Hey There, Friends! Happy Wednesday!
I took to Instagram yesterday to get some help with a Q and A post. You guys were awesome! I have enough questions to add a couple more posts to this little series. Thank you!
I was working on a faith post for today. You guys requested more of them and I love writing posts like that but let me be real for a second…those posts are the ones that stress me out the most. I want to share my heart so badly that I often overthink, panic, stress, and spend way too much time fretting about what I’m saying and how it’ll be taken. A faith post to come for sure! I promise!
I snagged twelve questions you guys had yesterday. In no particular order…
Hmmm…this is such a good one! I can think back to parts of each phase that I absolutely LOVED! I was always worried about my kids growing up and me not enjoying them as teens. I think we hear so many nightmares about parenting teens {and I know how I was as a teenager!}, but guys, I’m LOVING this phase of their childhood. If you’re nervous about this stage, don’t be!
Here I am choosing this one because of the compliment. ha! I’m kidding!
First of all, THANK YOU! Secondly, I think it’s because I have some layers that give extra volume. I have a love/hate relationship with those layers at times but they do give me some extra oomph!
A few other things I do…
1. Sometimes when blow drying I part my hair on the wrong side and blow dry it that way. So that when I flip my hair to the “right side” for my part, it has a little extra volume.
2. I don’t always because TIME but blow drying with a round brush or a dryer brush helps too!
3. If I part my hair on one side for a day or two and before I want to wash again, I’ll part it on the other side for some extra volume.
Workout routine? I’ve had MANY through the years but what I’m doing right now I’m really enjoying. That’s key for me because doing the same thing over and over kind of drives me batty. My body isn’t made for the SAME thing on the daily…well maybe it’s more like my brain isn’t made for that. ha!
This is what I’m doing right now….{these are all like 30-40 minutes}
*HIT Workout once a week
*One Day Full Body Weights
*One Day Upper Body Weights
*One Day Lower Body Weights
*Pilates-remember this is one of my goals for 2025?
There are weeks where we don’t have anything on the weekends but they’re few and far between so my weekend routine is just getting in those steps.
I try my best to be a healthy version of myself who can also enjoy dinners out with my family. I want to be eating the same meals my kids are eating. I might tweak a thing here or there, but for the most part I’m making meals we all can eat. I’m my healthiest self when I’m walking a lot, getting in those workouts and eating REALLY balanced. I look and feel my best when I’m eating protein, fiber, carbs and fats. The amounts aren’t equal, of course, but all of those are needed in order for my body to feel it’s best.
Back to the workout routine though…my weekly goal is those five workouts above with a lot of walking mixed in. Right now with COLD temps, the walking is at an all time low but as soon as the weather warms out, I’ll be back out there!
If I were in the market for a cute white shoe that wasn’t a workout shoe, here are my top three I’d snag…
I love the texture of these white Nike sneakers.
I adore the vintage look of these Gola sneakers.
Sam Edelman sneakers are known for comfort and are a great price point. We gifted these to my mom this Christmas {size up one!}.
Tab has been an NFL official for the last five years. He just completed his fifth season. I got a LOT of questions about football, officiating and Tab. I’ll try to ask for a few more and he can answer his own set of questions for me. 🙂
I wish I had some magical idea to share that would take care of all our phone issues when it comes to kids/teens, but I don’t. Our oldest two are the two who have phones. We waited until the Christmas of eighth grade to gift Ebby Lee her phone. She handled it so well that we gave Nixon his for his birthday when he was in seventh grade. I’ll tell you if you’re choosing to wait a while and your kid has a friend or two who also don’t have a phone it’s very helpful. When those friends get phones though and you’re not ready, game on, parents! It’s much harder when they become “the only one without a phone”. I put that in quotations because I’m sure they weren’t THE ONLY ones but they felt that way. Bowen’s in sixth grade and doesn’t have a phone yet. He still has a couple good friends who also don’t have a phone so he’s not really asking. We have most of the same rules you probably have in your house. We periodically check their phones so they are aware we can look through them at any second. They can’t just download any app without permission. We can take them away at any minute so being disrespectful, disobeying, breaking rules, etc, gets your phone removed. Again, I wish I had a miracle plan but unfortunately I don’t.
I cannot believe this girly will be driving in less than two months. She’s doing great so far, but will I ever be carefree about sending her out on the road?? I don’t know? I’m new to this stage!
I went back in the archives to see what rooms I’d shared with you. You’re right! I’m missing several. There’s this space in our living room I don’t love so I’ve been hesitant to share it. I keep trying to change things around in here before I post pictures. Hopefully, I figure it out soon and can share with you! More to come soon! These are the rooms I’ve posted already…
The first room I shared was our new pantry!
I shared our new laundry room…this was just a peep picture. Check out a few more in this post!
This is Ebby Lee’s new bathroom/guest bathroom.
I shared our new front room. WHY have we always called it this? I’m not sure but when we moved in, it stuck.
Thanks to many of these ladies listed above I survived. :). My biggest tip is to MAKE SOME PLANS! If he traveled during the week then I made sure the kids and I got out of the house during the day. We might meet friends at the park, at friends’ houses, or even the mall to play. On the weekends, DON’T ASSUME THAT OTHER MOMS DON’T WANNA HANG. I had friends whose husbands worked weekends so they’d want to get together, I had friends whose husbands hunted so they were free, I had friends who worked full time during the week so they enjoyed getting together with other moms/kids while their husband could hang with some guys, and more. If I’d have assumed and not asked all of those ladies, then I would have missed out on some great weekend times. Ask and invite and eventually you’ll find what mom friends are eager to join you! When my kids were little {before school and activities} the worst time of day was when they woke up from their naps until dinner/Tab got home. That was the struggle time for me as a stay-at-home mom. I met the sweetest neighbor who stayed at home with her two kids who was also struggling at that same time so we would walk to the park, let them play, and walk home. We did this almost daily between 3-5ish. LIFESAVER moments right there!
Parenting teens is kind of like every other job I’ve ever had. Some days I’m knocking it out of the park and other days it’s like I can’t do anything right. I spend a lot of my time praying for these four humans, asking my friends to pray for these four humans or praying for other friends’ humans. I ask a lot of questions. Sometimes it can be really hard to get them to talk so I accidentally have become the queen of the questions. Sometimes they realize what I’m doing and sometimes I’m so good at it they start talking and don’t wanna stop. I can be naggy and a “Karen” {I apologize if that’s your name but I’m just using it how the teens do} and they laugh at me more often than I can count, but when they choose to share their day, confide in me, get my opinion, or wanna talk there’s truly nothing better. I’d also say that before I had kids Tab and I often thought, “our kids would never”. Well, yeah, right. The years of parenting so far have taught me that my kids very well might.
Nothing big happened except the time, energy and technology started costing us more time than we had in our week to give. Maybe we’ll start it up again one day but for right now we’re using those hours each week for other things. Never say never! 😉
Thanks to this {Nixon playing high school baseball} we won’t be going on a big family Spring Break trip this year. Instead Ebby Lee, my mom and I have a fun girls only {and big girls-Britt could care less about this destination right now at her age} trip planned at Spring Break. She turns sixteen so soon that taking this trip will be extra special!
And yes. 🙂
Thanks so much for reading today! See you back here on Friday!
XO
