Motherhood Realized

Have you heard of Power of Moms?  It's a wonderful site for moms--full of essays, podcasts, videos, and programs all geared toward moms.  If you haven't already, you need to go check it out!

Are you back? Ok. Recently they published a book titled, "Motherhood Realized"  which is a collection of essays about motherhood.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy. This little book was chalk full of essays that made me think "yes!"  Some even brought tears to my eyes (which was a little embarrassing since I mostly read while in waiting rooms and at the park!)  I jotted down several of my favorite gems:

"You are exactly who your children need.  No one can fill your shoes."

"Your children want you!"

"I feel empowered to let go of my guilt, celebrate the progress that I have made, and accept that during this season of my life, motherhood is enough."

"... our fabulousness and greatness is often very ordinary."

"We might as well accept that the hard stuff is going to happen and prepare for it wherever possible. And once we've got that acceptance and preparation in place, it's a lot easier to enjoy our lives." 

"It is not always easy, but it is good."

"...when the sweet moments come, we need to breathe them in long and deep." 

I could honestly keep going and going. So many great thoughts!  So many things that helped me to refocus and become re-energized! I loved that at the end of each essay there was a question posed and a challenge issued, like this one:

Ask your children to tell you something they think is fabulous about you.  Write it down and place it somewhere you can see often.

Most of all I was reminded that motherhood is a sisterhood.  We're all in this together trying our very best.

And today we are offering an e-book version of both Motherhood Realized and their first book Deliberate Motherhood!  (Just in time for Mother's Day!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

**I was given an ebook of Motherhood Realized to review but all opinions are my own.

Art Lab for Kids

My Mr. A loves to draw.  Thankfully he's finally learning that bodies and walls are not the places to color!  At least once a day he's asking for his drawing supplies and he'll sit there color me endless pictures. 

I recently had the chance to review the book "Art Lab for Kids".



Let me tell you, this book was amazing!  Such great projects and inspiration to do other things as well.  Perhaps my favorite part of the book was the instructions at the beginning on how to get started.  It states that "each person's work should be wholly his or her own.  Don't work on someone else's art."  I love it--mostly because W likes to be the boss and tries to "help" his brothers instead of worrying about his own work.  Another idea that it suggests is to "promote fearlessness".  I love that!

At first I thought I would just use it with the older boys . . . but it really could be adapted to any little artist!

We picked a few different projects to draw from.  It was fun to work with new-to-us mediums like oil pastels.  I also loved that they featured artists that also used each medium.

And doing fun projects like scribble drawings.

For each lab there was a list of materials needed, a "go further" section which gave you ideas of where you might go artistically based on the project, a "thinking" section to get you thinking about your art before you started and then a step-by-step outline for the lab. 

It really was a well-laid out book and I am looking forward to many more art projects inspired by "Art Lab For Kids."