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Em | Creating Present Moms

@emcreatesmargin

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For moms who love their people + run on fumes
Simple systems to get your time back
Finance-trained, faith-led, mom of 4 boys
↓ Free holiday checklist

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Em Creates Margin started with a spreadsheet…

Hi, I’m Emily

I’m a finance controller by day, wife, mom of 4 boys always, and one night I sat down to make myself a little guide for our summer - the products, the shortcuts, the things that actually make our summers easier and what I want to focus on as I raise these men. Halfway through, it hit me: other moms probably want this too!

That small idea grew into something bigger. Em Creates Margin is where I share the finds, guides, and digital products that help busy moms create margin - more breathing room in our time, our finances, and our headspace. I’m not a polished expert. I’m a mom building this in public, one guide at a time, while still clocking in at my 9 to 5.

The Summer Guide is just the beginning. Back-to-School and Holiday guides are on the way.

So glad you’re here.

— Em

Comment SUMMER for my free “5 Ways to Make Margin this Summer” guide while you wait to get the full guide coming in May! by @emcreatesmargin

A week ago, the Make Your Margin Summer Guide: Thriving All Summer went live.

I built it because I needed it. I hoped maybe a few other moms might need it too.

What I didn’t expect was for moms to quote my own lines back to me. To message me specific pages that landed. To text “I’m floored” with five exclamation points like they used to text in college.

I’m so honored, mamas. Every one of you matters.

And this is why Em Creates Margin was created: to share with other moms the helpful tips that have worked for my family as we raise 4 boys, with two working parents, who want to be intentional with our time, money, and home.

Founder pricing $19 (regular $27) ends tomorrow. If you’ve been on the fence, this is the window.

Link in bio or comment SUMMER for the free preview first.

Thank you for being here!

#christianmom #overwhelmedmom #intentionalmotherhood #margininmotherhood #realmomlife summermomroutine by @emcreatesmargin

I carry a lot of December around in my head too.

On my bus-stop days I race out the door from the office at 2:30 to make sure I’m home for the kids, and the teacher gifts ride along with me the whole way.

Here’s what I’m learning: my head is a terrible place to keep a list.

So I made a short one. Nine small things, none of them more than an evening.

Comment HOLIDAY and I’ll send it to you for free.

Which tab is open in your head right now?

#busymom #momlife #christianmom #simplehome #holidayplanning by @emcreatesmargin

Every single year.
Comment HOLIDAY and I’ll send you my time-saving holiday checklist for FREE.
#busymom #momlife #christianmom #simplehome #holidayplanning by @emcreatesmargin

Eight years ago I was newly postpartum on this same couch with two babies on me, watching my oldest tear around the living room. He had just turned eight. And I remember thinking, clear as anything: when these two are his age, he’ll be driving.

It felt impossible. The kind of math you do to make yourself feel something.

Last month he got his license. He bought himself a car. Tonight he backed out of the driveway with a friend in the passenger seat, headed 35 minutes away.

And the twins turned eight today.

So we watched Toy Story 5. Three of us under one blanket and an empty spot on the couch where he usually sits. And somewhere in the middle of it, Jessie talks about the years she spent under the bed “watching my first kid grow up without me.”

Her kid’s name was Emily. Emily was eight.

I’m not going to pretend I didn’t sit there with tears welling up in my eyes for a second.

Because then the questions come… Am I doing enough? Am I present enough? Am I teaching them enough? Am I providing for them the way I want to?

Here’s what got me about that movie though…

Jessie spends the whole thing convinced she didn’t matter to that little girl. She was wrong. She just didn’t get to see the proof for twenty years.

I’m starting to realize that’s most of motherhood. You don’t often get the receipt while you’re doing the work. You just keep showing up and asking God to cover the gaps, and there are a lot of gaps.

So whether you’re in the newborn fog, or the license and curfew season, or somewhere in the middle wondering if you’re doing any of it right…

You are, because God picked you to raise them. To love them. To guide them and to be refined in the process.

And here, you’re in good company if you’re questioning it all, trying to figure out how to be the present mom your heart desires to be.

Take a deep breath tonight and know, no matter how today went, His mercies are new every morning.

#momlife #boymom #twinmom #teenagers #motherhood by @emcreatesmargin

He was three the first time he drove away from me.

Plastic steering wheel. About four feet of driveway. He got to the end of it and looked back to make sure I was watching.

Sixteen today. He passed his driver’s test. Same look back. Real keys this time.

