--- 1 --- Don't adjust your screens ladies and gentlemen (mostly ladies), you read that correctly. I am getting rid of our toys. WITH MY KIDS' BLESSING! Last year's big toy closet organization scheme helped. But the playroom is still a major source of heartache and...
Discipline. It's a scary word that conjures up images of switches behind the shed and nuns with rulers in hand. But I'm here to tell you that it's the thing that makes me not only love my children, but genuinely enjoy being around them. We live in a Chicken Little...
Today you get links. Lots of 'em. And me trying to be smart in order to keep up appearances. etsy, obviously Wait, not THOSE kind of links. Although, can I just say that is totally amazing? --- 1 --- This nonsense has taken the interwebs by storm: I Look Down On Young...
I mentioned this technique in a post in which I used it on Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and MTV, and I can't remember hearing much about any of them since, so I'm going to assume it was a big success and they've all decided to turn their lives around. In which case,...
--- 1 --- . . . by a Saint Happy St. Nicholas Day! Think Santa is all pipe-smoking and belly-laughs? Think again. Dude totally punched a heretic in the face AT THE COUNCIL OF NICEA! Seriously, you're going to want to read all about it here: When Santa...
A few weeks ago, I wrote about our family's advent philosophy, but now that advent is actually upon us, I wanted to share a little more about our three favorite advent family traditions. 1. Little People Nativity We have many nativity sets. We've got a big outdoor...
Kaitlin from More Like Mary wrote me asking about how we deal with toddlers' picky eating habits. I fired off a quick email back to her before I remembered the super-frustrating food allergy issues her family is dealing with. Our family does not have any allergies or...
--- 1 --- If you have ever seen Michaelangelo's Moses at St. Peter in Chains in Rome . . . okay, now you have You may have noticed that he has, um, horns. Odd right? We saw it in person in Rome and were all rather perplexed. Well, since the Feast of St. Jerome was...
--- 1 --- I think it's clear that for whatever reason some people in the "mainstream media" are willfully misunderstanding Pope Francis. They seem to have decided that anything Pope Francis says is awesome and revolutionary, while everything that Pope Benedict said...
Unless you were homeschooled yourself (which I wasn't) the decision to homeschool your own kids can feel overwhelming in a thousand different ways. It's easy to look at a really easy-going homeschooling Mom and say, "I couldn't live like that, I need order and...
Blah, blah, blah, stuff happened, I found myself 24 and single. My dad (who reads this blog, but I am going to say this anyway) was a super-weirdo about that sort of thing and started immediately panicking that I would become an old maid. He kept trying to find guys...
Perhaps this will be surprising in light of all my posts about traveling the world and throwing parties big and small, but I am an introvert. Totally. (Or maybe you saw this, so you already knew.) I'm not shy and I do enjoy interacting with people, but I don't find it...
--- 1 --- Me: Hey, remember when we watched the Royal Wedding? The Duke and Duchess are having a baby today! Bobby: What's he the Duke of? Me: Wales, I think. Bobby: The Duke of WHALES? How does that work? well, something like this, I'd imagine As it turns out he's...
--- 1 --- The effects of Felix Felicis, as described by Harry Potter Wiki, are thus: Felix Felicis possibly works by providing the drinker with the bestpossible scenario. This usually registers in the drinker's mind in theform of an unusual urge to take a certain...
Here's another summer re-run from the early days of the blog, so maybe you've already seen this one. But if your kids are driving you crazy this summer, this might be able to help. For a post on WHY we practice Parenting With Authority, see here. I started out to make...
A couple of weeks ago, in a Sunday post about Kids and Modesty, I made kind of a throwaway mention of the fact that I consider nursing in public without a nursing cover to fall into the category of immodest. Since you guys have such excellent reading comprehension, it...
Especially the "Catholic" ones (oh yes I did)*. I intended this to be just a Facebook post, but you know me, it got long. So it's here. I've been pretty silent about the gay marriage debate on Facebook, not because I don't have an opinion about it, but because I know...
I think it's easy to fall into one of two errors when dealing with kids and modesty. One is the idea that the human body is bad and that we must ensure that our children hide their 'naughty bits', the other is a reaction too far in the other direction: that we...
Thanks to Stephanie at I Found Him Whom My Soul Loves, who nominated me for a Very Inspiring Blogger Award, you get to learn seven MORE things about me. If you also saw this post, then you now know 40 whole things about me. one My husband asked me to marry him 10...
Hey guys, it's me Frankie. You may remember me from such posts as: An Open Letter to the Church Lady Who Yelled at My Mom and What Cranky Frankie Taught Me About God (my Mom wrote that one, but it's about me!) So when Adam from Equipping Catholic Families...
So now that Mother's Day is winding down and all the kids are in bed, I can take a minute to consider their usefulness. Their usefulness beyond serving my mother and I and our dates a lovely dinner at Tierney Bistro for Mother's Day, I mean. My number one goal as a...
And I don't just mean because I'm pregnant, I mean I don't do it ever (anymore). Not to worry, I don't do anything ELSE either. I just find, that in my particular circumstances, NFP is WAAAAAAY more trouble than it's worth. And way more trouble than just having...
The Dove Real Beauty Sketches took Facebook by storm last week: filling my newsfeed with passionate comments about how TRUE it was and how all our daughters needed to see this. I have some thoughts. Baby Jack posing with some rival soap. 1. This is an ad for...
Hey all, while we're out of town for Easter Break, I'm cleaning out my drafts folder. So if this sounds like it was written a while ago, it probably was. I'll still be checking comments, so feel free to have an opinion. And a very happy Easter to you...
If you read my blog with any regularity you probably know that my 17 month old baby is a real stinker. He screams. He throws stuff. He hits me. He won't eat. He insists on being picked up, mostly. He insists on being put down,...
So, I figured that now that I have this blog, I have a responsibility to stop waiting a month to see movies that come out. I saw that Oz the Great and Powerful was coming soon to theaters. I reread The Wonderful Wizard of Oz AND read its sequel The Marvelous Land of...
For Tuesday's post on WHY we practice Parenting With Authority, see here. I started out to make a list of rules for Parenting with Authority. But it turned out that all the rules I wrote out just ended up coming back to one single concept: ALWAYS MEAN WHAT YOU...
For me, writing a blog has been an interesting window into my own brain. It turns out I think very tangentially. Who knew? (Husbands are not invited to answer). Every post I start writing makes me think of three others I ought to do alongside, or before, or...
My ten year old son loves to read. And though he enjoys the books recommended by our classical curriculum, sometimes he yearns to read something a bit more modern and edgy . . . or perhaps something a bit more ancient and Greek. Somewhere, he heard...
This is part of a series of Catholic Toddler Letters. Dear Adam, Pack your bags, we're moving to San Diego! I found a Church Lady who wants us! If you'll recall, that hasn't always been the case for me. It's okay, San Diego is where my Nana and Grandad live. We can...
