Lydia. Easter Sunday. 2011.

At Target this week, Lydia rode in the cart and sang, “I love Mommy! I love Mommy!” at the top of her lungs.

She still says “hurted” and “bited“.

She gets chocolate peanut butter spread on her cheek and doesn’t notice for hours.

She carries her bunny, Flopsy to the store, sleeps with her and considers her a best friend.

She says, “Hoo-normous” instead of “enormous” or “humongous”.

When she hangs out with Evan, they hold hands unashamedly.

And this time next year? I have a feeling it will be different. My little girl will still be herself, but she’ll be six with a year of kindergarten under her belt. I can sense this next season in our life but I can’t see it yet. It’s blocked. Like a big thick black wall. But as we journey toward it, I know it’s about to make everything different.

Even though I sound mournful, I’m not. Just wistful. I’ve always said my heart grows with my children, so I’m not sad to see them grow.

But five? I think I’m going to miss it.

I’m Going To Miss Five is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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source: manjaris creation

Spring is Here!

One day this week, the kids and I laid on the back porch and drank in the spring weather. The sky was blue, the temperature was 74 and nicely breezy, the birds were singing, the creek was dancing and the grass was green. Every year I am surprised at how much the Spring invigorates me. I never realize how much winter has damped my spirits until I get the first whiff of Spring!

The second this Spring hit, we started gardening. Now, not big gardening. In fact, I would not even consider myself a gardener. But I love having my kids play in the dirt and watch things grow. I want them to see their food come from a plant they buried in the dirt. I want them to feel the slowness of growth and the dirtiness of maturation.

{read my full post at Motherhood Your Way…}

Little Seeds is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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1. Food & More Food: My New Favorite Photo :: :: :: Asa eating homemade granola outside. Last...

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Sometimes I just get in a motherhood funk. The blues. The blahs. The I-can’t-do-anything-right kinda feeling.

All day long I can feel words swirling through my head, “Their behavior is your fault! Why can’t you get the house clean?! You have ruined them! What are you doing? Why can’t you get him under control?”

Am I the only one?

I had no idea how hard parenting was going to be. I thought as I grew with my kids’ physical needs, I’d grow into parenting. I thought I’d get a few good parenting successes under my belt and then those same ideas would work again. I figured I’d be able to build on my successes and kind of get a one up on my kids.

{Read my full post at Motherhood Your Way…}

Motherhood Is Hard is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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Before I had children, I was a great mother.

I knew the parenting style I wanted and I was ready to go! I knew how my kids would act and how I’d react. I knew the best way to raise my kids and I was ready for the challenge of working it out!

Then I had children.

And everything I knew was thrown out the window. And to make matters worse, great parenting ideas seem to ebb and flow. Some days my approach works perfectly. Other days it seems to be the catalyst for more bad behavior!

{read the rest of my post at Motherhood…Your Way}

photo by shoothead

I am a Great Mother! is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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Once I responded to a comment from Mandi—I thought it was my sisterchick, Mandi from itscome2this.com. But when she responded to my email she said, “I think you’re confused! I’m a different Mandi…!” And a fun friendship was born! Mandi is the “other” Mandi Ehman from Organizing Your Way and Doodles Place.

She is a mama first. And a blogger extraordinaire second.

In both arenas I’m in awe of her.

Me and Mandi Harry-stalking at Blissdom.

She is incredibly purposeful in her motherhood. Her Doodles Place blog is a spot to showcase her children and the amazingly incredibly fun stuff she does with them. She also exhibits her real desire for them–to love God and their family. (And you know how much I admire this!) Recently, she and her husband made an even bigger step in the journey of doing the best for their families–her husband quit his job so he could be a stay-at-home-dad and co-homeschool with Mandi.

Now, what is Mandi doing while she’s not co-homeschooling? Why, she’s being a wildly successful blogger, of course!

Mandi makes things happen. My first Blissdom I saw this in real life when Tsh from SimpleMom stood up and said something that turned out to be my biggest tip from the whole weekend…she told us how Mandi had called her and asked Tsh to mentor her. How bold is that?! But it’s a move that has paid off. Mandi’s niche blog, Organizing Your Way is hugely influential and has a great reach. But even without Tsh’s advice, I know Mandi would still be making things happen in the blogosphere. The first time I was blown away by her was when she launched The One Dollar Give. It was really just a month long blog that asked people to donate ONE dollar to a different charity each day. Mandi thought this would be an easy way to make a big difference. Isn’t that great?!

