Family & Parenting
6 Ways to simplify the Morning Routine *and* be on time. No kidding.
Truth be told, I like to be on time. I’m often not, but I still like to try. It’s amazing how much more difficult it is to be punctual when you have children in tow who don’t seem to have …
5 Things parents should never say to their kids. Come aboard, there’s room on my guilt wagon.
Article courtesy of Charlene Prince Birkeland, Team Mom on Yahoo.com. It’s no secret that parents should pay attention to how they communicate with their children. Even tiger moms and parents following the French style of raising children could agree that …
5 Ways to Find Joy in Day. Finding the balance, every day, every way.
I was reading one of my favorite blogs yesterday and the topic centered around wishing your life away—wishing it was Friday, wishing it was Monday, wishing it was summertime, wishing it was bedtime, wishing it was any day but today. …
Babysitters 101: How and Where to find the good ones.
It’s summer and the kids are ready to get out of the house—and so are the adults! But finding a great babysitter can be as easy as finding a four leaf clover, especially if you have just moved or don’t …
25 Ways to Have More Fun at Home. That’s a lot of fun, friends.
I love coming up with fun and clever ideas for fun things to do with my kids, and the rewards are two-fold: 1) they have a blast, and 2) I feel like Mother of the Year (albeit briefly, but let’s …
Candy Rationing 101. How to successfully limit without (much) grief.
Worried about how to keep your kids from eating their body weight in candy on Easter? See our tips for stretching out the holiday treats and keeping that sugar rush (and crash) at bay. The Big GuyHow to deal with …
5 Best Apps for paranoid (*cautious*) parents. You know who you are.
Just as there are apps to help your children avoid being bullied, there are apps that can calm even the most paranoid parent. Many of these use GPS to track a child’s location, so parents should read the license agreements …
Culinary trickery. Top 5 ways to bamboozle your young kids into eating healthy Things.
When my kids were around 2-3 years old, they were happily subsisting on a strict diet of macaroni and cheese and goldfish crackers. Trying new foods was a joke. Despite all my efforts to trick them into taking just a …
10 ways to improve your mood and ‘tude. Peace is closer than you think.
Life, kids, relationships, groceries, bills, cleaning, carpools, homework, regular work—it can all get pretty overwhelming! Often times we don’t feel like it’s possible to give ourselves a break so we continue on, resulting in more fatigue and more stress. Yuck. …
No babysitter? A Date Night-In can be fun, too. (And, a lot cheaper to boot.)
Babysitters are tricky business. First, finding someone you can trust who has a fair amount of availability isn’t easy, to say the least. Second, they are expensive! When you add the sitter fee to your nightly spend for date night, …
Procrastination busters. Start your day by eating a frog.
Everybody wakes in the morning with a list of things to do. If you’re like me, some of those tasks persistently show up day after day. Why? Because that particular task makes my upper lip curl with disgust, so I …
10 Things to Do Before You Have Kids – Pshaw. Do them AFTER kids!
Even though I have kids, I decided to click on this article I stumbled upon the other day—just to see what I was missing and/or didn’t do before I decided to, supposedly, abruptly end every fun and freedom left in …
Get rid of it! 10 Items you can toss now for a clutter-free existence.
For most of us, we tend to bog ourselves, and our home, down with too much useless junk. Here are some sure-fire ways to clean up your cabinets, drawers and mental state of mind. A clean home is a happy …
Done with gifts by 7am? Tips on making Christmas morning last longer.
When you have kids, Christmas day (or better said, morning), can be over before the newspaper hits your doorstep. As a child, I can remember sitting amongst a mountain of discarded wrapping paper and foil bows with every single present …
Planning a holiday roadtrip? Keep the peace in the car with these travel tips.
Traveling for the holidays? Time to pack up the family, presents and packages into the car for one helluva ride! Take a deep breath and don’t panic…you will make it, and everyone will still have their heads and limbs firmly …
Thanksgiving family traditions: Creating your own Turkey Day routines.
It’s easy for Thanksgiving Day to turn into just another meal that buries you in planning, preparing, cooking, cleaning and an experiment in how much food you can eat before causing internal organ damage. Holidays should be fun and the …
8 Discipline mistakes parents make– and solutions to fix them!
Guilty as charged! I’m not going to admit to how many of these parenting no-no’s I’ve committed, but let’s just say a fair share is squarely in my corner. This Parenting.com article is a great reminder of how to keep …
Toothless! Ideas for Tooth Fairy visits that make kids smile.
My daughter has a loose tooth. It’s been loose for about a month, and although the dentist promised I’d get another month or two before it actually fell out, I’m thinking I need a plan before I get caught one …
Five awesome Halloween family traditions. It’s just like being a kid again.
I love traditions. That being said, I practice very few, but I love the idea of traditions. Since my kids have recently exited the toddler stage and are developing an appreciation for repeat activities, we’ve started some really cool ones …
Tips on preparing your child (and you) for kindergarten. Sniff, sniff.
Next week my son will officially start kindergarten. Kindergarten? What? Wasn’t he just eating veggie puffs out of the tray in his Excersaucer? I’m not ready for this… As a fierce Mama Bear, I want to do my best to …
Kids and drugs. Have you had the talk yet? When and how to start.
