I love how true this is. God is not impressed with your abundance or lack there of wealth. He is much more concerned with your heart. 1 Chronicles 28:9 “…for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts.” I’d much rather share the little I have with others than hoard a huge pile of wealth from others. What about you? Give generously and you will be blessed! 
By far one of my favorites quotes to live by, “All I want to be is whoever God wants me to be.”
How true is this? No one grows in their comfort zone.
What is it about a child’s birthday party that can cause so much motherhood turmoil? Forget about all the stress over color schemes, themes, balloons, food, to make a cake or just provide cupcakes, frosting colors, candles, games, to give out goodie bags or not, and the worst part of all – the guest list. Serious drama and stress flows out of birthday party planning for me.
Let’s back up a few steps…something you should know about me and my amazing mom. When I was a kid, my birthday parties were something I looked forward to ALL year long. My mom would make birthdays super special and over the top! Plus, she would come up with these amazing themes that she would manage to do on a very tight budget and she always had time to hand make our cakes. I remember some amazing cakes…there was once an adorable Strawberry Shortcake cake that was a thing of fine art (that cake in the picture is my ACTUAL cake my mom made me when I was 3)! I also remember the Barbie skirt cake, you know the one, where you stick Barbie on the top of a cake that looks like her skirt. My mom was doing this 30 years ago, long before this idea was all over Pinterest! She made birthdays a monumental event that made me feel like the most special kid in the whole world – even if not a soul showed up to it!
Fast forward 30 years later and my mom has successfully passed the birthday party baton to me. I LOVE planning their parties, I love making a HUGE mess at them, I love seeing the excitement on their faces when their friends come over and truly enjoy their wacky mom. I love personally hand-making their invitations, and spending hours and hours researching ideas of fun things to do during their parties. I start planning their parties right after Christmas – 6 months in advance, and I’m not kidding one bit – this gives me 6 months to fine tune the chaos and find the best deals on all the supplies. Plus, it takes us a very long time to pick out the cake design – and I’m the luckiest mom in the world because my mom still creates amazing cakes for their parties each year (plus, sometimes I even get to help – but my mom is the true artist for all things cake – I’m better with paper).
As you can see, I’m pretty psychotic about birthdays and I’m learning this year that I care about them so much more than my kids do. While I’m glad to learn this lesson – talk about huge reality check – it’s still really sad at the same time. And it should come as no surprise that I care more about who all can come to their parties than they do. Which is sooooo silly!!!
More experienced moms tell me, “You will hurt so much more than your kids hurt, when they are hurting” – it’s silly, but it’s so true. Classic example – remember that one time when you were younger and all the other kids got picked for the game of dodgeball and you were the last one chosen? Ouch. Or that time you were hoping the really cute boy would ask you to Prom – but he asked your best friend instead? Or that time you didn’t get invited to that one birthday party that all your other friends got invited to? (I was there – more times than I would like to admit – break out the Double Stuffed Oreos right now).
I’ve honestly not experienced this whole idea of ‘hurting more than my kids are hurting’ very much yet. My kids are not that old yet – and my oldest is a boy – he just doesn’t have much drama yet – or maybe he just doesn’t get involved in it, but it’s happened a lot more than I would like lately with my 1st grade daughter. School is hard for girls and the drama starts at a young age. She has had a rough year, she tries to act brave when she’s not included with her friends, but I’ve seen the tears that she wipes away when no one is looking, and it totally kills me!
I’m learning that I really do hurt so much more than they do, which makes me feel like a total wimpy mom. If my daughter can absently brush off not being invited to a birthday party, why can’t I brush off the fact that she was not invited? I mean seriously, who is the adult here? This is my time to admit just how human I am. I’m still that kid who didn’t get invited to the “cool girls’” birthday party because I wasn’t stick thin and didn’t have long hair. My mom likes to tell me that I was “too cool” for all those girls, but it still hurts when you are left out – and it still hurts you as a mom when your child is left out, not picked, bullied, etc. I personally think it hurts us as moms so much because it feels like they are not picking us – even though it really has nothing to do with us!
You would think that as a grown woman I would have this figured out and would know not to take things so personally – especially when it’s usually out of no spite at all that our child was not chosen. It’s just life. Plain and simple.
My mom gave me some great advice and thoughts to ponder when you find yourself in this situation – because I’m sure if you are not in this situation yet, you will be soon!
Isn’t my mom amazing?! Now I need to let her advice and words sink in.
Hugs momma! Praying for you all!
It’s a snowy April day in Colorado and I’m annoyed. Super annoyed. I don’t like snow, but I really don’t like snow in April – and we are just days from May. I want to be outside doing fun things with my kids, not inside FREEZING and wishing we were outside. Oh well. On top of it, my daughter is home sick from school, she’s not feeling terrible, but bad enough to need a day of “rest” which she really didn’t do at all today. Probably my fault, I’ve never really known how to slow down, let alone sit still – there is always something I should be doing – right?!
