Q FROM A READER: How do you feed your large family? The older my son gets, the more he’s eating, and I’m realizing I need to get better at cooking more food for less money. Yup, with 9 kiddos (8 of whom are sons!!), you know I understand! This is an ongoing point of analysis…
Search Results for: large+family
What’s Right in Front of Me: A Year of Personal Recalibration
For those long-time readers or people who know us in real life, this autobiographical background may be review, but it’ll help explain what follows: 12 years or so ago, for many reasons, we moved abroad. Doug managed a coffee roasting business, and I stayed home with our ever-expanding family. We each learned languages and made local…
37 Things Our Kids Did (Without Screens) in Our Device-Free Summer
We did not do any devices/video games last summer. For the most part, we kept the TV off too. But when I napped with the preschooler, and when we had sick days, we did freely enjoy I Love Lucy. So we didn’t outright ban TV, but we did purposefully and sharply limited screen time. We’re following the same basic approach this…
Discipline & Respect, with Teens & Preteens
Q: I am totally struggling with my oldest… One thing that I’m having trouble with is knowing how to discuss things with him. He still struggles with basic obedience, so that is an issue. Also, he tends to argue with me while we are talking. For example, this morning I told him that something he…
5 Ways to Prepare Your Kids for an Emergency
We typically don’t know when emergencies are going to happen. This means we’re often in high-adrenaline, reactionary mode, when those emergencies come. One way we can make those times *less* stressful is by being prepared in advance, in the ways that ARE possible. Here are 5 ways we can prepare our families for emergency situations: Basic…
Unity About Modesty Among Differences in Opinion (Biblical Modesty, Pt. 3)
{This is the 3rd of 4 articles in a series about Christian modesty. We started with what the word/idea of “modesty” even means. Then we talked through 8 questions we should consider to discern our heart.} How can a local Body of Christ, with its own individual “culture” (country, part of the country, religious norms/background,…
Best Easy, Tasty Backpacking Meals for Your Next Adventure
We learned a lot last summer when we backpacked the 93-mile Wonderland Trail, including: how to cook on a tiny stove (smaller than the size of our hands) with white gas how to make really TASTY one-pot meals, from grocery-store-bought food how to condense food and packages into easily-transportable portions If you’re learning about hiking, or wanting some…
25 Tips for Moms of Boys
Cranford‘s delightfully absurd Miss Pole (an unmarried elderly woman who had hardly ever talked to a man) said, “My father was a man. I think I understand the sex.” Well, as a mom of 7 boys, 15 years in, I think I actually *do* understand more about raising boys (at least *little* boys) than the average…
March 2017 Round-Up: Podcasts & Posts
WHOA, we’ve reached the end of March, and I have a four-month-old cutie. How did that happen? Have you heard about this excellent book? If not, and you want to read a surprisingly-prescient call to purposeful family life, written by a Christian couple in the 1950s, GET THIS BOOK. The Mom On Purpose podcast is going strong, and…
What I Noticed After Fasting From Facebook
Some time last year, I did a week-long purposeful fast from everything online (except for e-mail), and as I went through the week, I wrote down the things I was noticing. Recently I found that list and thought I’d share it with you. Here’s what I noticed: Almost instantaneously: I’m alone with my thoughts again. I’m able…