Family Archives - Page 3 of 5 - Rock Solid Family

When You Need Comfort the Most

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

The other day I had a blog idea in my mind and I was planning to write about today. I thought since I didn’t know what the Five Minute Friday‘s word would be today I’d write what was going on in my head and only link up if there word happened to go along with it.

Well, guess what… It did.

As soon as I saw today’s word I decided I was going to go ahead and write those thoughts down in Five Minutes today.

So here are my 5 minute thoughts on the word: Comfort

Nobody likes pain. Life is not always comfortable though. It’s during those times that we hurt that we can feel comfort the most. If you fall down and skin your knee that is the time you want your mother’s hug the most. It’s amazing how just a simple thing can make a child feel all better.

It’s the same when we read our Bibles or hear a really gut wrenching sermon. Our lives may be messed up in an area. It hurts to hear we’ve been messing up. But that’s when we can feel our Savior’s love for us all the more. The comfort that He can give a fallen child is far above all the pain we endure having the medicine applied.

After the medicine is applied to our swollen knee all we need is a parent’s hug. After we allow God to apply the medicine of His word on our hearts, that’s when we can feel his arms wrapped around us.

Stop

Have you ever had a time where you felt comforted after you were hurt? Please share with me in the comments below.

If you are following me via email, I recently found out that there wasn’t a simple link to click on to leave comments. But now there is you can click on the word “comments” and it will take you to the post. Let me know if there is anything else that could use tweaking in my email updates by just simply replying to any email. Thanks for following my posts!

Freedom to Enjoy Life

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

Co-op was canceled this week. I get an extra week to make my lessons even better. So instead of highlighting a fellow writer today, I decided to share a few pictures and tell about some of what we’ve been doing.

This past month, I’ve been making sure my children have ample opportunity to just be children. One of their favorite places to play is over at the nearby ranch where our oldest son works as an apprentice.

The day after Hannah’s birthday we all went over to visit the animals. Of course they had high hopes of getting to ride a horse too.

But while they waited to ride a horse their imaginations took over.

Jonathan and his invisible horse

Hannah found a saddle on a stand she could ride.

Ruth just loves any horse she can hug. Especially the babies.

Joshua has been learning a lot while working as an apprentice. He was proud to be able to show us how to put a saddle on a horse.

Elijah’s favorite part seemed to be watching the pigeons and chickens that were in their coop.

Elisabeth didn’t let all the excitement get in the way of a good nap.

Ruth leads her younger siblings to find water to drink

I love to see my children growing and learning.

They need these opportunities to be free to learn on their own and in their own way within the eyesight of a loving parent that won’t let them get hurt.

Ah, yes! I can learn something from my children.

Maybe I could use to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Let my hair down. Enjoy freedom under the steady watch of my loving Heavenly Father who is always with me. He’s always within reach. Any time I fall down God’s right there to lift me up and dust me off.

What do you plan to do to enjoy life today? I’d love to hear your ideas.

I may just forget chores this afternoon and go play outside barefoot with my kids. The dishes will still be here when I get back.

Finding Beauty in Imperfections

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

These are a few bonus pictures that I want to share from the dentist appointment we had the other day.
This is 5 year old Jonathan. He is our budding photographer.

This is where we can be thankful for modern digital cameras. Back in the day of film developing, I probably would have just tossed these pictures.

Instead I’m embracing my son’s creativity and posting his pictures on my blog.

Sometimes we just have to find the fun in life. And smile.

These pictures may not be perfect but neither am I. However I see the beauty in these pictures despite all their imperfections. That’s one step in building a strong rock solid family. We need to be able to see the beauty in the imperfections.

Our children need to see that we love them, even when they make mistakes. They need to know we are proud of them even though they are not perfect. We must show them that they are still beautiful, inside and out.

How about you? Have you found beauty in the imperfections?

Feel free to share with me in the comments. If you received this in your email, you may also hit reply and I’ll email you back as soon as I am able.

Today is Hannah’s birthday. Hopefully things run smoother than they did on Elijah’s Birthday last week. At least I have eggs now. 😉 But a perfect day or not I’ll be sure to post about the beauty I find in it.

