Mentoring for Moms on Mom Topics is Now Available!
I am a mom of seven who has lots of experience with breastfeeding, getting baby to sleep, homeschooling time management, fixing whole foods dinners from scratch, using natural remedies and homeschooling. I am excited to share with you ideas and answer your questions and concerns and help you get to the root problem of your obstacles. Here are the mentoring packages available!
Each of the following packages costs $45 for a half hour session over the phone. Mentoring includes homework involving classics (books, movies, articles) and perhaps writing assignments. Payment means that you the participant have some investment and commitment. Follow-up sessions if you have more questions and concerns are $30 each for 30 more minutes.
Finding Joy in Marriage Learn how to find joy in marriage despite the challenges.
Enjoying Breastfeeding Learn the tips and tricks to make breastfeeding an enjoyable love affair with your baby!
Ecological Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing Learn how to ditch artificial birth control and use the natural birth control God designed with no side effects, and no more trips to the doctor or pharmacy.
Change to a Healthy Diet and Cook from Scratch Most chronic illnesses of today come from eating processed food. You as a mom can greatly improve your and your family’s health by what we bring home for the cupboards and fridge and what you bring to the dinner table. Learn to cook wholesome, yummy food from scratch that will bring everyone running to the table after delicious aromas waft through the whole house! The kids will be shoveling the food in while they thank you in between bites!
Dr. Mom Do you feel like your kids are always sick? Learn what diet and home remedies you can use to reduce your trips to the doctor. You will feel a lot more empowered knowing you don’t have to go to the doctor for every health problem.
Start Homeschooling You can homeschool! It is not rocket science! I have homeschooled all of my seven children from the beginning. My oldest just finished his first year of college on scholarship. Learn from my mistakes how to make homeschooling less challenging, more fun, and inspiring.
Overcome Homeschooling Burnout I know what it’s like to feel burned out by the trials and challenges of homeschooling. I have some great ideas to help you infuse your vision with newness and rejuvenation and fun so that you look forward to Mondays and every morning!
Time Management for Moms: Learn how to get the chores done, homeschooling done, family time, worship time, and time for your own passions and projects.
What’s for Dinner? Do you struggle getting dinner on the table that’s not take-out or from a can or box? Would you like help in planning menus and being held accountable to give more to your family then convenience or fast food?
Body Language for Moms: Would you like to learn how to read the body language of your husband, friends, and kids? Do you want to learn how to improve your body language so that your husband and kids cooperate more? Learn the body language secrets of newborns, babies, toddlers, kids, teens, and adults.
The following mentoring packages meet once a week for 30 minutes over four weeks, for $100 a month.
Getting Baby to Sleep Through the Night You can get your baby to sleep without crying it out! You can wake up feeling rested and refreshed even with a little baby in your home. Learn how I have been able to get lots of sleep through having seven kids.
New Mom Baby Blues: Are you prone to feeling blue when you have a new baby? I have been there! I have four steps to being a happy healthy mom with a new baby!
Teaching Kids to Work: Learn how to get kids to work so that you are all contributing to the peace and order of the home, not just mom.
Break the Sugar Habit: Do you crave sugar? Do you find it hard to have sugary treats in your home without eating the whole batch? Learn how to eliminate those sugar cravings!
On Saturday, September 15th, the Utah’s Freedom Conference will focus on lands, sound money and the role of the Constitutional sheriff. Join us for the most important event of the year for all public lands users! Restoring the lands that rightfully belong to the western states is our highest priority. Protecting Utahns’ property with legal tender and sheriffs who honor their oath of office is key to liberty and prosperity. Join Congressman Rob Bishop, Chief Deputy Attorney General John Swallow, Michael Coffman, Kevin Freeman, Tom Selgas, former Sheriff Richard Mack, and many, well-known state and national
experts for presentations that explain the problems facing America and steps we must take to return our nation to its founding principles. Utah and the western states will lead the way towards restoring the 10th Amendment guarantee of a balance of power between the federal government, the states and the people. Located at the beautiful University of Utah Guest House and Conference Center adjacent to Fort Douglas, seating accommodates 450 plus a youth track for 100, ages 12-18. The historic Post Chapel will be home to displays and presentations on religious freedom in America. Come ring the bell with us as we proclaim liberty and prosperity through sovereignty. Seating is limited and time is short, register now. You can even pay with a silver eagle dollar! See all the details at www.UtahsFreedom.org and we’ll see y’all on September 15th!
– Bert and Kathy Smith
If you want to come and volunteer in exchange for free admission, please comment below and I will send you info on how to do that!
This is me with the ladies who were in my cabin. One mom got away before I got the picture. She was a friend of mine from high school and my hometown ward who I haven’t seen in over 23 years! What a joyful reunion!
