I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you this but I am NOT a morning person. Really, not at all. Unlike my husband who’s up at 5 every morning (I know!  He’s crazy :), I would rather snuggle under the covers in hopes that the world will reconsider it’s notion of early starts and just …

Have you ever thought about visiting a national park? 

We’ve visited quite a few local and state parks – all beautiful — but nothing compares to our visit at Rocky Mountain National Park this summer!

I was so enthralled with the beauty of the park, the abundance of wildlife and the amazing back-to-nature connection that our family experienced, I feel compelled to share our visit in the hopes that you too will consider a trip to one of our national parks!

This is one of those posts that, as a parent, I hope you never have to use.  I hope you can file it away on a Pinterest board or in a favorites menu and never have to use it.  In all honesty, I wish I didn’t have to write it. 

My son has another broken bone this summer.  It’s his 5th fracture in 2 years. (Oh, and my daughter was also in a cast last summer).

Yes, we’ve had him tested – for calcium deficiency, for Vitamin D deficiency, for brittle bone disease — you name it and they ran a test, checked the scans and referred to multiple physicians.  But the only answer we have is that “he’s growing quickly and the bones haven’t filled in yet”.  Not much comfort to any of us right now.

My main reason for writing this post is to let other parents know what we’ve learn about living with casts.

So, what was it for you? Which moment caused you to stop and say “Where did the time go?” or “I can’t believe that they’ve grown so quickly!”

Sometimes it’s those big moments – their first steps, the first day of Kindergarten or Middle School, when they learn to ride a bike, or the day you hand over the car keys.

The Iditarod starts this weekend – known as the “toughest race on Earth”.  Kids are intrigued by the idea of mushers and dog teams traveling miles through Alaska’s wilderness.  A unique topic of discussion with kids — and here are a few resources that can help:

One of the best ways for kids to learn is through play!  And you can easily introduce some formal learning (such as math and science) by using everyday play things.

In our house, the kids are always more likely to practice math or enjoy spelling practice if we connect the activity with a fun game or one of their favorite toys.

Today we are focused on ways to Discover & Explore Art!

Art is as much about the process as it is the product — in fact, sometimes it’s all about the process for kids.  Being able to create with different mediums and materials is great way to ehance your child’s appreciation and love of art.

And it’s important that we allow that creation to take place naturally without a lot of directions or restrictions.  Which is why I love to bring art outdoors!

With Mother’s Day right around the corner and some wonderful ideas from last week’s Discover & Explore linky, I thought I would share some easy and beautiful ideas for Mother’s Day cards.

These would be great for Mom or Grandma — and many could easily be mailed too.  Plus, they’re all fun to make and it’s always great to have some keepsakes like this to look back on.

This post brought to you by Biz Stain & Odor Eliminator. All opinions are 100% mine.   This is the second part of our ‘Teaching Kids to Clean’ series.  First, we tackled all the dirty details on getting kids to vacuum.  Now we’re moving into the laundry room so the kids know how to do …

My daughter was in her first play this past weekend (she was a swan with a beautiful costume).  And as is the custom with many performances, we brought her flowers on her first night. 

They were pink, deep purple and orange — she’s a kid that loves bright things — and as she rearragned the flowers each day (because that’s what kids do when they get their own flowers), she noticed a number of things. 

Sometimes the flowers were limp and sometimes the stems were very firm.  The color in the orange flowers faded quickly while the pink and purple flowers retained their color.  And some flowers turned brown and had petals fall off earlier than others.