Mandi Ehman's Blog, page 53

Preparing for a Road Trip with 4 Kids & a Dog

We’re getting ready for our second 18-hour trip to southern Florida, leaving on Sunday at 4 a.m., and it seemed like a good time to repost this. This time, our big girls are already in Florida with my parents, so we’ll be making the drive down with 2 kids, a baby and a dog and the drive back with 4 kids, a baby and a dog. I’ve added a few notes in italic where our strategy is different for this trip!

We’re heading down to Florida soon to visit my parents (who recently relocated there from Maryland) and to attend the famed Disney Social Media Moms conference at Disney World, and we’re all over-the-top excited as we count down the days until we leave.

As excited as we are, though, I’m more than a little nervous about the 16-18 hour drive to get there, especially since we’ll have our 10-month-old Husky puppy with us and are planning to drive straight through!

The truth is I haven’t spent much time worrying about what to pack (we just need some clothes and basic toiletries since we’ll be at my parents’ house for the majority of our trip and have plenty of access to stores for anything we might forget!), but I’ve spent a lot of time planning out our road trip activities.

Our Road Trip Strategy

Our family spends a lot of time on the road anyway, regularly driving 1-2 hours to various destinations around our home, so our girls are good travelers. But our previous Florida road trips have taught us that there’s a big difference between a 6-hour drive and a 12-hour drive. And this one? Well, it will be our longest by far since my parents now live 2 hours south of my grandmother.

In the past, we’ve tried driving through the night, but that just left us exhausted. We’ve stopped overnight midway, but that just extends the misery into two days instead of one. And we’ve driven with exhausted-but-won’t-sleep toddlers screaming during the last stretch of the night, which we’d like to avoid!

Our plan this time is to stick with our favorite strategy — head to bed early the night before and then get on the road by 4-o’dark in the morning. That means we’ll need to be packed beforehand and we’ll load four sleepy girls into the car, but it should make for a relatively mellow start to the day and — hopefully — lead to plenty of sleeping in the car, something our girls have gotten pretty good at thanks to weekly trips to visit their “MooMoo” (Sean’s mom) and the hour-and-a-half drive home at night!

We’ll plan to stop as needed for bathroom breaks and playtime for the puppy, but our goal is to use that time wisely so that we don’t make the drive any longer than it has to be.

With a baby on this trip, my hope is that he will go 3-4 hours between feedings so we can stop for food/playtime/potty breaks all at once. Thankfully, he’s our best traveler yet, and with his sisters next to him, I think he’ll do just fine!

Activities + More

While I’m a big fan of boredom in childhood in general, my goal for this trip is to keep them entertained, well fed and busy. We don’t do movies in the car (because I know it could easily become a crutch for even our shorter drives, and it’s not a door I want to open!), but we’ll have plenty of activities, crafts and audiobooks. I thought I’d give you a peek into the bags I have packed for the girls. They know about some of this stuff, which my mom sent them for the trip, but a lot of it will be a surprise, which I’m hoping will up the entertainment factor.

Despite my protests, our new-to-us truck actually has a DVD player, and we’ve managed to strike a balance so that we use it only on very special occasions and not all the time. The plan for this trip is that they’ll be able to watch one movie after lunch and another one after dinner.

Audiobooks

We have several Audible-ready devices, including an iPad, iPod and an old iPhone that we use as an MP3 player. These devices have games on them too, but the girls will be limited to playing at certain times of the drive (I’m thinking after every meal just so they know and won’t keep asking!). However, I plan to let each of them pick out a new Audible audiobook the night before we leave because I know that will keep the older girls engaged for many, many hours.

Backpacks

We packed a backpack for each of the girls with the fun stuff my mom sent and a few extra surprises:

cookie sheet for coloring, playing, eating, etc.
coloring book & crayons
blank notebook
headphones for audiobooks
finger puppets
cars
small toys
puzzle game

As you can see, I took pretty much everything out of its packaging because I know how quickly trash can build up in the car. I’m also thinking about offering the big girls an extra incentive to keep things neat and put away in their backpacks so that we can avoid a total disaster (and the dog chewing up things she shouldn’t!).

This year, the girls packed their own backpacks, including a couple stuffed animals, crayons, little animals, and the cookie sheet.

Special Surprises

I also packed a bag full of special surprises to hand out throughout the trip. I haven’t decided exactly how we’ll divide up the surprises, but we’ll probably wait until after breakfast for the first one and plan on one every hour from there.

Here’s what the surprise bag contains:

activity books for the big girls, dry erase boards for the littles (Target Hot Spot)
giant pens (Easter clearance)
princess tattoos with a tiny sponge for applying them (Target Hot Spot)
glow stick bracelets for after dark (Target Hot Spot)
Melissa & Doug fashion sticker pages
princess play packs with crayons and stickers (Target Hot Spot)
stretchy bunnies (Easter clearance)
4 snacks: Kashi Strawberry Bars, Annie’s Fruit Snacks, Clif Kids Zbars, GoGo Squeeze Applesauce

I also have a similar-but-different bag packed for the trip home with some more dollar toys, snacks and activities.

