Jessica is a Mommy Blogger and a fairly recent Twitter friend of mine.  I love this post she wrote for my blog!  Please give her a warm welcome and be sure to stop by her blog to show your support! ~Kelli

My name is Jessica Jones and I am a NEW SAHM to 3 CrAzY cute kids! Brock is 6, Haley is 3, and Cooper is 2! My hubby and I have been married for 7 years and are both Atlanta natives. I have only been blogging for about 3 months but I am totally obsessed! In my “spare” time I teach piano and do party planning. I hope to one day be the next Eric Carl and write AMAZING children’s books. But for now writing my blog, tweeting obsessively and (of course!) being with my kids sounds good to me!

You can find me at www.atlmomguide.com,

@atlmomguide on Twitter, and

http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=162507284366 on Facebook in case you want to STALK me!

This time last year I was a working mom. I worked 40+ hours a week handling insurance claims for “The Big Orange Box”. By the time I dropped the kids off at school, drove across town to the office, put in my 8.5 hrs and drove home in Atlanta traffic I was left with VERY little time for the people who mean the MOST to me. I would come home, make dinner, taxi the kids around to various activities and then put them to bed.

As a mom I had the desire to be at the school for EVERY function but sometimes the boss man just would not allow it.

The thing I hated the MOST was when they were sick. My poor baby does not feel good and I have to feel guilty for staying home with them, or even worse NOT being able to call in and having to send them to school even thought I know they did not feel 100%.

I feel a little off track here for what I really wanted to talk about! Long story short this last year I was able to quit my job and be a full time mom. It has made the mommy guilt a lot less and now I don’t risk missing the important stuff.

HOWEVER even thought I am WITH them 24/7 I still sometimes feel like we are not spending “quality” time together. So, without further adieu here are some of the things we do to spend a little extra time with the little’s in our life:

1. - Ever since our oldest was born we ALWAYS read bedtime stories. Ok maybe not ALWAYS but we try : )
2. - Cooking together. My kids love to help cook. Even though it sometimes makes a bigger mess and causes dinner to run a little late they love it, therefore I love it!
3. - We eat meals together. At the table. And TALK (my kids are BIG talkers)
4. - We have 1 TV in our home. Yeah sometimes we fight over what to watch but at least we are watching it together. It turns out the kids and hubby share a love for Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs…who knew!
5. - For Christmas in their stockings each kid received homemade coupons for different things to do with Mom and Dad. One was for a game with mom, a game with dad, a date with mom or dad etc. The kids were REALLY excited about them and have already been using them!
6. - We enjoy playing board games and Wii as a family. Our youngest is still too little to play, but if he is napping or in bed we often try to squeeze in a game.
7. - After church (or school for the oldest) we will have a conversation with the kids about what they learned in their class. They learned at a young age that the “safe” answer is Jesus and that always cracks me up!
8. - I like to craft and during the Christmas season I made a lot of different gifts. The kids, especially my daughter really enjoyed helping any way she could and was proud of what she helped make.
9. - My kids share my love for music so we spend A LOT of time singing along to Taylor Swift in the car and around the house!
10. - I feel like my blog actually helps me spend time with the kids (sometimes). It reminds me to take their pictures and to make memories with them. I also have my Facebook Group that I use to set up play dates..and mothers night out (SHHHH!)
11. - During the week the kids and I like to participate in FREE events like story time at the local library, Tours of the pet store, the park with friends and local events. We also have memberships to the local Children’s Museum and Puppet Theater for an always available back up plan!
12. - Probably our MOST fun (and regular) family time is Movie Night! I try my best to NEVER make plans on Friday night. The kids come home; we put on our PJ’s, eat takeout pizza and popcorn and watch a family movie. Sometimes we rent a movie and sometimes we just watch something we Tivoed or those we already have. I have found out it does not matter WHAT we watch just that we do it. This is the ONE thing the kids remind us no matter what if we forget!

So…what are some things YOUR family does together?

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