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5 Ways to be One Blessed Momma

5 Ways to be One Blessed Momma

by | Dec 21, 2020 | Julia, One Blessed Momma

It’s Christmas week which means it’s almost the end of the year.  This time of the year things slow down and it gives me the time to stop, pause, reflect, and make some changes where need be.   I assess what I have started that I want to continue like my sourdough starter, this blog, and my devotional book with my husband.  Then I think about what habits I have fallen into and want to change like staying up late because my daughter wakes up every 2-3 hours, not cleaning up the kitchen before going to bed, and wearing my PJ’s all day.  

Come along with me as I assess 5 blessings and remind myself of where I can make changes to strive to be One Blessed Momma with the blessings God has given me.   

1. Family

First, my CHILDREN are a blessing. One of which is currently squeezing my arm, snuggling up while I type this post. To have the opportunity to teach, mold, guide, and protect my girls is something I am very grateful for, and try not to take this responsibility lightly.   Additionally, we have the grace to make mistakes and learn from them.  This of which I am currently VERY thankful for.  We are in the testing of limits, not believing anything Mom says, 4 going on 14 stages.  I have to personally assess my triggers and what makes my frustration bubble because how I react will be how she reacts.  She’s also only been on this earth for four years and I have been on it for 33.  I should have a much better understanding and handle on what irks me.  

“Being a parent reminds me that when I do react in a way I am not proud of I am the one who is the example of how to correct them and make the changes.”

To be the living example of what a walk with Christ looks like.  It’s not perfect but we continually strive for it.  We get to teach our children about Christ and HIS sacrifice to us on a daily.   We practice through prayer, living life in conversation with God, and reading our bible together.  Something I want to do more of in front of my children.

Secondly, my HUSBAND.  He has always been there by my side.  He’s my support and strength.   I am very blessed to have such a hard working husband who I can grow closer to the Lord with.  With this blessing I strive to be a blessing by praying for my husband with his work and his daily choices.   Things as simple as making him a lunch, getting him his favorite snacks, making him a treat when he gets home.   Letting him know he is loved and appreciated for all his efforts.

Thirdly, my extended FAMILY.  My grandmother, parents, in-laws, siblings and their spouses, cousins, nephews, nieces, etc.   These people have been through many of life’s adventures with me and I am thankful to go through life knowing they will always be there for me.   As life gets busy I don’t always remember to send a video singing Happy Birthday or a quick Hello, but they know every time we talk that they are appreciated and loved. 

2. Home

My messy HOME.  Currently there are blankets and pillows on the floor from a fort, dishes on the table from lunch, and toys in the hallway from play time.  One very wise woman would state this quote at our ladies bible study that states, “my house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy”.   We are blessed to have so many toys that the question each year isn’t “do my children have enough toys” it’s “which ones can we donate and get rid of”.   I am very blessed to have a roof over my head and have clothes to wear.

When trying to make my home a blessing for my family I start by trying to have a place for all of our “stuff”.  Clutter is something that affects the way I function during the day.    If my counters and floors are cluttered my mind struggles to focus and process information like it is also very cluttered.   For myself, it is helpful to see open floors and clear tabletops.  Please don’t finish reading this blog post thinking I always have open floor and tabletops because that is far from it, but it is something I want to be more consistent with. 

When COVID is “over” I hope to have more get togethers and open our home up for get quality time with others.  Building those relationships God calls us to have with one another. 

3. Money

With our MONEY.   When my husband and I first got married we did not budget, nor knew how to truly create a budget.   5 years into our marriage we joined a DAVE RAMSEY Financial Peace class in person.  We are so thankful for this class because it helped us to get on the same page and to understand each other.  If you had a class around you to attend I would definitely recommend it.  If not, here’s the book he wrote: Total Money Makeover. Click on the link to view.  It’s currently on sale too!

