Tag Archives: busy family

How to Have Real Food for Dinner on Crazy Busy Weeknights

Posted on by August 15, 2017 1
How to have REAL FOOD on the table for dinner on those CRAZY busy weeknights! via Walking in High Cotton Real food for the family in 30 minutes, without a crock pot. A weekly system with a little bit of prep and a lot of simplicity. 

We have been in the midst of a very busy season around here. The kiddos have a summer full of family visits, sports practice, and fun camp experiences, against a background of our two full-time jobs and managing the homestead. I’d love to be able to say that eating a healthy dinner in the midst of all that running around is our number one priority, but can I be honest for a moment? Our #1 family wellness goal in this season has become just not eating fast food every night! … Continue Reading…

Easy DIY Luggage Tags

Posted on by July 26, 2017 7
Easy DIY Luggage Tags from chipboard and scrapbook paper via Walking in High Cotton

As I wrote last week with our Summer Camp Packing lists (did you download your FREE copy?) our kiddos have been adventuring away from home a lot this summer. They visited my sister, my mother-in-law, and now church camp. This is Speedracer’s first year at church camp and we’ve developed several little rites of passage for the first year. One is that they get their first toiletry bag (or shaving kit bag for the boys) and one is that they get their personalized luggage tags. This is an easy and … Continue Reading…

How to Pack for Overnight Summer Camp (with FREE Checklists!)

Posted on by July 26, 2017  
Packing tips for Summer Camp with 8-12 year old. One-two week overnight camp and church camp. Make it easy for the kids to help with the packing! via Walking in High Cotton

Well, it’s summer camp time again! The time when I buy new socks and boxes of Ziploc bags and start the sorting and organizing for the kiddos to head out to church camp for a week. Do your munchkins go to overnight camp? Our kiddos head off for a week each summer with their church group. Sometimes the different age groups go at different times, but this year all 3 of our farm kids are heading off together–that’s a new stage for us! {smile} Our first year I did a … Continue Reading…

Great Football Movies for the Family

Posted on by June 28, 2017 12
Great football movies for the family...inspiration and motivation for kids. via Walking in High Cotton

Well, we registered the boys for football this Fall. Practice doesn’t start until August, but we’ve started accumulating their gear. And they are so excited that they’ve started wearing it around the house and to do their chores, especially walking the dogs. You know, just to get used to it. {smile} Speedracer is particularly excited about it and has been filling all his extra summer minutes with football movies–which then inspire him to throw his gear on and run around the backyard like a gridiron superstar. When it comes to sports … Continue Reading…

How to Make a Great Outdoor Space for Summer Family Time

Posted on by June 21, 2017 2
How to Make a Great Outdoor Space for Summer Family Time. Simple and budget friendly tips. via Walking in High Cotton

I’ve written before about how hard it can be to leave the farm for a vacation in the summer time. So we staycation a lot. And honestly, that’s probably more liberal than it deserves. We “staycation” a lot in the summer. On Friday and Saturday evenings. On our own back porch. After working all day. {smile} We’re blessed that the farm provides everything one could need to get a little rest and relaxation without having to go anywhere at all! It can truly feel like a “family vacation” with very little … Continue Reading…

How to Find and Use a Farm Sitter to Enjoy Vacation as a Homesteader

Posted on by June 2, 2017 8
How to Find and Use a Farm Sitter to Enjoy Vacation as a Homesteader... via Walking in High Cotton

We don’t go on vacation much. Hardly ever, really. And our version of a vacation is usually just a 3-day weekend visiting family. Between all the packing for five people; all the prep (and cost!) to leave the animals in someone else’s hands; all the stress of getting there and getting home–and worrying about everything while you’re gone!–then all the unpacking, washing, cleaning, and catching up when you do get home…blah! There’s nothing relaxing about it! Besides–we like being at home! But we also like our family. And we like adventuring … Continue Reading…

Farm Life Makes Vacations Hard

Posted on by May 30, 2017 2
family lake vacation

We just got back from a short family vacation over the 3-day weekend and I’m reminded why we don’t all go anywhere overnight very often! {smile} The farm is hard to leave. And the work is hard to come back to! We spent some refreshing time with family at the lake and the crew got to do all-things-water-sports for a couple days. Kayaking, canoeing, boating, some fishing, swimming, even paddle boarding. They got to stay up late and sleep in (a little bit!) and not have to do any chores. … Continue Reading…

