Over the last few years Halloween family costumes have kind of become our thing. Our first official family costume was in 2020 - and it had everything to do with overcompensating for my kids not being able to experience Halloween in the "traditional way"…

I ABSOLUTELY loved having the whole family join in… but at no point did I think it would continue for years to come. Low and behold - we are now five years into the family costume fun. This past Halloween we went with an Olympic theme and I'm sharing all the DIY details here…

Peer pressure is a tricky little bugger… even though most of us have been asked by a parent or adult “What would you do if so-and-so asked you to jump off a bridge”? it hardly ever presents itself that overtly. In my 30+ years on earth, no “friend” has ever asked me to do anything remotely close to jumping off a bridge. But I understand it’s an extreme example to illustrate that the consequences of your decisions can be detrimental in one way or another.

That said, I have, on many occasions, found myself on the short end of peer pressure without even realizing it had happened. “Helping” with an assignment, staying out later than I knew I should, skipping class, etc. etc.

Confession - there have been times in my parenting journey where I felt like I was doing a terrible job... Despite what people told me, it was mainly because I didn't have as much patience as I felt I should, and I didn’t thoroughly enjoy every single solitary moment of parenting. Including some of the parts “society” makes us feel we should. Even though I never felt alone in my thoughts or experience per se, I still felt like I should be parenting… better.

After a few failed attempts to just “change my mindset”… or breathe, or count, or every other thing I came across I still wasn’t seeing much improvement in my ability to consistently be present and be fully appreciative of my three little blessings - at least not to the point where I had infinite patience, was in a great mood 99.9% of the time, and was subsequently able to “mom” the way I envisioned (this was unrealistic, but more on that later).

Welcome! If you are here from my first post on all things Disney planning - hey hey hey! If you haven’t read my first post feel free to check it out here for tips to help you plan your Disney trip. Once you do, and/or are ready for some day-of park tips, see below:

A couple weeks ago hubby and I ventured to Disney World (DW) with all three kiddies in tow. Although it wasn’t the first time we had been with kids (we brought our oldest in 2018), it was the first time since the pandemic when Disney subsequently rolled out changes to keep crowds in check and started up-selling sh*t for convenience. 🤪

Now that we are back from our trip and have had a chance to recap and get through Christmas, I wanted to share a few tips and tricks that might help if you are planning to head to DW, and a few tips for road trips with kids in general. Keep in mind that this post won’t include super specific cost saving tips because there are so many variables (and prices for specific add ons fluctuate), but there are a few suggestions for saving money in general.

Question… do you feel you carry more of the mental load in your household (aka the invisible tasks that usually equate to a never-ending to-do list)? If so, have you thought about ways to lessen it?

The year was 2020… I was fresh off maternity leave with my twins, and had barely dipped my toes back into work when the pandemic hit, and before we even figured out how to properly label the bottles for daycare, we were back home figuring out not only how to juggle two infants and a 4-year-old, but how to add work and something that loosely resembled a daycare curriculum to the mix.

Fortunately, my husband was working remote as well, and we had a strong village to help us through. Although it was tough - and we were a hot mess emotionally, physically and mentally for the majority of it… we made it, as did millions of other people. Not only did we sustain a life that - from the outside looking in - was unsustainable, but we did it for over a year. Here’s how…

Recently I found myself in a constant cycle with my oldest where I complained about not wanting to clean up after him all day, every day… and threatened (key word threatened) to throw toys away if they were left out… or otherwise have him reap some consequences for his lackluster attempt at completing what seemed to be one of only a few simple tasks… to date he has had about 321 “final warnings” about not hanging his towel up in his room, or making his bed, or “fill in the blank”…

Then I realized the issue wasn’t really him, but honestly just the fact that we hadn’t really outlined his tasks, nor had we consistently held him accountable when he didn’t complete them (or give him any incentive for regularly completing them). Soooo to the internets I went

The last time my husband and I went on a kid-free vacation was four years ago, and even though there were a lot of moving parts involved in making that trip a reality - it was nowhere near the “whack-a-mole” experience we had planning this most recent kid-free trip (during an ever changing pandemic, with ever changing protocols, AND two additional kids to plan for).

Even though this trip was for a special occasion (our ten year anniversary.. whoop whoop), AND we desperately needed the break, I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider calling it off… more than a couple times. But I’m here to tell you that we didn’t - the stars aligned and we were able to make it happen, and if you are desperate for a kid-free trip I would recommend you try to make it happen too!

72 hours and the twins are “potty trained”… !! I say that with air quotes because as of now they have only peed on the potty, and they are only day-time trained. BUT… in 72 hours they went from wearing diapers full-time when awake, to underwear, and despite having appointments in the days since, being out with us running errands, and going to daycare, they haven’t had an accident in those underwear yet…knocks on wood. If you aren’t familiar with three-day potty training I highly recommend you take a peek at what it entails.