Today I’m linking up with Darlene Schacht at Time Warp Wife. for her Titus 2sdays link up party. You can click on the link to read other wives’ and mothers’ posts on marriage and family.

How to Baby Proof Your Kitchen in 8 “Easy” Steps

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

You may remember a recent post I did on How to Maintain a Clean Kitchen in 6 “Easy” Steps. Well, the more mobile your youngest becomes your methods sometimes have to adjust. Especially when your oldest young’ns are away.

I now present you with my latest method of baby proofing the kitchen with less helpers.

Are you ready?

Step 1: Hold your baby out in front of you. Take a good look at her. Pay close attention to her size. Smile real big and coo before continuing on to Step 2.

Step 2: Position your baby on your hip and hold her with one arm. Grab a broom with the other.

Step 3: Sweep a spot on the floor at least two baby lengths square. (May need 3 baby lengths if your baby is a fast crawler.)

Step 4: Keeping broom in close reach set baby down on the floor.

Step 5: Quick! Grab broom. Immediately start sweeping the area your baby heads toward.

Step 6: Throw a pan lid and spoon in her path to slow her down a bit.

(WARNING: Pan lid and spoon are no match for the Cheerios clear across the floor in keeping your baby’s attention.)

(But having a big brother with a matching lid and spoon helps.)

Step 7: Grab dust pan. Sweep it all into dust pan before baby sees the dust pan. (Dust pans are even more attractive than Cheerios!)

Step 8: When baby gets fussy because you took all the “fun” stuff away give her a nice big carrot to teeth on.

How about you? Do you have any great baby proofing tips you’ve learned along the way? Please share them with us in the comments.

I have so many things to write about. The hard part is deciding what to write about first. I’m also contemplating a few book ideas. Be watching for more on that.

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The Family that Draws Together is Drawn Together

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

Okay, I couldn’t resist that title. I mentioned in my last post Happy New Month! that we have been drawing pictures every Monday.

My husband set a goal to draw something every day. He set that goal when he saw my need for artwork to go along with my writing. The neat thing is that with his goal to draw something for my writing that gave me the desire to write something for him to draw for. That in turn keeps him wanting to draw pictures for me to write to.

It’s a never ending circle but I see a lot of great things to come from it. My husband is even talking about setting up a website to connect with my website. Won’t that be great!

I’m not as good an artist as my husband but I’m not horrible at it either. I just don’t like spending too much time on it. And if it takes a lot of effort I’d rather just not. Ha!

Okay, bottom line I’m lazy when it comes to art. I’d rather just write about something than to have to draw it. So having an amazing artist in the family is a wonderful thing.

Now about my charicature…

Not too bad for my first attempt at Charicature. Don’t you think?

Do you recognize him now? I know my charicature isn’t perfect. The eyebrows could use to be a bit shorter and longer. I think if I were to try again I’d do a little better. However I’m not the artist remember. I just did this for fun with my kids.

Okay, as for guesses. Not very many people attempted to guess at who he is.

My brother, Jason, guessed correctly. He thought my drawing looked like Mr. Bean.

Thank you, Jason, for making a big sister feel better about her art work. I’ll never forget sitting outside watching your pig. I drew a picture of you and our sister. No, my drawing hasn’t really improved much since then.

My Brother-in-law, Justin, guessed that it was Dracula with his teeth pulled.

Umm… No.

I suppose if Mr. Bean had a widow’s peak hairdo then maybe he would look like a toothless Dracula. Hmm…

Alright, enough about my artistic abilities or lack thereof. Hopefully it won’t be long before I get to show off some of my husband’s work.

How about you? Is there something you enjoy doing even if you’re not good at it? Maybe it’s just for fun or for your family. I’d love to hear about it!

I’ll be having a special post on Valentine’s day. I have a friend, Anne Peterson, that wrote a book about Real Love guaranteed to last.

Her book is free Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. It would make a great Valentine’s gift for yourself and to share with a friend. Just click on the picture of the book. Go ahead and get it early!

Check back here on Thursday where I’ll be talking more about Real Love!

Happy New Month!

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

At the beginning of this year, I decided to do something a little different.

All the previous years I would write down all the goals I wanted to accomplish for the year. This year I’m setting monthly goals.