We had so much fun at the Moms’ Retreat at the Heber Valley Camp. It was one big slumber party, although I can’t say I ever slumbered. Not because we stayed up talking, but because I was in a new place and also so excited about what had happened earlier that day (see my earlier posts about the ropes course) and what would be coming up the next day.
The cabin moms (leaders for each cabin of 6 to 10 moms, supervised by the board of directors) met Friday morning with the board. We were told we would be doing a “challenge course.” We hiked up to find it and by the time we got there that seemed like enough challenge for me.
If you want to read about the challenge course, go to part 1 here and part 2 is here. I was so thrilled that I did the whole thing (that’s me in the photo!). In our debrief of the course Kim Davis pointed out that the safety equipment and the belayers who made it so we couldn’t fall physically are symbolic to Christ and His atonement. Christ makes it so we can’t fall spiritually. After I got home I found this video by Brad Wilcox that really cemented the whole idea to me. Because of the equipment and the belayers, I could ascend to heights I never could otherwise. I could have found an excuse and not gone up, just like people find excuses not to soar to spiritual heights which are provided because of Christ’s grace. You can watch the Brad Wilcox video here.
Audrey Rindlisbacher led us in the discussion. I really liked that she pointed out that we as leaders might ask moms to do things that are as scary to them as a challenge course was for us. She also mentioned that if you are leading out, doing new things, you are always going to have a little bit of fear. Just acknowledging that there’s going to be fear makes it quite not so hard.
Next the cabin moms and the board had lunch. We then got to have a document study of a verse in the scriptures from Isaiah. Then we each had some time to write down our vision of our roles for the coming event as cabin moms and leaders.
Around 5 PM the moms started arriving. Around 70 I would guess. I was thrilled that a mom sought me out and revealed that she knew from high school! We used to be in the same youth group at church. That was a treat! And she was put in my cabin by Providence!
Then we had dinner with the moms in our cabin. After dinner we got to go to breakout sessions, that were lectures or a simulation. The speakers were Nicholeen Peck, Kelli Poll, Tammi Michaelis, and Roslyn Reynolds. It was hard to pick just two out those!
Then we got to socialize for an hour and then it was time to go to bed! But just meant more socializing for a while in our own cabins as we got ready for bed. I got involved in a conversation in the restroom about what TJED is and isn’t and my co-cabin mom leader had to come find me at midnight. Thanks Heather for being concerned about my safety!
This chipmunk appeared as the cabin moms and the board discussed our ropes course adventure Friday morning.
This is Mindy Heath on the high challenge course.
Kim Davis, Nicholeen Peck, and Roslyn Reynolds are thinking hard here for the low challenge course. This was part of the activities for the cabin moms on Friday morning to prepare us for leadership.
Kate Day invited the Spirit in with her beautiful singing.
The theme was revelation. We were asked to do writing assignments each week for several weeks before the event. These writing assignments really helped me understand revelation better. You can get the assignments at
In the morning those who wanted to went on the sunrise hike starting at 6 AM. We asked the ladies to be quiet up there on the top of the mountain so we could each commune with God. Then it was time to get ready for the day, shower if you wanted to, and have breakfast. We then got to hear the Founder’s Address, from Melanie Ballard, the founder. After that we went to our cabins for a discussion on the writing assignments about revelation. The discussion ended with quiet alone time to reconnect with God and write more, based on a new assignment given at the end of the discussion. We then had lunch. After lunch we got to hear from Scott and Cheri Loveless and then it was time to go home!
Almost the best part is the food! Healthful and not so healthful abounded. I didn’t get a picture of the two snack tables. You could have all the chocolate you wanted. I was really pleased with myself that as far as sugar goes I only had one brownie and two Andes mints the next day and did not overeat, especially on the sugar. This was unlike the last retreat I attended three years ago where I totally overate on the carbs and sugar and felt horrible when I came home. This time I focused on eating meat, veggies, a little grain, and lots of butter and sour cream so that the fat would satisfy me.
Heather, my co-cabin mom and I both love Gerbera daisies! That was the theme of for our decor and nametags.
It is rather hard to hear conversations when so many women are talking at once during the meals!
Roslyn Reynolds gave an amazing talk about how to find joy in life.
she gave us several tools to use to find joy. She shared her story about overcoming grief after he husband drowned in 2006. Her web site is http://www.roslynreynolds.com/
We got to hear from Scott and Cheri Loveless the next day. My absolute favorite story from all the speakers I heard was from Sister Loveless. She told the story of a time when her family was struggling financially. They didn’t know where they were going to get the money to pay their rent. Her daughter woke up one morning and said that the Holy Ghost told her that if she fasted that day God would send them the money for the rent. That day after church Cheri stayed for another meeting for her calling. She got a ride home with a sister in the ward. Before Cheri got out of the car, the sister told her that someone had paid on a debt to her that had been contracted long ago. This woman had given up on the debt being paid. She said that she has learned that when she gets money paid unexpectedly, ti’s not her money, but money to be given away. She asked the Relief Society president if she knew of anybody in the ward who would need the money. The R.S. president suggested the Loveless family. So she offered it to Cheri. Cheri said it was almost the exact amount of money the needed for rent! Wow, I want to have the faith that Cheri’s daughter had! I also want to have the power to raise a daughter like that.
