The Family Trifecta

Relationships take nurturing

Relationships take work, no matter what the relationship is.

When I was young, my mom invested a lot of time building and strengthening the relationship that I had with my cousins. My mom would put together family hikes, she and my aunt put together a quick trip to Capital Reef in Southern Utah, we always celebrated birthdays together and every holiday. My mom wanted to make sure we would always be friends.

We still get together for birthdays, holidays and sometimes just because. We haven’t done any family trips since we’ve been grown ups but there is always a chance.

My mom is working with my girls right now to make sure they have a forever relationship with their cousins. During the summer they have “Camp Grandma” where the kids do activities, science lessons, art lessons and crafts. My dad helps out any way he can, which includes chasing after the 18 month old, preparing delicious meals and running errands. He’s also been known to deliver a pretty good science lesson with the help of McKane (one of two older cousins).

They don’t always get a long. There are times when they just have to be separated in order to restore peace, but it is something they all love working on.

Blogging relationships are just like real life relationships. They require work. Over the past little while, I’ve developed relationships with several bloggers. Some on a level of just communicating back and forth through our blogs. Others of them I will exchange emails with and we’ll discuss things that aren’t on the blogs but that might have been mentioned in a comment or a tweet. Many of my bloggy relationships have been created and nurtured through twitter. And then there are the bloggers that I have actually met in real life and possibly hung out with.

No level of relationship is possible without work. Without investing a little (okay, sometimes a lot) of time into these relationships, they won’t last.

Do you have a close relationship with your cousins? What do you think contributed that relationship?

Check out some great stories, photos and old photos by clicking on the links below with Lolli, Cecily and Dumb Mom.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Mother’s guilt – No way, not for this mom

Oh how I wish I were the mom with no “mother’s guilt” but I do suffer from mom guilt. While I think about some of my wonderful guilt-free mom moments, I would like to share with you a mom that doesn’t ever seem to suffer from “mother’s guilt”.

Her name is Stephanie and she is over at Metropolitan Mama. I fell in love with her site, forever ago.

Stephanie covers everything about parenting two young girls. She does a wonderful job of sharing ways that they keep busy and are teaching their girls how to enjoy nature and reading. She also spotlights what other women are doing and how they are changing the world one family at a time. I love that there really isn’t a parenting topic that she ignores. In order to reach a broader audience, she does a “Tuesday Tours” that shares great posts that others are doing that are maybe about topics that she isn’t focusing on. I find that she is very conversational in her posts. I never feel like she is talking down to her audience. Yet, she does help moms at any stage of motherhood, earlier, middle or late. She posts several times a week and I, for one, am always anxious to read her posts when they hit my reader.

Stephanie does several giveaways, but I love that she doesn’t let her readers get away with “I want to win” comments. They are required to add to the discussion. I’ve noticed with her posts that she always asks great questions and she responds to her readers’ comments. Her readers accept her and I think the ones that embrace her, comment. I have never seen a complaint. Her posts and comments are what really confirmed that I would be back over and over again. Now that I’m learning to use twitter, I have found that she uses twitter and her blog. I have not been familiar with her doing much on Facebook (although you can “like” her page) nor in forum’s like BlogFrog.

When you visit her site for the first time, you notice a lot of pink – which works for her. She has two girls and she’s a mom. But the pink doesn’t feel “frilly” or “cutesy” in fact, it is really pretty hip feeling. When you go to her blog, you know you are going to get to read the words of a very cool and caring mom. I appreciate bloggers who make it easy to subscribe to their blog. With Stephanie’s you can subscribe to her RSS, email, Facebook or twitter.

In order to monetize from her website, she sells a really great eBook about mom bloggers. I bought it and found the information to be very useful and easy to understand. She also has amazon affiliate links on her site for products she uses all the time (like her Nikon D90).

I’d love to know what she does for SEO etc, but maybe I’ll just have to ask her.

If you want to read about a mom without “mother’s guilt” you really should check her out.

Now back to me. My guilt free mommy moments are when I’m getting great big hugs from my little girls as they welcome me home from a long day of work. I have no guilt then, because I am finally with them, my favorite place to be.

