Five Quotes That Have Altered My Way of Thinking

I love reading and enjoy learning from other people's experiences.  Quotes are a fantastic way to speak into various aspects of my life.  I don't have many memorized but there are some specific ones that have changed my perspective and opened my eyes.

From parenting to marriage to self-worth, there are so many lessons to be learned as we grow and our situations change.  Here are five quotes that have altered my way of thinking:

Five Things We Will Do to Celebrate Father's Day

This weekend is Father's Day! I wish I could say that I was getting up early to make breakfast in bed but I am pretty certain that will not happen as Gary is almost always up before me these days.   I  know these celebratory days can be hard for some, but for me, I will take the time to be grateful when I can–which includes Father's Day. How will we celebrate?

The Benefits to Offering Your Kids Choices

It can be hard in our every day life when we feel like so many things are beyond our control–personally it can make me feel nervous and uncomfortable; how am I supposed to know what to expect next? Now imagine being a two-year-old where you are told when to eat, what to wear, when to go outside, what to say, and when to go to bed. Of course they are going to struggle with this as they feel they have no say. Often they express their frustration through tantrums, screaming "No!" or running away from the situation.

One key thing to remember is to give them choices.

Our Infant Development Worker encouraged us to use this for our Little One and it has been so helpful– how did I not integrate this more frequently before? I don't mean "Put on your shoes or go to Time Out" I mean, "Do you want your brown boots or your sparkly shoes?" or "Do you want apple slices or yogurt?" I will hold the items in front of them to help them decide by combining visual and audio.  I use options on my bigger kids, too. "Do you want a shower now or at 6 pm?" The shower will happen on this day but they have some say in the matter.

What are five benefits to giving choices?

Five Things I Learned When My Son Wore a Fitbit

It's no secret that I love my Fitbit. I'm the kind of person who loves to quantify most things and enjoys a goal for each and every day. I always try to get 10,000 steps per day and I usually end up with about 13,000. I was curious just how active Kai (age 9) was as he always seems to be moving at home – did going to school prevent him from getting enough activity each day? I had an old Fitbit Charge and put it on him out of curiosity.

What did we learn after one month?

Five Sanity Savers for Parents

Life can get loud and crazy really fast.  For me, a lot of the stress in parenting comes from noise– whether that's kids bugging each other or asking me for snacks over and over or bouncing a basketball right next to me while I'm trying to read.  Here are five sanity savers that I recommend for parents:

1. A minivan.  Separating the boys results in an optimal travelling environment.  We have tried putting all three kids in the back of our car and it works for shorter trips but anything more than an hour and it's just not worth it!

Five Reasons YOU Could Be A Foster Parent

If you had told me five years ago that we would be foster parents, I would say there was no way that was going to happen. Why would we? I don't have the skills. What about my own kids?  Too many unknowns. However, here we are, loving our Little One. You might be like me saying "Uh, no thanks. Great you can do it but it's not for our family." I get it. There are times in life where it truly would be too much, however, there are other times when we need that nudge. Consider this your nudge.

Here are five reasons YOU could be a foster parent:

Five Activities for the Kids on a Rainy Day

Living on the west coast means we experience our fair share of rainy days!  What do we do to keep these kids busy with minimal involvement from us?

Five Self-Care Ideas for a Frugal Introvert

Being a busy mom of four kids, I have realized that in order to be the best mom and wife that I can be, I need to take time for me. This is nothing new to most of you but how I do it might be different. I know some people would say "Go to the spa!" or "Go shopping!" or "Have a girls' night!", and these are all great options, but I don't enjoy spending money and I really get exhausted by the noise around me daily, so I enjoy a good escape. I used to be a quarterback on a women's flag football team and that was good for my soul, but that was when I "just" had one and then two kids. Now, my escapes need to be shorter so I try to do almost all of these daily.

Here are my five self-care ideas for a frugal introvert:

Five Highlights From 2015

As 2015 winds down, I like to look back at some highlights for the year. It was a busy 12 months but full of really great things.   If I could use one word for this year, I would say it was "growth" (can I also throw in some painful stretching?)   In no particular order, here are some of those highlights:

1.  Winning a Trip to Disney World.  If you're newer here, I enter quite a few contests and this one through Breakfast Television included submitting  Disney themed photos over the period of 3 weeks. They came to our door to surprise us with the amazing news.