One tip: I read that the Melissa & Doug stickers sometimes tear when removing them from the pages, so I took a few minutes the other night to remove the white background around the stickers so that the stickers will hopefully peel right off the backing. This is a trick we always use when giving toddlers and preschoolers stickers, since it can be frustrating for tiny fingers to try to peel those off.

While I still think preparation is key, we did find last time around that we didn’t need quite as many activities as I had packed. This time, I have a dry erase book for each of them, a coloring book, a couple sets of stickers with blank paper and glowsticks (which were definitely popular after dark last time!). I skipped the chintzy toys.

Mile Marker Tracker

I also plan to do a simplified version of Tricia’s great vacation trip tracker. My plan is to attach a piece of velcro to the ceiling of the van and add mile marker lines for every 100 miles so that we can move a toy car along the strip to show the girls how many miles we’ve gone and how many we have left.

Our mile marker strip didn’t stay up, but moving the car along the ceiling to show how far we’d gone and how far we had left worked amazingly well. We would make a big production of moving it every 100 miles or so, and everybody loved it!

What is your best road trip advice? What’s the farthest you’ve ever driven with kids?

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Preparing for a Road Trip with 4 Kids & a Dog

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

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Happiness Versus Joy and Why We Choose Happy Too

When I was 18, I worked as a preschool assistant to one of the world’s most amazing teachers. One of her signature phrases was encouraging kids to find their “happy heart”, a practice I carried with me through years of babysitting, nannying and — now — motherhood.

In fact, the mythology of the happy heart has taken on a life of its own in our family. It is a magical, invisible, happy little thing that comes creeping or crawling across the floor, flying through the air, or wiggling out of pockets. It comes in a variety of amazing colors and delicious flavors. But most importantly, you can only eat your happy heart if you’ve spit out your grumpy heart (and if you can’t spit it out on your own, Mommy can always pull it out of your ear or belly button for you!).

Most of my girls have grown out of the happy heart phase, except in the most dire of situations, but I’m looking forward to restarting the tradition with Jackson in the next year or so!

***

I’ve often heard people talk about the difference between joy and happiness, and they usually do it in a way that almost disparages happiness:

Happiness is an emotion, but joy is a choice.

Happiness is temporary, but joy is lasting.

Happiness focuses on your circumstances, but joy focus on the eternal.

All of those may be true, but I think I like this comparison best:

Happiness is an outward expression of elation, while joy is inward expression of peace and contentment.

While joy should be present regardless of circumstances (and is the one we talk about in hard circumstances), I think happiness is a worthy goal as well:

I want my children to know that I’m not just peaceful and content with our life but actually elated to have the privilege to be their mommy.


I want to smile and share jokes with friends and strangers alike just because life is good and it’s fun to spread a little sunshine.


I want to choose not just contentment, which implies a sacrificial choice when things don’t necessarily go your way, but excitement over even the little things in life.

That’s why, in our family, we choose joy. But we choose happy too.

***

A smile is a life-giving, joy-spreading, happiness-building gift that we can give to others and ourselves, and as our family continues to practice smiling even when it’s not easy, what we’re really practicing is choosing happy.

We choose happy even when we need to compromise because time and money are limited and we can’t do everything that everybody wants to do.

We choose happy even when plans get changed or something we’re looking forward to gets canceled.

We choose happy even when someone else is recognized for their hard work, talent or skill and we’re not.

We choose happy even when we have to do something we don’t really feel like doing.

That’s not to say that we don’t experience frustration, anger, sadness or disappointment, because those are all valid emotions as well. But at the end of the day, life is a lot more fun when you choose to be happy anyway.

So we choose happy.

***

Click here to download this print. Use it in a frame as wall art, add it to the front of your binder or hang it on a mirror as a reminder!

P.S. Here’s how I choose joy in the morning and when I want to scream instead.

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Happiness Versus Joy and Why We Choose Happy Too

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

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When Throwing Away 100 Plastic Bags Might Still be Green

The following post is from Katie of Kitchen Stewardship:

source: Kitchen Stewardship

I saved five.

Four hundred kids threw away their plastic water bottles after a hot field day at the park, but doggone it, I got five into our recycling bin.

Nevermind that recycling plastic is really “downcycling” or whatever it’s called, and that there are still plenty of resources wasted in the process. Nevermind that it wouldn’t be that difficult for each child to bring their own reusable water bottle and carry it along with them. They carried the disposable water bottles along until they were empty, too.

At least I did something.

In the world we live in, it’s all a game of starfish.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the story of the elderly woman walking along an ocean shoreline literally covered in beached starfish, picking them up one by one and tossing them back into the ocean. A child approaches her and says, “Ma’am, I hate to be disrespectful here, but don’t you realize that it’s impossible for you to throw all these starfish back into the water? They are in trouble as far as the eye can see in either direction! You won’t ever make a difference doing this one by one.”

The woman reaches down, picks up another single starfish, and pitches it with all her might into the ocean.

