Family Musings

Today's photo is of a picture of someone I could never imagine my life without. It's almost impossible to decide on just one person. But, in honor of a recent birthday, I'm going to show you some pictures of my mom.  She's not really a fan of the camera, so these are almost a year old. But my friend Abby (a central FL photographer) did a great job capturing one of my favorite things about my mom - how much she loves her family. I think each of these photos shows that she truly enjoys the company of her grandchildren. And that we enjoy her company too! Happy birthday G-ma!

The nice ladies over at SocialMoms.com asked me how I keep my family happy. And one of the the easy answers to that is I try to keep their favorite foods in the house. Each one of them likes something different and it can be a challenge at time to meet all of their needs... but you know what they say about the way to a man's heart. It's true at my house too, but not just for the man! :) Bruce likes ice cream, home baked chocolate chip cookies, chips and dip, and beef. If I can manage to keep at least one of those things easily accessible to him on any given evening, then I have succeeded in keeping him happy. I think I get the most points for homemade cookies though. And I just use the Toll House recipe on the bag! Yanfei (our Chinese exchange student) is 16  17 and likes sweets, including fruit. She seems easier to please though and can be satisfied with a jar of Nutella and fresh bread. Though I think she's eaten it straight from the jar before. You'd think that...

I'm onto day 13 of the 30 day photo challenge and one reason it's taken me so long to get this post up is because I am supposed to post a picture of my favorite band or artist. And the truth is, I'm not much of a fan. I like lots of songs. And I've even been heard saying, "oh! that's my favorite song!" when one comes on the radio or the opening chords are strung by the Praise Band at my church. Instead of narrowing it down to just one, I'll just share some of my favorites. This is not even close to an exhaustive list and the challenge might have been more revealing had they asked for a favorite song... but then again, it's kind of hard to take a picture of a song, isn't it? Josh Wilson (who we met in person thanks to Joy FM) Third Day (the one band I've seen in concert more than any other) (Image courtesy: Music Babylon ) Sara McLachlan (the best outdoor concert experience I ever had) (Image courtesy: Spinner.com ) Who is ...

As an update to my post last month about monthly menu planning and how much easier it has made my life, I want to share this great monthly menu planning spreadsheet that one of my readers (my mom!) was inspired to make and share. My mom is great with these sorts of things and she made it really easy to use. April will be my first month trying this out and I am excited to have the list formatted more cleanly than my handwritten notes were. You can access the spreadsheet through Google Docs at this link - monthly menu planning spreadsheet . There are columns for the date, meal idea, source, and for fresh ingredients. The last one is probably my favorite feature of my monthly menu plan. Because seriously, if I tried to buy my produce and dairy for the whole month at the beginning, it wouldn't last. We'd probably just eat all of the fruit up in the first 2 weeks and then end up with rotten spinach by the time we got to week 4. Currently, this spreadsheet is formatted from A...

The other day Charlotte wanted to do a craft "all by myself." She even knew what she wanted to make - a welcome sign for our door. So, I printed out the word 'welcome' and then handed her a few supplies. This is the result: She conceived this almost entirely by herself and the execution is wholly hers. The wooden craft sticks are a fence and there is a lot of grass and flowers to make it pretty. And of course, there had to be dirt (the black marks) for the grass and flowers to grow in. She even drew the circle around the word 'Welcome' so she would know where to cut it. One aspect of this I am really proud of is the purple flower. Charlotte was practicing on another sheet and had a hard time getting it to look like the sample one I made. So she asked for help instead of saying, "I can't!" (You see, we don't allow her to say, "I can't." If she is struggling with something, we are trying to teach her to either be more creat...

"What are these for?" Charlotte asked as she pointed to the tiny nipples on her chest. In a moment of what I consider to be good mothering, I told her that they were for when she grows up and becomes a mommy. That one day, she would use them to make milk to feed her babies. Just like I had used mine to give milk to her and Mary when they were babies. I was so proud of my lack of hesitation and the positive tone of my response, I was completely caught off guard when she laid in my lap and said she was pretending to be a baby, and would I please give her some of my milk! Do you have any funny breastfeeding stories? Or funny body discovery stories? Leave a comment with a link so we can all have another chuckle!

