I love when the weather gets cold out and I can drink all my favorite warm drinks. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I love a big mug of coconut creamer tea (similar to a chai tea latte). I also love creamy rich hot cocoa. I have tried many recipes over the years to avoid all [...]
Author: Kayla North
Kayla North is co-founder of One Big Happy Home and is considered an expert on childhood trauma. Along with her husband, she has developed training materials and programs for parents, churches, and schools educating them on trauma and its impacts. Kayla is also an affiliate trainer with Trauma Free World, an ETC Parent Trainer, TBRI practitioner, and the Executive Directory of Tapestry. She speaks at churches, schools, conferences, and retreats nationwide.
Mango Banana Pear Smoothie
We debated for a long time about whether or not to get a Vitamix. I knew to justify the cost I would need to use it a LOT. Well almost a year later and I use it almost every day. We've used it for many things like cooking hot soup, shredding cheese, and making cookie [...]
Homemade Sloppy Joes
I have never really liked Sloppy Joe's. Not just because they are sloppy, but because they just had a strange flavor to me. For some reason thought, they sounded good to me and I decided to find a homemade recipe that I could make without using those cans of "sauce" with their questionable ingredient [...]
Band Aids
Giving and receiving love may seem like an easy thing, but for many adopted and foster kids this is hard. They have given love to people only to have those people disappear from their life or not return their love. They have received love only to be moved to a new home, or the "love" [...]
Raw Mint Chocolate Cookie Balls
One of my favorite new party items and snack foods for my kids are homemade Lara bars. If you've never had a Lara bar it is similar in concept to a granola bar, but with mostly fruit and nuts. Just a few really good ingredients...no junk. They are usually gluten free and can be dairy [...]
Giving Kids a Choice Gives Them a Voice
There are so many parenting theories and methods out there. I've read lots of books, gone to many conferences, listened to many experts, but the bottom line is that all kids are different! I think there are many wrong ways to parent our kids, but not necessarily one right way. I think threatening, not following [...]
Healthy (ish) Waffles
One thing my kids beg me to make are waffles. We eat them for breakfast. We eat them for snacks. We eat them for dinner. We eat them leftover. They are so yummy! I will NEVER buy frozen waffles again. I just can't. These are made with all healthy ingredients, so you don't have to [...]
May I Have a Compromise?
Often people will hear our kids ask, "May I have a compromise?" and look at us quizzically when we respond as if this is normal! At our house it is very normal. In fact, we probably hear that question asked at least 10 times a day! We started teaching our kids to make a compromise [...]
Let’s Try that Again!
"Let's try that again" is a phrase heard daily at our house. With 6 kids in our home, we are always looking for simple ways to correct our children's unwanted behaviors without always seeming like we are correcting them. One great tool we use is to simply have our kids redo a behavior. It is [...]
Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
A few years ago our daughter's dairy allergy forced us to really read food labels (and I'm talking ingredients of course, not the fat and calories that we have been trained to look at). I can't even pronounce most of the words on the ingredient list, and I certainly don't know what they are! I [...]