Another guilt free time is when I watch them playing with their grandparents and their cousins. I know that when they are with them, they are being loved and cared for better than anyone (besides Scott and I) can.

I also have absolutely no guilt when I sit down with them to read a book.

This week, my favorite “guilt free moment” was when I had to take the girls to swimming. Typically their nanny will take them to their lessons, but on this particular day, she had called in sick. So, I took my blackberry and my camera and headed down with my girls for swimming lessons. I wondered around for the half hour checking emails and most importantly capturing some photos of swim lessons. I love the moments that I get to just forget about the grind and get lost in their huge smiles and giggles while they are learning something new.

Be sure and join Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop and share you wonderful mommy moments.

*** This post was also written with “Day 4” of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge.

Who are you favorite Mommy and Family Bloggers? What makes you like them?

Oh the things I learned this week

As a parent, we expect our children to learn a lot of important lessons during their time with us. I think that sometimes we forget that we are also learning and unless we realize what we are learning, we won’t be able to improve. This week has been filled with lessons that I have learned. 1. Children will try something when they are ready, not when you want them to. We have had a boat for just about a year, and Ivy has not had any desire to get in the water to swim around but would do so begrudgingly. This past Saturday, Ivy was the first to ask if she could swim in the lake and was begging any time we stopped the boat.

2. Bribery does work. Jade has suddenly quit wanting to wake board. But, for cash towards her roller blades she is will to work on going over the wake and just might try a jump or two.

3. Letting a soon to be 2nd grader read quietly to herself does not mean that she is really reading. Apparently we need to have read out loud time instead of just reading time. 4. Jillian’s 30 Day Shred is much more fun when your 7 year old does it with you.

5. If you are dieting, Denny’s is not the restaurant for you. Although, on Tuesdays and Saturdays our Denny’s does children eat free. Our girls LOVE breakfast food for dinner and they really enjoy Denny’s.

6. Just because Dad thinks the kids will enjoy “Men in Black” does not mean that it won’t keep them up for several nights afterwards.

7. If your kids are arguing with each other, it helps to assign them something to do together for a set amount of time. If you add a consequence for fighting during this assigned play then it will work even better. (Also wise not to go in and try and take a picture of them getting along). So, there you have it. The things I learned about being a parent this week. What have you learned recently?

And Live and Love Out Loud

ProBlogger’s 31 days to Build a Better Blog Challenge – is underway

Wow, that was a long title. Any way, over at “The Secret is in the Sauce” I’ve decided to accept their challenge to take on ProBlogger’s 31 day challenge. I’m a bit nervous about doing it. I’m not nervous about being able to answer the questions or being harshly judged. I’m nervous because I (like everyone else) am really busy and it is the end of summer (yes it is the last half of summer all ready). I don’t like starting something and not finishing. So, please, wish me luck.

The first challenge was to write an Elevator Pitch. I’m in sales so I figured this one would be easy for me. I was wrong. I’ve changed it several times and even what I have decided on will change and evolve over the course of these 31 days. Just because I’ll figure out a different or better way to say the same thing.

So, here is my elevator pitch. (PS – for those of you asking “What is an elevator pitch?” Here’s the answer I was given years ago. You step on an elevator with someone you don’t know. You start up a conversation and they ask, “What do you do?” You respond with a 1-3 sentence answer telling them what you do- remembering you are on an elevator and the door will open any minute. You want to tell them enough about what you do and who you are that they want to continue the conversation out of the elevator).

Here goes…

I am documenting my way through the race of life as a working mom while betting on the trifecta of my top three priorities – my family, my faith and enjoying life. Throughout my journey I’ll share lots of photos, recipes, parenting and spiritual lessons, frustrations, stories and ideas.

Please be honest – does that make you want to come back? Or does it say that I’m just another “working mother” blogger? If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear (read) them.

I am really excited about this challenge and look forward to learning A LOT.

L.E.N.S competition – Bokeh

This is my favorite bokeh photo so I thought I’d enter it into L.E.N.S contest over at

The Family Trifecta

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Relationships take nurturing

Mother’s guilt – No way, not for this mom

Oh the things I learned this week

ProBlogger’s 31 days to Build a Better Blog Challenge – is underway

L.E.N.S competition – Bokeh

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