Cheri said another very inspiring thing: that her father once suggested to her that she not make the same mistake her parents did. That was that they raised their children for the parents’ generation and not the children’s generation. Cheri said that is why we need revelation, because we don’t know what our children’s generation will be like when they are adults. Wow, this is very profound!
(and no, I am not pregnant, so don’t even ask!, just working on weight loss and saving for a rock hard girdle)
I saw this video by Brad Wilcox on my friend Mindy Heath’s blog. Mindy and I both attended the leadership portion of the Moms’ Retreat (http://momsretreat.org
This is so good I watched it twice!
It totally relates to our experience on the challenge course. The atonement of Christ makes it so we can’t fall spiritually, just as the men who were on the ground belaying for us made it so we couldn’t physically fall. If you want to understand the atonement and the grace of Christ better, please watch this.
Here are some of my favorite lines from Brad’s speech:
“We are not earning heaven, we are learning heaven.”
“Jesus doesn’t make up the difference, Jesus makes all the difference.”
“Grace is not about filling the gaps, it is about filling us.”
“We will all go back to God’s presence. What is left to be determined by our obedience is what kind of body we plan on being resurrected with and how comfortable we plan to be in God’s presence and how long we plan to stay there.”
Fulfilling Christ’s requirement is like paying a mortgage payment instead of a rent.
Christ’s atonement is like a mom paying for piano lessons for her child. Then she turns around and asks the child to practice. Practicing does not pay the piano teacher. Practicing is how the child pays the mom to show appreciation for the gift given and change to be a pianist.
Practicing is not to punish us but to allow us to be changed.
Grace from Jesus not only saves us, but can change us.
“A life impacted by grace allows us to live a life that looks like Christ’s.”
“Heaven will not be heaven for those who have not chosen to be heavenly.”
“The miracle of the atonement is not that we can go home, but that we can feel at home there.”
“Grace is not the absence of God’s expectations. It is the presence of God’s power.”
“Don’t look for escapes or someone to blame. Look for Christ and you will feel His enabling power that is His grace.”
This is my friend Mindy Heath, mom, mentor extraordinaire, and trapeze artist on a challenge course.
In my last post I wrote about my invitation to seek physical thrills at a homeschooling moms’ retreat (see http://momsretreat.org ) which was held at the Heber Valley Camp owned by the LDS Church. The leaders who were cabin mothers were asked to participate in a ropes course before the rest of the moms came. My blogging platform isn’t letting me post more pictures, and I have a lot more to post, so I started another blog post here to do more pictures.
So here’s the rest of the story:
I finally decided to complete the course since, really, I wanted to have the feeling of accomplishment that I did it, I wanted to know that I can do more than I think I can, and finally, because I had no excuse. Usually I bow out of physical things like this, saying, I can’t do it, I’ve got to take care of my baby, I’ve got to nurse, or it’s too scary. But all my “babies” were at home, nobody needed nursing, a sandwich, or tending, and it was now or never. I didn’t know when I would have the chance to do this again. I knew how exhilarated I would feel if I did it.
Here we are standing in line waiting for our turn with our lovely fashionable helmets. That’s me third from the left, standing next to Nicholeen Peck, of http://teachingselfgovernment.com to the right of me.
Notice I am now last in line as I excused myself to go to the restroom. After seven childbirths, my bladder is rather weak and the fear I was anticipating might cause an accident up there!
What really helped me feel more courage was hearing Nicholeen say, “There’s no way to fall. Those guys who are down here (service missionaries for the LDS Church) belaying have got us covered. It’s the weight of the two of them against one of us. If you slip, you will fall at the most 2 to 3 inches.” She said she had been here the day before to speak to another moms retreat group, and had seen the guys lower one of the sister missionaries down the other day when she wanted to get down that way, and we could be gently lowered too. So there was no way to fall! Thank you Nicholeen!
Here I go! I am going to climb this “floating” telephone pole to the top so I can get on the cable stretched between two trees. Yes, the pole is not anchored at the bottom, just at the top, so that was a little nerve-wracking.
I made it! The hardest part was first, lifting my left leg as I got closet to the top, to the next notch. I had to stop and breathe deeply like I learned to do for natural childbirth and rest and will my muscles to work harder than I initially thought they could. Another hard part was switching from one foot to another on one of the toeholds. I listened to the two missionary elders coaching me below so it all worked out and I didn’t slip.
The next hardest part was turning around to grab the cable provided for my hands.
