all into raising kind, loving children, because it is my duty as their mother. Love and Kindness begin at home.

There is so much hatred surrounding us right now. It is weighing heavily on me, and I simply can't understand how or why people feel this way. Sometimes I just want to run away from it all, but I know I have to do my part to help change the world: to speak up, to speak out, to do better, to be better, and to teach my kids to always be GOOD human beings. 

I traded writing for personal reflection over the past few weeks, and also immersed myself in research. I was always a "neutral" person who did everything I could to ease tensions, and help people get along. I avoided serious topics like the plague. But now, more than ever, I need to lift up my voice with so many others. I'm still kind. But I will speak up about injustice. I will speak up about how change needs to occur. And I will speak up about how important it is to start that change within your home, with yourself and with your own family.

My Birthday in Quarantine During a Pandemic

Today was my birthday. When I envisioned this birthday, I imagined it would be my usual day of driving my kids around, breakfast or lunch with a sibling or friend, going out for dinner with my husband, and a little party with my family in the evening. In reality, my birthday was much different. I never imagined I would be celebrating it in quarantine, during the coronavirus pandemic!

I would say that my birthday felt just like any other day, but that isn't quite accurate. Nothing is ordinary right now! Instead, it was just like every other day we spent social distancing. It was a bizarre birthday, but definitely one I will never forget!

There wasn't a doughnut breakfast, I didn't have to drive kids to school, I didn't meet a friend or sister for lunch, my husband and I didn't have date night, the presents came from my Amazon wishlist, and there wasn't a party. This was the first time I didn't get to see my mom on my birthday. Heck, I didn't even leave the house except to get the mail! Birthdays in quarantine, during a pandemic, are definitely out of the ordinary! Despite the circumstances, I still felt the love!

How To Help Your Baby Sleep Better With Little Ones

This post is sponsored by Little Ones and we received product in exchange for this honest review.

Our fifth baby will be celebrating his first birthday in just a few short months, and he still isn’t sleeping well! Needless to say, this mom of five is exhausted. I knew something needed to change - SOON - and I had to find a sleep method that would help Coen sleep better!

After having four other children you would think I would have figured this sleep thing out by now. Coen, however, is our first fussy baby, so this is new territory. I have a few theories about why he isn’t sleeping well: 1) I walked so much during my pregnancy that he got used to the constant rocking motion, and needs it to fall asleep. 2) He’s our fifth and final baby, and is very spoiled by his siblings and the rest of our family. Everybody wants to hold him all the time! No matter the cause, I’m tired, he’s tired, and we need to get some sleep!

That’s exactly why I turned to Little Ones for help! Little Ones is an online sleep program that gives you detailed sleep and feeding schedules based on your baby’s age, along with lots of information on sleeping, nutrition, self-settling methods, and much more. We’ve been using it for a few weeks, and we’re starting to see some progress! Here’s why you should consider Little Ones to help your baby (and you) sleep better...

35 Easy Ways To Organize Your Life in 2020

Now that the new year has begun, everyone is making resolutions, setting goals, and coming up with words to live by. In the past, I have done all of those things, but in 2020, I decided to forgo resolutions, goals, and words of the year. Instead, I'm focusing on living life to the fullest with those I love most, and enjoying all the sweet little moments 2020 will bring!

In order to do so, I'm going to attempt to stay as organized as I possibly can, so I have the time and energy to savor those moments. I probably don't have to tell you this, but raising five kids, dealing with the extra aspects that come with having a child who has special needs, spending time with my husband, running a home, managing a profitable blog/social media accounts, volunteering, enjoying hobbies, and managing 7 busy schedules takes up most of my time. My To Do list seems to get longer with each passing day, and I found myself feeling too stressed and overwhelmed in 2019 to actually fully enjoy the special moments with my family and friends.

At the end of 2019, I sat down and brainstormed ways I could make things easier on myself in 2020 so that doesn't happen again. I took past experiences into consideration, and thought about things that actually worked and things that didn't work. In the end, I was able to put together a list of easy ways to organize my life in 2020. Hopefully some of these methods will work for you, too!

When Life Hands You The Unexpected, Count Your Blessings!

November was a BUSY month for our family! Dylan started PA Cyber School, so there was a big adjustment period for him and for me. All of his work is done online, so he's home with me full time. We also celebrated his 15th birthday! (That post is coming!) We're currently on the hunt for a new private speech therapist for Liam, we got a kitten, and, well, we have five kids, including a baby. There is NO extra time for anything!