“Made a difference to that one,” she says solemnly, moving on with her work.

The tale is often used to inspire educators, parents, and pastors to maintain their focus on the individual, even if it seems like big-picture systemic change or radical success might be hopeless.

I think it applies to any of the cultural battles we fight, from eschewing the constant stream of sugar pushed on our kids to saving the earth in a thousand tiny ways.

My five water bottles are the smallest of dents in the massive waste problem and disposable mentality we have here in America (and to an extent in much of the developed world).

But it’s a start, and an important one.

Can We Do Better Next Year?

I am making mental notes for next year to contact the gym teacher and offer to provide receptacles for the bottles and pick them up to recycle. Even that, which will take some orchestration and wildly large containers, is really just a slightly bigger dent in a massive problem. But we have to start somewhere, and if each of us could only take a few baby steps, think how much we could accomplish.

Let’s consider some possible baby steps for the field day that I might be able to help the school work through, bit by bit, such that people hardly notice the change. Rather than purchase and toss 400+ plastic water bottles (just thinking about it makes me sad), the school/coordinator could:

Baby step number one: Recycle the bottles.


Baby step number two: Use paper cups and a gaggle of 5-gallon water jugs all around the field. (Problem: Kids wouldn’t reuse water cups but would likely get water often, creating a good bit of waste and the need for far more than 400 cups, but tossing paper has got to be better than plastic water bottles and likely less expensive as well, right?)


Bigger step: Request that all parents send in a water bottle with their children. Ask the teachers to bring a large carrying bag so that the kids don’t have to be totally in charge of their bottle as they move as a class from station to station, hopefully reducing the number of “left behind” bottles. May need to have some jugs and paper cups anyway for those whose parents forget, since dehydration or heat exhaustion become safety issues with the heat and all that running.

Those five water bottles I saved did more than just conserve a few ounces of raw materials – they inspired me to make further change. I thought about our kindergarten party where we were about to do the same thing a few days later. We served mini water bottles to about one hundred children, and I did bring a crate for recycling.

Of course that day was much cooler, and the bottles were much cuter, so I think a lot of kids took them home. But I’m still happy I saved this dozen or two from the landfill:

source: Kitchen Stewardship

Appreciating the Baby Steps, One Starfish at a Time

It’s not always all about the massive successes.

Some would say that it’s abhorrent to use plastic disposable water bottles at all. In fact, one commenter on my Facebook page actually said, “100 plastic water bottles? For shame!” when I shared my excitement about the fact that we were planning to serve water, apples and popcorn instead of, say, sweetened juice, doughnuts and candy, at nine in the morning.

Apparently she doesn’t get my baby steps perspective, nor does she understand how to pick your battles. I wasn’t about to use any of my metaphorical “cards” in our planning meeting to argue for some non-disposable or non-plastic option. I had to simply cheer inwardly that we were heading toward water without me having to be the one to bring it up!

I had to save my “ammunition” and mental energy for the push to serve apple slices instead of snow cones and deflect any attempts to give candy rewards for winning games.

I used such finesse with the snow cones – something to the effect of, “Oh, no, no no, I couldn’t imagine snow cones at 9 in the morning!” with wild, half-crazed eyes – that I think I was extremely covert with my secret plan to serve more nourishing foods (or better yet, no food at all) to the kids at our school.

Not!

I outed myself as “that mom” so completely that when another mom on our committee decided that she was going to make 100 clown cookies for the children, she called me to let me know so I wouldn’t feel like I was being ambushed at the party.

source: Kitchen Stewardship

It really was a thoughtful gesture, since in fact I probably would have felt a bit ambushed if the cookies had been a total surprise. One of my pet peeves is over-serving to kids, which usually results in them taking everything and wasting way too much food, almost always the more boring, healthy stuff.

The “carnival cookie ambush of 2014” actually has a very happy ending in my opinion, one that spotlights moderation and my personal best efforts at tossing one starfish at a time without freaking out about how many there are still to address.

My initial response on the phone was that I just felt so sorry for the allergy kids (at least one needs to be gluten-free). She thought of that and already bought GF cookies to substitute.

At the risk of saying too much when, “Thanks for the heads up!” might have been the best scenario, I went one step further: “I guess I worry about the number of items now – since we had two things already, to add a third with only 10 minutes to eat makes me wonder if the kids will just eat the cookie first, a bit of the popcorn, and throw away everything else. It might just be too much…”

Her response was very gracious as she quickly offered to bring little baggies so that the kids could take the cookies home.

Since the cookies were already lovingly made, I wasn’t about to pitch a fit about it. Nothing gained there but dissent. I told her I thought that was just perfect, because then it would allow the parents to help the kids decide if and when they could have the treat.

The “green” issue, of course, is that we now caused 100 plastic sandwich bags to hit the trash. Sigh. It’s hard to be a crunchy/healthy type and function in the greater world we live in sometimes! Hopefully we were able to save some food from being wasted in the process.

