Thriving In Motherhood Podcast

I’m so excited to finally be sharing the conversation I had with Dawn Madsen of Dawn the Minimal Mom. By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of minimalism, but in this week's episode, we are talking about how Dawn’s faith has impacted her journey to having less things to manage. We also talk about the legacy her parents left her that had nothing to do with managing stuff. For me, the biggest takeaway is hope that whatever our weaknesses and strengths are as moms, they can have a lasting impact on our children for the better. Dawn often gets asked, “What’s the threshold?” when it comes to how much stuff to keep around. Her metric is that everyone should be able to manage their things - and for a two-year-old, that’s not going to be very much!  If you’re just getting started and need a refresher, Dawn recommends starting in the kitchen and keeping just what you are currently using in this season of life. This will have the biggest impact on your days because it’s where families spend a lot of time

I’ve gotten lots of questions about our Zone system that we use to have the kids help clean up our main living spaces. In this week’s episode, I’m sharing all of the details of what it is, why we’ve set things up this way, what everyone is responsible for, how often we reset each zone, and how long it takes. Zone cleaning is a long-term game plan. It takes time, and it will require a bit of extra effort on your part to set things up.  We’ve divided our downstairs into four zones. Each kid had their own room with a large rug to vacuum. At first, you are going to do every step of the cleaning with your kids. It takes time - even years - for the kids to get the hang of it. We also paid close attention to when someone is feeling overwhelmed by a space and simplify it so they are set up for success. The things they are responsible for match their age.  The wonderful thing about this is that we are now able to reset our entire downstairs fairly quickly as we’ve continued to increase our kid’s skills, decrease the a

As we are nearing the end of the summer and getting ready for the new school year, I wanted to share some of my all-time favorite books that inspire me in my homeschooling. 10 Books To Get You Excited About Homeschooling: Educating the Wholehearted Child Life Giving Home Home Education For the Children's Sake The Well-Trained Mind Call of the Wild and Free You Are Your Child's First Teacher Awaking Wonder The Brave Learner Teaching From Rest As I read these books, I’m searching for little bits and pieces that I can add to my vision of what our family and culture look like. This includes homeschooling, but it also goes deeper and more far-reaching than that. Homeschooling is about home. And that is a personal quest I’m on - figuring out what home looks and feels like. I’ve had a very transient life, so home isn’t a place that I return to from my childhood. I’m still trying to figure out how to make a place feel like home, but I’m grateful for the little bits I’ve gleaned and incorporated in

We have been road tripping since we had just one little baby, and now we are on our third year of driving across the county and back as a family of six.  In this week’s episode, I’m sharing everything I’ve learned to make our drive smoother to help set you up for success on your next adventure. We are covering everything from our favorite gear, how we pack and organize, car activities for kids, favorite audiobooks, what we prepare for meals and snacks, how we find hotels every night, our procedure for smooth rest stops, and what a typical day on the road looks like. 

Do you have dreams and goals that you want to go after but haven’t made much progress yet? This week’s conversation with Gabe Cox (@gabecox_redhotmindset) will hopefully inspire you to start taking baby steps forward on your unique journey as we discuss the power of letting your kids see you win. When Gabe Cox was a young mom, she had a mentor share with her that her kids had asked her, “What do you do, mom?” She had nothing to tell them except what she did for her children. Her entire life was about them. Investing in and being intentional with our children and families is so important, but for Gabe, she also realized that she wanted her kids to see what going after a goal, trying, failing, and learning looked like. She wanted her kids to see what doing something hard looked like and give them permission to do the same. For her, that looks like running races, qualifying for the Boston Marathon, and writing a book. Fast forward many years, and her oldest son is working to compete in the Olympics as a gymnast.

I’ve been decluttering my house for years, working through all the layers of things we have. A few weeks ago, I opened a bin of extra bags, backpacks, and soft luggage and figured I could let these things go since it’s been a while since I’ve used them. But then I remembered all the times we DID use them, how useful they were, and all the times in the future that they could come in handy. I put the lid back on the box and decided to deal with it later.  As I was mulling over the content of the box a few days later, I had an epiphany about the real reason I wasn’t ready to let these things go. We hold onto extra stuff when we don’t have a system for how we will do things. Because I don’t have a clear system for all the aspects of how we travel as a family, I hold onto more bags and travel items, “just in case” or “grab and go,” without giving it lots of thought. Is this okay? Yep! But it’s also a challenge for me that I’m excited to keep plugging away at. Developing more systems not only for traveling but for

Have you ever heard of a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset? It’s often come up in conversations I’ve had about parenting and helping our kids understand that “if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again.”  In this week’s episode with Kate House of the Live By Design Podcast, she shares how this principle applies to our mindsets in motherhood. Two Fixed Mindsets That You Might Experience As A Mom I’m not worthy I’m not a priority  Discovering the root of lack of worthiness comes by asking yourself “why” enough times until you discover the underlying thought for yourself personally. But once you discover the reason, you can replace it with an intentional thought like, “I’m worthy enough to feel joy.”  It’s also common in our culture for moms to share the idea that “I’m not a priority because I’m so busy taking care of everyone else.” But the reality is YOU are the only one that can actually take care of you, and if this is something you find yourself saying, you can change one baby step at a time. If

