Sadly, once again, we as a nation of families and individuals are trying to make sense of the senseless. Death always feels wrong, even in old age, but in children? …
Tweens & Teens
Christmas, Special Needs, and Surviving Gatherings
It’s the Christmas season again. Time to get out the decorations, visit with family and prepare for tantrums, stripping naked, and for asking to go home as soon as we…
Bonding With My Daughter
I’m not a big gardener, but I grew up watching a vital truth unfold as my mother poured effort into her garden day after day, seeing no visible results at…
The Serve Others Countdown to Christmas
Idea #1 – Prepare a meal together as a family and take it to a sick or elderly friend this week. Idea #2 – Encourage your family to look each person they…
Room for One More
“Mrs. DesCarpentrie, do you have room for one more?” It’s a question I have been asked several times from a Department of Children & Family Services caseworker, scrambling to find…
Homeschool Holiday Volunteering!
What are you doing for your Christmas homeschool break? Shopping? Traveling? Opening your home to family and friends? Have you thought about adding “volunteering” to your holiday festivities? Many homeschooling…
Surprising Lessons from Jury Duty: God Makes a Way to be a Mom
I must confess to a not-so-generous reaction when I was summoned for jury duty recently. Sadly, my thought process was not, “Oh, good, I have always strongly supported the notion…
Looking Forward to the Long Car Ride … Amazingly Enough!
For the holidays every year we have very specific traditions in our family. For Thanksgiving we load up the kids into our minivan and drive 14 hours to Michigan, where…
Got Room?
Do you have room for one more child? While we lived in a little three-bedroom house, we adopted three kids to add to the three I had already birthed. We…
Alright, Kids! Bring it On!
My text said something like this, “Our children are being used to show us some things we need to see and to fine tune us!” I was attempting to encourage…