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GG Gladys’ Molasses Cookies
I distinctly remember the cookie jar filled to the brim every time we’d visit Grandma’s home. She loved to bake, and was damn good at it…pies, cakes, jello salads…okay, jello doesn’t involve baking. Her molasses cookies are a definite favorite among her posterity. When my genius of a brother was about 5 years old, he became rather distraught and proclaimed we shouldn’t swear and that molasses was a swear word…mole-asses (my powers of deduction was definitely not nearly that advanced at age 5). So from then on, we were to call molasses cookies gopher bottom cookies…over 20 years later, Gopher Bottom Cookies is the proper name in our household. The…
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Super Mom
I’ve always wanted to show the world a photo of my kitchen sink full of dirty dishes. I absolutely cannot go to bed with any dishes in the sink. It is something that just makes my skin crawl…and yet…I’ve had to learn to let that go at times. As my boys have grown I’ve tried to teach them certain traits that their future wives will appreciate…such as dish duty, putting the toilet seat/lid down, not leaving toothpaste in the sink, or leaving dirty socks all over the place. That being said, they are boys…they are preteen boys…and their expectations of how certain things should be done are VERY different than…
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Mom Shaming
Mom-shaming…it is something has become WAY too prominent. I’ve been mom-shamed too many times to count. For some reason, everyone has an opinion and they think they need to voice it. I have totally been a mom-shamer as well. It is easy to jump to conclusions and assume the worst. What prompted me to write this post was my beautiful, intelligent cousin. She tweeted about a mom who seemed would rather play a game on her phone than give her children any attention. The things she was writing that this mom was saying…well let’s just say if I were the one overhearing her I would’ve totally stepped in. But my…
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Trials
I have written and rewritten this post too many times to count. It has been a struggle to put my thoughts and feelings into words. This week has been one of the toughest in my life. Just like anyone else, I’ve endured many trials, nothing terribly unique. Mr. Man and I have had struggles and hardships we’ve weathered through…but this week…this week has definitely made me pull out my big girl panties. I can do hard things! I CAN do hard things! I can…but usually I don’t want to. I am a stubborn, hardheaded gal. Probably because my dad comes from a long line of Norwegians. When it comes to…
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So Long Kindergarten
Photo Credit: The Photo Guys I just can’t believe Yo-Man graduated kindergarten today. It seems like yesterday he was insisting on only peeing outside…and constantly asking to play hide-and-seek. He’s constantly making me laugh at the same time challenging my patience. Yo flew into our lives on May 14th, 2012. His due date was the 13th, which happened to be Mother’s Day but decided to torture me and wait another day. When he did decide to evict himself he was out in a little over 3 hours. Scared the crap out of me and my epidural didn’t even kick in until he was already born. I kept yelling at the…
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Kid Laughs-Jokes and Riddles
Camping in McCall, ID 2015 Believe it or not, growing up I was a rather serious kid. I would offend easily and dished out a lot more than I could take. It wasn’t until I started dating Mr. Man when I began to change. He is such a tease and totally changed me. He taught me how to laugh at myself and to live in the moment instead of worrying about all of the ‘what-ifs’. He has definitely passed that along to the Amigos. I’ve never been around a sillier bunch of boys. Half of the time they don’t even mean to be silly. They love jokes, riddles and to…
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My Road to Motherhood
Growing up I was not one of those girls who fantasized about getting married and becoming a mom. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry and have children; I just assumed it would happen when it happened. I grew up with an amazing mother, one who has been a wonderful example to me, which is probably partly why I just assumed I would be a mom someday. My mom would have snacks ready at the kitchen table for my siblings and I every day after school and we would sit, complete our homework, and tell her about our day. When I did think about my future and when I would…
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Battling Infertility
Rewind 15 years and you will find a very different Katie Marie. Within my first year of marriage, I was diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). At the time it wasn’t completely detrimental news. Mr. Man and I were still college students and weren’t looking to start a family until at least one of us had our bachelor’s degree and started a career with health benefits. Receiving the diagnosis of PCOS wasn’t something I thought about too much until a year after when we decided we wanted to begin trying to start a family. After a lot of medical testing, 2 major moves with the Air Force, and some pretty physically…
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A Solemn Assembly
In my short (although feels long) 35 years on this earth, I have lived through 6 Latter-Day Prophets service to the Church. (Kimball, Benson, Hunter, Hinkley, Monson and now Pres. Nelson.) I do not remember participating in any Solemn Assembly, except for when Pres. Thomas S. Monson was called and sustained. Taking part in the rare Solemn Assembly is a special occasion and an honor. Yesterday morning in the first session of the 188th biannual General Conference, the 15.8 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints had the opportunity to participate in a Solemn Assembly and sustain Pres. Russell M. Nelson as the current Prophet and…
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Rhys Christian-The Caboose
Rhys’ story began long before he was born. After YoYo joined our family, I knew we still had one little spirit up in heaven waiting to come down to us. As the years went on that feeling would not leave me. The catch is, I really don’t like being pregnant. If children came by a stork, I would have 12 kiddos, but, alas, they don’t. It wasn’t that I had overwhelmingly hard pregnancies in the past, I just don’t enjoy sharing my body. Most women love the feeling of the baby moving around inside. Not me, every time the baby moved all I could envision was the scene from the…