Guess what we did on this day of cold, sick, snowy rest? We made homemade melted bead sun catchers! Super fun, but probably the most stinky craft I have ever done – EVER. Could be that it’s sooo cold out, and I can’t have every door and window open to push out the smell, but still, it’s a stinky craft. I’m not looking forward to the look that I’m sure to get of pure disgust from my husband when he gets home today. I’m positive he will hold his nose and ask me just what the terrible smell as soon as he walks through the door. The even worst part is that I have cracked a lot of the windows just a little bit, the oven vent is blowing on super high, I have sprayed every can of Glade smelly stuff I have through the house, and I’ve lit every candle in my hous. Now it smells like burning plastic mixed with lemon pound cake, pear berry, and island tropics! It’s cold and very fragrant in my house right now (my dog is soo cold from the windows open that she is laying directly on the heating vent in the floor)! It makes me laugh just describing it! 
Anyways, we had a great time making this craft - Melted Bead Sun Catchers - that I found on Pinterest from The Artful Parent. My kids really enjoyed the time together arranging the beads and making cool designs. It’s crazy how their different personalities come into play – my 10 year old just wants to get them done as fast as he can, my middle daughter very carefully and slowly picks out her colors and arranges her designs, while my youngest just wanted every single bead that the older two “oohed” and “ahhhed” about. Hilarious! This craft took us about 30 minutes and the cooking time was close to 25 minutes. I’m still venting out the house over an hour later and the smell is just lingering. I’m wondering if some of the beads we used are causing the terrible smell. We had these very little pink beads that did not melt at all – they just changed to a burnt color – for all I know they very well could be the main cause of the terrible smell in my house. Sounds like The Artful Parent had good luck with the smell not being too bad. Besides the smell, this was a lot of fun!
Give them a try when you have a chance (maybe on a warmer day when you can open all the windows to air out the house in case you have a problem with the smell)!
Here’s to being a fun mom that crafts with her kids! Hugs to you all!
Are you worn out and exhausted and wondering why in the world you keep trying to make money with your side gig when it’s the millionth time that you have hosted a home meeting, brewed the coffee, baked the cookies, spent hours practicing your presentation, prepared handouts, creatively displayed your products, sent out tons of invites, received a long list of RSVP’s, only to have your phone ring over and over with cancellations 10 minutes before the meeting, and then no one shows up at all?
Or here, let me set a different scene – have you spent hours and hours waking up super early each morning to work on your blog – day after day – you are writing for hours and hours and usually that is between a child or two that decide to get up early too? You write, photograph, design beautiful “pin-worthy” images for every blog post, create catchy slogans, read every book by the famous bloggers who have made it, go to blog conventions, rub shoulders with celebrity bloggers, all to have your latest blog giveaway of a free lunch only have 3 people comments (and it’s a FREE lunch people…free…and you still can’t even get people to enter).
Both of these scenarios are in addition to everything else that is added on top of your regular daily jobs as a mom of cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, soccer practice, grocery shopping, school carpool, etc. – and somehow you are also trying to carve out time to be an entrepreneur and be successful because you have lofty dreams of one day being one of the celebrity bloggers you read devotedly each day, or one of the top level earners who just got a new car!
I’ve been there. I’m there now. I’ve been on the upside and have looked down and I’ve been at the very bottom. It’s all hard. There are pluses and minuses to both sides. But I think the biggest thing to remember in all of it is your attitude and how you look at your present circumstances. These are my top 5 tips on how I stay motivated to keep working towards my dreams:
And finally, moms, give yourself some grace. If you don’t get it all done in one day, that’s ok. Like they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Give yourself grace, go to bed, and get up and try again. Just don’t ever stop trying!
We can do this together – plus I’m praying for you and would love you to pray for me too! Please feel free to send me an email with how I can be praying for you and your side gig! If you want to pray for me, please pray that God would direct my side gigs to be whatever He wants them to be and that I would humbly follow His direction. Hugs momma!
I’ve been on a health journey for years now. I feel like as soon as I turned 30 my body has fallen apart. I’ve been working very hard at figuring out what is the new normal for me and repairing the damage that was done. In this process I’ve learned so much about how my body actually functions, and the best things to put in it – foods, supplements, etc. (If you are interested in the supplement I recommend read this post that I wrote about it.)
Every morning I wake up with the very best intentions of eating right the entire day, because I have really seen the effects of what food does to my overall energy levels (I wrote several blog posts a year ago all about my Health Quest journey that you can read about here), but, let’s be honest, some days I just don’t do that well. One of my errands might take a lot longer than I expected, or I forget that we have soccer pictures after practice and all a sudden I’m left in a pinch and having to pick up fast food. It’s nice when there is a place you can go that has very fresh and healthy options not only for adults, but for kids as well – hello MAD Greens! I love this place – the entire restaurant is full of amazingly healthy, fresh food that your whole family will love!