We still aren’t perfect with our budget but we will be trying to get back into good budgeting in January.  I will attach the calendar we use to track our expenses, bills, grocery, activities, and meal planning.  

 

This is an example of what my calendar will look like for January.  This is not your typical Dave Ramsey Papers, but this is visual works for me.  You can budget by week, bi-weekly, or monthly.  Let me know in the comments if you will be joining me!

4. Health

Make HEALTHY choices with the food we eat and make.  Along with healthy choices of what we feed our eyes and ears from the TV, News, and our Phone.  One thing I have found very beneficial is when I leave my phone in the kitchen after a certain time at night.  Or take the weekend off.  If I find myself on an app too often I end up deleting it for a couple of weeks.  More importantly, it’s making sure my spiritual health is on target.   Man, do I need more growth in that.  I like to think we all have room to grow especially when it comes to our relationship with Christ.  When we settle and become stagnant is when we start to let our guards down and Satan quickly sneaks in, slow and consistent to make us comfortable with where we are and what we are doing. When we can take care of our minds, body, and spirit we can be in the best shape to worship God with all of our being and be a blessing to those around us.   

5. Blessings

Use our BLESSINGS.  My daughter loves to hear the story of the Good Samaritan.  So we talk about helping others often.  There are many struggling right now.  This has been a rough year.  This may be physically, mentally, emotionally or even all of the above.  We need to make sure we are checking in on our friends and family and asking the hard/deep questions.  Going a little above and beyond to let them know they are cared for.  Melinda did just that and talks about how she helped my family when we were in need and we were forever grateful.   Read about it here.  Doing something for someone when they are so overwhelmed by life, can really leave a lasting impact and give someone that boost they need to keep going.  Thanks Melinda! 

Ultimately our greatest Blessing is God, creator over all.  Who gave us Jesus, who was perfect in every way.  Who left his safe, comfortable home in heaven to be a sacrifice for OUR sins.  

A lot of people will stop and think about Jesus this time of the year.  His miraculously birth, perfect life, tragic death and triumphant arise.   May we all take a moment to reflect of his life, share His goodness, love and message to all around us.  I pray you get to have cherished time with those you love and make the most of every opportunity for those who may be searching for something bigger in this life.

 

May God Bless you all! Merry Christmas.  

 

Thanks for stopping by, One Blessed Momma. 

 

Download Free Printable

January 2021 Blank Calendar

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Meet Julia!

Julia is a wife to her high-school sweetheart, a mother to two beautiful girls and a follower of Christ.   She loves crafting, teaching and is forever grateful for a God who is in control of all unknowns and thankful we can have a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Helpful Homeschool Hints

Helpful Homeschool Hints

by | Dec 13, 2020 | Mollie, One Blessed Momma

Homeschool

For some, the very word brings forth tempestuous feelings of anxiety and fear. Thanks to Covid, homeschooling has been thrust upon many-prepared or otherwise.

I partially homeschool my 3 school-aged children (for more on that, check out this post). I am always looking for ways to incorporate school with everyday activities.

Cooking is one of the easiest, most fun, messiest ways to do this. I have always encouraged my children to help me cook and my oldest son (Orren-8) has taken this and run with it. He absolutely LOVES to cook! Now, to get that whole clean while you cook thing down would be great!

Orren has gone so far as to start his own cookie baking business. He has even developed his own “secret recipe”.

A baking business

He has made cookies for weddings, birthday parties, holiday events and talked to our local grocery store about selling his cookies. The boy amazes me and makes me so proud while at the same time overwhelming me with trying to help him keep up with his grocery lists and trips and profit and loss statements. (He keeps a little notebook in his pocket to keep track-just like dad. So cute!)

But I digress… Back to homeschool! Using a simple recipe, like this Flourless Peanut Butter Cookie recipe, is an excellent way to help teach math (especially fractions) and life skills all rolled into one! Plus, you get a yummy treat at the end!

