Tag Archive for: boy mom

for the love of reading

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One of my biggest goals as a mother and homeschooler is to raise readers. I grew up in a “reading family.” We didn’t watch much T.V. but we had unlimited amounts of books always available to us to enjoy. And I can safely say with the exception of maybe one sibling we ALL are pretty avid readers. I.LOVE.TO.READ. I easily read one book a week. Seriously, nothing makes me happier that sitting down with a good book. However, in this day and age with so many avenues of entertainment available to kids it makes raising readers a bit more challenging. I am constantly reading blogs, checking Pinterest and searching the discovery page on Instagram for new and exciting books to share with my littles. But I find that sometimes it’s not just the content of the book itself that gets my kids excited but more so the event and/or environment surrounding reading time. It’s amazing how a cup of hot chocolate or tea, a cozy blanket and roaring fire can turn reading time into a cozy event, or a comfy patio chair, sunshine and a glass of lemonade can make reading a reward after a morning of school.

We also do a read aloud as a family. Last year we read the Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

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It was lovely, through By the Banks of Plum Creek. My kiddos enjoyed hearing about Laura’s adventures with her sisters and life as a pioneer family. Well all that changed when we hit By the Shores of Silver Lake…

WARNING – SPOILERS AHEAD

When we returned to Plum Creek my kids where devastated to find out that Mary was now blind, Jack was dead and they had to leave their lovely home on Plum Creek because poor Pa, bless his heart, just couldn’t produce a fruitful crop of ANYTHING. It was upsetting to say the least. We had to take a step back from the Little House Series because I thought, “well kids if you think this is bad wait till we get to the Long Winter!”

Anyway, this year we are doing the Harry Potter Series.

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Which is a ton more fun because after we finish each book we have what we call a, “Harry Potter Party” watch the movie and have themed snacks and drinks! I know what you are thinking, if my kids couldn’t handle a blind girl and a dead dog how in the world are they going to process the trauma that is the Harry Potter Series? First of all(“through God all things are possible. Write that down.” – Always Sunny anyone?), since Harry Potter is clearly fictional my kids see it as merely that, a fun FAKE story about a wizard boy and his wizard friends but we will see how they feel when we get to the end, YIKES!

It takes us quite a bit to get through the books because our short attention spans only allow us to read a chapter a school day but we finished The Chamber of Secrets(book 2) this past week and enjoyed Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets on Friday complete with…

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and of course

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This has become such a fun tradition for our family and it gets them so excited to keep reading.

What do you do to inspire reading in your kiddos? Comment below with ideas or tips you would like to share as well as books you think we might enjoy!

Happy Sunday!

the picky eater

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Do you have picky eaters at your house? Mine does and he goes by the name of NoeyTom. Uhhhhhhggggg, I know on the scale of serious issues this isn’t that far up there but DAMN I find this problem to be one of the most frustrating.

I grew up in a large family where you ate what you were given and you were thankful for it. There was no complaining or mom scrambling to make chicken nuggets or a peanut butter sandwich when someone was less than pleased with the dinner served. I have carried this mentality over to my family and I would like to report it has been less than successful. And I would like to come clean now and say I am guilty of making Noah a special meal, not every night but a few times a week #momfail. Every time I do it I am torn between my feelings of failure and pure relief that the child is eating something!

I would also like to state for the record I am not making elaborate meals for my family. Have you heard of #dictatorlunches? Yeah, we aren’t even close to that. Think chicken, rice and a veggie, spaghetti and meatballs, tacos. Is it too much to ask for my 9 year old to eat pasta with meat sauce? Seriously, I am asking? Last night Noah spent the entirety of dinner sulking over that EXACT dinner.

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I’m starting to feel like maybe you all will think that the kid is starving and mall nourished. While his diet is lacking in SEVERAL areas he does have a handful of things that I know he will eat and are hopefully filling in the gaps. I try to always have these things on hand yogurt, celery, strawberries, green apples, cheese, almonds. My aunt used to say, “as long as they have a glass of milk and a banana a day, they are good.” Well what do you do if your kid will only drink milk if it’s in a milk shake or frappuccino and he HATES bananas? This is what you do, you make sure he eats a yogurt, a nice generous portion of cheese, any and all fruit you can get into his belly in one day, throw your hands up say “fix it Jesus!” and call it a success.

I am not writing this because I want advice or tips. I have read the books, the blogs, listened to the podcasts tried all the tricks you can think of and guess what the kid still eats like shit. I am simply writing this because if there is another mom out there struggling to get their kid to eat ANYTHING healthy I see you, I understand, lets have coffee or wine and chat about our failures.

I will leave you with this to hopefully give you something to hang on to, Corey grew up in a “chicken fingers and fries” house, eating mostly an all beige diet. Fun fact, he ate his first salad when he was 21, let that sink in a minute… twenty-freaking-one! And now he will try anything at least once and honestly eats anything I put in front of him. So ladies it is possible for a tiger to change it’s strips it just might take a while, like till the age of 21.

nothing but noah

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I wanted to write a post about each of my kiddos so that when you read about our day to day life you would have a little back story on each of them. I planned to start with my oldest, GracieKate but Noah has been giving me a run for my money lately and I thought it would be good to write down all the things that I love about my boy so he does not find himself on the curb holding a “free to good home,” sign.

So here we go…

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this picture makes me melt
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Noah Thomas aka NoeyTom, Noey, Bubs, Bubby, is 9yrs old and literally NEVER stops moving. I am not joking the kid is in constant motion and never without a ball. He plays every and all sports including but not limited to football, soccer, baseball, basketball, flag football and futsal and he plays them all very well actually. And not because it comes easy. I mean maybe a little bit is natural talent but the kid is the hardest working most determined kid on the planet. If he is not playing with a ball in the house yard he is talking about his next practice/game or watching old sports games on youtube.

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The second love of his life is Fortnite. If you don’t know about Fortnite(how is that possible? do you know a child? or man? or human?) it’s a video game some genius thought of where you have to build stuff and be the last one standing or something, whatever! I try to let that be Corey’s thing with our kids, mostly so that if they ask me to play or for help I can say, “you know what? this seems like a job for Daddy.”

While he is for sure my most active kid, if you can catch him he gives the most amazing hugs and a snuggle from Noah is by far one of my most favorite things in the world. Gosh he is delicious to me. He is like a puppy kinda smelly and mischievous and sometimes I’m not sure if I should hit him on the nose with a newspaper or squeeze him so hard he goes back inside my body(is that to much?)

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Moving on, NoeyTom I love you forever even when you make me crazy and want to hide in the bathroom with a bottle of wine. Don’t ever change, except maybe the throwing balls in the house? Could ya stop? I’d like to have at least a few unbroken decorations….

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XOXO

Mommy

About Me

Hi! I’m Joanna, a wife and mom of three. I was born and raised on the West Side of Cincinnati Ohio and Corey and I are now raising our kiddos here. Our life isn’t all that glamorous or exciting but it’s ours and I’m obsessed.

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