Do you have a hard time creating a vision of what you want for your motherhood to look like? Or do you feel united in goals with your spouse? A few weeks ago, Andrew and I brainstormed a list of things we could take a risk on. We defined risk as anything that puts us out of our comfort zone - which conveniently puts us in our learning zone as well. It was a fascinating experience and uncovered a lot of things for us.  What you might uncover when you write a risk list: Things that are stressing you out that you are avoiding or procrastinating on Things that you feel like you should be doing but are not Things you want to do but haven’t taken action on Personal goals or dreams family goals or dreams My husband and I were really informal in our risk list discussion. We just started each sentence by saying, “We could take a risk and…”. At first, we shared things that were top of mind and stressing us out. We progressed on to things we want to try with our family, personal goals we have, habits we want

Our family recently had a week of me being out of commission for some medical things that we knew were coming. Andrew and I have been in this situation for good chunks or our marriage, so it felt like a familiar glove we slipped on for a few days.  In this survival season, we departed from some of our usual standards of ideals - we watched movies every day, ate food that we don’t normally eat, and let go of a lot of the routines or things the kids are supposed to do in the morning.  But you know what didn’t change? My mental health. I was in good spirits. I was the person I wanted to be with my husband and children. In the past, I sacrificed that all in the name of ideals. But when we can determine what our priorities are in a difficult season, we can embrace the difference and novelty of it all and focus on what matters most. Here are five things I did to prepare for survival mode: Plan for freezer meals. We like to get family-sized Stouffers or Voila to make things easy, but you could also prepare your ow

Over the last few weeks, I’ve shared principles about creating a summer that is positive for the whole family and how to teach kids about habits. This week, I’m sharing what our priorities are for the summer. Here are our priorities for this summer: Improve writing with a daily journal habit Review math with Research Parent’s Minimalist Math curriculum Practice instruments every day and have a family concert every two weeks Go to the library and read lots of books Keep our home tidy with our daily zone cleaning Wok on family house projects Give kids lots of time to play outside and work on their own interests When we clarify and narrow down our priorities, it becomes easier to allocate our time and energy effectively. This clear sense of focus also allows us to say no to activities that don’t align with our chosen priorities. Tell me in the comments, what are your priorities for the summer?

Recently, we talked about ten principles for creating a productive summer. Spoiler alert - a central part of a good summer rests on GOOD HABITS! So this week, I’m sharing how I teach my kids about habits. We have these conversations in five-minute increments after we read scriptures at breakfast over the course of the week. It’s meant to be fun and silly while still teaching them important principles that we apply to their lives. These concepts have changed my life as an adult, and if my kids can understand how their brains work and learn to work with them to create habits, then they are set up for success.  Here are five things I teach my kids about habits: There are a lot of things we need to do to take care of our bodies, minds, hearts, and spaces.  It’s each of our responsibilities to take care of these things for ourselves. Our brains are amazing! We can learn to do things automatically so we don’t think so much about it. That’s called a habit. To make habits easy to do, you need to set things up

One of our priorities since having kids has NOT been the car. My strategy has been to ignore it for six months and then pull out the shopvac and excavate. With our 70 hour road trip approaching this summer, I’ve been watching a bunch of sprinter van conversion videos (turning a van into a motor home), dreaming about the life of ease we would lead with a kitchen and beds in a vehicle as we drove across America. On one build for a family of five, the mom mentioned that they gave a lot of attention to storage because what doesn’t have a home ends up on the floor.  This was a major lightbulb moment for me!Of course our car is a mess - there are literally zero places for things to go in there.  So I went on a quest, and in just a few days we transformed our van from messy to clean and organized with things I found on Amazon and the dollar store.  8 Simple Things For Car Organization on a Budget Car Garbage Can  Headrest Hook   Expandable Cup Holders  Mini Vacuum  Cleaning Putty Baskets  Dromed

I recently got an email asking about how to create summer rhythms with kids -  especially for moms that don’t homeschool their kids, so their kids aren’t used to having rhythms I brought this up in our Soaring Mothers Society meeting that we just had because all of these women have gone through the Made to Soar Program and understand the 3 Pillars of Thriving, are very intentional, and have all sorts of different situations with working out of the home, in the home, homeschool, and have their kids in public school. After a good discussion and sharing of ideas, plus taking my own experience of homeschooling our four kids and having kids at home with me for nearly 10 years now, I picked 10 principles for creating a fun and productive summer schedule with kids that you can use to figure out a rhythm that works for you and your family. If you’ve been wondering how you are going to have time to do the things that are important to you this summer with all of the kids at home, I’d love to invite you to a FREE worksh