OK, so I look fat and scared in this picture! I am willing to be embarrassed though, it’s good for personal growth! Notice the perspiration in my underarms! I am sweating bullets! This was scary but good for me too! I was thinking about childbirth, and how this experience was healing me from the fear I generated in my last pregnancy
towards labor in natural childbirth. A whole other story, but let’s just say, I am not afraid to have another natural childbirth. This challenge course totally healed me!
There I am! It’s becoming natural to me now!
Whew, I can almost hug the tree now! Believe me, I did, just like the girl two people before me did. I also cried a little bit. The kind sister missionary unhooked me and hook me up to the zip line. Can you imagine having this kind of mission?
There I go! Whee! I screamed almost the whole way down just to let out the fear and make it more fun! As in natural childbirth, vocalization gives energy, although I do recommend lower vocalization, like moaning and grunting, in labor.
We discussed the whole thing afterwards in a debrief (homeschoolers love to discuss any and all experiences, whether it’s a book, movie, speech, toy, web site, fashion, food, holiday, social event, or outdoor experience) Here’s what I learned from my own experience and others’ comments:
knowing that I couldn’t fall was a huge comfort, blessing, and motivator! This is totally analogous to the Savior’s atonement. He is always there for us, like those men on the ground who were the belayers. His atonement means that although we sin, He makes it go away because of his perfection, love, and eternal wholeness.
As my friend Kim Davis brought the previous point up in the discussion, I felt such a feeling of peace I have never felt before. I feel like I was “getting” the atonement even more. Having that feeling of security, knowing that I can’t fall spiritually, just like I could not fall physically in this course, gives me such a feeling of gratitude and also a feeling of being rich, in a spiritual way. Because of Christ’s spiritual “belaying,” I can’t fall. Christ is always there to “catch” me. This gave me such a feeling of freedom, comfort, and wonder. This physical experience deepened my knowledge of a spiritual concept I have “known” since I can remember. What will I do now knowing that I can’t spiritually fall? I can venture into new things, knowing that Christ is there to make up for my sins and mistakes. That’s not a license to sin intentionally and repent later, but a comfort to do new things that are right for us but scary.
at one point when I was feeling like maybe I couldn’t go on more, towards the top of the telephone pole, I felt the men below me who were belaying, pull on the rope and lift me up a bit. That lift totally encouraged me. I felt I could continue. Christ is there to give me little lifts all along life’s way.
the things I ask and promote for others to do, like homeschooling, might be as scary to those people as this challenge course was for me. I want to encourage them and be a lift to them as that physical lift was to me.
I can feel fear and do it anyway! If I am to grow and do the things God wants me to do, I am going to feel fear. That doesn’t mean I am doing something wrong, it can be a sign I am doing the right thing! And as Audrey Rindlisbacher said in the discussion, “and the thing you feared is almost never, 99% of the time, as bad as you thought it would be once you go through with it.”
I am so happy I conquered my fear and feel the love of God greater than I ever have before. I feel so much more confident. In my next post I am going to post a video by Brad Wilcox that totally relates to all of this.
That’s me up there on a cable, holding on for dear life to another cable! I can’t believe I did this! This is so against my usual modus operandi. I climbed up there using the telephone pole on the right. Then I had to turn myself around, then scoot my feet across the cable to a miniscule platform, attached to a tree, and then step up to another platform, where I got hooked up to a zip line and descended. Wa-hoo, it was fun!
Last Friday morning a bunch of homeschooling moms, most of us middle-aged and some of us overweight, gathered together to prepare for a Moms’ Retreat. We were the cabin mothers assigned to welcome and lead women, most if not all homeschooling moms, through a delightful experience of staying in the mountains for an evening and overnight and past lunch the next day, learning about revelation and coming closer to God.
So Melanie, the organizer, pictured in the photo below on the right, in the blue shirt, decided to scare us all by inviting us to participate in a ropes course at the Heber Valley Girls Camp. Angie Baker had talked her into springing this challenge course on us. It turned out Angie Baker couldn’t make it and Melanie was pregnant so she couldn’t go on it, but they still expected us to do it!
Sure, we all look happy here, but then we are told what they expect us to do!
We are having second thoughts!
Time to watch the first girl go up! You go Mary Ann! The two older women in the group, Grace Edwards, and Mary Ann Johnson (of http://home-school-coach.com/) were the first to go up!
I of course, took my time. Did I really want to do this? I generally avoid scary things as a rule. I don’t like roller coasters. I could picture looking down while on the cable and having my knees buckle under me. But as I saw more and more ladies line up to do it, that encouraged me. I took pictures of the others for a while, and my confidence grew. If they could do it, I could. (to be continued in the next blog post)
Years ago, the F.A.C.E. curriculum (see http://principleapproach.tv) became popular among the homeschoolers I was involved with in Utah County. I heard talk about people writing a similar curriculum using the 4 R’s approach that FACE is based on (research, reason, write, and record), with an LDS perspective. Then I never heard any more about it.