This recipe has 5 ingredients that all are 2 of something. 2 cups, 2 teaspoons, 2 whole eggs. Some ways I use this to teach math is by looking at how many teaspoons it takes to make a tablespoon, then a cup. The sugar is a great ingredient to let them measure. First, with teaspoons. Then, tablespoons. Finally, cups. You can measure back and forth between 2 bowls until you feel they are catching on OR you just can’t handle any more sugar on the floor, whichever comes first (I did say messiest!).

After the dough is made, I use a medium cookie scoop and scoop the dough into little balls. A lot of times we like to add chocolate chips to our cookies, because who can resist a soft, gooey, peanut butter chocolate chip cookie?

Cookie Math!

I usually put 3 chocolate chips in the center of each cookie dough ball. As you (or your kiddo) place these, you can use the chips for practicing addition, multiplication, or just plain counting. Whatever level your child(ren) is at. I always try to ask my kids what kind of equations they can come up with. This is a great multi-sensory learning activity AND my kids LOVE doing cookie math! 🍪

The final lesson you can teach is how to clean a kitchen. A definite must as far as life skills go, and one we are still mastering.

A very wise woman told me many times, “My job as a mother is not to teach you what to think, but rather, how to think.”
And I think she did a great job! 😉

My encouragement to you is, don’t be intimidated by teaching your kids. Embrace it! Look for ways to have fun and learn together. And remember to never stop learning, because life never stops teaching.

Download Free Printables

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

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Meet Mollie

 

Mollie is a lover of Jesus above all. She loves her husband and family and enjoys gardening, teaching, piano, riding, and farming. She lives in SW Colorado with her husband and five kids.

Learn more about Mollie and her family

4 tips to avoid stress, guilt, and overwhelm this Christmas season

4 tips to avoid stress, guilt, and overwhelm this Christmas season

by | Dec 7, 2020 | Melinda, One Blessed Momma

One blessed momma, that’s me! However, that doesn’t mean I’m never one stressed-out momma, one-guilt-filled momma, or one overwhelmed momma. As we’ve just come through one holiday and are headed towards a jampacked holiday season, the stressed-out, guilt-filled, overwhelmed parts of me are threatening to take over. 

Long-term stress prevention and management can reduce your chance of developing additional disorders such as heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and depression. Several studies have found that cannabis can assist people cope with stress. However, cannabis’s anti-stress and anti-anxiety qualities may be most effective when microdosed. Because cannabinoids have biphasic effects, substances like THC can reduce anxiety in low dosages while increasing anxiety in greater ones. To learn more see this ne post about the Process for Getting a Medical Marijuana Card in Oklahoma.

Several studies have found that cannabis can assist people cope with stress. However, cannabis’s anti-stress and anti-anxiety qualities may be most effective when microdosed. Because cannabinoids have biphasic effects, substances like THC can reduce anxiety in low dosages while increasing anxiety in greater ones.

This year will be different than most. Covid-19 is the uninvited guest in every aspect of our lives. As we plan our holiday celebrations do we leave behind all of our usual parties? Do we say, “better safe than sorry”? Or do we take hold of our lives and refuse to live in fear? Carrying on as though nothing has changed.

This is a very hot topic in all circles of friends and family and politics. Since it is everywhere we look, it is also affecting our motherhood. But isn’t there always something that could be affecting our motherhood? Sometimes it is coming from outside sources and sometimes it is from within our own family.

Here are four things I plan to use to leave the stress, guilt, and overwhelm behind as we finish out 2020.

1. Prayer and Supplication

“do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4:6

Suppli… what? Supplication. Maybe you’re smarter than me, but I realized as I was writing this that I didn’t really know what supplication meant. So I’ll define it here in case you’re in the same boat as me.

Supplication – the action of asking or begging for something earnestly or humbly.

If we take everything to God in humble prayer, and then leave it there, do not play tug-of-war with him, he will take care of the rest.