We absolute love the holiday season! My family was so excited for Thanksgiving this year, but it didn't go exactly as planned. Actually, far from it. Instead of celebrating Thanksgiving with our families, we ended up staying home as the flu swept through our family.

Needless to say, it was a stressful two weeks. I just kept reminding myself to count my blessings, and focus on everything I was thankful for. Despite the illness, we made the most of it, and enjoyed our time together!

I Am Loved - Our Love Story

This post is sponsored by Helzberg Diamonds but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

I AM LOVED. 

We met in the Garden of Eden. He was Adam, and I was Eve. We were just teenagers, but that was the beginning of our love story, which has already spanned 20 years!

Grant and I were still kids when we were cast as the leads in The Apple Tree. We started dating while we were rehearsing the musical, and we fell in love. We married young, and many people thought it was just a fling. I'm absolutely certain that some of the people who loved us had their doubts, and thought we would fail.

A year of marriage turned into two...then three...then four. Shortly after our 4th wedding anniversary, we bought our first house and had our first child. While all of our friends were going to college and starting their careers, we were new parents, who were creating a home for our little family.

Announcing Our Plot Twist

Last night, we finally made our huge announcement! We had been keeping it a secret since August, so it was a relief to finally tell everyone. I know many people expected a new house, a big move, or a career change, but there were a few who expected a pregnancy announcement. And those few people were right!

I know many of you follow me on social media, but I had to make the news blog official, too. This was definitely the funniest addition sentence we've ever written! We weren't sure how we were finally going to announce our 5th and final pregnancy, but we decided a little bit of humor and a whole lot of love was the way to go!

The 8 Most Difficult Things About Switching a Young Child to a Gluten Free Diet

We are now 4 1/2 months into this gluten free journey, and I'm not going to sugar coat it...it sucks! Eliminating gluten from Liam's diet definitely made life more difficult. I truly wish this wasn't happening, but it's looking like it will be his reality forever.

We Went On A Family Trip...And Left One of Our Kids At Home

Before we became parents, there were so many things my husband and I said we would NEVER do as parents. Even after we had children, we still had quite a few things on that never list. We quickly learned to never say never because life happens. And this weekend we did something on our never list...we went on a family trip and left one of our children at home!

Teach Your Kids To Give Back This Holiday Season & Support Tackle Kids Cancer

Christmas is the season of giving, but for many kids, the focus is on receiving. As parents, my husband and I work hard to teach our own four children that it's so much more special to give than receive, and that it's especially important to give back during the holiday season. We don't want to raise selfish, ungrateful children, so teaching them the importance of giving back while they are young is essential!

A Healthcare App for Busy Moms #AnywhereCare

This is a sponsored post in partnership with The Motherhood on behalf of UPMC.

Whether you are a working mom or a stay-at-home mom, have one kid or 10 kids, life as a mom is busy! As a mom of four, wrangling chaos and juggling kids and schedules is my norm. I don’t have much time to worry about anything else. Worrying about arranging healthcare, especially for sick visits, shouldn’t top my list of worries!

Thankfully, there’s an app for that! UPMC Anywhere Care allows you to have a face-to-face visit with a doctor right from your mobile device or computer! The app is free to download, and it’s also free to sign up for an account. The visits start at $49, but for those with a UPMC Health Plan, the cost is similar to a copay.

If you live in Pennsylvania, you will be able to visit with a UPMC doctor during your video consultation. For those outside of Pennsylvania, you will be able to visit a doctor from American Well, which is an online care group. All video consultations occur in real-time.

The flu seems to be hitting everybody this year, and it can be very serious. Now you can see a quality health care provider with a UPMC AnywhereCare virtual visit without leaving your home! And if you sign up at http://upmchp.us/MHUPMCAnywhereCare by March 5, you will have a chance to win a digital thermometer!

When one of my kids gets sick, it’s a lot of work just to schedule an appointment with their pediatrician. Not only do I have to work around five different schedules, but I also have to arrange childcare for my other kids, unless I want to bring my entire crew to the sick visit.  If that doesn’t work, we end up at Urgent Care after my husband gets home from the office. Although necessary, it does cause added stress for all of us. And if there’s a sick parent? Those appointments rarely happen!

Weekend Happenings

As the weekend comes to a close, I find myself wishing we had one more day off! Can we just make three days weekends a regular thing?!? We had a busy weekend, but it didn't exactly turn out as expected. 

