How to stop interference in your marriage

Since I’ve been married for five years now, I am officially a marriage veteran. We’ve got everything figured out. All joking aside, I have noticed some things cause unnecessary strife in a marriage, and there are easy ways to avoid them.

First and foremost, do not allow anyone to complain to you about your spouse. It is unhealthy and leads to you and an outsider to your marriage “ganging up” against your spouse. And, as always, you are probably only hearing one side of the story. If this person truly has an important issue to discuss with your spouse, then they should bring it up with your spouse, not whine about it to you. You and your spouse must present a united front to others. If someone starts complaining to you about your spouse, politely inform them that there is nothing you can do for them, and in the future to direct all complaints to the party in question. Don’t let others try to manipulate your spouse by appealing to the person most likely to influence their decisions, namely, you! read more

A Day in the Life

The days are long, but the years are short, they say. Right now, I am in the trenches of the “long” period of motherhood. I’m ridiculously outnumbered day in and day out by this tiny army that I painstakingly grew and nurtured inside of me.

My days are long. I wake up (late, of course) after a night of climbing in and out of bed to nurse my littlest back to sleep. I go to get my littlest so I can groggily change her diaper and nurse her yet again. At this point, I am so parched, I feel like I have crossed the Sahari desert and my canteen is full of sand. I let her play on her play mat while I sleepily watch her from my bed. read more

Cheers to five years!

Today is our five year wedding anniversary. Five years, five pregnancies, three saint babies, three babies here on Earth, two JDs, two Georgia Bar memberships, one house, and one minivan later, here we are! That seems like a lot when I write it all out like that.

Scott and I met in a dorm room a couple weeks into our freshman year at UGA. He was brooding and watching the VMAs. A true Edward Cullen before there was Edward Cullen. My friend and I coaxed him and all his friends to go dancing downtown. We danced together, he got my number, called me the next day, and the rest is history. When we met, we were just teenagers, but he told me he was going to marry me. He is a man of his word. read more

The girls go to the Horse Park

My in laws have horses, and my children are obsessed with them. It is not hereditary because horses terrify me. I used to always see the girls at school with neck braces and casts from horseback riding related injuries, and figured being in close proximity with the equine was hazardous.

We have a lovely horse park nearby, though, and I do have fond memories of going to feed the horses there when I was little, so when some sweet mom friends invited me to go I didn’t hesitate. I knew the girls would get a kick out of it. And such was the case. read more

Wren sits up!

So this happened today. Just thought I’d share with you.
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She had been popping back up in her car seat for a couple weeks now, so I figured, hey our bed is cushy! Let’s give this a whirl, kid.
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She sat proudly for about ten seconds, and then this happened.

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Good job, little bird! Daddy and I are looking forward to following your accomplishments in the field of sitting, in addition to your many other talents. We love you and your sisters so much.

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The Stay at Home Mom Complex

There seems to be a general attitude that your average stay at home mom does not have very much to do during the day. She is a lazy creature, slovenly in appearance, who lives in a messy home and lets her children run amok. She spends most of her time whining about how tired and unappreciated she is. Little does she care that she was the author of her own undoing by having all of these children in the first place! Doesn’t she know that without children she could be dining with her friends, gossiping about men and wearing Louboutins? But I digress. read more

Abuelita’s Arroz con Leche (rice pudding)

It all began when I was in eighth grade and was responsible for bringing a Cuban dish for a party we were having in Spanish class. My mom pulled out an old dog-eared recipe card holder full of her family’s old recipes. She found my great grandmother’s recipe for arroz con leche and handed it to me. It seemed simple enough, so I made it for class and brought it the next day. I figured I had stumbled upon something important when my fellow students politely picked at all the other dishes and my arroz con leche was inhaled by everyone immediately. So, I started making it every year for my family for Christmas. I had to wrap it up in little containers to give them out individually because if I put it out with the other desserts at our Christmas dinner, people would complain about it being gone before they could have some. After a few years, my cousin surpassed me in cooking skills and I was more than happy to pass the baton in making the arroz con leche every year. read more

DIY Sandbox for the kids- Updated with Instructions

We (and by “we”, I mean Scott) spent our Saturday building a sandbox for the girls. Ruth played in a neighbor’s sandbox a few weeks ago and has been talking about nothing else ever since. Every morning she was waking up and asking me if she could go play in the sand. So my devoted husband built this sandbox with little benches attached that fold down to make the sandbox cover. Perhaps I can get him to post the step by step on how to build it if you’re interested. I must say, he made it look easy.
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Ruth was in it playing before they even finished filling it up with sand read more

How Thursday with the Pediatric Cardiologist went down

So I have had a day to process what happened at Wren’s appointment yesterday and spoken to a few of my friends and relatives who are in the medical field. Honestly, I spent yesterday in shock. I went into the appointment confident that her heart condition is mild and they would tell us no further action was needed and send us on our way. I didn’t even tell my husband to come with me because I figured the appointment would be unremarkable. But when the doctor starting talking not only surgery, but open heart surgery as a necessity for Wren, I couldn’t process it. read more