Maybe it’s because I’m an incessant watcher of the television show Intervention, but lately I’ve been obsessed making sure my kids never walk down the path of substance abuse. My children are 4 and 5 ½, so while I feel …
Get active! Outdoor family games that are just plain f.u.n.
If you’re the person who gets up at 5:30am and goes for a jog before the kids get up, this article is not aimed at you. Let it be known that you people who are able to muster the motivation …
Pool Safety is no joke. Learn how to keep your kids safe.
It’s hot (yay!) and everyone is seeking out the closest watering hole or pool. Break out the beach chairs, grab a magazine and relax by the water…what could go wrong? It is horrific to even consider the possibility, but kids …
Creating the easiest (online) family scrapbook ever. How cool!
How are you doing with those scrapbooks? You know, the ones you have a thousand clippings for, but just can’t find the time to assemble into something that resembles a readable documentation of your child’s milestones? Check out this super …
How to Cure a Bad Day. Tips For Keeping Your Head on Straight.
Maybe it’s the incessant freezing temps or the fact that my house seems to clutter just by looking at it, but I’ve been hard-pressed to maintain my usually positive attitude lately when dealing with small annoyances (alarm failures, kitchen accidents …
Calgon, Take Me Away! Simple “Time Out” Tricks for Mom.
Once you become a parent, doing everything for others (and all at once) becomes woven into our DNA. But it’s important that we keep an eye on our own mental health before the train really runs off the tracks. Sneaking …
Technology Free Weekend? We DARE You!
There have been many, many times over the past year when I’ve gathered up my resolve and decided to cut down on my non-work Internet time. It’s not like there aren’t a million other, more productive things I could be …
This Too Shall Pass. Five Parenting Phases That You WILL Get Through. Promise.
Tonight at dinner, my five year old daughter said to me, “Thanks for the green beans, mom!” After wiping the smug I’m-such-a-great-mother smirk off my face, I remembered how offering healthy foodstuffs wasn’t so easy. I used to stay up …
Finding New Friends In A New Town. This Ain’t As Easy As It Used To Be.
A few weeks ago I wrote on my personal blog about the difficult time I was having finding friends locally. My husband, I, and three dogs moved to Portsmouth from Boston almost four years ago. I hadn’t wanted to leave …
Guilt Be Gone! Let’s Give Ourselves A Break, Because We’re Pretty Great.
I’ve been following a weight loss program for the past 17 weeks, 2 days and 3.5 hours — that’s just a rough estimate. I’m doing really well, but still, when I slip up it’s all, “Shut your pie-hole, chubby” and, …
Is McDonald’s To Blame For Making Our Kids Fat? Here’s Your Chance To Weigh In (No Scale Required).
Everyone knows that fast food chain restaurants aren’t winning any awards for being nutritionally responsible. But one public interest group is taking it a step further and claiming that McDonald’s is guilty of “predatory marketing” using their Happy Meal toys …
Tips On Creating Active Families For The Lazy Person.
Everyone in my family, particularly in their youth, has always been thin. We were able to eat a lot, exercise rarely and diet never. But did that mean we were “healthy”? Not really. My family never hiked and I’ve never …
Get Ready for Your Closeup. Tips For Nailing The Family Portrait.
The long, golden days of summer are firmly in place on the Seacoast, with picturesque sunsets that may have you considering an outdoor portrait session with the family. Before your photographer knocks at the door, camera in hand, here are …
This Book Got My Kids To Eat Tomatoes. Great Books For Life Lessons.
Do you remember that book Little Red Hen? It was one of those Golden Book stories that we all had and it was about this hen who asked the other farm animals to help her plant grain, but no one …
What to Expect When You’re Expecting…a Teenager
I am not at all certain how, now just shy of forty, that I find myself staring across the dinner table at my seventeen year old son. It happened, just like they said it would. Time passed in a blink …
Eliminate Your Stress. Eliminate The Options.
Choices, choices. As parents, we’ve been hammered with the child rearing philosophy to “give your child choices so that he or she can learn to make the right decisions.” But what if having all those choices makes everyone crazy? Case …
Fast Food. What To Order When You’re On-The-Go.
Sometimes you have to. You just do. You’re out doing errands, it’s past lunchtime and the kids are starting to whine—something needs to be done immediately before the wheels really start to come off. My friend recently told me that …
Designer Kids’ Clothing (Or Almost) On The Cheap.
Having kids has given me a whole new attitude when I go shopping. I no longer focus on my fashion but instead, my children’s. Of course, the fact that they are always growing (funny, how that happens) makes an average …
Photography 101. Finally Learn What All Those Buttons Mean.
It used to be, back when I photographed weddings, that I carried the largest camera in the room by at least several pounds. As I shot more and more, I started to notice guests toting a delicate clutch in one …
Hey Kid, I Got Your Back.
I’ve only been sequestered to detention once in my life. I was 16 and in high school. I was driving my fancy little RX7 that I bought for $2000 from working an entire summer at Water Country. One day, I …