I have found that if I pour all of my jumbled up messy thoughts out to God, for me in the method of prayer journaling, I am then able to actually think more clearly and make better judgments.

One example, is when my friend Julia‘s baby was in the NICU, I have a lot of guilt and mental fog around mommas with difficult pregnancies/miscarriages/preterm births. (Something I should totally give over to God, I’m a work in progress.)

I knew Julia was hurting and needed to be surrounded by the love of God and friends, but all I could see was my guilt. Finally, I sat down and prayed and wrote and prayed. Once it was all out I could pray for Julia and Nora and ask God to help me find things she needed as I was shopping. I was able to get things that later she told me she didn’t even know she needed yet. Was that me? Nope! It was definitely God working through me.

As you think of the upcoming holidays, don’t do what your jumbled up, stressed out, overwhelmed self thinks. Give all of that to God and then ask for direction. Most importantly, pay attention to his direction. Philippians 4:6 starts out “do not be anxious about anything.“ Anytime you find your anxiety rising use natural treatments, there are medical marijuana in Las Vegas to start a natural treatment that has proven benefits to help with anxiety.

2. Gratitude

Philippians 4:6-7 continues Paul’s directions, with thanksgiving. That prayer you just prayed, did it include thanksgiving to God? What has God done in your life? Are you giving credit where credit is due? When we do things for our children do we not expect and even demand their p’s and q’s? Their please and thank you? We should be training them to say please and thank you, but are we modeling gratefulness to our heavenly father for them?

This direction comes with a promise in verse seven, “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” What a wonderful blessing that peace is. I would love to hear about a time that prayer led you to a peace that you know could only come from God.

3. Plan

This year will be different for everyone. You aren’t going to be able to pull last year’s plans and just replicate unless of course, you are a homebody who is used to social distancing and staying away from everyone else.

Maybe this is the year to simplify and get back to the basics of what Christmas is really about? Get back to the central idea and make sure our plans focus there. As you plan, remember to expect the unexpected as Julia told us. God even tells us in James 4:13 that we shouldn’t say tomorrow I will do this or that because we are not promised tomorrow. Instead, we should say “if the Lord wills, we will do this or that.”

I would suggest that if you have prayed it all out and really listened to God‘s direction, more of your plans (than not) will pan out. This is from me. Not God. 🙂

Scroll down to download this free printable.

4. Grace

Finally, remember Grace. This is one thing I am beginning to learn from both of the ladies who are blogging with me. Mollie did a great job discussing grace here. Julia and I were once walking buddies, back when she only had one precious girl to haul around. One thing that sticks with me (three years later) is her advice to offer myself the same grace in making health changes as I am offered from God in my walk with Christ. This was an epiphany for me. If you don’t give yourself grace, you are more likely to give up altogether. You’ll give into the stress, guilt, and overwhelm.

We can pray, we can show gratitude, and we can plan, but we are all flawed humans. This means we will always need grace! Thankfully we were created by God who is full of mercy and grace. So give yourself some too. And don’t forget to give grace to those around you. We’re all on this flawed human journey together.

May this Christmas season find you leaving the guilt, stress, and overwhelm behind. Don’t forget to pray and then quiet your mind and listen for God’s direction.

I am one blessed Momma!

The top picture is of my 3 oldest decorating our Christmas tree back in 2011. Going to a tree farm to cut down our own tree and then decorating it is one of our favorites. It’s a tradition we won’t be giving up. What are you holding onto this year?

Download your free printable

Christmas Priority Planner
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Meet Melinda!

Melinda is a Christian, a wife, and a mom of 6. She has a blended family. She's a recovering perfectionist who is far from perfect, but it makes her that much more grateful for God's grace and mercy in her life.

Learn more about Melinda and her family

What’s your Constant?

