The holiday season is already beautiful, but add in birth and babies, and you reach a whole new level.

I have an 8 year old daughter, and 6, 4 and 1.5 year old sons, and another daughter who is still being snuggled all day. We homeschool and I am a write-from-home mom. I have enough toys to populate the planet.  We have recently gone through and donated more than 3/4 of said items in hopes to tone down the madness.  The process wasn’t easy, but I came up with a great method. I laid out several toys at a time and allowed each child to pick three that stayed; the rest were gone.  It was interesting to watch their thought process.  They would discuss with one another about what items would be played with in what ways.  They would beg to keep other pieces, and I won’t lie, I caved on a few – but only if they presented a strong argument.  In the end, everyone was happy.

Birthdays come and go, but certain ones become landmarks along the way. There's huge reason to celebrate, as My Baby's Heartbeat Bear founder Purusha Rivera turns forty years old!

The Smithsonian Magazine recently published an article focusing on the history of the first at-home pregnancy test. After reading said article, I realized that in the past 9 years, I have taken hundreds of tests, but yet I never once questioned the origin of them. And I question everything. (Understatement of the year.)

Social media is full of pregnancy announcements - and the more creative the better. It is such an exciting thing to share with the world, but few of us realize that by sharing the big news, there are others out there struggling to see that announcement. Infertility is more common that we realize, and many couples struggle with trying to conceive for years without luck. While it is heartbreaking, many couples work together to find peace and can still be happy for growing families around them. One such couple is taking the internet by storm right now.

Holy hell; what just blew through? The toddler tantrums from I don’t know where… Oh, Hello Tuesday-After-The-Long-Holiday-Weekend. You greet us with all of your reality and glory, expecting us to jump back into the swing of life as if we didn’t just indulge in the excuses of holidays to forgo real life for three days. Not only did we indulge in it all, but we stupidly allowed the children to follow suite. What’s a few scoops of rainbow colored ice-cream? Sure, you can have that sixth cookie. Bedtime? That doesn’t exist on holiday weekends.