Get our family scripture songs: https://cart.thrivinginmotherhoodpodcast.com/bible-scripture-songs/ As a mom, I knew if I could only get one thing into my children’s minds and hearts, it would be scripture. When my oldest was two years old, I decided we would start making up songs to add to our favorite verses because the scriptures I still had memorized from childhood were put to tunes. But, after a few years, we had created a lot of songs and didn’t have any sense or organization to review them. That is when I came across Simply Charlotte Mason’s scripture memory box idea.  It only takes a few minutes each morning at breakfast for us to review our four songs, and by the end of the month, we’ve sung every song that we’ve memorized so far.  Some days, all of us are singing in unison with gusto and other times, I’m still plugging along myself when I can’t get all of my kids to focus at the same time. But either way, this is part of our daily rhythms that everyone has come to expect and look forward to.  I lov

Welcome to the 5-Step Path from Surviving to Thriving for moms! I have been in survival mode so many times over the last ten years of motherhood and began to see a pattern emerge from fighting my way to thriving again and again.  This is a framework that I created to help us all see clearly where we are in a hard season and know where to put out time and energy so we can navigate our days confidently. The 5-Step Path From Surviving to Thriving: Survival - circumstances are bigger than you Re-entry - catching up on all the things that you let go of in survival mode Normalizing - putting some basic systems in place Exploring - discover what brings meaning and joy into your life Thriving - establish the 3 Pillars of Thriving in your life so you can Soar! If you’re wondering where you are on the path, check out this week’s episode for more details.  

Are you a busy mom struggling with burnout? It can be tough to find time to take a real break when your days are full with the good things of running a home and nurturing your family. That’s why I’m excited to share with you a simple, yet powerful tool that can help you end your day on a positive note and prioritize your well-being. In this episode, I’ll be discussing four questions from the Thriving in Motherhood Journal that will help you end your day from a place of feeling accomplished and energized about your day so that you can be ready to get up and do it again tomorrow. The four questions the journal asks are:  How have I seen the hand of the Lord in my life?  What were my big wins today? What was a magic moment today? What am I grateful for today? Answering each of these questions leaves me feeling great about my day! I especially love considering how I’ve seen the hand of the Lord in my life that day. As I’ve been reading the New Testament about the life of Jesus Christ, I’ve realized the

In this week’s episode, we sit down with Autumn Kern, a homeschooling mother of three children, to explore the idea of bringing truth, goodness, and beauty into our homes and families. Autumn shares her philosophy behind a classical Charlotte Mason education and how it can help us cultivate these values in ourselves and our children.  We also get to hear some of Autumn’s defining moments in her motherhood journey and the lessons she’s learned along the way.  Whether you’re a homeschooling mom yourself or simply interested in the power of truth, goodness, and beauty, this interview is sure to inspire and uplift you.

 As a homeschooling mom of pre-K, 1st-grade, and 3rd-grade kids, I’ve tested out a variety of resources and materials over the years. So, if you’re a fellow homeschooling parent looking for inspiration, you’re in the right place! Here’s a list of some of our tried and true homeschooling resources: Rightstart Math All About Reading Story of the World books and activity books Writing with Ease First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind Letter Stories  Ambleside Online Kindle In this week’s episode, I’ll be taking you on a virtual tour of our homeschooling setup for this year. During this walkthrough, I’ll show you the tried-and-true tools we’ll be using to teach a range of subjects, including math, reading, history, and more.  By the end of the video, you’ll have a clear understanding of our homeschooling curriculum for the year and, hopefully, some helpful insights that you can apply to your own homeschooling journey.

 In this week's episode, I'm sharing the story of how I went from waffling between feeling bored and overwhelmed to confidently navigating my days and enjoying motherhood by creating the Thriving in Motherhood Planner. During my first two years of motherhood, I felt completely lost and bored and struggled to make it through each day as I felt guilty for all the things I should be doing but wasn’t. I had also reached the place of desperate determination to figure out who I was and what motherhood would look like for my family and me. I decided the next logical step was to get a planner. In college, I lived in my Franklin Covey two-pages-a-day planner to manage my classes, the job that paid my way through, and our newlywed days of marriage. But when I became a mom, I hardly used it. Sometimes I would sit down and declare, “Today is the day I will get organized and start planning again!” But it was so discouraging to quickly see those plans derailed because of a baby’s nap going too long or short.  Even worse we

This week on the podcast, we are talking about how to design your homeschool room (well, really, any room in the house, but I'm using our homeschool space as the example).  Now, this is not going to be how to make it really beautiful - yet - I'm going to talk functional. If you remember, we talked a few weeks ago about the four phases of designing a home that supports you, and I'm in step 3 in our homeschool space.  3 Steps to Design A Functional [Homeschool] Space Decide what you want to do for your homeschool and the best space in your home to do it. Remove everything that doesn't belong - leave only necessary curriculum, books, and materials Make what you do need easy to access and store items where you will use it We do a classical Charlotte Mason education and school in a few places around the house: around the kitchen table, in the kids' bedrooms (for one on one work with mom), and in our school room.  I used to keep ALL of our homeschool materials in the school room (we are talking 6 years wort