Mom Of 3 Girls

Looking for me??

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:41:00 +0000

With a busy home and work life, this year I’ve found it necessary to combine my blogging life – since attempting to keep up three separate sites was just too much for me. I still blog about my life as a ‘Mom of 3 Girls’ – I just do so now at my other site, where you can find posts about what’s going on in my pink-filled life, along with a smattering of product reviews and other fun things as well.

Come find me at Just a mom’s take on things… Can’t wait to see you there!

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Looking for me??

Weekly Update – Feb 6

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:02:00 +0000

So it’s been a couple of weeks this time – but here’s what I’ve been up to lately!

And stay tuned in the next week or two for posts about our ongoing family life plus my takes on the new formulation of Moon Dough, a Max and Ruby-themed iPhone app, and the new Honda CRV – and much more…

Weekly Update – Jan 23

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:04:38 +0000

It’s been an interesting week weather-wise here – from more snow to an actual thunderstorm last night that had Abbi cowering in our bed with us – and no longer believing when we assure her that there are no thunderstorms in the winter, sigh. Here’s what I’ve been up to this week:

And stay tuned in the next week or two for posts about Becca’s 6th birthday, how our Christmas and New Year’s went, my takes on Tide Coldwater laundry detergent, the new formulation of Moon Dough and the new Honda CRV – and much more…

Weekly update…

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:30:45 +0000

So I still haven’t exactly figured out what I’m going to do with this site now that I’m posting regularly over at momstakeonthings.com instead… But for now and in case anyone over here isn’t getting updates from the other site, here’s a quick list of what I’ve had to say recently:

And stay tuned in the next week or two for posts about how our Christmas and New Year’s went, the snowstorm we’re expecting tonight and tomorrow, my takes on Tide Coldwater laundry detergent and the new Honda CRV – and much more…

Ready to introduce the ‘new’ site!

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:15:48 +0000

So I’m up way (way) too late, but I’m so excited to finally have the new theme on momstakeonthings.com ready to go! Head on over and take a look – isn’t it pretty? 2012 marks a few big blogging changes for me – not the least of which is combining my two sites into one. I’ve still got a few tweaks to make here and there, but for all intents and purposes, that is the NEW site where you’ll find reviews and giveaways as always, plus everything you’ve always found on this site too. And more of it all than you’ve seen on either site for the past few months.

For those of you who want to just follow those family/personal types of posts that you’ve always had on this site, I’ve created a specific category and feed just for you! You can click the graphic below to subscribe – this graphic will be on the sidebar on the new site as well, if you ever need it.

Subscribe to ‘Mom of 3 Girls’ by Email

But if you want the full feed, that will bring you all of the MO3G stuff as well as product information and more – you can subscribe by clicking on the orange ‘RSS’ button in the new site’s header or by entering your e-mail address at the top of the sidebar over there.

I haven’t completely decided yet what I’m going to do with this particular site. For now, it will remain here as always, but I’m mulling over a few ideas for ways to utilize it that won’t interfere with the new site or create too much for me to keep up with. I’ll update on both sites once I decide for sure. But for now, check out the newly designed Just a mom’s take on things… (from the point of view of a Mom of 3 Girls, lol!) and let me know what you think.

Can’t wait to see you over there!

New post – over there

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:40:20 +0000

Yep, in keeping with the whole ‘merge two blogs into one’ thing, my most recent ‘personal’ type post is hanging out over at my other site. Come on over and check it out – I promise I don’t bite over there any more so than over here.

Here’s a hint – it involves my thoughts about our most recent birthday. Curious? Go here –> http://www.momstakeonthings.com/?p=10436.

I’m working on cleaning up and consolidating things like categories over there to work out how things are going to fit together in the ‘new’ site. And I’m also starting to redesign things, and searching for a new theme that will help tie everything all together. It may look a little strange for a while, but it’ll all get there in the next few weeks.

Honestly, I’m enjoying the break from the whole ‘must get reviews done before Christmas’ and ‘ack, I don’t have a gift guide up yet!’ stress – but just wait, I’ll be back on track with all of that for 2012.

Just not here.

This site will stick around, don’t worry. I don’t want to even attempt to move 1700+ posts. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do over here yet – but it’s kind of intriguing to think about.

