One of the many things I love about blogging, that really hasn't changed in the last eleventy years, is it gives parents (like me) an opportunity to revisit a moment...that may otherwise have drifted off in the ebb and flow of nurturing a family...or a much simpler time...lost among the trials and tribulations that go along with raising teens...because TEENS! Now, we have Facebook. So, it's sort of fun to be able to reconnect with childhood friends, seeing our kids all grown up and moving onto college **sniff-sniff** and how in the heck did THAT happen, because in my mind,... Read more →

It was the first day of kindergarten. My grandmother dropped us off at the front door and I still remember my begging her to take me back home with her. It's not like the school would miss me, there were tons of other kids waiting in line AND none of them had a twin brother...like I do. My brother, however, was totally on board with kindergarten -- because the school had a playground and naptime was mandatory. How bad COULD it be? Still. I had this plan: We would alternate going to school. My brother would go on Monday, Wednesday... Read more →

Many of you already know my husband, Garth (not his real name) does NOT allow me to use his real name, let alone post pictures of him, here on my blog. Aaaaaand, especially for new friends visiting with us for the first time, here's why: because living with a professional dork is hard, yo. Tagging him on Facebook? Yeah, that would be a big HELL NO and FUHGEHTABOUTIT! However, one of our mutual Facebook friends tagged him for the #IceBucketChallenge to help bring awareness to ALS, because she knows my husband has a REAL BIG heart and will out (and... Read more →

My brother and I grew up in a 5 room house that was roughly 950 square feet, surrounded by steel mills and iron factories, and a mind-bogglingly complicated network of railroad tracks running along a port built to accommodate large tankers sailing their way through to New York City. Sitting on my parents' patio, flanked by rose bushes and arbors shaded by nearly every flowering and fruiting tree you can imagine, you'd believe yourself to be somewhere completely different. My father was a landscaper throughout our elementary school years and he'd often times bring home truckloads of stuff -- trees... Read more →

Raising 3 teens, and a kid who's turning 21 in a couple of months (no she isn't, I'm still in denial!), our parenting philosophy has changed quite a bit over the years, because: what worked with 1 kid isn't necessarily gonna fly with another, all 4 of ours have their own way of ignoring us, dammit. There is one rule, however, that has remained tried and true: we made our kids "friend" us on Facebook. Why? Because, their world was growing bigger, while our collective parenting street cred has decreased exponentially, it's the internet. Also, we made our oldest kids... Read more →

this is my happy place, and my imaginary house is just over there, on the right.... Linky Love Bytes: Wordless Wednesday HQ Follow my blog with Bloglovin ©2003 -2014 This Full House with a fan page on Facebook, a way for you to subscribe to receive This Full House blog post by Email and everything! I'm NaBloPoMo-ing it this month, feel free to check out what I've NaBloPoMo-ed, so far. Oh and just so you know, I'm unplugging on weekends and going blog free, because family time is also very...SQUIRREL!!! Read more →

Don't get me wrong, we LOVE banana bread, it is on our top ten list of comfort foods! The thing is, here's the thing: we also LOVE bananas, we can NEVER keep enough in the house and they just don't last long enough to go all banana bread-worthy. Yesterday, however, I saw 3 pretty close to being banana bread-worthy candidates sitting in the banana bowl and was all...YAY!!!...I'm going to make us some banana bread. Long story, short: if you've visited with us before, for any length of time, then you probably already know -- NOTHING ever goes as planned,... Read more →