MilSpouse Life
Traveling to the East Coast to visit my active duty boyfriend for the first time, I got my first taste of what the military community was like. It was a discouraging experience. I flew back to my home in the Midwest thinking that military life was not for me. After a weekend filled with beaches, social barbeques, and night life, you would [...]
Archives for October 2015
Mom LifeWhat Every Mom Needs to Know About Her Post Baby Body
By some grand miracle I managed to escape my first pregnancy without a single stretch mark on my belly; with my second pregnancy, not so much. My second baby—a girl—weighed a whopping 10 pounds 7 ounces. With each passing day of the last trimester, she grew bigger and bigger. Not surprisingly, so did the web of stretch marks across my [...]
25 Genius Life Hacks for Military Spouses
With all the unique ups and downs of military life, every military spouse can use a few military life hacks to keep life running smoothly. When chatting with other spouses at the playground or over a cup of coffee, I'm always surprised to learn that many spouses don't know about these life hacks. [...]
Military Resources6 Things You Need to Know About the Military Pay Stub (LES)
Military benefits are confusing! I'm so glad Elizabeth Colegrove from The Reluctant Landlord is willing to share her knowledge of military benefits with us and helping us decode the military pay stub! For military families, getting on your feet financially can be overwhelming. For me the hardest part about becoming a [...]
7 Must Try Tech Tips for the Modern Military Family
MILITARY LIFE is tricky sometimes. There are a lot of moving parts, especially when it comes to demanding work schedules, kids' activities, TDY, homecoming and deployment. My husband and I had a heck of a time staying on the same page when we were first getting serious and then again after we were first married. It seemed there was a [...]
Schedule / RoutineWhat Science Tells Us About Co-Sleeping vs. Sleep-Training
Awake again with a baby in the middle of the night, watching heinous reruns of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (What else is on a 3 am?), you dream of the nights when you slept more than 2 consecutive hours in a row. You’re exhausted. You're a tired mom. After months of sleep deprivation and looking at endless baby sleep tips, you know [...]
How to Survive the Holidays Alone During Deployment
Alone for the holidays as a military spouse in Costal North Carolina, I was exactly 1,051.3 miles from my family in the Midwest while my husband was deployed. It was the most difficult holiday season of my life. Working as a critical care nurse, I had a life that was filled with responsibility and obligations. It wasn’t all that easy to [...]
Raising KidsThe Magic Tip That Teaches Kids to Be Kind
From the time my son was 12 months old until he reached age 24 months, it’s conservative to estimate he bit nearly fifty other children. Yes. Fifty. It brings tears to my eyes sharing that with you right now because that is an insane number of children to bite. And because working through a year of biting is an insanely long time. [...]
15 Creative Ways to Keep Your Toddler Busy Indoors
There are the days when your toddler maintains bottomless energy. You take them outside and keep them active--rain or shine. But then there are the days when you just can't get outside and that's when things start to get a bit tricky. We are tired moms. We are worn down and many days our energy cannot keep up with a toddlers endless [...]
