I’m so excited to share my dear friend Erin Morgan with you in this episode! We go way back in friendship and in motherhood.

She is the introvert to my extrovert and in this chat we’re diving into how to thrive as an introvert mom. When she and I had younger kids, the constant togetherness of parenting was very draining for her.

“I was just completely overwhelmed, which causes me to withdraw and isolate big time. I just had no energy for other people. I wanted to pursue my friends and my relationships with other people, but there was just no margin for that in my mind.”

We talk about how she learned more about herself as she learned about the gift that introversion can be. As she asked God where she should invest her life, he encouraged her that focusing on motherhood and a few deep friendships was his best for her.

“I had to get with the Lord and be reminded that what I'm doing in this season of life with my children and my family is a true ministry and is where God has me. And I really felt like he was impressing on me this kind of motto for my life, which is that a small and faithful life is pleasing to the Lord.”

I’m so thankful for Erin and her introvert “super powers” of listening and passionate, faithful prayers. She is a thoughtful friend who has a lot of wisdom and encouragement for other introvert moms out there. Extroverts can learn a lot about their introvert friends by hearing what she shares too!

When Ericka Young and her husband made the choice to get out of debt, they had two small kids and $90,000 to pay off.

In the midst of the expensive, hard season of raising their daughters they worked hard for five years to get debt-free and now Ericka teaches the budgeting principles they used to help others find freedom. She believes that while many of us see a budgeting as restriction it can actually bring a lot of freedom.

“You can be creative if you want, you can call it a spending plan, you can call it a cash flow plan, whatever want to call it is totally fine. But when I say the word budget, everybody has a response, good or bad. And many times it's bad. It is the straight jacket. It's restriction, it's lack of freedom, that kind of thing. But here's the deal. It's what you make of it. Your budget is your own, make it your own.”

We chat about teaching our kids about money and tithing and how we are ultimately stewards of the resources God has given us.

“I love numbers. And so how I get out of my head is to realize that God is my provider. I am not the fixer of all financial issues. God is the provider. He also leads the way. And so when things come up and I have to shift or do a detour or what have you, I still know that he's in control. And so the budget is the guide. It's the plan. But when life happens, I also know that God's got this.”

What we chat about:

• Her and her husband’s history with debt and money
• Finances while you are raising young kids
• Parental peer pressure can cause us to spend money we don’t need to
• Why having a budget and money goals can help you get a handle on your finances
• Having shared financial goals with your husband
• Track your spending for the past three months and see if it aligns with your priorities
• Plan for out-to-eat meals in your budget and use wisdom on when to eat out
• Teaching your children about the costs of items and how to spend within limits
• Being committed to tithing and how to discuss it with our kids
• Responsibilities, allowances and working with kids on money
• Why we need cushion in your budget for emergencies. It helps takes stress off an already stressful situation.
• Your budget can bring freedom from the stress of not knowing where your money is

Depending on your personal background with puberty, sex and the often avoided topic of masturbation, having open conversations with your kids on these topics may feel daunting.

You may want to avoid it or get “the talk” over and done with as quickly as possible. Or maybe your kids are really young and you don’t want to think about it right now. My guests Mary Flo Ridley and Megan Michelson walk us through why starting early talking with our kids about body awareness and establishing our family story about sex is so important.

“What we're trying to get rid of is this idea that this is a one-time conversation in parenting. The world that we are raising our kids in has changed so drastically that the way we as parents talk about sex has to change drastically as well. We can have multiple age appropriate conversations and a little-by-little approach where we establish a conversation pattern where we are the loving authority in our child's life on this topic.”

They have great book recommendations and advice on talking with your pediatrician so you know when puberty is imminent for each child. We cover ways to pursue conversations with your kids and how to talk to them calmly without overreacting.

Finally, we dive into the deeper waters of talking to your older children about masturbation, dealing with our emotional baggage when it comes to sex and how to strike the difficult balance of teaching what is normal and beneficial.

“We're hearing from a lot of youth ministers and pastors that work with college kids that this is an epidemic of a great addiction. So there needs to be more of a warning of how this is normal, but not beneficial. That why it's such a difficult topic. You can say, yes, honey, this is absolutely normal. You're learning about your body and how it works, but it can become a habit of comfort. And if this is where you go when you're upset or when you're angry, if this is how you comfort yourself, then this is not beneficial to you in your future.”

To celebrate our 20-year wedding anniversary, Bruce and I are answering your questions! We have a fun time reminiscing on our wedding, the early years of parenting and all the twists and turns our lives have taken since we joined them together.

We talk about parenting styles, balancing our roles and how I learned not to micromanage him when it came to caring for our boys.

As much as we enjoy looking back at our years before kids when we traveled a bunch, the fun concerts we went to, and friends we made, we wouldn’t change what we have now. Bruce makes a great point that if we stay focused on the past, we’ll miss the great things happening now.

Stick around to the end of the episode to find out which one of us said, “I love you” first and my personal philosophy on procrastination. We share our ideas for a perfect weekend (they aren’t the same) and how Bruce plans a typical date night.

Though millions tuned in to TLC’s hit show Little People, Big World to watch their wedding, the entirety of Jeremy and Audrey Roloff’s love story is significantly less known. Audrey joins me to talk about her marriage, motherhood, and how she and her husband are on a mission to help married couples thrive.

The Roloffs have founded a ministry called Beating 50 Percent which is focused on reviving covenant marriages. They share resources and ideas for couples to inspire them to make their marriages more than average.

“One thing that has been our lifeline since before becoming parents is our marriage journal. It's essentially our communication tool in our marriage. When life is crazy, we know that every Sunday night we're going to have our time to do our marriage journal. We call it our navigator’s council time. But it's basically just a time for Jeremy and I to connect and communicate about things that have come up in the week that maybe there wasn't never that good time to talk about it.”

We chat about how she’s balancing marriage and motherhood since the birth of her daughter, why it’s important to share interests and activities with your spouse and how to balance strong personalities in marriage.

“It’s important to take humble perspective and ask God, what do our roles in this marriage look like and is this something that you are pleased with and how can we be a better reflection of the gospel through our marriage? I feel like God has really been impressing on my heart since the beginning of the year to let Jeremy be my forerunner and to view that as a helpful, beautiful thing that helps me and allows me to run the race better.”

What we chat about:

• Audrey’s background and how she met her husband Jeremy Roloff
• Jeremy and his family are featured in the reality TV show, Little People, Big World
• What it was like for her to have her wedding televised for the show
• Her life verse from Ephesians 3:20 and mantra “Always More”
• Beating 50 Percent the marriage ministry she and her husband have
• Their focus is inspiring couples to invest more than 50% effort into their marriage
• How she’s balancing marriage and motherhood since the birth of her infant daughter
• Their Sunday marriage journaling time and how they’ve turned it into a book, The Marriage Journal
• The principle of sharing interests and activities with your spouse and how that can knit you closer together
• Submitting in marriage when you have a strong personality or leadership gifting
• What Audrey loves about being a mom