Well, I guess the idea was revived because the American Heritage School, an LDS-based private school in American Fork has recently launched the Latter-day Learning Curriculum that has the 4 R’s for literature, science, geography, history, and art. They launched it at the LDS Homeschool Conference I attended a few weeks ago.
You can try it out for a month free! If you’ve been looking for a guide for your homeschooling with LDS principles, this may be what you’ve been looking for.
They’ve created a free resource center at latterdaylearning.org where all can receive this first month of curriculum and introductory material for each course. Also, they will be adding dozens if not hundreds of free resources from the American Heritage campus in the coming months and throughout this year. These will be accessible to all, so check back occasionally.
My friend Becky Edwards has been using it and loves it! Here is what she says:
Hi Home Schooling Friends!
There is a new LDS-oriented home school curriculum that I am super impressed with! I wanted to pass it along to you, in case you’re interested in checking it out. The Family School is put out by American Heritage School from Utah County, and created by experienced LDS home schooling mothers.
Here are some things I like about it:
1. I have been extremely impressed with everything I’ve been learning about this school! I visited it a couple weeks ago at an LDS home school conference and the walls were decorated with paintings of the Savior and the Founding Fathers! The Spirit was there!
2. The academic subjects are all centered on Christ! I LOVE THAT. If you read DC 88:78-80 chronologically, the things God wants us to learn are listed in order of putting spiritual learning first as a foundation before secular learning. I knew there were Christian curricula that weaved Biblical principles into secular subjects, but we have the FULLNESS of the gospel here! I am thrilled with the opportunity to have God and gospel principles woven into all subjects! In the history timeline, they include events in history from the gospel, like Adam, Jesus, and the Nephites, along with Rome, Greece, and the Founding Fathers. How cool is that! In the intro of the science part, part of the point is for us to see God’s hand in creation of all living things. I saw the two main creators of the curricula speak at that conference, and I could feel their testimonies — great women.
3. The school uses the methods we are using in our Vanguard youth group this year (a TJED-based scholar group Grace is in and I’ll be one of four teachers for the Layton group). As I’ve studied the mission and methods on the American Heritage School’s website, they totally remind me of the LDS church’s model for seminary and institute, along with Elder Bednar’s recent book Increase in Learning! I’ve taught institute for two years, and I never dreamed of finding a home school curriculum that used these inspired ways to involve youth in taking actions to internalize their own learning. SO GOOD. Some of these methods are the 4-R method, word studies, and so on.
4. Family School is done as a family, for anyone ages 4-12, which reminds me of the one-room school house of yester-year.
5. It covers 6 of the main subjects, but only one or two a day, which sounds so nice and simplified, rather than some home school families who try to check off a huge checklist every day. Family School covers science, history, geography, literature, art, music. The two core subjects it doesn’t cover need to be done on an individual age level, which are language arts and math.
6. It seems to include many of the TJED principles I love!
You not them — you are learning together with your children.
Mentors not professors — you are the mother mentor.
Inspire not require — the lessons seem so inspirational, engaging, fun, and meaningful I think the children will want to learn!
Structure time not content — I think using this curriculum does both. It allows for some structured lesson time, plus some free time to pursue the children’s own interests. I asked one of the creators of the curriculum, and she said they do their Family School for two hours after lunch each day.
Classics not textbooks — the American Heritage School believes in using classics and original works, studying great lives and great works.
Quality not conformity — this fits.
Simplicity not complexity — studying great minds and works in all fields, write and discuss and apply. That is very much what this curriculum seems to do.
Secure not stressed — get your own inspiration to know you’re doing what God wants you to do in your home school, and that you’re doing it well. I’m not pushing anyone else here, but for me, after much prayer, I felt inspired to look into this curriculum. Even though I haven’t taken the time to read many of the lesson plan samples, I am already so impressed, I purchased it. I really love the agency-honoring approach of TJED, yet I was going kind of nuts with no structure, so I’m flooded with relief at having some structure that I love.
7. The lessons are so inspiring and make the content so meaningful! For example, the sample literature lesson talks about fairy tales. They discuss what makes a fairy tale, and princesses and princes. They read the story together of The Princess and the Pea, (with a fun activity of the kids finding a pea under their pillow) and then discuss what if someone is a prince or princess and doesn’t know it? What if they are but don’t act like it? Those questions lead into the principle that each of us is a real prince of princess, and then how can we act like it. There are invitations to act, according to age level. So a young child might set a goal of one thing she can do that week to be worthy of the Spirit and behave like a daughter of God.
8. It can be used as your family alone or along with another one or more families in a co-op, where each mom chooses a subject or two to teach.
9. It is in a six-year rotation.
10. You can use their suggested schedule, or create your own schedule. If you’re home schooling five days a week, their schedule allows for one day a week as an enrichment day, which they use for things like field trips, teaching life skills like cooking, scouts, etc.
