Tag Archives: child

We Will Never Regret The Moments We Took

Here we are on August 3rd and I am suddenly aware of the fact that this is our last month of summer vacation before our kids go back to school again…And even though we can’t change the fact that summer vacay will be coming to an end in a few weeks for all our children […]

All We Need To Do Is Apply What We Learned As A Child

We learn so many simple life lessons as a child, yet often times we overlook how those simple rules apply to us as adults. The fact is that those life lessons, if remembered, will help us all our lives, no matter how old we are.  I love the words of Robert Fulghum: All I Really […]

Anything can happen in just one day

“We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day.”   – Gayle Forman You know what I love about this quote? I love that it is the very basis for HOPE! When […]

Enduring Love of a Father (Happy Father’s Day)

Father’s Day holds an incredibly special place in my heart each year. Not only because I was blessed with an amazing Father of my own and an equally amazing Father-in-law, but also because I have been blessed with an incredible husband who came into my life 7 1/2 years ago and became the Father to my two children. […]

A Wish Flower or a Weed?

Today my husband and I were walking along a darling little riverbank when I looked over and saw an awesome Wish Flower. I used to see them all the time when I was a little girl living in Puyallup, Washington. They were all over our backyard and as kids we would go out and pick […]

Does Life Ever Get Easier?

I remember as a kid thinking how I couldn’t wait to become and adult because life seemed so much easier for adults. Being a kid felt hard….I mean after all, Adults got to go out whenever they wanted to, they had money to buy whatever they wanted (at least that’s what you thought as a […]

Someday We’ll All Have Perfect Wings

I would guess most of us have either heard of or seen the bumper stickers which read, “Mean People Suck”. I happen to agree with that sentiment. When someone treats another person mean I really struggle with it. When I hear stories of bullying in our young people, or see people taking pot shots, or […]

Have Courage and Be Kind

That phrase, “Have Courage and Be Kind” is repeated multiple times throughout the new movie Cinderella (the real life remake of the cartoon classic).  It was advice given to Cinderella as a small child by her real mother before her real mother passed away.  Today in a meeting someone reminded me again of the phrase […]

It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving

Every Sunday when we sit down for our family dinner we have a tradition where we go around the dinner table and as we are eating each person in the family shares with the rest of us what they learned that day or week. We have done this since the time my children were little […]

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

“If at first you don’t succeed, do it like your mother told you.” We all remember the famous mom advice we got as kids:  Wear a coat, brush your teeth, look both ways before you cross the street, put on sunscreen, don’t take candy from strangers…..  We would roll our eyes and grumble under our […]

“Never Say Anything About Yourself That You Don’t Want To Come True” (Forbes Article)

I still remember as a child seeing my mother standing in the kitchen talking to herself. No joke. She would literally have entire conversations with herself. At the time I just assumed my Mom must be a little bit crazy, after all the woman had ten children so by rights she was entitled to be […]

Take a trip down memory lane

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” One of my goals for this year was to get all my photos that were taken “pre-digital” on old-school printed photos, and scan them in so I could have digital copies of all of them. […]

When Something Breaks Your Heart

“That moment when you can actually feel the pain in your chest from seeing or hearing something that breaks your heart.” Those moments are the worst…they just are.  Seeing or hearing something that breaks your heart is such a hard thing to go through. It’s a feeling you wouldn’t wish on anyone. Most of the […]

“Love your Parents. We are so busy growing up, we often forget they are also growing old.”

Life the past few months has been a reminder that I am growing older, especially facing an empty nest.  However, in all my focus to deal with seeing my own children grow older I have honestly lost sight of the fact that my own parents are also growing old… My parents stopped by the other […]

Nursing a Hole in My Heart

Today was brutal. Today I moved my baby girl down to her college dorm and tonight is the first night of her being gone from home.  Even though I will get to go see her tomorrow for the Orientation meetings on campus, it doesn’t change the fact that after today things will never quite be […]

Sick Days…

I do NOT like being sick! I make the worst sick person EVER!  I am not good at holding still and I am not good at staying in bed….I can’t stand having a day go by when I cannot be productive!  For me, feeling unproductive hurts almost worse than the aches and pains of being […]

It’ll Grow Back

When my son Dalton was a little boy, for some reason he could not grow bangs.  His hair would grow on top and on the sides and in the back, but not in the front.  For the first few years of his life I kept him in little baseball caps to disguise the fact that […]

Thanks for Waiting Up

Growing up I wasn’t always the easiest teenager.  I was stubborn, fiercely independent and ridiculously tenacious.  I thought I knew everything. I thought I didn’t need anyone to watch out for me.  And even though my parents were aware I didn’t want anyone watching out for me, every night I went out I would come […]

One Person Can Change Your Life Forever

21 years ago today I lay in a hospital room giving birth to a 9 pound 7 ounce beautiful baby boy.  It was my very first child. I was only 21 years myself when I gave birth that day, and now today, 21 years later, it is my son’s 21st birthday.  Crazy. I remember the […]

“Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair”

One of the most valuable assets we can have in life is to be trustworthy.  It is worth gold whether in business or friendships or family.  When you can trust a person it creates a bond of loyalty that runs deep.  And when someone can trust you it gives you that same bond of loyalty […]

Some Days I Forget

So much to do, and not nearly enough hours in the day to do it. I get so frustrated when I work my guts out all day only to come to the end of the day feeling like I have barely scratched the surface of what I needed to get done.  When that happens day […]

“Ahhhh, now I get it”

Do you ever have those moments when life’s deepest lessons suddenly click and you say to yourself “Ahhhh, now I get it!”    The older I get the more I seem to have those “Ahhhh…” moments where things I have struggled for years to understand suddenly become completely clear and I think to myself “Dang I […]

Operation Underground Railroad

“It’s the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” – Mother Teresa This weekend I was invited to an event and at the event the speaker shared his story that was a sharp reminder to me that we should never forget that there are so […]

There’s Nothing A Little Ice Cream Can’t Cure

Growing up at my house, the love of ice cream was an inherited trait.  The entire Rees family, from my father to his father to his father’s father and so on, the love of ice cream was passed from one generation to the next.  The fact was that if you didn’t love ice cream then […]

Make The Best Of The Way Things Turn Out

As I sit here at the hospital tonight, following my daughters second ACL surgery that took place earlier today, I am trying to reflect on what lessons I have learned in my life today so I can share those thoughts with all of you.  It’s funny how just sitting around in a hospital waiting room […]

To Have a Mom and To Be a Mom or To Play a Mom

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers, future mothers, grandmothers, mothers-in-law, nannies who play second mother, mothers who don’t or can’t have children of their own but who love children and provide mothering in one way or another, and single fathers who have to play the role of mother and father – so basically […]