What’s your Constant?

by | Nov 23, 2020 | Julia, One Blessed Momma

Hey, Mommas,

 

How are you holding up? Your life may be filled with so many emotions on a daily basis right now. Every day is a question mark. Will the kids be going to school today? Do they have everything they need for school? Do they have everything they need at home? Did they remember a mask? Will the computer ruin their eyes? Give them headaches? Will they be safe if I send them to the store? SO many questions. So many deeper questions.

 

So many we don’t have the answers to. Our lives have become fluid. We have to be flexible to be able to go through the waves of life. And sure, we can all do this for SOME time but after a while we want stability. We want something we can rely on, something constant.  

This was me, two years ago when my second daughter was born 3 months early.
As a NICU mom, I was scared for my child’s life on the daily. I never know when I would get the call that contained horrible news. I’ve seen her stop breathing too many times to count.

 

The life you knew and what we expected was now filled with eating out, driving to and from the hospital, learning new hospital lingo and machines,  scrubbing your hands and then using hand sanitizer, visiting your baby whom you may or may not be able to hold at the time, using hand sanitizer every time you go to touch your child, asking to hold your baby, having to pump every 3 hours, spending as much quality time with your older child, sleep, etc.   Your brain doesn’t have any room to think of anything else, just the information that is important.

Is your brain at that stage? Are you exhausted? Do you need a break?

 

When I read Matthew 6:34- “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I hear God telling me, “Take a break. Don’t worry about the stress of the future. I have it in control. All you need to do is worry about today.”

Earlier in chapter 6 verse 26, he says, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”.  Sometimes we focus on the big picture that we have no control over and it weighs us down. We take the stress, place it on our shoulders and forget to see all of the blessings we have right in front of us: A house, food, clothes, children, family, health, life, fingernails, and socks. The last two may sound silly but if you didn’t have them, you probably would wish you did.When stressed, I read those verses.  It reminds me to take a step back and realize, this is how we are supposed to live. Not knowing or thinking about the worries of tomorrow. Yet, focusing on today and how we can live our life for God.

One day at a time.   

 

Before our NICU experience, I would imagine what kind of Mom I wanted to be. How I wanted to give my children bible lessons on a daily basis and raise them to memorize verses. Yet, as I would keep thinking about those goals, I wouldn’t take steps to reach them. They were always in the future.  The NICU event taught me to stop, slow down, and take action for today. 

 

Now, don’t get me wrong- I definitely think it is wonderful to have goals, but not to let them ONLY be goals. Try to focus on what we can do today to better the world, better our families, better ourselves. Put it into action.  As the sayings go, “It starts at home” and “be the change you want to see”. So hopefully, through all this chaos we can slow down and allow ourselves to be fluid, to take each event as it comes at us. See the unexpected as expected right now (don’t worry, all things do eventually settle down).

 

When we grieve the “normal”/safety net we once knew, we can make the mind shift to slow down and focus on today, to give God the glory.  We can see, that all we need, is God as our constant. He is the only one who can give us peace that surpasses ALL understanding.  

 

He is in control of our unknown.

 

 

I hope you found those verses as a stress reliever and it somehow makes being fluid a little easier because we KNOW our Rock NEVER changes. I pray you can take a moment with God today, refocus and gain some strength to get through another day. See the big picture and allow God to hold on to it for you.

Please share in the comments what steps you have started to take advantage of today.   Then, check out the FREE Daily Schedule PRINTABLE and VERSE card (this is the same one I memorized while in the midst of feeling overwhelmed) to help you refocus on what’s important, below!

Download your free printable

Here are two FREE printables for you to help refocus on today.  Hope you enjoy it and let me know in the comments if it helped!
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Meet Julia!

Julia is a wife to her high-school sweetheart, a mother to two beautiful girls and a follower of Christ.   She loves crafting, teaching and is forever grateful for a God who is in control of all unknowns and thankful we can have a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Grace for Busy Mommas

Grace for Busy Mommas

by | Nov 16, 2020 | Mollie, One Blessed Momma

Are you busy? I am! Life is busy.