In disbelief...crying into my hands while wearing my Mickey ears :)



2. Falling in love with our Little One, our first foster child.



3.  Family reunion at Tigh-Na-Mara in Parksville. Along with that was a great time camping in Tofino!

4.  Nya meeting Cinderella. For several weeks after winning the trip for four, we didn't know if we would be able to bring our daughter Nya.  The absolutely amazing thing ended up being that because she was not yet three (just one month before her birthday) we were allowed to add her to our trip (hotel, passes) and just had to pay for her flight.  This moment just encapsulates my happiness at having our whole family there.





5. Going to Las Vegas with Gary for our anniversary! We don't get away just the two of us enough but childcare is always a bit tricky.  We look forward to hopefully getting away together again in 2016 for at least one night.  Our marriage was one of my two goals for this year (that and getting more fit) and I'm happy to say that we are still in a good place.



What would be one (or more) highlights from your year?

Love,
Louise

                                

Don't forget to check out these other Canadian bloggers and their FiveOnFriday posts:

• If you're interested in making life simpler, and also honesty from a nerdy mom of three, check out Shawna from Simple on Purpose.
• For five funny things that will make you feel better about your own parenting skills, check out Jac and Juli at TwoFunMoms!
• Local to Edmonton, this mom is blogging about a little bit of everything. Things to do with the family, a simple DIY, or life as a family of 5 here. 
• Check out the blog that is basically all things in life at Eclectic Soapbox, because variety keeps it eclectic.
For Everything and the kitchen sink that happens in life, Check out Canadian Basics for your 5 on Friday for laughs and fun!
• For tips on green living on a sensible budget with a smattering of parenting, ranting and raving, check out Juicy Green Mom!
• Paula at Product Junkie

Five Tips For Being a Good Dad (According to a Three-Year-Old)

Are you a new dad? Maybe a dad-to-be? What about a dad to four wild kids? This week's #FiveOnFriday is sweet and simple.  I asked my three-year-old daughter what things a good daddy does.

Five Things A Good Daddy Does:

1. He gives hugs and tickles.

2.  He tells cool stories  (ones involving princesses in this case!)

3. He tells me that the loves me.

4. He smiles when he sees the pictures I draw for him.



5.  He makes smoothies with me.

Did you get that? Nothing about gifts, just time together, encouraging, and story-telling!

Ask your kids what they think a good daddy does and let me know.

Love, 
Louise

Pin here for later:

Five Favourite Places In My Home

Hello!  For this #FiveOnFriday, I'm taking you through my home to share my Five Favourite Places;  it's not because they are decorated beautifully – I'm more of a practical & sentimental kinda girl.  {PS I apologize in advance for saying "spot" a lot and that the volume fluctuates–I did this in one take :)}

What's one of YOUR favourite places in your home? Why?

Don't forget to check out these other Canadian bloggers and their FiveOnFriday posts:

• If you're interested in making life simpler, and also honesty from a nerdy mom of three, check out Shawna from Simple on Purpose.
• For five funny things that will make you feel better about your own parenting skills, check out Jac and Juli at TwoFunMoms!
• Local to Edmonton, this mom is blogging about a little bit of everything. Things to do with the family, a simple DIY, or life as a family of 5 here. 
• Check out the blog that is basically all things in life at Eclectic Soapbox, because variety keeps it eclectic.
For Everything and the kitchen sink that happens in life, Check out Canadian Basics for your 5 on Friday for laughs and fun!
• For tips on green living on a sensible budget with a smattering of parenting, ranting and raving, check out Juicy Green Mom!
• Paula at Product Junkie

Five Events That Changed My Life

Welcome to #FiveOnFriday!  Last week I talked about Five Reasons Why My Husband Is Awesome and this week I'm sharing about...

Five events that changed my life and what I learned from them:

1.  Living in Kenya. After my third year of teaching, Gary and I broke up (gasp!) and I took a year off to go teach in a remote village in Kenya.  When I say remote, I mean it; my new friend and I were the only mazungus (white people) in the village and to get to the internet we would have to take a bus for two hours.  It was incredibly beautiful and eye-opening.  Kids often take an education for granted here in Canada and this was not the case there; families worked so hard to send their kids to school. I gave all my girls a lined piece of white paper to write a quiz on and they asked if they could please keep the paper and not write on it because it was so nice.  A piece of lined white paper. In church, there was very little money to donate so people would bring food and sell it there to make money to donate.  We loved when someone brought eggs or potatoes that we could buy because otherwise we were mostly eating ugali (maize paste) and sukuma wiki (kale).

