Every December 23rd without fail, my mom calls her younger brother, my Uncle Ed. She could wait until the 25th when she calls the rest of the family. But, she calls him then, too. You see, today, the 23rd, is his birthday. (Happy Birthday, Uncle Ed!) While I don’t have a sibling or child with…
My mother-in-law passed away a year ago today. Needless to say, it was a rough Christmas. And in many ways, it’s been a rough year. There are many precious memories to remember as well as many memories left unmade. The following was originally posted December 23, 2008. I offer it up as a reminder to…
Christmas time can be an exciting one for families with small children. But, it can be full of mishaps because small children are, well, small. They’re inquisitive. They want to explore their world. They want to get into stuff. And boy, is that Christmas tree an enticing thing to explore. As parents we can fight…
Muffin tin crayons are so easy to make, even a kid can do it. In fact, FishChick3 and FishBoy9 were my assistants on this project last week, though I think they could have done it themselves. These are great crayons for toddlers to grab hold of, but even my big boys thought they were cool and…
Photo Source: wwarby The following is a guest post from Mandi of Organizing Your Way. Her suggestions for a quick, speed clean are so timely. This month has the potential to be utterly crazy, but if you have her suggestions in mind, they may come in handy at the spur of the moment. Heading…
Getting ready for a trip? With the holiday season upon us, families find themselves packing the kids, the dogs, the food, the presents, and a partridge in a pear tree into the family mobile and heading out on the open road. Traveling with children can be a wonderful experience. But, it can also be worse…
We love Bob the Builder around here. We really do. You would think that now that the toddlers in the vicinity are girls that we’d have moved on to My Little Pony or something. But, no. FishChick loves Bob. It may be that we just have more Bob the Builder movies than any other character or…
From Life as Mom It would seem that by the time a child reaches about the age of four, he starts to become aware of his mistakes and weaknesses. To be honest, I don’t remember enough from my child development classes in grad school to be able to site the study or the researcher –…
Looking to help your kids accomplish chores and achieve routines? A Morning High Five and a Bedtime High Five can help! No matter the size of your family, whether you have one child or ten, there will always be work to do. Dishes to wash and put away, laundry to fold, meals to prepare —…
The last couple weeks I’ve shared bits and pieces of what FishPapa and I did to get out of debt. If you missed the first few parts, you can start at the beginning. Once we stopped using credit cards and started listening to Dave Ramsey’s free podcast, we got into the habit of writing a…