In talking with my mother about our decision on whether to start preparing Shannon for a professional dance career, we spoke about laying a strong spiritual foundation, and she doesn’t feel our kids are getting enough, due to our style of home church (and having no specific children’s program). Afterwards, I spoke to Joan Strain about ...

Kids don't wake up from fire alarms--see the news report here. Spread the word!

Okay, I just have to say a word about the Webkinz phenomena, which my four kids are well into and are building their ongoing collections. First of all, the Webkinz and Lil'kinz stuffed animals are so cute, easily affordable, and almost everyone loves them--boys and girls from age five and up. So, for an inexpensive no-fail gift for your ...

When my youngest was 3 and 4 years old, he would often tell me to "slow down" or "be quiet." Just today, at five, he told me to "settle down"! (Okay, I get a little wound up with caffeine and we were playing.) When we ordered Chinese for supper, my oldest used to ask for Crab Rangoons by calling them ...

The other day I was reminiscing, and I remembered several treasured moments we had as a family when we did two Konos unit studies. Konos is a Christian-based homeschool curriculum, which is set up as unit studies based on godly character traits, such as Honor, Patience, Obedience, Attentiveness, etc. A couple of years ago, while homeschooling, we ...

With my nine-year-old's recent birthday, I wanted to give her a "quest" to fulfill this year, to help build her character. I may start doing this for all of my children on their birthdays (maybe I'll even do one for myself--I'm turning 40 this year!). Since my daughter turned nine, I decided to give her nine tasks to ...

One of our daughters just turned nine recently. I decided this year I wanted to add a spiritual dimension to our birthday celebrations, so they're not all just materialistic in nature. So here is a simple tradition we've just started. Sometime during the actual birth-day, when it's just the family together, gather around the ...

We're having to plan my 9yo daughter's birthday party last minute and on a budget. We were having trouble coming up with ideas last night, when I found this site. They have hundreds of awesome ideas and themed parties, for all ages and budgets. Here's another site just chock full of creative and fun party game ideas. With these two ...

What is a mandala, you ask? If you're not familiar with mandalas, check out this site--it includes lots of mandalas as well as Turkish tiles to print and color.

We got a mandala creator this Christmas, and the kids and I are having a great time creating and coloring in our own original mandalas. It really is a peaceful activity. While looking on the net for mandalas, I came across this great site of crop circle designs for kids to print and color in--teaching geometry at the same time! Some of these ...