Kimber's Five

One problem us moms have is running on empty. It happens to all of us. It's really hard to put into words when this happens and it isn't always clear why it happens. But it does happen. It comes around and when we hit empty, we can get stuck there for an hour, an afternoon, a couple days, a week, a month, a season... And just as mysteriously as it came upon us, it ebbs and flows away until it slowly dawns on us that it isn't so hard anymore. What does it mean to be running on empty? When I find myself running on empty, it feels like the little tasks become much harder. I find myself easily frustrated with the kids. The same routines day in and day out start feeling like heavy weights on my shoulders and I feel trapped by the monotony and the needs and the drudgery. It feels like, the baby gets sick, I get her down to nap, the toddler wakes her up, my older 3 boys start fighting, there is a stinky diaper to change, it is time to start dinner, it is time to clean the kitc...

A thought that keeps bouncing around in my mind lately is how to accept my present circumstances. I feel like I'm chaffing under the yoke of being a military spouse. There are so many aspects of this life that, after 11 years, I am very tired of dealing with. 1. I'm tired of trying to make friends. 2. I'm very tired of meeting great friends just as I'm getting ready to PCS or when they are about to PCS or when they are about to deploy. I want my friendships to last and line up. 3. I'm tired of feeling like my life is on hold. 4. I'm tired of people telling me my life is not on hold and that I just need to make the most of it. 5. I'm tired of having the mentality that I'm only going to live somewhere for 3 years, max, and so when I start reaching the end of that time, I start passing up opportunities or letting my roots grow any deeper because I know I'm about to move from there again. 6. I'm tired of bumping into people that want to...

I follow a lot of mommy blogs, mommy Instagrams, and mommy Facebook pages. I love getting tips on big family travel, mommy fashion, easy recipes, activities for busy families. I love blogs on home décor, especially if it is ran by a mom who can marry function with fashion. I love photography blogs that talk about techniques or who capture the every day in a simplistic and beautiful way-- a different way to look at things that I see day in and day out. A common theme that I see creeping up more and more is accusations of "Facebooking"-- only showing the good, the fake and staged moments, the ideal that even the moms behind the blogs don't live. "Instead of a beautiful, clean room, why don't you show what it looks like after your kids have been playing in it for an afternoon?" "Instead of all the staged photos of your kids, why don't you show what a day with them is really like?" "Why are all these ads on here? This isn't even y...

In my 11 years of marriage, we have moved 5 times and we are a few short months away from moving for a 6th time. The longest we have lived somewhere is just shy of 3 years. Our family has grown from just me and my husband to what we have now-- 5 children, a dog, and a cat. As a woman, a military spouse, and a mother, making friends has been difficult. There are a lot of obstacles to overcome when it comes to making friends. In my years of trying to connect at my husband's duty stations, I have felt that this particular hardship of the military lifestyle is treated as a women's issue.  I say this because the spouse groups are set up to support the female, stay-at-home spouses. The meetings are held during a weekday morning, often include some sort of childcare, and generally are held with coffee and a craft. The spouse groups attached to commands will also do things like bake for the command during weeks with long hours or host Ladies' Nights Out. As our family ...

I have struggled with my role as a military spouse, now more than ever. For a long time I felt like there was something I just "didn't get." It felt like a lot of the seasoned spouses I knew were comfortable in their roles and maybe even enjoyed some of the challenges of being a military spouse. I felt like I needed to hang on, dig deep, and that it would come together and I would figure it out. Tour after tour happened and my life shifted in various ways. I pushed my dreams off for another duty station and yet another, when the time would be "right." I focused on my family because, as a military spouse, we move from duty station to duty station where we do not have a built in support network. Even if we build those support networks at a duty station, there is still a period in time where we have to hustle and line it all up. Doctors, dentists, childcare, schools, preschools, playdates, friend circles, mommy meet-ups, on and on. There is not a line of people w...

"[Women] are taught from their infancy upwards that it is a wrong, ill-tempered, and a misunderstanding of 'woman's mission' (with a great M) if they do not allow themselves willingly to be interrupted at all hours." -Florence Nightingale, from Cassandra In my 11 years of being a stay-at-home spouse, I have received no awards or respect for my job. That's usually when people laugh at me-- when I say job. "Your job ? You stay home all day. With kids. " People have said that to my face. And they mean it. From a young age, I wanted a big family. I mean, a lot of kids. I honestly wanted 10 kids. I still want 10 kids, but I lost my uterus after birthing baby #5 so we are not having anymore. I know there are other ways to have children and we haven't ruled them out, but my body is officially out of commission. I also knew that I wanted to have my kids young. I wanted to start having a big family when I was young-- a newlywed. Not just to g...

Feeding our 5 children Feeding our big family requires planning. We have 5 children: 9 years old, 6 year old twins, a 3 year old, and a 1 year old. I tried meal planning, but our schedule is constantly changing. If the baby doesn't nap and the toddlers get sick and our elementary kids come home with too much homework, how do I commit to a meal I planned 3 days before? I found that I would grocery shop for meals that didn't get made, which meant ingredients I had to re-purpose, which meant waste, because the ingredients would go bad before I used them. Well-stocked pantry and a Costco run every 2 weeks   Because I am a woman in America, I of course have a not-so-small girl crush on Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman. One of her concepts is having a well-stocked pantry. I will leave Ree Drummond to talk about what that means, so check out her post: "Stocking Up." With a well-stocked pantry, I have a lot of flexibility to make easy, on the fly meals for our...