Everything MAD Greens prepares, from salad dressings to bread, is made in-house from scratch with the freshest ingredients, and you can taste it! MAD Greens serves salads, wraps, soups, paninis, and juice combinations, and their salads are very interesting to say the least! I’ve tried several and love their Ty Cobb salad the most – full of flavorful crisp ingredients and I’m very partial to their hand-crafted Ranch dressing. So yummy! I like any excuse to go to MAD Greens and with their new location in Castle Rock, CO, its very close to me!
Last weekend I took the whole family to the Castle Rock, Colorado location of MAD Greens to enjoy dinner and it was excellent! I have three kids and my two oldest were 
very excited to eat salad – and I’m not kidding! They love salad and one of the choices on the kid’s menu is a mini salad, where they got to pick their own salad ingredients and they were very happy about this! They each made a unique salad and once they picked their hand-crafted salad dressing they were set. I love seeing my kids enjoy healthy food! My youngest son chose to have mac n’ cheese and was very pleased about this – I’m still working on him – he’s not a big fan of ‘green stuff’ yet. :) The kid’s meals also come with a homemade cookie, and drink. Of course, my youngest said the cookie (which was gigantic) was the best part. My daughter said her favorite thing was the salad and the feta cheese and my oldest son really liked the homemade balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing. To each their own, right?
Honestly, I’m just really happy that my kids are willing to try new things, especially very healthy things, and that they like them. Now if we can only get my youngest son to enjoy the ‘green stuff’ as much as his siblings…he’s a work in progress! My husband, got a wrap and loved picking out each individual ingredient that went inside it. He said it was delicious, and he also decided to try their Strawberry Cooler Juice, which was really refreshing – in fact, we all tasted it. I think my youngest could have had the whole thing if we would have let him!
We enjoyed our experience and would highly recommend trying MAD Greens! Besides being a genuinely healthy option for your whole family, I love knowing that MAD Greens is committed to their food and the communities they are located in by using produce from local farmers, and they strive to use organic ingredients whenever possible. For me, I find that very exciting knowing that the meal I’m about to eat is from the farm down the road! Plus, I live in community that has a small-town feel, and we all love to support our community by shopping local – what could be better than enjoying a fresh meal of superb healthy ingredients that came from my neighbor? I just love it 
and am so impressed by this business model.
Check out MAD Greens and go enjoy a healthy salad! Currently they have locations in Colorado, Arizona and Texas.
Just for Katrina’s World readers, I’m giving away TWO $25 gift cards to TWO lucky readers to enjoy a meal at MAD Greens. All you need to do is THREE SIMPLE THINGS:
Winner will be picked randomly on April 15th and notified via email. Winner must supply their address for shipment. Thank you to MAD Greens for sponsoring this giveaway. Visit MAD Greens on their Facebook page - or on Twitter or Instagram.
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy your meal as much as we did! I can’t wait to go back!
Ever wonder what IBOTTA is all about? Have you heard people talking about how great it is? Have you read bloggers who have written about IBOTTA being their favorite coupon app? Well, you have come to the right place and I’m just one more blogger who absolutely LOVES IBOTTA and would love to tell you why you should use it too (I guess that’s also my way of saying to stop reading right now if you don’t want a super-easy way to save money on the groceries that you already buy).
IBOTTA is a very easy-to-use coupon app for your smartphone. Available for both Android and Apple devices and is free to download. If you join IBOTTA via a friend referral code you will instantly earn $10 after you redeem your first rebate. You can sign up now via my referral code – SIGN UP NOW so you don’t miss out on that extra $10! The great part signing up via a friend is that your friend also earns a $5 reward for signing you up! It’s a win-win! After you have joined IBOTTA you can start referring your own friends and you will make $5 for every friend you refer that signs up via your own personal link and redeems at least one rebate, plus they also earn that $10 reward as well! Can you see why I think IBOTTA is awesome?!
Don’t wait, go ahead right now and get signed up – SIGN UP NOW, and then once you have the app installed on your phone, continue reading. I’ll wait, seriously, go ahead. SIGN UP NOW
Now that you have the IBOTTA app installed, let me give a quick overview of some the great things IBOTTA can do and how you can save
the most money:
IBOTTA and paper coupons to purchase the same item! For a lot of things that you mean you can get them for free with the double savings.Now do you see why I love IBOTTA?! If you still haven’t downloaded the app, do it now, SIGN UP NOW and start saving and making money today!
Some links in this post are affiliate links, thanks for using them – while they help you save money, they also support me and my blog.