Good Intentions, Dangerous Mentality

I admire this mom’s intentions, which were twofold: To show love to the kindergarten kids in the way she does it best, and to utilize her (truly amazing, look on the table in the photo of my daughter above) baking/decorating talents. Everyone needs to share their talents generously to feel accomplished and fulfilled, and I definitely understand wanting to give gifts to children.

What bothers me is the mindset she demonstrated when she explained why she made the cookies: “I just really thought they needed something fun.”

That one irks me a little. We had already planned a two-hour party jam packed with fun. As far as food went, they had the cutest water bottles in the world, plus popcorn, which makes kids think of movies and was to be served in perfect little bags with darling “big tent/popcorn” stickers on them.

When this well-meaning mom said she thought they needed “fun,” she really meant “sugar.” And that’s where I simply feel bad for this generation of kids, raised to stand on the certain fact that sugary sweets equal fun, and that it’s nearly impossible to have fun without something sweet.

It’s a dangerous cultural mentality that is selling our kids short, and it’s making them sick.

With the collateral damage of 100 sandwich bags (I’m so sorry, Earth!), here’s how the situation played out in real life:

There was quite a bit of confusion among the snack station adults about whether the cookies were to be bagged up automatically or children just offered the bag as an option.


I quickly volunteered to be an extra set of hands there, covertly situating myself as a spy. I’m so sneaky…


For the first group of kids, right at 9 a.m., the other moms held a plate of cookies and a sandwich bag and asked, “Would you like your cookie now or a bag to take it home?” One guess what 100% of the kids said!


The system in my opinion was 100% flawed at that point. It allowed 6-year-olds too much choice and too much temptation, plus too many foods. Three foods in less than 10 minutes always means that something is going to be wasted.


Perhaps because secret-spy-Katie seemed so visibly uncomfortable with the situation, we adults decided that for the next 8 groups, we would use a different tactic, a much more strategic one, for lack of a better term.


We served the water, apples and popcorn first. After about half their time at the snack station, we walked around and offered the cookies, already in their bags.

The Main Points of Balanced Strategy

Ensure a healthy option. Plain and simple, all the food wasn’t junk food. I would have rather had no cookies, obviously, but with the hand of cards I was dealt, I was still happy that we had apples and organic popcorn (with butter and Real Salt on it) too. Guess who volunteered to make the popcorn, by the way? If you’re wondering, filling 100 little bags with home-popped popcorn takes much longer than I expected…
Offer healthy foods first. Kids who would never eat apples still wouldn’t eat them, but many who like apples but would be otherwise tempted by the other, unhealthy foods, would likely eat the apple slices without even thinking about it. This is the same strategy savvy parents use at the dinner table when they put fresh veggies out first for hungry people to munch on. (We could have delayed the popcorn a few minutes as well, come to think of it…)
Remove time pressure. Since both the popcorn and the cookies were in portable bags, the kids were informed that they could take home any of their leftovers. There wasn’t that pressure to chow down on everything in a limited time because they’d have to throw it away as soon as the 10 quick minutes were up.

And the Results?

Some kids tore open the sandwich bag immediately and tore into the cookie with equal gusto, polishing it off and tossing the bag in no time. Hopefully those kids had already eaten some apples.


Many, I would venture to say more than half, took their time. They would eat perhaps about half the cookie, then were happy to bag it up and take it home with them. I think defaulting to the bag, even though it wasted some plastic in a big way for the kids who ate the whole cookie right away, really made a difference here. I’m hoping it was worth that collateral damage.


A few chose to take the entire cookie home. Impressed!


When we remembered to offer seconds on apples, we were pleasantly surprised by how many kids accepted, even though they had the popcorn and cookies in front of them.


Not a soul complained that there was no juice.

It may not have made a massive difference in either the kids’ health or their mature decision making, but it’s the baby step I was able to take this time.

It’s similar with the quest to conserve and preserve the environment. We have to do the best we can:

We don’t use four pieces of paper towel or 10 baby wipes when one would do the job, or better yet, non-disposable options. But at a friend’s house, I’m not going to hand a paper towel back and say, “Can you get me a towel to clean up this mess instead?” That’s just rude – save the friendship at that point, not the earth.


We recycle and compost what we can, but can’t beat ourselves up when we can’t do it all, all the time. Everyone needs to acknowledge seasons in your life when you just need to roll with it and accept some conveniences of the modern world.


We walk to another room to recycle tiny pieces of paper a note was written on rather than saving 20 seconds and just throwing it away – the epitome of tossing starfish in a world of massive industrial waste, perhaps!

What starfish can you throw back today to save the earth in your own small way?

Katie Kimball has been “green” since 5th grade when she read 50 Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth. She remains slightly disappointed that she didn’t actually save the whole thing back then, but now that she has 3 kiddos counting on her, she keeps plugging away hopefully. Katie blogs at Kitchen Stewardship about real food and natural living and is the author of Healthy Snacks to Go and other eBooks, available for Kindle.

When Throwing Away 100 Plastic Bags Might Still be Green

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

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All Dressed Up in Coral & Navy Blue for Our Family Photos

I have some very talented friends, and we recently had Krystal — who used to contribute here on Life Your Way as well — take updated family photos for us now that we are seven!

