About Us

Well Howdy.

I’m Brett Groneman.  She’s Katie Groneman. We live in Utah. She is a more than full time mom. An over-time mom. She used to be a school science teacher before our first kid showed up, and a sciency hospital lab technician before that. I work in healthcare as an informatics registered nurse.  Before that, I was an ICU nurse and before that, and medical/oncology nurse.  Our kids, at the time of this writing range from toddler to upper elementary school.  One has ADHD, which has probably been the driving force behind us searching for good solutions for family organization, and setting expectations as a significant help to trying to maintain family peace.  (Those of you with ADHD kids, can I get an “AMEN” to the need for more peace at home?!)

When Katie and I first got married, maybe the best unexpected (and in hindsight, most under-appreciated) advice we got was from my sister and her husband.  It was something along the lines of an emphatic: “PLAY! Go play as much as you can before you have kids!  Go on vacations!  Go explore!  Go have fun!”   (Ahhhh Hindsight… Such good advice!)

I’m not sure that it would have been possible for someone to adequately portray what a wild ride parenting would be before we signed up for this.

Then again, nobody told us how fun it is to have a four-year-old kid excitedly come home from preschool to show you her drawings and then craft an on-the-spot guessing game about today’s “running kites” activity (followed by running around the house with a plastic grocery bag tied to a string in tow).

But seriously … nobody told us what a wild ride it is having kids.  This ain’t for sissies.

We have five kids.  Five kids, because we did not want to have six kids. We are a nuclear family – and you can make your own interpretation there.

With our background as a nurse and a teacher, that of course leads right into building a website!  [He says sarcastically] … Stick with me here folks.

So what is this website about?  I consider it to be a mix of:

• A creative outlet – Everyone enjoys creating things.  This is ours.
• Personal therapy – Because, well, dang…
• Sharing is caring – If it works for us, maybe it’ll be helpful for you.
• Idea gathering – Neither of us are experts.  You’ll notice that our credentials don’t say anything about “Make your family run smoothly school PhD.”  We’ve just found a few helpful things along the way — and frankly, we love hearing your great ideas of how to do things better!
• A side-hustle – If I’ve already invented rocky but workable wheel, and you like it, maybe we can trade our pre-work time for your financial “Hey thanks!” and mutually benefit.  We’d love to earn a few dollars to support the work we’re doing here and time we’re putting into it, and continue to share hopefully valuable information to struggling parents and families out there.

So welcome to the site.  Take a look around.   Buy a thing if it looks useful to you.  Or, don’t buy it if it looks like it’s a waste of your money and you can get something that works better for your family needs by doing it yourself 🙂  (’cause that’s what we did!)

We love getting your advice and feedback.  Send it on over.  Your feedback goes directly to the company janitor and his wife.  Oh, and it goes to the CEOs.  And cafeteria workers.  And yours truly.  All the same two folks here.  Us.

And mostly: Parenting can be tough. We get it.  We’re in the thick of it — right now.  But raising a family can also be beautiful and super fun!  I wish you all the very best as you ride this emotional, stressful, and yet exhilarating roller coaster. Find joy in the journey, and a good fit of family traditions and tools that work well for you, wherever that might come from.

Cheers.