I feel like the most common answer I have when people ask me how I am is, “Oh, you know. Busy, busy.”

In my prayer journal, many prayers start out with “I am overwhelmed!”.

I have really had to take a step back and examine my priorities and choices.

Why am I feeling overwhelmed? Am I working towards accomplishing my main priorities?

It has been super helpful for me to stop and think about what my main goals in life are and re-evaluate the choices I am making.

As a Christian, my number one priority is to follow Jesus and teach my kids to do the same.

That is a really easy thing to say, a whole lot harder to do. Harder not because Jesus asks so much of us. Rather, because doing ANYTHING consistently is challenging for us. At least for me! Except eating. I seem to be really good at eating consistently. Ha!

Here are a couple of tips that have truly helped me.

Tip number one. Give yourself grace.

This may seem counterintuitive, but hear me out.

I am very good at starting routines and staying with a program, whether working out, studying the Bible, making sure my kids brush their teeth twice a day, UNTIL something happens to change up our schedule. I get frustrated because I never seem to be able to find ANY time that works ALL the time. Inevitably, I end up NOT accomplishing my goals because I couldn’t do it at the same time every day.

I’ve read the self-help books about block scheduling and setting routines. They have some very good and helpful tips. Ultimately though, you have to do what works best for you. I am pretty confident I am not the only mom on the block who struggles with consistency.

When you find yourself in the middle of the week and you haven’t pulled your Bible out once, your kids haven’t showered since last Tuesday and the dishes are molding in your sink (I might be speaking from experience here.). Instead of doing what we women are so good at, beating ourselves up, give yourself grace.

You can get back on track, the track may just look different.

Tip number two. Be flexible.

I am not talking about doing handstands and somersaults. No. Be willing to have flexibility in your schedule. If you weren’t able to get that quiet time in God’s word this morning, get it this afternoon. Don’t be afraid to stop and take the time you need to feed your soul and commune with your Lord. In fact, be afraid not to! Our enemy would have us believe it’s selfish to take time and everything here on this earth is so important we just can’t take a break. Don’t be deceived friends!!! This is the single most important thing you can do.

One mistake I have been guilty of is trying to always study and pray when my kids are sleeping. There is nothing terribly wrong with that but my eyes have been opened to the fact that my kids need to see how important a relationship with Jesus is and how much it means to me. They need study and prayer modeled for them. I am not saying you should never have any quiet time without them. Just don’t feel like that is the only way.

Susanna Wesly (mother of John and Charles Wesly) was the mother of 19 children, Sadly, 9 of them died as infants. If you think raising 10 kids was a lot you should know she was the 25th child of 25!

She lived in England during the early 18th century. Now, we think our lives are hard and busy, but this momma didn’t have a dishwasher, washing machine, or gas stove! I am sure she spent a lot more time preparing meals and just keeping her household functioning!

Anyway, every day she would sit in her rocking chair likely in the middle of chaos (I mean, she did have 10 kids!) and read her bible and pray. She would flip her apron over her head and spend time with her God. Her kids knew that was her time. They still saw it. They watched. But they knew not to disturb. Wow!

Do you think this had an impact on her children? Seeing how two of her boys became world-famous evangelists I would say, yes!

Next time you are feeling overwhelmed, run-down, outta time, and exhausted, Stop. Sit down. Take a breath. Spend time in prayer and God’s word. It is the best way to spend our most precious commodity-time.

 
Ephesians 5:16 “Redeeming the time because the days are evil.”

Philippians 4:7“And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Let God’s perfect peace guard your heart and mind as you go forward in the life he has called you to.

Download Free Printables

Susanna Wesley’s House Rules

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Meet Mollie

 

Mollie is a lover of Jesus above all. She loves her husband and family and enjoys gardening, teaching, piano, riding, and farming. She lives in SW Colorado with her husband and five kids.