For the month of January, I had several main goals. 1. Keep the kitchen clean. 2. Blog twice a week. 3. Write 1 devotional each week. 4. Write one children’s story book in the month.

I am happy to say that I did pretty well at keeping the dishes clean. There were a couple of nights that I was too tired to wash dishes before bed. But I got those first thing the next day. My husband and kids helped quite a bit by doing dishes when I was busy with the baby.

Those of you who follow my blog may have notice a long break in my posting. I blogged twice a week most of the month. That goal is good if I don’t want to write anything else.

Last week I spent my normal blogging time to write the rough draft of my next children’s book. I plan to finish editing it this month and then it will go to my illustrator (aka my husband).

My husband, Scott, started an art class for our family. Since we homeschool we can add classes at any time. Monday is our main art day.

On Wednesdays we watch The Wednesday Drawing Show. Shoo Rayner is the instructor. His videos are made for all ages. Then when you draw the assignment he gives you can upload it to his website and he’ll show it off on his Sunday Gallery Show that he added to show off all the art.

So far we have drawn snakes, made or drawn eyeballs on scrap materials, and this Monday we did charicatures of famous people.

Here is my first charicature. Can you tell who it is of? Go ahead and guess in the comments. I’m curious if he’s recognizable.

This month I’m switching to just one blog post a week. I need a little more time for pursuing other goals.

So for the month of February I plan to blog once a week, write 1 devotional a week, write another children’s story, and learn some HTML.

Keeping the dishes clean is an ongoing goal. I am adding to that getting the master bedroom cleaned up. It’s the catch-all room. I’m going to be brutal and get rid of a lot of stuff.

I’ll give an update at the end of this month on how I’m doing.

Did you set goals this year? How are you doing with your goals? And don’t forget to guess who my charicature is of.

I’ll let you know if you guessed right or not. In my next post I’ll tell who he is.

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When Do I Find Time to Write?

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

I’ve been asked this question so many times I decided that I’d dedicate a whole blog post to answer it.

When do I find time to write?

Let’s see right now I have about 45 minutes to type with one finger on my phone while my husband drives us home from karate class.

Oops! I have to pause a moment to feed the baby while my husband runs into the store to get sandwich makings.

Okay, I’m back. Um the baby is reaching for my phone now. My husband is still in the store. It’s times like this I a……..

I just answered the question, “Why is that guy carrying trash in a buggy?” Yes, we call the shopping carts buggies.

Okay, back to writing… Where was I? Oh, yes! It’s times like this I really appreciate auto-correct.

The baby is now thoroughly distracted. She is laughing at her siblings that are laughing at the worker taking out the trash.

She’s not going to be happy when she gets put back in her car seat. I may or may not be able to write during this drive.

What did I tell you? See, she’s mad.
Time to make sandwiches… I’ll be right back.

Those were good sandwiches. My sweetheart went all out and bought cheese for our sandwiches.

Finally, the baby has fallen asleep I can stop patting her mouth. I only got bit once. Okay, back to writing.

Right now I’m writing about when I find time to write. Normally instead of telling you about the interruptions I write a few words about the subject I have on my mind.

I can get quite a bit said in 45 minutes or so even with distractions. I’ll need fewer distractions when I finally stop to edit this. Right now there are a lot of typos even with auto correct. I’m pretty sure I’ve repeated myself a couple of times.

My eyes are tired from looking at this bright screen in the dark. I’m going to stop for a moment. I might have a few minutes to work on this at the house.

I’m glad I went ahead and got all the dishes washed right before running out the door for karate class. I knew I’d be too tired when we got home.

Just got the kids to bed but I’m too tired to think right now.

I only made it my goal to post two blog posts a week. I didn’t say which days they were going to be posted on. Last week I had my first post out by Tuesday or Wednesday. This week I posted my first post on Thursday. I try to be flexible though. If I made it a set day I’d probably give up.

Good morning, everyone! Yes, I’m finally up and at ’em. I woke up too late to write much this morning. However I have a few minutes right now while the kids are happily chit chatting over their breakfast. The baby is enjoying some Cheerios.

Uh oh! My baby is no longer enjoying her Cheerios. I only got one paragraph in during that break. Of course, I did check my notifications on Facebook but we don’t have to talk about that distraction. Do we?

