Hearts at Home

A couple of days ago I posted about some mommy friends and I going to "mommy school" aka Hearts at Home. Hearts at Home is a conference just for moms, it's mission statement states Hearts at Home is a Christ-centered organization that encourages, educates, and equips women in the profession of motherhood. How cool is that? An organization that understands how hard motherhood is, sees it as a profession and helps moms be the best they can be at being mommies! Because you know what? Being a mom is HARD! It's the hardest job I've ever done.
The story behind Hearts at Home
Founded in 1994, Hearts at Home began as a small ministry to mothers in Central Illinois. After seeing a local support ministry to help mothers flourish in Bloomington, IL, eight women gathered to pray about the possibility of offering education and encouragement to mothers outside of their area. They thought maybe 500 women would attend, but 1,100 showed up - and they came from 10 different states!

Since that time, the Hearts at Home mailing list has grown to over 100,000 women who desire to become better educated and equipped for the profession of motherhood. Our office is flooded with phone calls of women wanting more information about resources such as our conferences, publications, and more.

This was my 5th year attending, each year I come away with something different. Each year I go having different needs. Each year I come home refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to be a good mom again! The national conference is much like any other professional conference with key note speakers and different sessions to attend throughout the day. They usually have about 5,000 moms attend from all over the country!

This year my sessions were :

5 Minutes Until Goodbye, about making the most of your time now
Guilt Free Motherhood, because as mothers we feel guilty about everything!
When You Feel Like Screaming! Help for Frustrated Mothers!, enough said!
She's Gonna Blow: Real Help for Moms Dealing with Anger by Julie Barnhill, I've seen her speak before and she is amazing, I highly recommend her books too.

The Main Session in the afternoon was a talk given by Dr. Kevin Leman, oh man this guy is AWESOME! I was either laughing my butt off or bawling my eyes out, he is an amazing speaker and his books are pretty good too, I bought 2 of them.

As a mom I highly recommend this conference, if you ever get the chance you should go. My had to come with me last year, well she didn't actually go, she just hung around with Baby P because he refused a bottle. Anyway, she could still hear the main sesssions and watch them from the resource room. She was highly impressed. She wished they had something for moms like this when she was a struggling mom!

Also, there is always a musical group there, Sarah Groves was there one year (love her). This year there was a group called the Go Fish Guys, they are actually a christian kids group, but they are still great for adults too. They do a song called "The Mom Song", the first time I heard this was when the kids at MOPS preformed it last year, it is so cute. Here is a video of the guys doing it, not from Hearts at Home, but still very cute and funny. Will brighten your day!