I’m a big planner – I like to start planning for my kids’ birthday parties about 4-5 months in advance. I do this because I’m a tad bit neurotic, but I also do this to save money. When you plan in advance, you are able to start thinking about what you’ll need and can pick those items up whenever you see them on sale, instead of having to buy them the week of the party at a more expensive price. You can always save more money when you have more time to shop around. To save money you need to be consistently patient as you look and wait for deals. My two oldest kids have birthdays 2 weeks apart, so I tend to plan way in advance because I have to do two parties near the same time. While researching ideas, I’ve gathered my top 7 unique, easy, and frugal birthday party ideas for girls. My daughter’s birthday comes first and she is turning 7 this year, and after gathering all these great ideas from other amazing moms, we have picked the theme for her party that I’ll tell you all about in the next few months!
Top 7 Unique, Easy, and Budget-Friendly Birthday Party Ideas for Girls
So many great ideas by some amazing bloggers! I hope you all enjoy this list as much as I do and that it gives you lots of great ideas for the next birthday party you host. Sometimes the best ideas are the simple ones! Enjoy!
Don’t forget to shop early, use your coupons and pay attention to all the great extra savings you can achieve using my favorite coupon app – IBOTTA - when you are buying items you need for your party. The great thing about signing up with IBOTTA is that you will automatically earn a $10 rebate after you redeem your first offer! It’s a quick way to not only save money, but make money!
If you plan to purchase anything online such 
as party decor, make sure you use eBates to earn extra cash back on everything you purchase! eBates is a great site that you will want to check out and start using anytime you shop online – it’s very simple, you just use the eBates site to earn additional cash back on your online purchases. You can shop at major retailers like Walmart and Target and earn an additional percentage back on your total purchase! When you refer your friends to eBates they pay you $25 for each referral! It’s another great way to save and make money!
All photos and content are copyrighted and from the original blogs on which they reside.
Some links in this post are affiliate links, thanks for using them – while they help you save monney, they also support me and my blog.
Share this post:
I’m an overwhelmed mom. Each day is a little bit crazier than the one before. I’m busy, tired, and trying way too hard. Some days are amazing, I get a lot of things done; I make dinner from scratch and have time to play with the kids, finish all the laundry, and work on my business. The best days are when my youngest son takes a long afternoon nap allowing me lots of uninterrupted time to work on my business. Those days are very rare, but when they happen, I feel like I won an “Super-Mommy” award for all the different hats I wore that day.
On all the other days, when life is just normal, and I don’t get the laundry done, and my son gets up too early (even though I got up really early to get stuff done without him) just to hang out with me. The days when I don’t find more than about 20 minutes to get any work done on my business before I’m fast asleep at night – those are the days when I feel so totally disappointed and wonder what in the world I’m doing and why am I’m trying so hard?
I have a drive to be more than just average. I want to leave my mark on the world. I’d like to be known for something. I want to help people better their lives. But, I also realized something yesterday – more than anything, I just want to be
whoever God wants me to be. For me, it’s as simple as that, even if it’s just average. Daily, I’m on a journey to understand just what exactly it is that God wants me to be. I know that focus is wrong when I get caught up in feeling sorry for myself that I’ve failed for the day as a mom because I yelled at my kids too much, or because I didn’t get all the laundry done.
When I start comparing myself to other bloggers who have a much bigger following and get a lot more blog comments than I do, or when I compare my short stubby legs to the mom at school who looks amazing and she just had a baby, that’s when I know I’m not not focusing on the right thing. When I get really frustrated about work I have to remind myself that God is in control and He knows exactly where I am on my journey. He reminds me not to compare my beginning to someone else’s middle.
When you feel average, but want to be more, look to God. Tell Him all about it, then take some time to pray. Ask Him to guide and direct every step of your day, and to be content with what He gives you that day. I’m asking Him to change my perspective to see everything inside my day as a way to honor Him. Also, to be thankful for exactly where He has me on my journey – even if I’d much rather be farther down the road. The final thing that I’m asking Him is to change my thinking to be content with whatever He wants me to do – that day, that week, that year – trusting that He has it all planned out and even if I never really do anything I think is awesome, amazing, or important with my life, as long as it’s what He wants me to do, then that’s all that really matters.
Jeremiah 29:11-13 “I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen. When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.”
I love knowing that God has it all planned out and I don’t need to stress about anything. I don’t have to worry about the big things in life, like if my business will be successful, or the little things in life, like how will I get my youngest son to listen the first time I ask him to do something. When you call on God, He does listen. When you really take the time to seek Him, He will be right there. Then, you can take a deep breath and rest in knowing you are exactly where He wants you to be.
What do you stress about?
Hugs!
Share this post:
Copyright © 2024 Katrina's World. All Rights Reserved.
Designed by