11. They are now offering the first month for free so people can use it as a trial basis, and see if it’s a good fit for their family.
12. There is a network of support with other LDS home school families using the curriculum too.
13. The school is passionate about quality, so they are asking for feedback all along the way. Although it’s more expensive for them to print and ship in smaller increments, than the entire binders at once, they want to get parents’ feedback, use it to tweak and polish the next section before they send it out, and so on.
Here is how I am planning on using the curriculum. We do a morning devotional already, along with a morning school together as a family. So we’ll do devotional, the Family School lesson together, then have lunch. The afternoon will be more individualized learning for things the kids are interested in, and for some math and language arts. Then we plan on using dinner table time as a place for each child to share what they’re excited about that they learned that day, and we have our bedtime devotional with Dad. I may tweak this as we go along, but that’s how I plan to use it for now.
The creators of it use it the other way around: they start the day with family devotional and do individual studies before lunch (practice musical instrument, math, language arts), then after lunch they do family school between 12 and 2.
In case anyone else out there is praying hard like I was, maybe this will be the answer to your prayers too!
A few years ago I came to the realization that I did not learn the whole story about American history in my high school AP history class. Sure I passed the AP exam and got college credit, getting out of the conveyor belt American Heritage class at BYU, but I’ve since learned that the winners of wars write the history books. We rarely get to hear the losers’ side. I have learned a lot by hearing the loser’s side too.
Richard Maybury of the Uncle Eric books and other authors like Tom Woods Jr. PhD, a professional historian with degrees from Columbia and Harvard, have opened my eyes to the other side. Wars like the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the world wars, the Spanish American war, and all the wars, have more to the story than you read in a typical high school history textbook or the newspapers. The stories in these sources don’t always reflect principles of liberty and the importance of limited government.
Here’s an example of a lecture from the Liberty Classroom with Tom Woods focusing on Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era.
That’s why I am SOOOO excited about Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom. If you love liberty, free market economics, and the idea of limited government, you are going to love this source. It’s back-to-school time for liberty-loving moms! You don’t have to go to a traditional classroom either, you can learn at home and study the history and economics you didn’t learn in public school or college.You can learn while chauffeuring the kids or helping them with dishes or other chores Then you can go online and.you can ask questions of Dr. Woods, and the other experts. You can become a “ferocious debater” as it says on the website to defend the principles of liberty and limited government. Go to the Liberty Classroom here to learn more and sign up today!
Just as a sample of what you will be learning, here’s my favorite U.S. history book from Tom Woods with my review below.
This book was incredibly eye-opening. The Doctrine and Covenants says we are to waste out our days bringing hidden things to light. This book helps you to do that. The author goes through the span of U.S. history, from the Pilgrims to Bill Clinton, exposing what the popular myths are. So I learned the following:
-the Native Americans were not the first American environmentalists -the revolutionary war was was more of a return to common law rights of Englishmen rather than a rebellion -the Civil War wasn’t really about slavery -secession of the southern states wasn’t treason; they were just exercising the right that New York, Rhode Island and Virginia had stipulated when they ratified the Constitution. This was the right that they could withdraw from the union if they ever felt the new government became oppressive -Lincoln wanted to send black Americans to Africa -in his fourth debate with Douglas, Lincoln said that he did not, nor did he ever, want to bring about equality between the white and black races -Andrew Johnson was mistreated by the Radical Republicans of Congress, he was basically “framed” or set up to do something dubiously unconstitutional, so that his political enemies in Congress could then impeach him -the 14th amendment wasn’t properly ratified -Wilson did not hold Britian and Germany to the same standards of neutrality in regards to their warships before the U.S. entered the war, which is part of the reason why the U.S. ended up entering the war -Woodrow Wilson was seriously deluded -JFK’s father (who made his fortune as a bootlegger) paid someone to write Profiles of Courage, and then bought tens of thousands of copies of the books and then stashed them in storage, so it would get bestseller status -JFK made a deal with the Mafia boss to buy votes so he could win the presidency. He philandered with a girlfriend who was also the mistress of this Mafia boss -FDR wanted to fight a war with Japan and goaded them into it -FDR was chummy with Stalin and thought that Stalin would work with him to create a world of “democracy and peace.” He agreed to “give” Poland to Stalin but told Stalin not to publicize it because he didn’t want to lose the Polish vote in the next presidential election -the Marshall Plan did not help Europe to recover economically after WWII, free markets did -after WWII, Russian POWs in the U.S. were tear-gassed at Ft. Dix and sent back to the Soviet Union, after they had begged not be sent back there and after USG officials “promised” that they would allow them to stay here (Operation Keelhaul) -many Communists existed in the U.S. -a guy who won the Pulitzer prize for reporting that there was no famine in the Ukraine during Stalin’s reign actually lied. (There was a massive famine.) When someone asked the Pulitzer prize committee to revoke his honor, they refused -a historian who was liberal and socialist changed his ways and returned to his boyhood Catholicism -Lyndon Johnson stole his senate win -LBJ’s war on poverty actually made it worse -under Clinton’s reign U.S. troops were sent to more wars in the world total than in all the other presidencies combined -Clinton probably bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Mogadishu to detract attention from his Lewinsky scandal
My toddler’s taking over the whole bed during the night is why we put him out of our bed and into a crib next to our bed once he hit about 18 months old. My patient husband gets tired of being kicked! The last night of our recent vacation, my dear husband wasn’t there so toddler baby got to sleep with me and he pulled the sideways H trick. Go here for some funny sleep positions by a cosleeping dad. It illustrates the position my toddler has in the photo as the “H is for h–” position. Agreed! These positions totally made me laugh! Once a baby gets mobile, I have a hard time sharing a bed with him. So we do the sidecar crib thing. Going on vacation gets tricky because beds condo/hotel beds are usually high and the portable cribs are low.
