When Staying Home is Getting Hard

I’m sure we all have a story, a moment in the last couple of weeks, when we realized that—for possibly one of the first times in our lives—the thing on the news was not only really happening, but it was really going to affect us.  Mine goes like this. My husband was back at work…

It’s All My Fault

Nothing makes you more acutely aware of what you say and how often you say it as having a child who is learning to talk. We often think of this in reference to bad words or phrases that we use that we don’t necessarily want our toddlers repeating. But sometimes it brings to light things…

How Having Kids Made Me Hate Church

I’m going to level with you, having a toddler sort of made me hate going to church. Ok, so maybe hate is a little strong. But for real, having kids changes your life in so many ways, some expected and some not. This one didn’t hit me right away. When my firstborn was little, she…

National Youth Gathering 2019: Visual Faith

Family Adventure and Recreational Ministry (FARM) had the wonderful blessing this summer to attend the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod’s National Youth Gathering (NYG). At our booth, we set up a visual faith station for youth to explore and examine the Bible verses they were studying in their sessions. And we were overwhelmed by the positive…

When You Hate Being the Default Parent

You know what I mean by that, right? What it means to be the “default” parent? For those who may not know exactly what I’m talking about, let me catch you up. The default parent is the one who makes sure that there is food on the table that the child will actually eat. The…

Letting Them Learn Their Way: My Story with Visual Faith

For as long as I can remember, I have had a terrible time staying awake in class. Bible class, math class, art class: you name it, I’ve slept through it. You may think this means that I was a lazy bum of a student but that’s not the case at all. In fact, I hated…

When This Parenting Thing Isn’t What You Signed Up For

It was so easy, right? So easy, when you found out that you were going to become a parent, it was so easy to picture the perfect little family that you were about to have. It was so easy to envision all those sweet newborn snuggles and easy to dream about all the times when…

Seeking a Village

Recently I was blessed with a whole weekend off of full-time mommy-ing to go to a conference all about mommy-ing with a few new, also mommy-ing friends. We all knew from the get-go that the conference was really just a good excuse to get out of the house for an extended period of time, but…

Mom Guilt: We Gotta Talk About It

Mom Guilt. We have to talk about it. Every single one of you mothers out there probably knows exactly what I am talking about. That’s because the “Mom Guilt” started before your little one even arrived. Maybe you went to a whiskey tasting right before taking a positive pregnancy test, or maybe you ate a…

Take A Vacation!

Disneyland is for kids…or is it? I sit here bone weary (23,284 steps) after just one day in Disneyland. Granted we did get up at 3:00 AM on spring forward Sunday just to begin our trip. My wife, Dena, and I are kicking off a 40th wedding anniversary trip with three days in Disneyland’s Magic…