Thriving In Motherhood Podcast | Productivity, Planning, Family Systems, Time Management, Survival Mode, Mental Health, Vision

I'm so excited to finally be sharing the conversation I had with Dawn Madsen of Dawn the Minimal Mom. By now, I'm sure you've heard of the concept of minimalism, but in this week's episode, we are talking about how Dawn's faith has impacted her journey to having less things to manage. We also talk about the legacy her parents left her that had nothing to do with managing stuff. For me, the biggest...

I've gotten lots of questions about our Zone system that we use to have the kids help clean up our main living spaces. In this week's episode, I'm sharing all of the details of what it is, why we've set things up this way, what everyone is responsible for, how often we reset each zone, and how long it takes. Zone cleaning is a long-term game plan. It takes time, and it will require a bit of extra...

As we are nearing the end of the summer and getting ready for the new school year, I wanted to share some of my all-time favorite books that inspire me in my homeschooling. 10 Books To Get You Excited About Homeschooling: Educating the Wholehearted Child Life Giving Home Home Education For the Children's Sake The Well-Trained Mind Call of the Wild and Free You Are Your Child's First Teacher Awakin...

We have been road tripping since we had just one little baby, and now we are on our third year of driving across the county and back as a family of six.  In this week's episode, I'm sharing everything I've learned to make our drive smoother to help set you up for success on your next adventure. We are covering everything from our favorite gear, how we pack and organize, car activities for kids, fa...

Do you have dreams and goals that you want to go after but haven't made much progress yet? This week's conversation with Gabe Cox ( @gabecox_redhotmindset ) will hopefully inspire you to start taking baby steps forward on your unique journey as we discuss the power of letting your kids see you win. When Gabe Cox was a young mom, she had a mentor share with her that her kids had asked her, "What do...

I've been decluttering my house for years, working through all the layers of things we have. A few weeks ago, I opened a bin of extra bags, backpacks, and soft luggage and figured I could let these things go since it's been a while since I've used them. But then I remembered all the times we DID use them, how useful they were, and all the times in the future that they could come in handy. I put th...

Have you ever heard of a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset? It's often come up in conversations I've had about parenting and helping our kids understand that "if at first, you don't succeed, try, try again."  In this week's episode with Kate House of the Live By Design Podcast, she shares how this principle applies to our mindsets in motherhood. Two Fixed Mindsets That You Might Experience As A M...

Do you have a hard time creating a vision of what you want for your motherhood to look like? Or do you feel united in goals with your spouse? A few weeks ago, Andrew and I brainstormed a list of things we could take a risk on. We defined risk as anything that puts us out of our comfort zone - which conveniently puts us in our learning zone as well. It was a fascinating experience and uncovered a l...

Our family recently had a week of me being out of commission for some medical things that we knew were coming. Andrew and I have been in this situation for good chunks or our marriage, so it felt like a familiar glove we slipped on for a few days.  In this survival season, we departed from some of our usual standards of ideals - we watched movies every day, ate food that we don't normally eat, and...

Over the last few weeks, I've shared principles about creating a summer that is positive for the whole family and how to teach kids about habits . This week, I'm sharing what our priorities are for the summer. Here are our priorities for this summer: Improve writing with a daily journal habit Review math with Research Parent's Minimalist Math curriculum Practice instruments every day and have a fa...

Recently, we talked about ten principles for creating a productive summer. Spoiler alert - a central part of a good summer rests on GOOD HABITS! So this week, I'm sharing how I teach my kids about habits. We have these conversations in five-minute increments after we read scriptures at breakfast over the course of the week. It's meant to be fun and silly while still teaching them important princip...

One of our priorities since having kids has NOT been the car. My strategy has been to ignore it for six months and then pull out the shopvac and excavate. With our 70 hour road trip approaching this summer, I've been watching a bunch of sprinter van conversion videos (turning a van into a motor home), dreaming about the life of ease we would lead with a kitchen and beds in a vehicle as we drove ac...

