Happiness

Happiness isn’t a guarantee. Life is stressful and we sometimes need to work at maintaining it. With all of the responsibilities to tend to each day, those things which raise our happiness levels frequently get put on the back burner. To be our happiest selves, we need to make sure we take time for self-care, hobbies, passions and purpose. Ensuring that we live with intention to reclaim wasted time and spend it on what makes us happiest is essential!

How to Make Grinch Pancakes for Christmas!

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I love the Grinch. How the Grinch Stole Christmas has always been one of my favorite Christmas movies. It is watched every year, sometimes multiple times, in our household. Since the release of the new The Grinch cartoon a few years ago, I love it even more! It’s just so fun. That’s why I took my favorite pancake recipe and Grinched it up! These pancakes are great for a fun Christmas breakfast! They’re also great to serve for a Grinch viewing or party as you celebrate the Christmas season. How to make Grinch pancakes! These pancakes are seriously so easy but look and taste so delicious. First, start with the basic recipe for my favorite pancakes. You’re just going to … More…

How to Make Family Meals Important, Even When you Don’t Have Time!

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Research tells us having family meals is one of the best things families can do together. They serve as a great way to strengthen bonds. The family dinner table is a place to come together and discuss ideas, talk about our day, open up to find support, and laugh. These days, however, family meals have become more rare and less the norm. With busy kids and parents working late, it can be difficult to get everyone together at the same time, in the same place. Even when it is possible, it’s often rushed so we can move on to the next important thing. What we fail to realize is we’re moving on from the important thing. These are the things … More…

Struggling to stop a bad habit? You might be making this mistake.

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I can’t eat a few bites of ice cream and be done. I’ll also never be the person to take a handful of chips and be satisfied. But it’s not because I have no willpower. It’s because I’ve made the mistake of assuming I can stop a bad habit through sheer force of will and nothing more. I now realize I need to take into account a specific quality of my personality. Who eats four potato chips? When I was in college, I lived with a group of friends. The first time I saw one of them, a tiny, petite girl, take a bag of chips to the living room and then proceed to eat four chips and return the … More…

It’s Okay to Say No: Guard Your Family Time!

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If you’re like me, most days you feel like you’re being pulled in ten different directions. I am constantly having to decide what to do and when (which is why I love my planner). There are so many things that need my attention! From household chores, to work, to family time, to maintaining this blog…there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all. That’s why it’s really important if this is what your life feels like, that you guard your family time. Guard your family time with one magic word. In my house, family time is number one. If I don’t make a conscious effort to protect it, it could easily be consumed by everything else. That’s … More…

Thoughts on Getting Older: 5 Reasons I’m (mostly) Okay with It.

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Recently, I celebrated my birthday. I’m only a few short years away from the big 4-0. It doesn’t really bother me, so I started to think about why. I think I discovered a few really good reasons why I’m okay with getting older. As someone who has always had a pretty healthy fear of death, you might assume I dread getting older. On the contrary, getting older isn’t so bad. I’m mostly okay with it. If you don’t think about what it leads to, of course. Here’s why. 5 reasons getting older isn’t so bad. 1. The valuable components of life keep stacking up. As each year passes, I seem to accumulate more things to value and appreciate. I don’t … More…

How to Declutter Kids Toys (and Why You Should!)

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No matter how many kids you have or how old they are, one problem all parents have to deal with at some point is the overabundance of toys. Every birthday and Christmas the toys pile up. In our family, there are even toys added on for holidays like Easter and Valentine’s Day! It’s never-ending. That’s why it’s important to declutter kids toys on a regular basis. The importance of decluttering kids toys There are so many reasons it’s important to declutter kids toys. Your own sanity not being the least of them. When kids have fewer toys, a few amazing things happen that you wouldn’t expect. The most counterintuitive is that they will actually play with them more! Zach had … More…

3 Awesome Chapter Book Series to Read to Preschoolers

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Do you have a preschooler that you love to read to? We do! Reading has always been a part of the bedtime routine in our house, since before Zach understood what the heck we were saying. Now, he loves reading time so much that I went on the hunt for some chapter books to read to preschoolers that he might like. This post contains affiliate links. Making a purchase through one of these links will provide me with a small commission at no additional cost to you. Your support helps me run this blog and I thank you! They aren’t super easy to find, if you can believe it. It seems authors and publishing companies think that if kids aren’t … More…