Learn more about Mollie and her family

Work heartily, as for the Lord

Work heartily, as for the Lord

by | Nov 9, 2020 | Melinda, One Blessed Momma

Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men

This is the idea I like to put forward when I am encouraging my children to work. Unfortunately, I don’t always remember it myself.

My husband and I come from a long line of farmers/ranchers and entrepreneurs, this means lots of independent hardworking people. This brings a lot of characteristics that we also want to instill into our children.

Some people believe children should be children, there is plenty of time for chores and learning to work later in life.

Others believe that you should be teaching them to do chores from the very beginning. This tends to be where we fall in. Because we are entrepreneurs and self-employed our children are not only learning how to wash dishes and laundry and mow the yard, but they are also learning how to build, how to edit websites, how to work with electricity and plumbing.

Let them work when they want to…

When they are little, they are begging to go to work with daddy. They love getting out of the house and learning how to use power tools. As momma, this can make me nervous, but I trust their daddy.

As they reach their teens, they decide that the work isn’t so fun. It’s too much like work. We haven’t found the trick to making sure they don’t get sick of “constantly working”, if any of you have found the secret, please share

They have learned a work ethic

However, as our older boys have gone out and experienced working with others they have received high praise for their work ethic. We’ve discovered they would much rather work for someone other than mom and dad.

Our oldest started working at a local Dickey’s at the age of 16. The managers constantly praised his hard work and initiative. He is now in the Air Force and has actually thanked us for making him learn things. Most of the guys would come to him to iron, because he knew how. He was pursued for a special job because of the electrical knowledge he received working with dad.

The now 16-year-old is in his second year of a masonry vo-tech program as part of his high school. The teacher puts him in a leadership role, even though there are other boys in the class with seniority, because of his work ethic.

Last spring he was able to participate in the local home builders show. It wasn’t just his Masonry class that was there, the carpentry and horticulture classes also participated. Both teachers complimented him because he took the initiative to help them set up their displays and he was told that he did better work than some of their 3rd years. (The vo-tech is a 3-year program).

The work ethic and working knowledge come from working with dad (and grandpas).

Are you modeling a good work ethic?

One of the hardest parts of teaching our children is making sure our actions are teaching them the same thing as our words. That phrase “easier said than done” is all too true sometimes.

Even as adults, especially when we don’t like our boss or the work in front of us, it is so easy to forget who we are representing! If we allow others to know we are Christians (as we should be) but don’t act in a way that glorifies Him, we are doing our Lord an injustice. 

You may not agree with the way we have chosen to raise our children. The only way to instill a good work ethic may not be to start your kids working (with age appropriate tasks) from the time they are walking.

Our second reason for being entrepreneurs and bringing our children along with us is to spend time with them. Being our own bosses means that, to an extent, we can create our schedules. We can bring our kids to work when it works for us. And sometimes when it doesn’t.

We have chosen to spend Saturdays helping dad finish a job so that we can be together as a family. So that it takes a few hours rather than all day. Then we can go play in the afternoon.

Recently we helped dad finish a job so that we could all go to a birthday party in the afternoon. Dad would have missed out on all the fun had he not had help.

How helpful were the 5-year-old and the 3-year-old at shoveling stone, not very. However, they had fun. They got to use shovels and were shown that when you work together the work gets done faster. They are learning about safety and to be aware of their surroundings. They are learning to help out when only one job is left, we all work as a team. We had a goal, and we met that goal.

I am one blessed momma!

What path have you chosen? Do your kids have chores? Are you teaching them a trade? Why or why not? Please be respectful of all, even if they have a different opinion than you. This space is for encouraging and uplifting.

Meet Melinda!

Melinda is a Christian, a wife, and a mom of 6. She has a blended family. She's a recovering perfectionist who is far from perfect, but it makes her that much more grateful for God's grace and mercy in her life.

Learn more about Melinda and her family