A few weeks ago, the night before our family vacation to Park City, my toddler threw a curve ball at me. A figurative one. This once perfect angel-sleep-through-the-night baby woke up and started crying as if he was in sheer terror. It has been so long since he woke up during the night that I actually didn’t know what to do! I weaned him from night nursing last fall and I guess the instinct to nurse in the night had evaporated from my previously constantly nursing motherly breast, although we “still” nurse during the day. After a minute of offering water and seeing him refuse, and that my talking wasn’t going to calm him, I remembered, oh yeah, why not nurse him? Ahhh, yes, now I could do that and not have to get out of bed. Which is the thing I dread most about being a mom. Getting out of my warm comfy soft bed in the middle of the night to lovingly respond to a sick or frightened child or baby
Since I’m the mom I can decide to “break” the rule of not nursing any more at night. So I nursed him in bed with me which was easy since we have his crib set up next to our bed with the siderail taken off. He quickly fell back asleep and i didn’t hear from him again until morning.
The next two nights on our vacation were rough with him waking up on his “bed” of blankets on the floor next to our bed in the condo master suite. I remembered Elizabeth Pantley’s teaching that you should put your baby to bed/sleep in the place you want him to wake up. The previous nights I had been nursing him before he fell asleep in the big king sized bed and then transferring him to the floor. So the next night I lay down with him on the floor and nursed him for our ritual nightly nursing before bed. Notice I didn’t say I nursed him to sleep. That stopped working a long time ago for every night. He has to be really tired for nursing to sleep to work.
I feel bad my first two babies missed out on complete bedsharing with me as babies. Hopefully they are not harboring any resentment deep in their emotional cells about missing mom at night. They were in my room with me though, in a crib or bassinett. I could not leave a baby in a different room at night. I would not be able to fall asleep, not being able to hear or see them! I know that’s what baby monitors are for but to me it’s not the same as close proximity. They survived. Here they are mentoring Grandma about her new smartphone while on vacation.
I’ve been able to enjoy some really good sleep as a mom because I bedshare with my babies. It hasn’t always been this way though. I have seven babies and it took me until baby #3 to discover the pleasures of total bedsharing. Then it took until Baby #4 to realize that some babies start waking up night to nurse when they have mom’s breastaurant available 24/7, when they really don’t have a nutritional need to nurse at night. So that’s when Elizabeth Pantley came to the rescue! More on that below.
I started consistently bedsharing with Baby #3, from day one, which was easy since I had a home birth. He slept so well from day one with nursing in bed. It just felt so natural not to separate his body from mine when nighttime came. He was such a cuddly snuggly baby. I only ever had to get out bed with him once for his whole babyhood.
My cuddly snuggly 100% bedsharing baby is now quite the comedian.
With my older two babies I had the crib in my room and would sometimes bedshare and sometimes put the baby in the crib. For some reason, I felt that would be strange to always have the baby in my bed. But I got over it by Baby #3. Or rather, my body succumbed to the tiredness of getting out of bed to get the baby and sitting up to nurse and then putting the baby back in the bassinett or the crib.
I know for some moms, bedsharing and nursing in bed seem to make the baby wake up all night. But you can’t know that for sure. Maybe the baby would wake up all night as well in his own room and bed. The perfect book for you to help your baby sleep through the night, without doing CIO (crying it out) or Ferberizing is this one by Elizabeth Pantley, my informal get-through-the-night without-getting-out-of-bed-with-an-older-sleeping-baby mentor.
This is a terrific book! There is an alternative to letting your baby cry it out or being attached to your baby all night at the breast if you co-sleep. Pantley has done a public service by writing this book and she will forever be a hero in this house! She doesn’t preach and and she writes to all parents, whether you share a bed or not, whether you breastfeed or bottlefeed. An older baby, past nine months or so, can learn to sleep through the night without frequent waking and this book teaches you how. I am also available for mentoring on this topic if you don’t want to read the book. Comment below if interested.