This weekend was supposed to be full of Halloween activities, on top of all the events that were already scheduled. A family emergency on Saturday changed everything. Now we're just exhausted mentally AND physically, and we were unable to check some things off of our Halloween list. But none of that matters. All that matters is the fact that everything is okay now.

The Dreaded Childhood Stage: Finding Successful Ways to Discipline a Teenager

I have a confession: Motherhood has always been easy for me. That is, until now. We are just weeks away from the teenage years, and I am struggling! There have been more tears and stressful moments over the past few weeks than there have been in the past 13 years. As a mom, I'm feeling lost and overwhelmed! 

Just as it is with any stage in childhood, I have to learn to adjust to the new normal. It's just that unlike the other stages, this phase is taking a long time to get used to. My previous parenting methods are no longer working, and I feel like I'm constantly battling a young adult who thinks that he's the only one who is right.

Raising teens is HARD. I can easily count off a hundred other things I would rather be doing, but unfortunately, I can't avoid this responsibility. Suddenly, my adorable, tiny human who once thought the world of me now thinks I'm the enemy. And if I'm going to be 100% honest, there are some days when I just don't like him.

If your jaw dropped at that statement, stick with me for a moment. Perhaps you can't imagine EVER feeling that way about your child. I once felt the same way, even though dozens of seasoned moms informed me otherwise. But you can't truly understand something until you experience it. And although I love Dylan with all of my might, and would do anything to give him a happy, healthy life, there are times when I just don't like the person he becomes when the hormones take over.

I miss the days of playground drama. The arrival of the teenage years brings a bunch of new issues along with it. These days, mood swings aren't the only thing to worry about. There are much scarier problems that cause me to lose sleep at night because I spend too much time worrying about the what ifs: drugs, smoking, drinking, bullying, relationships (if you catch my drift), depression and suicide. Nothing is easy anymore! I just keep asking my husband two questions: How are we going to keep him safe and on the right path in life and HOW are we going to survive the teenage years?

Suddenly, Grant and I are dealing with a kid who just wants to spend time with his new girlfriend, focuses mainly on his social life, and is not turning in homework. The mood swings cause him to be his super sweet self one moment, then turn into a little monster the next.  He loses his temper over the littlest things, yells at us, and always has to be the one to have the last word. He wants his independence, but isn't quite ready to have it all the time. He doesn't understand why he can't do adult things all the time, and sometimes he just isn't a nice person.

As you can imagine (or can understand if you have a teenager), it truly is infuriating. I just want my loving, sweet boy back 24/7. That isn't going to happen anytime soon, so I have to find other ways to deal. Repeatedly taking away electronics, and bribing him with his first cell phone sitting within sight isn't working anymore. That's why I turned to Boys Town.

Boys Town offers a Parenting Email Series, giving advice on parenting challenges you might be experiencing.  This free email series consists of 4-6 weekly emails that help you face these challenges, and often offer a teaching activity. Now that's an easy #ParentingWin!  

Boys Town's popular email series includes:

• Parenting Principles
• Success in School
• Potty Training
• Teen Discipline 
• Toddler Tantrums
• Sleep Issues
• Kids and Technology
• Today's Teen
• Tween Discipline
• Anti-Bullying

Visit HERE to sign up for the weekly Parenting Email Series of your choice (or all of them)!

So why choose Boys Town? Boys Town is backed by 100 years of research and experience. The content is developed by psychologists, psychiatrists and parenting experts, so you know you will be getting good parenting advice!

As for us, I obviously opted to sign up for the Parenting Email Series on teen discipline. I needed all the help I could get! (As I write this post, my son is stomping through the house because I told him not to eat a bowl of cereal just before dinner. Oh, the nerve!)

The first issue discusses dealing with frustration, which is one of Dylan's biggest problems. He just needed to find a way to deal with his emotions when he gets frustrated. We taught him to identify these feelings as they arise, determine where those feelings are coming from, breathe deeply to relax, discuss frustrations with a neutral party, and find other activities that make him feel good. While this is still a work in progress since we just started, the reminder to breathe really seems to help! 

I'm hopeful that by the end of this email series, I will have a better grasp on our new reality of parenting a teen. And hopefully, we will all survive the teenage years, and come out on the other side unscathed. Of course, only to repeat it in 2 years...and 7 years...and 9 years. WHAT were we thinking?!?

If you, too, are experience a parenting challenge, find out more information about the helpful Boys Town Parenting Email Series!