I recently got an email asking about how to create summer rhythms with kids -  especially for moms that don't homeschool their kids, so their kids aren't used to having rhythms I brought this up in our Soaring Mothers Society meeting that we just had because all of these women have gone through the Made to Soar Program and understand the 3 Pillars of Thriving, are very intentional, and have all so...

Get our family scripture songs: https://cart.thrivinginmotherhoodpodcast.com/bible-scripture-songs/ As a mom, I knew if I could only get one thing into my children's minds and hearts, it would be scripture. When my oldest was two years old, I decided we would start making up songs to add to our favorite verses because the scriptures I still had memorized from childhood were put to tunes. But, afte...

Welcome to the 5-Step Path from Surviving to Thriving for moms! I have been in survival mode so many times over the last ten years of motherhood and began to see a pattern emerge from fighting my way to thriving again and again.  This is a framework that I created to help us all see clearly where we are in a hard season and know where to put out time and energy so we can navigate our days confiden...

Are you a busy mom struggling with burnout? It can be tough to find time to take a real break when your days are full with the good things of running a home and nurturing your family. That's why I'm excited to share with you a simple, yet powerful tool that can help you end your day on a positive note and prioritize your well-being. In this episode, I'll be discussing four questions from the  Thri...

In this week's episode, we sit down with Autumn Kern, a homeschooling mother of three children, to explore the idea of bringing truth, goodness, and beauty into our homes and families. Autumn shares her philosophy behind a classical Charlotte Mason education and how it can help us cultivate these values in ourselves and our children.  We also get to hear some of Autumn's defining moments in her mo...

 As a homeschooling mom of pre-K, 1st-grade, and 3rd-grade kids, I've tested out a variety of resources and materials over the years. So, if you're a fellow homeschooling parent looking for inspiration, you're in the right place! Here's a list of some of our tried and true homeschooling resources: Rightstart Math All About Reading Story of the World books and activity books Writing with Ease First...

 In this week's episode, I'm sharing the story of how I went from waffling between feeling bored and overwhelmed to confidently navigating my days and enjoying motherhood by creating the Thriving in Motherhood Planner. During my first two years of motherhood, I felt completely lost and bored and struggled to make it through each day as I felt guilty for all the things I should be doing but wasn't....

This week on the podcast, we are talking about how to design your homeschool room (well, really, any room in the house, but I'm using our homeschool space as the example).  Now, this is not going to be how to make it really beautiful - yet - I'm going to talk functional. If you remember, we talked a few weeks ago about the four phases of designing a home that supports you, and I'm in step 3 in our...

I love making big goals - and you've seen me do some of them here with things like the Soaring Mothers Summit. But this year, I wanted to try something that I read about years ago in Atomic Habits: making 1% Better Changes. Each month of the year, I'm picking one tiny thing to focus on, and so far, the impact has far exceeded my homes. When I'm deciding on what to focus on each month, I start with...

For the last few weeks, I had the experience of feeling like I was running in circles without a clear direction - endlessly researching but not sure what to do next. I told myself that I had gotten to the end of the road on my vision. In reality, things weren't that dire - I just forgot what phase I was in and how to keep myself anchored.  There are three phases to creating and living out your vis...

I recently listened to a group of mothers share their feelings of overwhelm, and I absolutely identified with their thoughts.  The things that they found overwhelming fell into three levels of overwhelm: Getting Things Done Our Homes and Keeping People Alive Our Thoughts When we feel overwhelmed, it can be hard to slow down and identify what is really causing our stress. Over the years, as I've pe...

Have you had the experience of committing to a hard goal but found yourself miserable along the way?  Arielle shared with me that she had made it through her first semester of grad school as a mom with four young kids, but it was a miserable experience. Instead of seeing it as a failure, I shared the 5-Step Path From Curious To Committed.  5 Step Path From Curious To Committed: Curious - Identify...

Today I'm sharing how I involve the kids in cleaning our home - how we do it, why we do it, and what we use. We are going beyond picking up or tidying and addressing things like scrubbing toilets and mopping floors.  (My kids are ages 9, 7, 5, and 2.5 for reference, but this is something I've done with them since they were babies)  Here are the four phases of getting kids to clean at home that we...