{Krystal also took our amazing gender reveal photos, so we went in with high expectations…and we weren’t disappointed!}

I especially love these photos of Sean and I. That one on the left pretty much sums up the way I feel about this man, and while we’ve been through our share of tough times — and I’m sure we’ll face more — there is really no one I’d rather spend my days with. {Literally, since we’re home all day together!}

We also discovered that our four-year-old has reached the fake-smile-that-looks-like-a-grimace stage that all kids inevitably go through, but that’s okay…we think she’s adorable anyway!

Krystal summed up this photo nicely when she shared it on Facebook: “Sometimes it really is all about the baby!” One of the benefits of having a baby so many years after the rest (comparatively speaking) is that no one is jealous of him; they’re all just as smitten with him as we are!

I also love this shot of the girls and Jackson. I know I’m totally biased, but I just can’t get over how cute they are!

In addition to our family photos, we had hoped to get some baby photos of Jackson too, but it was chilly and he was exhausted, so he wasn’t having any part of being set down!

Thankfully, there’s no shortage of photos of him, so I think it will be okay!

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

All Dressed Up in Coral & Navy Blue for Our Family Photos

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

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Grocery Shop from Home with Amazon’s Prime Pantry

It’s no secret that I love Amazon: books, curriculum, office & school supplies, baby items, groceries and more make their way to our doorstep every month. Because we live 30 minutes from “town” with five kids, a business and the responsibility of homeschooling said children, Amazon saves us money and sanity by delivering what we need when we need it.

Recently, Amazon announced another great benefit for Amazon Prime members.

Amazon Prime Pantry lets Prime members select single sizes of thousands of everyday products to add to your Pantry box. The box holds up to 45 pounds or four cubic feet of household products (and an indicator shows you how full your box is as you add each item) and ships for just $5.99.

With thousands of products to choose from — including Food & Snacks, Cooking, Beverages, Household, Personal Care, Health & Nutrition, Baby Care and Pet Care — and coupons worth up to 25% off, Prime Pantry offers you the convenience of shopping at home with the money savings of Amazon’s prices.

Using this new feature effectively will definitely take some planning to maximize the benefit (you’d really want to get a full box of groceries to offset the small shipping charge), but with some practice and planning, I think it’s a great way to save money and cut the time you spend grocery shopping.

Head here to learn more about Amazon Prime and the Prime Pantry program, and be sure to subscribe to our sister site, Jungle Deals & Steals, where my mom finds the very best Amazon deals every day except Sundays!

What was the last thing you bought from Amazon?

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Grocery Shop from Home with Amazon’s Prime Pantry

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

     

30 Lessons from My Whole 30

Last Friday I finished my Whole30. Because I gave up halfway through due to morning sickness and food aversions the first time through, I was excited to make it all the way through this time and to meet my goals for forming good habits and getting back to my pre-pregnancy weight.

Next week I’ll share more about why I like the Whole30 program and how I prepared for it, but today I want to share 30 lessons I learned this time around:

1. Just because some thing is hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. I think it’s safe to say that applies to pretty much any area of life.

2. Anything tastes good with the right spices. And sometimes all it takes is a little salt and pepper.

3. It’s true that drink calories are the worst. Lattes are my downfall.

4. Veggies for breakfast might seem weird but it makes a difference. When I start out with a protein + veggie based breakfast (rather than carbs or sugar), I’m less likely to give in to sugar cravings the rest of the day.

5. You can teach yourself to like almost anything. A friend challenged me to learn to like mushrooms, and while they’re not yet my favorite, I discovered that I actually do like them sauteed with onions, especially with fried eggs for breakfast!

6. Variety really is the spice of life. Eating the same thing for 30 days straight can get old real fast. Trying different combinations, preparation methods, and all new ingredients keeps it interesting.

7. But simple is better. On the other hand, several people told me that having set breakfasts and lunches would make a world of difference, and I really found that to be true. I followed a formula of eggs + sauteed veggies and a side of fruit for breakfast and roasted veggies + meat or seafood for lunch, and it provided enough structure so that I could enjoy a variety without standing in front of the fridge trying to figure out what to eat.

8. There are quite possibly an infinite number if ways to prepare eggs. Scrambled with veggies, scrambled with meat, fried, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, omelettes, cooked inside peppers or a muffin tin or meat cups, baked in a casserole, and the list goes on!

9. Mini romaine leaves are the perfect substitute for bread. I’ve only ever found these at Costco, but I absolutely love them. Little 5″ heads of romaine lettuce make the perfect size leaves for sandwiches, lettuce wraps, etc.

10. When you retrain your taste buds, fruit makes the best dessert. I could almost live without dessert as long as I have banana ice cream, strawberries and coconut cream, baked pears or pineapple, or apple slices with cinnamon!

11. The Whole30 timeline? It’s pretty much spot on. Surprisingly, the first few days weren’t bad at all for me this time around. But food boredom on Day 21? Yes. I was so ready to be done, and it was during the last week that I started to slip because I just didn’t have the motivation to finish.

