Can you believe we are already more than a month into the school year? For our Lighthouse families, the year is off to a great start!

The school year has begun! And for most of our kids, it sounds like it has been a good start to the year!

I love how as a part of this community, we are able to not only share our common experiences but our knowledge and the resources we collect along each of our personal journeys.

As we all know, last night was a difficult and unimaginable time for our country. As we witnessed these horrifying actions unfold, I couldn’t help but wonder if we should cancel our meeting. As we began our first meeting of the year, we acknowledged that most of us had considered not attending last night, and yet we did gather. As I reflect this morning, I am struck by the power of that seemingly simple action. We came together as a small community, we showed up for each other.

Wednesday night we started off the evening with a Question of the Day, “What is a piece of advice you received that you carry with you each day?” What we ended up with was a beautiful pool of wisdom that we can go swimming in anytime we need to!

Summer is in full swing and we sure felt the heat last weekend here in Milwaukee! Last night we talked about quite a few different topics…from celebrations to Pop Tarts.

Last night we spent time catching up and sharing how we are all doing. As we find most of the time these days, we are all feeling so many emotions…all of the emotions. It can be a bit overwhelming at times how quickly we move from one feeling to the next!

Good morning! At least I hope it was a good morning. How are you feeling? Rested and ready? Or exhausted and needing more sleep? Last night we spent the majority of the conversation focused on sleep, or more specifically…a lack of it!

As a group, the Lighthouse parents are finding some comfort and joy in getting outside. Whether it is exercise or enjoying a cup of coffee on the patio, the months of being cooped up in the house have given us the desire to be outside as much as possible! Working in the garden, enjoying the beauty of the world coming to life around us, and breathing in the fresh air is a great way to rejuvenate and restore.

Last night was such a powerful conversation. Thank you for being there for each other, for trusting each other, and for being vulnerable with each other. As one parent shared with me this morning, “It was so good to hear how fierce these moms are and also hear their struggles!” If there was ever a conversation that embodied the saying, “We’re all in this together,” it was last night.

We all know that finding a balance in life can be a huge challenge! How many of us have struggled over the years to find that ever-elusive work-life balance? Struggled to find a way to balance self-care with childcare and running a home? I find that the quest for balance usually involves a bit of mindfulness, it takes intentional work to balance out our emotions.

I hope you are all doing well and continuing to find moments of joy both big and small. Last night we shared a few of those moments with each other. One example of a beautiful, but simple moment was noticing the light as it came through the kitchen window while doing daily chores.

Last week we talked about gratitude and how when we express what we are grateful for, we create a cycle where we continually find more and more to be grateful for. So we began our evening by sharing a few things that we were grateful for that day…

Last night we started the evening by sharing two words that describe how we were feeling at the moment. And the answers really gave a snapshot of how we might be finding ourselves at a turning point in our collective emotional journey.

Last night we spent some time talking about emotions. All of us are experiencing these times in different ways. Some of us are completely isolated, some of us (or our family members) need to go out into the community for work. Many of us are feeling upset about the ways our daily lives have had to change. Loneliness, anxiety, sadness, despair, anger…we are feeling them, our kids are feeling them.