Boy moms know the thing nobody warns you about. They don’t leave all at once. They leave in inches. A backpack he carries himself. A door that closes a little more often. A game he’d rather ride to with his friends. And then a car backing out of your driveway with your whole heart behind the wheel while you stand in the garage waving like this is a normal thing to survive.

I am so proud of him. I am also standing in my kitchen tonight doing math I don’t want to do.

Here’s what I’m learning: I can’t slow it down. Nobody gets to. But I do get to decide what I’m doing while it happens. I can put the phone down. I can ride in the passenger seat instead of answering emails in it.

Thirteen years between a toy car and a real one felt like about a week.

So be where you are, mama. Not later, when it calms down. It doesn’t calm down. It just gets shorter.

Happy 16th, buddy. God has had you this whole time, and He isn’t letting go on the day I have to.

Send this to the boy mom whose kid is about to start driving. And if yours is growing up too fast too, tell me his age below. I’d like the company tonight.

@aurielle.lindblom your reel got me this morning, tears in the kitchen, and then my kid came home with a license. @jamiemiller these words hit this mama’s tender heart today. Thank you both for the words on a day I needed them.

#boymom #momofboys #teenboymom #newdriver #motherhood by @emcreatesmargin

To the mama holding it together at drop-off this week... 🤍 the sweetest “back to school” survival kits for mamas from @emcreatesmargin ❤️

We spend weeks checking off school supply lists, labeling backpacks, and buying new shoes. But we rarely talk about the quiet shift that happens in a mom’s heart when that dropoff happens.

These kits cover the essentials:
@kleenex for those tears
@takearecess for when we need a lil break
@ghirardelli for those days that need extra sweetness
@organogold and @goodearth.us for those early mornings
@lifesavers to remind us to rely on Jesus
And more 👏 we’ve got this mamas.
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#foodiemama #backtoschool #motherhood #firstdayofschool by @emcreatesmargin

I cried in the car after drop off and I couldn’t figure out why it hit me so hard this year.

Every other year I’ve been ready. Ready for the routine, the quiet house, the schedule that runs itself. This year I just wanted more time with them.

Then at dinner all four of them said the same thing. Summer was too short.

And I thought, what a blessing to not want to go back. We’re not sad because something went wrong. We’re sad because it was good. That’s not a loss, that’s proof.

Proof that the margin, the routines, the intentional parenting wasn’t perfect, but it was what we needed as a family.

If you’re in the crying-in-the-car season this week, you’re not the only one. Come follow along, I’m building a slower kind of life over here and I’d love the company.

Did your kids say summer was too short, or were they ready? I’m curious how it went at your table. by @emcreatesmargin

Friday-night ball field, four boys, and a phone that kept buzzing. I almost watched the whole game through a screen, half-here, the way I do more often than I’d like to admit.

So I put it down. And my guy looked up after the play to see if I caught it - and I did. That’s the whole thing right there. Being where my feet are.

This is what all the rhythms and the margin are actually for. Not a tidier calendar for its own sake, but more moments where I’m fully in them. Where are your feet this weekend?

#bewhereyourfeetare #boymom #baseballmom #momlife #bepresent summerwithkids intentionalmotherhood by @emcreatesmargin

Tell me which one is showing in your house right now 👇

If your summer has a horror franchise running - the 7am boredom, the snack apocalypse, the schedule that up and vanished, the grocery bill with a mind of its own, the never-ending screen negotiation - same. I’ve lived all
five. Some mornings all five at once.

So I made the thing I wished I’d had: a 42-page guide called Thriving All Summer. A before-screens checklist, a meal planner and grocery list so you shop once, a bucket list, age-by-age chore charts. It’s not a perfect summer. It’s a calmer one. And it quietly ends every one of these.

Normally $27, on sale for $19 right now. Comment SUMMER and I’ll send you the link.

Send this to a friend who needs to know she’s not alone in the snack apocalypse!

#summerwithkids #momlife #boymom #overwhelmedmom #summerschedule printableplanner by @emcreatesmargin

Raise your hand if you’ve caught yourself wishing summer away…

Me too. Counting down to bedtime. To the school year. To the season that feels a little less loud. No guilt here, some days are just long.

But there’s a version of me, decades from now, who would give anything for one more sticky-handed, too-loud, little-feet-still-small summer like this one. This is the season she’ll ache for. And it’s happening right now, in the middle of the mess.

Being present doesn’t mean loving every second. It just means not missing the whole thing while I wish it away.

Send this to the friend who’s deep in the mess years with you. The one who needs to hear it as much as I did today.

#bepresent #momlife #boymom #intentionalmotherhood #summerwithkids by @emcreatesmargin