Stay tuned…

Updates and changes to come…

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:50:39 +0000

So yes, I do still blog here.

At least for now… You see, back when I first created my review blog, I had some very good reasons for starting a second site – many of which no longer exist at this point. I’ve struggled for the past year or so with the job (yes, it’s basically a job at this point) of keeping both sites updated on a regular basis, especially now that I do have actual paying work that needs to take top priority. I’ve gone back and forth about the idea of trying to recombine the sites – somehow. My biggest issue is that while the review blog gets (much) more traffic, this one is my first blog, my ‘baby’ so to speak and I’m rather partial to it. Plus, it’s how I’ve come to be ‘branded’ online – those who know me, know me by ‘Mom of 3 Girls’, not Just a mom’s take on things…

But.

For the first time, it’s now possible to run BlogHer ads on my review site – if I post personal items there too. And the idea of being able to post something personal – or a review – or both – if I wish, fills me with such a feeling of freedom, that I may actually start enjoying to blog again and not have it feel like such a commitment that it’s not been truly fun in a long time. As I’m sure those of you who still read here have probably noticed from the scarcity of posts (and posts of decent quality) here.

So I’m rather excited about the changes – but they won’t be happening immediately. With the holidays coming up, I’m hesitant to add major blog changes to the list of things that I have to do. I’m behind on reviews, we have Hannah’s birthday coming up in less than 2 weeks and I have yet to get invitations out for her party, or anything really bought for her birthday or party. My lack of motivation has extended to many things beyond simply blogging lately – but I’m hoping that will change soon. After months of putting it off, I finally saw my doctor several weeks ago and started back on medication for depression. I knew, with the way I’ve been feeling lately over the summer, that the usual winter ‘blues’ would just be exacerbated horribly this year and I just don’t think I can go it alone anymore. I don’t know if this medication is really helping yet – it’s something new that I haven’t been on before, and while it’s definitely helping with the anxiety that I’ve been living under, what’s replaced that has been a sort of apathy, which definitely isn’t much of an improvement as far as getting things done goes. But I’m aware of and working on that – and I’ll bring it up with my doctor when I see her again next month. Baby steps…

Things are generally fine otherwise – the girls are doing great in school this year, with only a couple of minor concerns (non academically-related) that were things we already knew about and brought up to the girls’ teachers ourselves. Pretty much the usual, as far as Abbie (yes, she’s changed the spelling of her name – again) goes – she’s made wonderful strides in some ways but not in others, so I’ll have to do an update post soon. And Becca’s teacher had noticed the same speech and articulation issues that we’ve seen, so is looking into seeing if additional help is needed there for her. But she’s reading above grade level for kindergarten, does well socially, and is doing great otherwise. Hannah’s teachers had nothing but rave reviews for her – including in math, where she’s working a grade ahead with a 4th grade class. I’m so glad that the girls all seem to have inherited Ron’s aptitude for math – although it’s interesting to see that Abbie also inherited his way of doing math that’s causing her a few issues, such as doing it all in her head and forgetting to show her ‘work’ on paper. Hannah, who is always thorough in whatever she does, fares better grade-wise because she documents all her steps. I’m curious to see how Becca will be once she gets into the higher grades. I’m just glad that they don’t seem to have gotten my nonexistent math genes!

Finances are slowly starting to look a little better too – although it’s still taking quite a while to climb out of the mess we’ve been in for the past few years, and it’ll be months yet before we can start to maybe breathe more easily. I say maybe, because I’m now of the “I’ll believe it when it actually happens” kind of mindset – somehow major issues always seem to come up so I am skeptical at best that we might actually be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel (I hate that I feel this way, but can’t help it right now). But, Ron received a promotion a couple of months ago – he’s now supervising a quality control program in Chicago. And driving back and forth at least once a week – but he doesn’t seem to mind that part, so I’m hopeful that both travel and big cities might eventually start to grow on him. Not only is he now on salary, but he drives a work truck which saves money for us on gas and is letting us consider, for the first time, going down to becoming a one-vehicle family. His 18-year-old van has lasted us 5 years (when we expected maybe 1 or 2 out of it) but it’s falling apart (literally in some cases) and we’re thinking to maybe try and get some money out of it while it still runs. We haven’t decided for sure yet – with our main vehicle also being an older one, the idea of not having a back-up scares me, but now that the girls all ride the bus to and from school, I could technically get by for a few days without something to drive if I had to.