My almost 8 year old keeps bringing the baby to me before she even cries.

I dare to hope right about now that the baby will take a mid morning nap. I still hear bowls and spoons clanking in the kitchen. I’m feeding the baby who is not cooperating on this nap idea.

Um… She’s working on a diaper. Would that be TMI (Too Much Information)? I better change that diaper.

She is wide awake.

Battery warning!!! I need to charge this phone and get myself breakfast.

Is this post almost done?

Oh, no! The baby thought her sisters’ hair bands were fruit loops. I rescued them and her.

I think you probably have the general idea of how I find time to write. Last year my goal was to post 1 blog a week. My husband had gotten me a tablet that helped a lot in accomplishing that goal.

This past Christmas my parents gave me a smart phone. I tell you what! That phone has sure helped me with my goal of two blog posts a week. I can type a few words here and there where ever I am at. I just save it as a draft and then I can finish writing on my computer.

Hello, Elisabeth! I’ll be right back…

Okay, I fed Elisabeth. Picked up Joshua from his job feeding the neighbors animals. Now I’m determined to finish this post!

I used to try staying up at night after getting everyone to bed. However I kept falling asleep with my computer in my lap. Then I’d be tired all day.

I tried getting up early to write. That doesn’t seem to work too well. I prefer to read first thing in the morning. I read my Bible and then the blog updates that I follow. By the time I get all my reading done Elisabeth wakes up.

Basically I find time to write whenever I can. Sometimes I just have to tell my kids to give me a few minutes. I let them know what I am working on and that I only have a few more sentences before I’m finished with my blog. Then I write like crazy for those few minutes.

Typically, with distractions, it takes me a couple of days to get a blog written and a partial day to edit and tweak it. Depending on the topic too.

I’m almost done with this post. Right now, I’m typing with one hand while trying to feed the baby who is fighting sleep. She’ll probably fall asleep right about the time I hit “Publish”.

I know I’m not the only busy person in the world. Some of you probably have more going on than me.

Do you have a hobby? When do you find time to work on the things you enjoy?

What did I tell you? She’s out like a light! Now that the baby is finally asleep, it’s time for me to hit “Publish” and get the rest of my kids back on task.

Now if I could just find the time to shower. 😉

How to Maintain a Clean Kitchen in 6 “Easy” Steps

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

I spent a day this week with just my 4 younger children. Joshua and Ruth had gone to a nearby farm to help with their animals and to have riding lessons.

I had to drop them off. Leaving the younger 4 by themselves is a disastrous proposition not even worthy of consideration. (Okay, I admit I enjoyed putting that many big words into one simple sentence.) In other words I’m not leaving the little kids by themselves for even a minute.

I got them all up and the older children ate breakfast while the younger ones were scrounging around for their shoes.

We dropped their big brother and sister off for their riding lessons and I took the younger ones to a local store for honey buns and hot chocolate mix.

That was a fancy breakfast in their minds.

After breakfast I decided to let them have a little free time while I worked on some lesson plans.

Jonathan and Hannah were pretty creative. Hannah made herself a mop lady and Jonathan a broom man.

Hannah named her new friend Jennifer. Jonathan said his was grandpa with a Mohawk and a cowboy hat.

Elijah has been working on potty training. I have also been having to teach him not to be rough with Elisabeth.

In the above picture of Elijah and Elisabeth they are playing on our kitchen floor.

I’ve been managing to keep the kitchen clean. I try hard to keep every dish washed up after each meal. Sometimes there are a few left to be done before bed but not nearly as many as there used to be.

I have learned that there are a couple of things that help in being resolved to keep the kitchen clean.

1. You can’t expect anyone else to do it. I can tell my children to help but unless I show that I care and put forth some effort myself then no one else will.

2. Be determined. I tell myself that I’m not going to bed until every dish is clean. If I want to get to bed at a reasonable time I have to keep those dishes up throughout the day or I’d be up all night doing dishes.

3. Don’t make excuses.That popular saying going around that I used to listen to. “The dishes can wait they’re not going any where.”

That is true but unless you want those dishes to multiply into an embarrassing mess you better catch it while there is just a few. Otherwise you’re stuck playing catch up and believe me that is no fun. Keeping it up is much easier than catching it up.