Before our big IRL meetup at Blissdom, Mandi posted on her blog that she wanted to meet me because she thought we’d be BFFs. I left her a comment that said, “Wait a minute! I thought we were BFFs!”

Mandi, I’m inspired by your gentleness, your willingness to give and help on a bloggy and friendship level. Thank you for standing 5 feet from Harry Connick with me AND for sending me HTML code even when I didn’t ask for it. Thank you for your inspiration, your example and your sweet smile! We are BFFs!

:: :: ::

This is the final post in a 5 part series thanking incredible mom bloggers. It is a paid campaign by theMotherhood.com and P&G’s ThankYouMom.com. The best part is that YOU could win some cash to visit your mom by thanking her on the ThankYouMom.com website. It’s a beautiful tribute to moms with a fun prize at the end!

Next Tuesday, June 29th the mom bloggers who have participated in this campaign PLUS a few of the moms who have been thanked will be hosting a chat on theMotherhood.com. Please join us!

I think we would be BFF! is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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I am loving these thank-you-mom posts inspired by theMotherhood and P&G’s ThankYouMom.com! As I was deciding who to thank, I knew it had to be someone who had not just inspired me as a blogger (because there are many of those) and not just inspired me as a mother (I have many non-blogger mom heroes), I needed to find people that were MOMS and BLOGGERS and had inspired me in both arenas. So far, I’ve told you about my mom blogosphere mentor, Jo-Lynne; my non-mom-blogging-community mom, Rachel Coleman; my real-mom-blogger friend, Amber and today I’m going to thank a new friend, Kat. She has been blogging on her personal blog, The Secret Life of Kat since 2005. (Yes, I’m pretty sure she was using a stone and chisel to be blogging way back then!) And last November she launched a new blog—a niche blog. Couponing? Green living? Simple life? Technology? Fashion? Cooking? Nope.

Kat’s niche is to inspire moms. And not with Angelina-Jolie-adopting-12-kids kinda inspiration. She inspires with “incredibly practical tips”. Her blog? Inspired To Action. Don’t you love it already?

I first heard of of Inspired to Action on twitter. Some famous bloggy folks were tweeting things like, “My awesome friend Kat is giving away a free ebook for moms!” I clicked on it, read it and *gulp* was immediately convicted…no, not convicted. I was INSPIRED. The ebook is called Maximize Your Mornings and is basically about waking up before your family so you could have some time with God and to get prepared to sieze the day as a mother. It doesn’t sound all that profound. But for me (and for hundreds of other moms based on her subscriber numbers) it is!

If you’ve been following my do-hard-things and i-want-to-be-wilder journey, you’ll see that this introduction to Kat was actually a small stepping stone to this big journey. Waking up early to be alone, plan my day, exercise and focus on God has been the first “hard thing” on my trek. It’s the first step in what I feel is a bigger and more intense walk with God.

Kat’s Inspired to Action blog is exactly what her byline says, “incredibly practical tips for inspired moms”. I love her ideas about retreating as a mother. I’m still mulling over her mission statement how-to posts. And she’s hugely honest and open.  After reading one of her posts I want to stand up and say “Yes! Yes! That’s what I’ve been looking for!” And I love reading through her comments because you can see what a difference she is making in the lives of so many women.

For some unknown reason, Kat started commenting on my Impress Your Kids blog and soon we were having comment, twitter and email conversations. I asked her to guest post on Impress  Your Kids and she did so joyfully (well, it felt joyful to me anyway).

I am just inspired by her at so many levels—she started a niche blog (so she sees the value and bredth of blogging), she started a niche blog to inspire moms (so she sees the value really great mothers bring to the world), she started a niche blog to inspire moms to do great things for God and their families (so she sees the value of following God and His ways first).

Kat, thank you for inspiring me. For inspiring me not just so I’ll keep reading your blog. Or so I’ll feel happy to be a mom. You’ve inspired me on a deeper and more long-lasting level. You’ve inspired me to action. Thank you.

Inspired. is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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