Deployment
You always hear these stories about military wives transforming their lives with healthy eating during deployment. They lose all this weight, look more incredible than you ever thought was possible, and make you wonder how they did it all. But then there’s a secret group of spouses who maintain the type of military wife deployment diet [...]
MilSpouse LifeHow to Encourage a Military Spouse (when she needs it most)
I’ve been hearing a lot of stories lately about military spouses feeling sad, defeated, and quite frankly drained from military life. Blogger Jennifer Smith shared it recently in a post called I Didn’t Sign Up for This. In the post she writes, “I was devastated. Where were all these welcoming wives I had been told of? Where was my call [...]
Mom Life3 Things You Learn Savoring the Moment with Your First Born
It’s hard to say exactly when my heart turned into an epic pile of mush, but I’m pretty sure it occurred somewhere between my husband leaving for a 3 month work trip and my pregnancy hormones ramping up half-way through the second trimester. It hit me all of a sudden: My son would no longer be my only child. In a few short months he will [...]
The Day I Finally Decided to Be a Selfish Mom
It had been two years. TWO YEARS. Yes, I’m shouting that at you right now because two years is a really long time in my opinion. Before I became a mom, I swore up and down that I wasn’t going to be THAT mom. THAT mom who couldn’t leave her kids to take some time for herself. THAT mom who never got a babysitter. THAT mom who thought no [...]
Schedule / RoutineHow to Help Kids Sleep After Traveling
From something as simple as daylight savings time to something as challenging as international travel, time changes are tough adjustments for most kids. I often laugh when I struggle to even move my son’s schedule by a one hour time difference. Trying to get kids to sleep when you want is an awesome way to feel totally inept as a human [...]
Raising KidsWhat Really Goes Down on an International Flight with a 2-Year-Old
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to travel internationally with kids, you’re in the right place because I’m going to tell you. When our family first moved to Okinawa, Japan I swore up and down I was never going to leave the island until my husband’s tour was finished. It's hard to tame temper tantrums at home, let alone when [...]
What a 2 Year Old Will Teach You About Surviving Deployment
My husband left not too long ago on another military deployment, and we are in the season of separation. I wish I could say that it gets easier. It doesn’t. When my husband left this time around it was tough. Saying goodbye pregnant with a two-year old in tow has a way of pulling at the heartstrings. Our apartment felt a bit lonely. [...]
How to Help Kids Feel at Home After a PCS Move
Moving with kids is a difficult transition. Even if you spend your days cross-checking a moving overseas checklist or a regular PCS checklist, moving remains a big life change. When we moved to Japan, it took our son a good month to fully transition back to normal everyday life. Between night-waking and behavioral issues, I know the move [...]
The Easiest Way to Teach Toddlers to Pick Up Toys
One of the things that really changed for me after motherhood was the perpetual state of disaster that seemingly took over my house time and time again. I would clean, tidy, and clean some more. And yet, everything was a bit of a mess shortly thereafter. This is what I like to call the perpetual state of disaster that is [...]
How to Survive Road Trips with Babies and Toddlers
We’re a family who road trips. We live 1000 miles from family, and so far our record for driving to visit them is four times in one year. That’s 8,000 miles of road. That’s a lot of Raffi. We started the kids young -- I think the earliest long trip was a 13-hour drive to Arizona when my son was barely two months old. It’s [...]