4. Numbers don’t matter. Cleaning with 2 versus 6 kids? I’ve had only 2 kids before and now I have 6. I can actually speak from experience on this question.

With 2 children you don’t have as many helpers. Of course, they don’t make as big a mess either. Technically clean up is about the same with both.

With 6 kids there may be more dishes but you can assign them jobs that you would normally have to do if there were only 2 children.

5. Make it quality time. The same saying about the dishes not going anywhere is usually followed by “…but your children are only young once.” In other words, you should spend that time doing dishes and cleaning house with your children instead.

Okay, I’ve followed that advice before. I actually liked it. I much preferred spending quality time playing with my children to housekeeping. That’s why I had a messy kitchen for the past 2+ years.

I now have a new outlook on quality time. This year I’ve determined that I’d have even more quality time if the kids and I cleaned up the kitchen before we do other things.

And who says cleaning the kitchen isn’t quality time? If you think about it we are all in the room together. Why not teach my kids a new song while we’re cleaning.

Now with little ones particularly of the potty training years then I may have to leave the dishes for a moment to take care of an emergency.

If it’s a 6 month old wanting to be held. A clean floor with a pot lid and plastic spoon is a very fun toy. More fun than a brightly colored toy in fact.

6. Give the excess away. If I haven’t used a dish in over a year then I probably don’t need it. Give it away! Think of it as one less dish to wash. It’s also one more spot in the cabinet freed up for those dishes I do use.

Do you have any advice on keeping the kitchen clean? Or do you have a housekeeping question that you’re struggling with? I’d love to hear from you. Tell me what you think.

I’ll be posting again in another day or two. In that post I’ll be answering the frequently asked question, “When do you find time to write?” 🙂

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Babysitting Chickens and Potty Training…Oh, my!

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

My 14 year old son volunteered to babysit some baby chickens. I agreed to let him. So far they are still alive and still in their box.

I was imagining a whole bunch of baby chicks the first morning after we got them. It’s been good though.

I want to give a little mid month progress report.

So far I have kept up with the dishes. Right now as I type this post all but maybe 2 cups are washed in the kitchen. It’s been a lot of hard work but we’re keeping it up.

This makes my second blog for this week so I’m still going strong on posting twice a week.

I have actually got a devotional book started in my mind. I realize that’s not quite writing one devotional a week but the brainstorming and planning can be some of the hardest work.

To make up for not writing a devotional a week, I have been writing my son letters to greet him each morning as he arises early to work on his lessons. I am usually up but this gives him a chance to read cursive writing and I like to throw in some devotional type thoughts for him to think about as he begins the day.

I am thinking about writing letters to my other children as well but I need to get my sleep schedule back on track so I can have more time to write more letters. I’m thinking there might be a book idea in this somewhere.

Elijah is still potty training. The other day at karate class he fought with me over actually going in the toilet. He was still dry but in his refusal to go he peed all over my gi pants.

Something about having a two year old wet you while standing right next to the toilet is pretty discouraging although I managed to get him aimed in the right direction and cheer for his getting some in the potty.

I praised him for staying dry and he said, “Mommy, yours wet!”

Yep.

Today made up for it though. He dirtied himself this morning but this afternoon he went in the potty and stayed dry.

He got two stickers. One to proudly wear on his hand and another to put on a chart I made for him out of notebook paper. He has 3 stickers on his chart and he stayed dry all the way through bedtime.

I have not been doing too well at keeping up with going to bed early but I’ll keep trying.

In fact I’m having trouble getting my eyes to stay focused on this blog post. I really need sleep!

How have you been doing on your goals? Do you have friends that help keep you accountable?

Conquering the Chore Monster

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Anastacia Maness

We are coming upon the end of our second week of 2013. Quite often you can know at the end of a month whether the goals you set were reasonable or not.

I feel pretty good about our goals this year. One great thing is I’ve been meeting my goal of waking up earlier in the mornings. I’ll be posting more on that in future posts.

Today I want to tell you about our housekeeping goals. I have a goal this year to never leave dishes in the sink. There were many nights in 2012 that I sighed and left the dishes to be done the next morning. That is because I had a chore assignment fail between 2011 and 2012.