12. I’m not even sure I know what it feels like to be actually hungry. One thing I realized is that I’m not sure I really even know what hunger feels like (and I for sure haven’t ever experienced the hunger that many other people do on a regular basis). I eat when the clock says it’s time to eat, when I’m tired, when I’m bored, when I’m happy, when something sounds good, etc. But I don’t know about hungry.

13. I often snack out of habit. On that same note, I’m not sure how many calories I’ve consumed simply out of habit, but I bet it’s a scary number.

14. It’s important to focus on what you can have rather than what you can’t. I’ve said it before: The key to making lastiing food changes is to focus on the foods you get to eat and not those that are “forbidden.”

15. The key to staying full between meals is enough fat. Even though I’ve heard about the benefits of fat many times from real food advocates, this is a hard concept for me to wrap my head around. But adding fat to my meals — a spoonful of almond butter, half an avocado, a generous spread of coconut oil — helped me to stay full longer.

16. I’m a happier person when I eat enough of the right stuff. The term “hangry” (hungry  + angry) has been coined for a reason, and it certainly holds true in my life. But I’m also moody when I’m eating junk rather than making healthy choices.

17. Preparation is key. The busier life got for us last month, the harder it got to stick to “the plan”. But surprisingly, the three days we spent commuting an hour-and-a-half to an academic camp was not the hardest part. Because I had prepared food for all three meals — chopping veggies, making a big batch of egg salad, etc. — it was really easy to stick with it. I need to get back in the habit of doing that every Sunday!

18. You can roast any veggie. Seriously, anything. Cauliflower, carrots, brussel sprouts, radishes, onions, potatoes, asparagus, peppers — they all taste amazing when roasted!

19. It’s possible to look forward to spinach and green tea as much as I used to look forward to a chocolate bar. Who would have guessed?

20. Family dinners are a must for parents doing the Whole30. I’ll talk more about this next week when I share the actual how of my Whole30, but it made a huge difference that I planned most of our meals around a Whole30-friendly “base” that we could all eat. For example, taco chicken became quesadillas for the family and taco salad for me. I honestly don’t think I would have survived otherwise.

21. When I’m willing to try new things my kids are too. My 4.5 year old now considers asparagus a treat (as do I!), and it’s amazing what I can get the girls to try when it’s on my plate!

22. There’s a fine line between just right and overcooked when it comes to spaghetti squash. Let’s just say one is delicious and one is a mushy mess.

23. Costco is your Whole30′s best friend. I know it sounds crazy, but our family has a Costco membership almost exclusively for the produce anyway, and that is a huge help during a Whole30, as are their meat options. The produce is always high quality and delicious, and they do a pretty good job of featuring in-season produce as well. For this Whole30, I couldn’t get enough of their sweet potatoes, which are giganganormous!

24. Sweet potatoes make everything better. Thanks to Costco, I am pretty sure I consumed close to 30 sweet potatoes over the past month, whether I shredded them for breakfast hashbrowns or — more often that not — simply baked them and ate them right from the skin. When I mentioned on Day 5 or 6 that I was surprised by how good I felt already, my sister-in-law chimed in and said that the starches in sweet potatoes can help you avoid carb flu, and I think that was definitely the case for me! Plus, what other vegetable can so easily masquerade as a dessert without adding a single thing to it?!

25. Big changes are easier and more fun with friends. I’ve been privileged to be part of a Whole30 group on Facebook during both of my Whole30s, and it just makes it more fun. This time around, our group was mostly local friends, and it was really fun to share finds, compare meals and encourage each other as we went. I’m not sure I have the willpower to do the challenge without accountability!

26. It’s worth preparing food you enjoy. On Memorial Day, we splurged and made crab cakes, and I savored every single bite. It’s tempting to walk through a challenge like this expecting to feel deprived and unhappy, but choosing foods that you love makes it so much easier. I took this lesson to heart and made crab cakes again last week!

27. If you’re not drinking green tea, you really are missing out. I have always been hesitant to drink green tea (it just didn’t appeal to me!), but I read that green tea can increase your metabolism by 17%, and that was enough for me to at least try it. As it turns out, I really like iced unsweetened green tea, and I’m fairly convinced that drinking a quart of it every day contributed to my success this time around.

28. You can’t just cheat once. Oh, how I wish I had the willpower to eat a chip or a square of chocolate without falling off the wagon, but I really don’t. Things started to go downhill fast after I began to cheat on Day 23, but I was able to reign it in a little bit and finish fairly strongly. Next time, no cheating!

29. I’m not very good at moderation but it’s still a worthy goal. The challenge for me is figuring out where to go from here. I don’t want to live 100% paleo (or even 80% if I’m honest), but I need to figure out how to eat treats without getting to the point where I’m snacking all afternoon or eating a pan of brownies in a day. The good news is yesterday I had one chocolate chip cookie. Just one. Even though the package is sitting in our pantry calling my name. So we’ll consider that progress!

