In our house, Santa comes to visit us on Christmas Eve. I honestly don't care what you do with your kids: whether he comes or doesn't, if he leaves coal, or candy. If he brings all of the gifts or just fills the stockings. It doesn't matter to me. And It doesn't matter to me if you chose to celebrate with him or without him. I firmly believe we all do what is best for us as parents and that we do what we think is best for our kids. What I do care about, is when your child tells mine that he's not real. You may think you are doing your child a favor by keeping your religious beliefs strong, or by telling them the truth about the man, but if your child believes that he isn't real and tells all the other kids at school, then what is the message you're sending? One of "My beliefs are more important"? One of "My truth is better than your truth"? I know a lot of parents these days are removing him from their celebrations either for religio...

Dear Friends, 2013 has been extremely interesting (and long) year for our family, so I’d better start right off and give you a re-cap in case you don’t follow Eric or me on Facebook, there’s no time to waste! Just before Christmas, last year, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, she is now healthy and is cancer free, but her treatment and our need to finish rebuilding our house, and selling our house in North Dakota before we moved, played a huge role into our year. Just after Theodor’s first birthday on January 21st, the boys and I left Eric in Minot and we headed to Michigan for an undetermined amount of time (until we had a house in Colorado). The boys and I spent six months without Eric while he fixed up the house, worked his final days as a Missileer, and went to do some pretty cool things as an Assistant Hockey Coach for the Minot State Beavers, they WON NATIONALS! Eric was able to travel with the team and even attend the award ceremony at the ...

Recently, Henrik has created a new game, and he plays it almost daily. The game is called, "Moving to a new house". The rules are simple: you pack up everything. Seriously, everything...including the rug, and you move it to a whole different room. The first time I caught him playing this game he asked if he and the neighbor could go up stairs "to play away from the little kids". Because they are good kids, I obliged and was proud of myself for letting him be more independent.  They were playing nicely, there was no shouting or crying, and I didn't feel the need to check on them because I could hear nice conversations between the two of them. But, when it was time for the neighbor to go, I went up stairs and saw something I'd never thought I'd see: the entire play room, THE ENTIRE play room, was in Henrik's bedroom. Toys, not thrown all over the floor, but in the bins they belong in, neatly piled into a corner. The table and chairs, the rug... liter...

If you know me, I am always with a device that will let me take a photo. I am always ready to share those photos too, in fact, my Facebook page is more about my kids than me. And, each year I love taking family photos to treasure the stage/age that my kids are in, and it's also a nice way to have at least one set of photos a year with ME IN THEM. This year was no different, except that I've got a smokin' body thanks to a boot camp that I've been doing for the last five weeks and I wanted to show that off in some photos. As we got ready the morning of the pictures, my boys understood that this was important to me and that I wanted them to cooperate, smile nicely and be good. That however, was the exact opposite of what they did. Between the sassy, crying, mouth open, tongue out, fit throwing faces, I ended up with not a SINGLE photo of all of us smiling. Which is all I wanted. In the car I deleted about 30 photos right off the bat because they were horrid, and then, ...

It's not often I complain about being a mom, in fact, I've wanted this my whole life and I've got some pretty adorable, smart, and healthy boys to show for it! And heck,  I get to stay home with them and I get to participate in their growing up process, and I know that there are people who would give anything to be in my shoes. But, the breaks are few and far between and there are days I'd give anything for time alone in the car say... on a drive home from work. But, recently, there are days where I can think about leaving them for an over night trip. Something we've not yet done. Yes. I admit, it's been three years and my husband and I have not had a night away from our kids. We've gone on dates and have spent many a nights up with wine, cheese and chocolate while we enjoy adult company, one another, or even a favorite TV show, and, if we lived closer to family and if our house hadn't flooded, I can assure you that we'd have had more of these ov...

  I have to admit, nine years ago I didn't understand the importance of this day. I understood the word Veteran in the most vague of terms and figured that it probably meant more to my step-dad, uncles and grandparents. In fact, I didn't really even understand the military, where I'm from, there are no active duty bases, and the military community of reservists was small, so, I couldn't understand why people would sign up for war. In fact, I was so niave that I thought that being in the mlitary meant that you were just signing up for war. I didn't understand the military spouse, the 50s style language of "honor" and "service" to ones spouse and country, and why so many of them stayed at home with their children instead of working. And of course, I could never understand the sacrifice of what it means to be "military".  Sure, I'd seen war movies, I'm a history major: I've read testimonials, books and papers, and I've un...

In our house we only shoot pucks and balls. We stick to family friendly shows and movies that don't have weapons,  we have no weapons in our house unless you count vigerously waving fishing poles and hockey sticks, and we have avoided the mayhem that is the equivalent of the Princess Pink,  until now. Once Henrik started school his world expanded, which we knew it would, we just weren't sure how it would play out as he was around kids who wore super hero shirts and played "bad guys" on the playground. Occasionally, through the years, Henrik has been drawn to the bold reds, blues and greens that the Super Heroes wear and has asked, "which character is on that kid's shirt". We've always answered him honestly and have somehow managed to stay away from purchasing clothing with superheroes on them. It's not that I don't want those shirts or toys, heck, I love the angst of a good super hero film and would love to sport a retro version of a comi...

There are multiple times through the course of parenthood when you realize that your child is growing up and is no longer that sweet smelling baby you could hold for hours on end. For me, I've had a lot of those moments, but over a two month period I've been shocked at how sentimental I've gotten while watching my boys grow. It could be because my husband and I have been going back and forth on the "another baby" discussion for months and the thought of no more pregnancy, deliveries or even alien poop could be in my near future. Or it could be because I'm in awe of how much my boys know and what they pick up and discover on their own. It's also a possibility that I'm just a crazy mother and wants to be a part of my kids lives for as long as possible because I know it's not that far away that they won't want to be snuggling or climbing on top of me every second. A few weeks ago, our oldest son had his first real play date. For hours before the...

I have a confession to make. It's a bit embarrassing, I'll explain why in a bit, but I'm afraid that if I don't share this information that that knot in my stomach won't go away. Here it is: I want a job. I KNOW! I hear some of you gasping, some of you saying, "NO! You're a fantastic mother why would you want to work if you can afford to stay home?"I hear some of you saying, "Finally! She realized that she had so much more potential than being a stay-at-home mom". And that's where this inner struggle begins... I think you're both right.  I LOVE, and wouldn't trade anything in the world for the hours I get to wipe butts, pick up vomit, play cars for the 1,000th time and do more laundry than seems possible. I wouldn't trade the fights with a three year old for blaming ME for HIM pooping in HIS pants, or the fight with a 20 month old who just can't seem to figure out why hitting is bad. I wouldn't trade the hou...

It's been a rough week at my house, we've had two visits for the ER, we've battled croup, had steroids, visited the doctor three times, and are now fighting a nasty virus that has left my house smelling like a fraternity bathroom. I've dealt with anti-vomit drugs that of course aren't working and diarrhea diapers that always happen to explode... on me.  I vowed to the Social Media Gods that when I became a parent,  I would never post pictures of poop exploded diapers or vomit on walls (and I still haven't) but, this week especially, I've used social media as an outlet as a call for support or ideas on what to do. I've become "the parent" that I so often see mocked or ousted for "over sharing". People who are around kids all day get it, even some friends who aren't parents have offered support (and that's how I know they are true friends) or suggestions, or are even laughing with me when the nurse suggested that I give my ...