Letting the Work Provide the Rewards

Posted on by June 2, 2017 6
Natural Consequences AND Natural Rewards for Self-Motivated Children via Walking in High Cotton

It’s no secret that our farm kids do a lot of work and chores around here. They are preparing to manage their own family and property one day and hands-on practice is the best teaching tool I know of. Our goal is to send self-motivated, diligent, hard-workers out into the world. But it’s easy to get into the daily grind and start to feel like all you do it work, work, sweat, and work, and then you start to lose motivation. I know–I feel it too sometimes! Much like our preferred … Continue Reading…

8 Tips for Carefree Flower Beds for Busy Moms

Posted on by April 21, 2017 22
8 tips for carefree flower beds for busy moms--add color without the work. via Walking in High Cotton

I love having beautiful flowers blooming all around the house in the spring and summer, but I’m no green thumb! And a lot of the DIY garden articles I love to read and google do not have the same definition of “low maintenance” or “easy-care” that I do! I don’t even bother with indoor plants anymore and I have a long history of killing outdoor plants by neglect. I just get too busy for all the weeding, trimming, deadheading, watering, splitting and replanting. Besides, our vegetable garden takes up most of … Continue Reading…

BeanBoozled Challenge…Activities for a Busy Family

Posted on by March 18, 2017  
The Jelly Belly BeanBoozled Challenge...Activities for Busy Families {at Walking in High Cotton} plus Coupon Codes!

As I mentioned before Christmas, we’re always busy (like everyone else in the world!) but we’re also always on the hunt for family time activities to break out of the chores, work, school, chores, work school routine. When looking for fun activities, we’re usually on the hunt for something for all ages, with simple set up and clean up–or simple set up and no cleanup, like our puzzle activities! So while Christmas shopping with Mr. Fix-It, he grabbed a couple boxes of Jelly Belly BeanBoozled for the crew’s stockings. When … Continue Reading…

Building Puzzles…Activities for Busy Families

Posted on by April 28, 2017  
Building Puzzles...Activities for Busy Families {via Walking in High Cotton}

We stay pretty busy around here. Especially during the school year. Between school, work, the farm, church, and just trying to bathe, eat, and sleep, we don’t find much relax and hang out time. So we work pretty hard to make sure that we set aside some special “family time” activities to do together at home. This usually involves a lot of compromises. Maybe the house is a mess but we ignore it. Or we let everyone eat dinner in the living room so at least we’re still eating together … Continue Reading…

A Day Together on the Eastern Shore

Posted on by March 18, 2017 2

Our family and home life has been pretty stressful lately. Just a lot of responsibilities…and a lot of duct tape and wire nuts. Turns out when you buy a brand new house–with all brand new appliances–eventually they’re all not brand new anymore. It also turns out that the lifespan of most major appliances is about the same. Which means all our brand new appliances from when we moved in are now all on their last leg. All. Of. Them. Bless his heart, poor Mr. Fix-It is resuscitating our HVAC on a … Continue Reading…

Building, Rebuilding, and Getting Dirty…the Daily Farm Adventures {109}

Posted on by May 11, 2017  

Thank goodness after a long round of antibiotics and other meds Mr. Fix-It and I are feeling better. Not great. Not quite back to normal. But definitely better. Because Spring is in full swing around here and there’s just no time to be laying around in bed! The Dodge has been in pieces in the garage for weeks now and that situation had to be corrected. First we had to take it apart to figure out what was broken. Then we had to find and order the parts–from Montana of … Continue Reading…

College Football…in the Rain

Posted on by March 9, 2017  

This past weekend we packed up the kiddos…and a change of clothes…and my Father-in-Law…and headed down to North Carolina to watch our Hokies play my Sister-in-Law’s Pirates. Mr. Fix-It and I are both Tech Alumni (his Dad too!), but life hasn’t involved much time or energy for college football in the early years of the farm and family. But my SIL is a dedicated fan for her team and has been trying to get us to one of the games, since we play each other now, for the last couple … Continue Reading…

We Had a Birthday!

Posted on by March 9, 2017  

Mr. Fix-It doesn’t get off work very often. It’s the nature of working for a family-owned small business. The benefits are not the same as what I take for granted. He doesn’t have much paid leave, and what he does have, he tries to save for holidays or traveling to see family. So when I decided to take the first couple days of summer break off with the kiddos earlier this week, I was tickled that he up and decided to schedule a day off to spend with us. And … Continue Reading…