30. The benefit of the Whole30 lasts long after the 30 days are up. I actually learned this lesson my first time around. Even though I wasn’t able to finish that Whole30, my love for roasted veggies (which started during that challenge) has lasted for more than a year. I’m hopeful that many of the habits formed this time around — drinking green tea, veggies for breakfast, etc. — will last as well.

How about you? Have you done a Whole30? Is it something you’ve considered doing?

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

30 Lessons from My Whole 30

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CommentsA timely topic! I started my first whole 30 on June 1 but had ... by Lori Spear DownsI just did my second W30 while 23-27 weeks pregnant with my ... by KimI really want to do one.. wish there was someone local who ... by HeatherDBThis is a great list. I tried the Whole 30, but gave up about ... by Heather @ My Overflowing CupI'm considering giving this a try, but it goes completely ... by Sara KilpatrickSo timely for me. I am on day one of a Whole 30 (my fourth or ... by Rachel JonatRelated StoriesHow Giving Up “Real Food” Made Our Family Healthier{Tea} Favorites: 8 Flavored Teas for Your Next Cuppa

Weekend Reading: June 7, 2014

Sending our big girls to Florida with my parents 2 weeks ahead of the rest of us. Lots of emotions all around!

I posted earlier this week on Facebook that I felt like I’d finally rediscovered my mojo after Jackson’s birth…and then everything went a little haywire. {Isn’t that the way it always goes?!}

We ended up taking our little man to the pediatrician on Tuesday because he’s having trouble digesting any food we give him — despite his love of food and desire to eat it all! — and he’s also falling off the growth chart. I think we need to figure out what’s going on, but I’m not worried-worried, just anxious for answers.

Unfortunately, he also picked up a virus (whether it was there or earlier in the week, I don’t know) and with it his first fever — a high 102 for three days now — and sore throat that has led to several sleepless nights, lots of fussing and just general lack of mojo for me.

And so we’re back to survival mode temporarily, balancing all of the joys of a summer schedule with the demands of work on not very much sleep. Prayers appreciated that he kicks this virus quickly and that we’re able to get answer at our appointment with the pediatric GI next Wednesday!

Here are some of my favorite posts from this week. As always, check out what I’m reading and what I’m pinning to see the other posts that make me stop and think (or, you know, drool…). You’ll find new posts all week long!

Investing in Your Kids

18 Ways to Love Your Kids | finding joy


10 Habits Parents Need to Break, Like Yesterday | ScaryMommy


Less Summer Selfies, More Self | MomAdvice

 The Perils of Modern Education

What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades | NYTimes.com


Hey, Parents. What That IPad Is Doing to Your Kid Is Kind of Shocking. | 2machines

 It’s What’s for Dinner

Looking for more mealtime inspiration? Subscribe to the free BundleoftheWeek.com newsletter to learn more about this week’s recipe-packed bundle and special bonus offer!

Tomato Braised Chicken | She Wears Many Hats


Aloha Teriyaki Shrimp Burgers | Skinny Taste


Grilled Zucchini and Sausage Kabobs | Kalyn’s Kitchen

Have a great weekend!

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Weekend Reading: June 7, 2014

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

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Is This the Best Blogging Tool Since WordPress Itself?

If you’re not a blogger, you’re probably going to want to skip right past this post (and I don’t blame you one bit!), but this was too good not to share with my fellow bloggers!

Have you seen the buzz about CoSchedule, the integrated editorial and social media calendar for your blog?

A friend mentioned it to me several weeks ago, but I try hard not to jump on every new thing that shows up, so I ignored it at first. After the 4th or 5th time I saw it mentioned, though, I finally gave in and signed up for a trial.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure it was going to be worth the effort of setting it up, but I could definitely see the potential, so I committed to giving it a fair chance during the 10-day trial, and I am so glad I did.

First, what is CoSchedule?

It’s basically a drag-and-drop calendar plugin for WordPress, but if you’ve ever tried any other calendar plugins, let me assure you that this is nothing like those.

Not only is it a calendar that lets you draft and schedule blog posts, it’s also a social media calendar, which means you can schedule posts to your social media profiles from your WordPress dashboard (all except Instagram, I think).

But there’s more: In addition to scheduling those social media posts for when each blog post goes live, you can also schedule them hours, days, months or even, I suspect, years later. And then you can see all of the posts you’ve scheduled on your calendar to help you space them out rather than overloading your social media profiles accidentally.

And if you need to move your blog posts to a different day, the social media posts you’ve scheduled will roll with it!

In addition, you can create a task list for each post on your calendar, assign posts and tasks to other team members, and even schedule pins, Facebook posts and tweets that are unrelated to your blog posts.

And if you run or contribute to several blogs, you can access all of your calendars in one place.

Oh, and one of my favorite features? I can even schedule posts in the Life Your Way Monthly Facebook group as I think of questions or come across resources to share so that those aren’t all going up at one time and leaving the group with crickets when life gets busy!

I finally feel like I’ll be able to intentionally manage my social media profiles rather than a) just shooting in the dark at random or b) using them only for my personal satisfaction.