So, that’s where things sit right now for the most part! I’m working on logistics of expanding my other site to include the posts that I would normally post here – this site isn’t going anywhere, and I’m not going to move the old posts over there. I’m still going to post sporadically until then – with the holidays coming up I’m not fooling myself that I’ll be able to maintain a more regular posting schedule, but keep watching here for updates. I’m working on redesigning the other site to reflect the changes – neither the basic name or the URL will change though. And I’m working on a way for people to subscribe to only the personal posts if you wish, so those of you who don’t want to see the reviews won’t have to. And there won’t be as many reviews in general – I’m looking forward to blending the two and only posting reviews for things I really feel strongly about sharing. With the girls getting older, so many of the products I was seeing just don’t fit our family anymore – and there are plenty of wonderful review blogs out there if you’re looking for products for babies and/or toddlers.

Stay tuned…

Wordless Wednesday #208 – Boo!

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:00:29 +0000

See more photos at Wordless Wednesday, Project Alicia, Live and Love Out Loud, Seven Clown Circus, Parenting By Dummies, Better in Bulk, and 5 Minutes For Mom!

Wordless Wednesday #207 – Summing up the fall soccer season…

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:22:36 +0000

This year we had all 3 girls playing AYSO soccer, in 3 different age divisions, playing in 3 different locations every week. Overall we had beautiful weather this fall with only one game called on account of bad weather (hail in this case). Here’s a quick summary…

Some Saturdays were cold:

Some were windy:

But most were beautiful!

See more photos at Wordless Wednesday, Project Alicia, Live and Love Out Loud, Seven Clown Circus, Parenting By Dummies, Better in Bulk, and 5 Minutes For Mom!

This is why we don’t watch tv in the mornings…

Deb - Mom of 3 Girls — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 06:02:27 +0000

There is a very good reason why I don’t generally let the kids watch tv while they’re getting ready for school anymore. Where in the past having the television on kept us on track time wise (what, Handy Manny is over? Get to the bus stop right now!), lately it’s become more of a distraction than anything else and I’ve realized that if I want the girls to keep moving and getting things done in the mornings, the tv has to stay off.

Which is why our rule is that no tv until or unless everything is done and both Abbi and Hannah are all set to head to the bus stop. Realistically this means that the tv is pretty much never on since they take forever to get ready and aren’t usually set to head out the door until it’s time to go out to the bus stop anyway.

On Friday morning, the girls were wound up because it was the day of the big Walkathon at school. I turned the tv on because I wanted to check the weather forecast and ended up switching it over to Martha Speaks because it looked like both of the girls were ready to go. Abbi had her backpack on and everything.

Just as I was telling them it was time to head outside, Abbi looked down and realized that she didn’t have her gym shoes on yet. And she didn’t remember where she had put them. She and I began to look around but as Hannah went outside and called to us that the bus was coming, Abbi was forced to scramble to grab a different pair of shoes to wear.

And ran out to the bus stop in stocking feet, carrying shoes, just in time.

About 30 seconds later, I walked into the bathroom and discovered Abbi’s gym shoes – on the counter. But the bus had already left.

It was a good thing that I was helping out at the Walkathon anyway – Abbi called me from school at lunchtime to see if I’d found her gym shoes because the ones she had grabbed weren’t going to work for her if she was going to be walking that much. Normally, I’d just let her stay in the other shoes all day to help her learn the lesson to keep track of her things (and to put her shoes on her feet, not the bathroom counter!), but knowing she was going to need to be walking a lot, I took her gym shoes with me to school so she could change into them.

We use checklists both in the morning and the evening to make sure that the girls (mostly Abbi) don’t forget anything, but so far I’ve just had ‘grab all of your stuff’ on there and didn’t think I really needed to spell out, “Don’t put your backpack on and stand around watching tv unless you are sure that you’ve got your shoes on your feet where they belong!”.

Apparently I need to get a little more specific.

And remember to keep the television off!