{PS The girls all had shaved heads, no jewelry, and uniforms so that there were no distractions from their studies}

2. Death of my mom. I learned that I only have so much control over things in my life.  You can read more about that here.  Oh, how I wish I could've talked with my mom as a mom myself.

{Last photo of us together}

3. Graves' Disease.  In 2009, when Koen was just 9 months old, I got very sick.  I lost about 20 lbs, my heart rate was elevated, I had no energy, I couldn't stop eating, I had insomnia...it wasn't fun.  Fortunately I was quickly diagnosed with Graves' Disease.  I learned that although it was likely brought on by hormonal changes postpartum, stress was a huge contributing factor.  I used to thrive off of stress; I would try to attack a "to do" list as quickly as possible and it felt so good.  I had to decrease the stress in my life which led to leaving my teaching job.  I now substitute teach once a week but I know my body couldn't handle working full-time along with a family.  I've been really working on being healthy and not trying to do it all.



4. Year 8 of marriage.  Early on in our marriage I thought that it was just so easy. We didn't invest a lot of time into it because it didn't seem to need it.  Before we knew it, we had three young kids and were not investing anything into each other.  I didn't like where we were and something HAD to change.  We talked about it and started working on it.  I love where we are now; we still put in so much work each day to make the other person a priority but it is worth it!  You can find some of my marriage posts here.

5. Having kids. Does anyone else ask themselves "Why did we have kids?!" It is a wild thing to give almost all your time, energy, and money to raise these little people that are just so messy and loud and...awesome.  I love them and my life is forever changed; in my mind I think of all they have to do, what I need to work on, and how to keep them safe.  There is only so much I can do and I have to trust God with the rest.  It is a wild ride of self-realization, exhaustion, and love.  Now, add in a foster child and, well, all those feelings are amplified!

So, there you have it. I would love to hear one thing that changed your life.  If you read this, you have to comment, it's a rule. Okay, it's not, but I'd love to hear it!

Don't forget to check out these other Canadian bloggers and their FiveOnFriday posts:

• If you're interested in making life simpler, and also honesty from a nerdy mom of three, check out Shawna from Simple on Purpose.
• For five funny things that will make you feel better about your own parenting skills, check out Jac and Juli at TwoFunMoms!
• Local to Edmonton, this mom is blogging about a little bit of everything. Things to do with the family, a simple DIY, or life as a family of 5 here. 
• Check out the blog that is basically all things in life at Eclectic Soapbox, because variety keeps it eclectic.
• For Everything and the kitchen sink that happens in life, Check out Canadian Basics for your 5 on Friday for laughs and fun!
• For tips on green living on a sensible budget with a smattering of parenting, ranting and raving, check out Juicy Green Mom!
• Paula at Product Junkie

Five Reasons My Husband Was Awesome This Week

Gary often does some wonderful things (which I try to focus on) and here are a few from this week:

1. He made Kaluha ice cream with candied bacon for a special dessert. There was even whipped cream which I love.  Gary doesn't even drink alcohol but he's mixed me up some fun concoctions over the past few weeks!

2.  He is sure to answer the surveys on each receipt.  This has paid off HUGE as he won a great prize last month ($1,000 worth of points to Loblaws!)

3.  He doesn't like flannel sheets but he does it for me in the winter AND he will warm up my side before I come to bed.  Awwwwww...

4.  He prepares my coffee while I shower in the morning.  I can hear the coffee beans grinding as I get ready upstairs. Please note: Gary doesn't even drink coffee.

5.  He got up at 5 am with our Little One all week.  No photo of this because I was sleeping on those flannel sheets about to meet my morning coffee.

Thanks for reading my first edition of Five on Friday.  I wonder what I should write about next Friday...

Love,
Louise

Don't forget to check out these other Canadian bloggers and their FiveOnFriday posts!

• If you're interested in making life simpler, and also honesty from a nerdy mom of three, check out Shawna from Simple on Purpose.
• Local to Edmonton, this mom is blogging about a little bit of everything. Things to do with the family, a simple DIY, or life as a family of 5 here. 
• Check out the blog that is basically all things in life at Eclectic Soapbox, because variety keeps it eclectic.
• For Everything and the kitchen sink that happens in life, Check out Canadian Basics for your 5 on Friday for laughs and fun!
• For tips on green living on a sensible budget with a smattering of parenting, ranting and raving, check out Juicy Green Mom!