They offer a free 10-day trial so you can try it for yourself, but after that, it’s only $10/month or $100/year. For me, that feels like a steal!

This post is not sponsored in any way by CoSchedule; I’m just really, really excited to have found a solution that is both highly sophisticated and extremely simple all at once.That said, after I wrote the draft of this post, I realized they offer a 50% discount on a yearly subscription for writing a review, so I’ll definitely be taking them up on that offer!

I’d love to know…how do you manage all of your social media profiles?

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Is This the Best Blogging Tool Since WordPress Itself?

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CommentsThis is a great review Mandi! We really appreciate you sharing ... by Garrett Moon 

Charge What You’re Worth

The following post is from Katie of Making This Home and Gadanke:

Out here in rural Montana, there are some incredible artists and craftsmen trying to make a living. They’re painting Montana scenes on mugs and ornaments, incorporating antlers into tasteful (and not so attractive!) pieces, and hand building jewelry with local sapphires or fabulous beads they’ve collected.

As my family and I recently wandered through one particular craft market full of vendors, my heart sunk a little.

No one was charging what they were worth.

Why not?

They look at the prices of mass produced products at giant retailers and match them.
They don’t factor in a time equals money formula in what they’re doing.

There will always be someone doing things cheaper than you. (It doesn’t mean they’re doing things better than you.)

But you don’t have to compete based on price. Bring something else to the table, and charge what you’re worth.

My husband and I are self-employed. We also have a six-month-old son. We all know how limited time is with a new person in the family. All of a sudden, the time we had available to work drastically decreased. It doesn’t make sense for us to be poking around on Facebook when we have a baby sitter. We have to focus on our unique skills.

Like right now. Martin is programing so we can launch a new shopping cart and affiliate program at our online journal shop, Gadanke. And I’m writing to you.

We feel like these tasks contribute to our goal – for our work and our family.

I always think: Is the work I’m doing worth so much to me and my family that I’d rather do it than be with my baby?

If the answer is no, I need to stop. But if I’m deeply passionate (like I am about the new baby book I just launched), then I know it’s worth it. And the investment of my time is worth it, too.

Katie Clemons is a storycatcher and journal crafter. She helps people celebrate their stories with her award-winning writing prompt journals at Gadanke. She also blogs at Making This Home about simple, handmade living from a vintage airplane hangar in Montana.

Charge What You’re Worth

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CommentsI was just thinking about this yesterday when I was heading out ... by P. Warring, PTThank you for the great reminder. My husband and I are both ... by Heather @ My Overflowing CupExcellent article and impecable timing as I begin my own ... by Danisa 

What Drowning Really Looks Like

It’s been two years since I shared this story the first time, and I can still clearly see it happening in my mind. As we head into another summer, I can’t help but share it once again:

Earlier this summer I read a post about what drowning really looks like.

This weekend, I saw it for myself.

We spent the day at my dad’s house for a family pool party, which is always a little bit stressful as we keep track of four little ones — who are at times overly brave in the water — in the midst of conversations and chaos.

After a brief break to eat, the girls hopped back in the pool for another swim while Sean and I stood on the side keeping track of them.

Our six-year-old put on a floaty and swam to the deeper part of the pool (my dad’s pool has a large one-foot deep area that is perfect for lounging or for the little ones to play, but she’s at the age that she doesn’t want to be stuck in the “baby pool”).

I stood scanning the pool over and over, counting heads again and again.

And then I blinked and started my count one more time.

When I got to the 6-year-old this time, she was silent and still…and underwater.

She was still upright, but there was no thrashing or splashing.

She was simply floating under the water, with her arms stretched out to the sides, staring at me with a blank look on her face.

In that moment, time seemed to be rushing by and at a standstill all at once.

I said to Sean, “Sean…Dylan!” and was trying to decide whether to jump in myself.

Because she was fairly close to where I was standing, I couldn’t figure out how I would jump in without actually jumping on her, so I said to a nearby family member, who was in the water just feet away: “Jason, can you get Dylan?”

He didn’t respond at first, and my mind began racing again, but his wife realized what was going on and repeated my words.

He turned around and with all of the training of a former lifeguard scooped her right up and out of the water.

As soon as her face broke the surface she began to sob and cough and dry heave….beautiful sounds in that moment.

We sat and cuddled on the side for quite some time before encouraging her to sit back in the pool (safe and sound in the shallow end), which she eventually did, walking on her hands and swimming around that area like nothing had happened.

I can’t quite get the picture of her little face staring up at me from under the water out of my head, and I’m not sure I’ll ever forget it. But I am so, so thankful to have read that article so that I instantly recognized what was happening.

I sincerely hope you’ll take a moment to go read it as well.

Note: Knowing what I know now, I would take any of our children to the ER following a near drowning incident to eliminate the possibility of secondary or “dry” drowning. Be sure to also read more about that risk here.

Mandi Ehman is the blogger behind Life Your Way. She and her husband have four beautiful girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Mandi loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

What Drowning Really Looks Like

© 2010-2014 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved

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