I prefer to bedshare and I love that she says that that’s OK. You don’t find many books that do that beyond Dr. Sears and Dr. Gordon’s books. Maybe just Dr. McKenna’s book.
(Dr. McKenna is a Notre Dame Univ. professor who promotes bedsharing and wrote a book about it.) But I found another author…Dia Michels.
“No one would suggest that because sleeping in a crib can be hazardous under certain conditions, no baby should sleep in a crib. By analogy, therefore, it is equally illogical to suggest that because under certain circumstances bedsharing can be hazardous, parents should not bedshare with their babies. Given the near universality of the practice of bedsharing at some stage, it is far more logical to identify the conditions under which bedsharing is hazardous and to give parents information on how to avoid them.” -Peter Fleming Ph.D.
“Where Should Babies Sleep At Night? A Review of the Evidence from the CESDI SUDI Study.” Mothering Magazine. Sept/Oct 2002
When it comes to sleep, do what is safe and what works for your family. The video I have posted below cites a Milwaukee city ad campaign telling parents not to sleep with their babies, due to recent cases where babies died in parent’s beds. But when you examine the cases closer you find that these babies died because they didn’t have a breastfeeding mom close by in bed with them. Obviously these ads are made by people who don’t have to do deal with little people at night who wake up screaming and crying, disturbing their sleep, who beg you to move out of your bed to play with you, or nurse if you happen to have a soft, lovely, sleep-inducing womanly breast.
But also know that if you have been nursing and bedsharing and your baby wakes up a lot, it might be time to teach your baby that he or she can get back to sleep without a nipple in is or her mouth. That’s what Elizabeth Pantley’s book is for. Thank God for Elizabeth Pantley!
Many mothers find that succumbing to bedsharing allows them to sleep. I suggest you join them if that’s how your baby sleeps best and how you can get back to REM sleep as soon as possible. For me that means not having to get out of bed. When baby gets to toddler age, you can wean from night nursing. You can be an attachment parent without having a nighttime Velcro baby at the breast until he’s 4!
But your baby might still like you to be next to him or her while he or she falls asleep. I have found after I do our routine at night that many times I can be in sight of my toddler while he is in his crib, praying or writing in my journal, and he will peacefully drift off to sleep, knowing I am there.
Dr. McKenna says that breastfeeding is hard to do unless you bedshare. And good news, according the video I posted above, bedsharing is not as safe if you don’t breastfeed. The news reporter says that all the babies in the SIDS cases involved in the story were bottlefed.
Have you heard about supermodel Miranda Kerr? She says that she takes 4 tablespoons of coconut oil a day, in her smoothies, on salads, or in her tea. She shares that it is what keeps her thin and her skin soft and wrinkle free. A lot of people think that coconut oil is an evil food, but there’s hardly any food that is better for you to take! The studies that showed it raised cholesterol were actually done on hydrogenated coconut oil, not pure unprocessed coconut oil. Go to the last paragraph to learn more.
My girlfriends Leah and Caralee are having an end-of-summer sale on their organic, cold-pressed, extra virgin, wonderfully mild tasting coconut oil for only $37.95 per gallon through August 31st only, or until the limited amount left is sold. After that date, it will return to its original pricing of $50 per gallon. Please contact Leah at 801-719-2572 or Caralee at 801-416-1830 and mention that you heard about this through my blog to take advantage of this opportunity.
Coconut oil is a godsend! It is full of so many good things for you. It also helps you to eliminate food cravings for chocolate, sugar, and carbs so you can lose weight. Here is a testimonial of coconut oil for weight loss.
Last Monday I threw a birthday party for my son. Because I had 2 T of coconut oil before the party, I was satisfied to eat a cookie and one bit of ice cream, (licking off the ice cream spade after I was done serving everbody) whereas normally I would eat a full serving and want more. I would put it all away after having a full serving and feel the ice cream calling me from the freezer. But that did not happen at all. I felt so satisfied that the ice cream wasn’t tempting me afterwards. I then went on to eat one baked potato for dinner (instead of two or three) and did not even want the rest of the ice cream we had for FHE treats. I actually skipped FHE treats and did not feel deprived! This is big news! I have been taking the coconut oil all week and didn’t even want to have even “just one” brownie at the family reunion in Idaho we just attended.
You can read more about the benefits of coconut oil here . It pretty much sounds like medical ambrosia. It is antifungal, antibacterial, hepatoprotective (protects the liver),antiviral, antidermatophytic [anti-skin fungus], antiparasitic, antioxidant, hypoglycemic [lowers blood sugar], and immunostimulant. Best of all, it has tree of life imagery. In the Indian literature, it is Kalpavriksha or “all giving tree.”
Tree of Life Mothering 