Yes, it was pretty sad.

Let me tell you what happened.

I have tried so many things these past couple of years with chores. We do pretty good when we’re in a good routine that works but when something breaks the routine sometimes it turns crazy. In 2011 we tried assigning each child monthly chores and paying them an allowance. That did not work!

The problem I had with paying them an allowance was that they took so long to get the job done. Then if there was a dirty job they didn’t want to do, it wound up set aside for the next month’s switch. Which meant that just made that chore yuckier for the next child assigned to it.

It was also hard to judge how much to pay our children because they preferred not working more than money. I also felt if I helped them by doing their assigned chore they were only learning that someone else will do it for them.

It is a lot easier to maintain cleanliness than to catch up on it.

This past year (2012) I had a hard time getting caught up. I felt I was constantly washing dishes. I’m faster at the dishes than the children and more thorough. So I had my kids doing other odd jobs around the house or working on their lessons while I did dishes.

My husband was very sweet and started trying to help me with dishes as well. He was seeing the effort I put toward getting things caught up around the house.

Two weeks into the new year and things are going well. I’m determined that my goal of having a clean house is higher priority than even my writing goals.

The clothes issue is another matter.

We have too many clothes. We are given quite a bit of hand-me-down clothes which isn’t the problem. The problem is we’re not getting rid of the outgrown clothes quick enough.

Then it becomes a mess because the kids don’t have a place to put it all. It gets left on their floor along with dirty clothes. Well, you can probably imagine how their rooms looked. Picture 6 kids in 2 small bedrooms. Scary!

My husband had 2 weeks off during the Christmas break. One of those weeks he took and bagged up the trash and hidden toys in their rooms and kept the laundry running with clothes.

I had the kids helping me sort through those clothes as soon as they came out of the dryer.

We’re not finished with that project yet but basically I am having them pick only a certain number of clothes to keep. The rest we need to get rid of. So far besides what my husband has already taken away, I have two large garbage bags of clothes waiting in the van to be given away.

My husband told them that he will be doing weekly checks on their rooms at random to ensure they keep them picked up. Anything he finds on their floor or out of place will be thrown away. He gave them a warning to look in their rooms yesterday and tell him what they would be losing if he were to check them right then. They had a few things they would have lost but I think they are taking him seriously.

I have simplified our kitchen routine this year. We no longer leave the kitchen for one or two people to clean. I assigned the two younger boys to wipe the benches and the floor. (They tend to cause the most spills.) We don’t let those spills set around for someone else to clean up anymore.

I assigned my 7 year old daughter the task of clearing and wiping the table. She can reach everything on the table and is able to put things where they go. In the picture I also have her straightening the cookbook shelf.

My 12 year old daughter is very good at organizing. I usually have her dry and put away the dishes that I wash.

And my 14 year old I usually have getting all the trash off the floor and sweeping. I’m not sure where all the trash comes from but there never seems to be an end to it getting on the floor. We don’t even use paper napkins. I’m not sure where it all comes from.

That’s our new after-meal routine. I must say that so far it’s been working. I no longer have to stay up late doing dishes. Nor do I have to sigh and decide to leave the dishes for the next day.

I found that by my being in the room washing the dishes while they do their tasks keeps them from getting distracted. We now get the kitchen completely cleaned in a matter of minutes.

That is much better than the whole day it use to take.

How about your home? Are there chores that your family struggles with? Do you have any housekeeping tips that might help us out? Please share in the comments section.

Hopefully I’ll be having a success story about our laundry woes soon. Stay tuned by subscribing to my email updates. That way you won’t miss a single post.

I’m also linking up with some other Mommies today at

If you want to read some other Mommies perspectives on Thriving at home, check it out.

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Category: Family

When You Need Comfort the Most

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Freedom to Enjoy Life

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Finding Beauty in Imperfections

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How to Baby Proof Your Kitchen in 8 “Easy” Steps

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The Family that Draws Together is Drawn Together

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Happy New Month!

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When Do I Find Time to Write?

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How to Maintain a Clean Kitchen in 6 “Easy” Steps

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Babysitting Chickens and Potty Training…Oh, my!

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Conquering the Chore Monster

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