I need a storage system for small toys that doesn't consist of easy to open boxes or ziploc bags. We have lots of toy sets that consist of small items and my previous option, ziploc bags isn't working any more. She has mastered how to open them and once I found her trying to put the bag over her head. Not good. Mary can open the boxes and bags so quickly that our living room goes from clean to atrocious in about 15 minutes. It's the fun of opening things that she loves. I don't mind indulging her on one or two sets of toys, but it gets a bit out of hand when she tries to open everything. I need to store things like small fairy dolls, My Little Ponies, a felt tea set, etc... So, more experienced or clever moms, how do you store your little toys in a way that they are still accessible to a 3-year old, but not so easily accessible to an 18-month old?

It isn't her first choice, but the time has come for Mary to give up her pacifier. She wasn't really thrilled with the idea as she has become rather attached to the darn thing over the last 18 months. And truth be told, so have I.  Unfortunately, we noticed a month or so ago that Mary's teeth seemed to be coming in crooked, almost in the shape of her Soothie pacifier. So we decided it was time to go. I was not looking forward to it, and it still is hard. We began by telling her she could only have it in bed and when we left the house (for the benefit of the people around us). It was tough for the first several days since she was used to having it almost constantly. Then she got used to it. If she got hurt or was extra tired I sometimes gave it to her for a few minutes. After a week or so of that, I'm trying to limit it outside of the house. It seems to be working mostly. Though, the other morning she asked to take a nap at 9:30 am just so she could have her paci. I...

The weather this week has been perfect. No ill-timed thunder storms. No frying eggs on the side walk. Just gorgeous blue skies with wispy white clouds that look like animals frolicking in the sky. The extra hour of sun light may have fooled us into thinking it was earlier than expected. But that is okay, it meant we also got tricked into sleeping later than anticipated because the sun wasn't up quite as early. I know a time will come in a month or so when I will curse my birth into this state. And when it does, I'll try to remember Spring Break 2011 when my family got to play at Busch Gardens with friends and at the zoo splash pad with family and never broke a sweat. For now, let me enjoy the last waning hours of sunlight as our Spring Break comes to a close and Bruce goes back to work in the morning. See you on the flip side...

The first time I tasted Nutella , I knew we would begin a life long relationship. I was in high school and my mom brought home a freshly baked baguette and a jar of Nutella from a French bakery. It was foreign and sweet. That was all it took. I was hooked on Nutella. Last fall, Nutella was on sale. And I had coupons. So I bought several jars and introduced Charlotte to it. She mostly enjoys it on home made oatmeal waffles, but sometimes we just use frozen waffles. Surprisingly, she doesn't like it when I put a super thick layer of Nutella on her waffle. A thin layer is all it takes to make her happy. (And those several jars, they would have lasted longer if the teenager in my house hadn't discovered her own love of Nutella as well!) So, with my love of Nutella firmly established, when Mommy Parties invited me to host a Nutella Play Date in my home, I could hardly say no. There were a few points I wanted to share with my Mommy friends lest they think we eat chocolate for br...

Does your child believe in the Easter Bunny ? Santa Clause ? The Tooth Fairy ? If so, I found a website sure to delight both you and them as you try to build anticipation of big events in their lives. It's called Catch A Character and it allows you to insert a picture of these elusive characters into your own pictures. Imagine you child's surprise on Easter morning when they wake to find eggs scattered around the house and a picture of the Easter Bunny trying to hide them. Or the morning after they leave their tooth under their pillow and then you surprise them with a picture of the Tooth Fairy in action. You'd be the coolest mom on the block with that picture! I played around with the site a bit and had a lot of fun putting the right picture with the right Santa image. You can adjust the size of the character as well as the coloring or brightness. This helps make it look as real as possible. I was really impressed with how easy it was to use. I have 5 free picture c...

Just wanted to share a little gem with you... TShirtPrinting.net . They sent us a promotional tee recently and it was super soft. Plus, after several washes, the logo still looks great. Charlotte and Mary both liked the monkey logo, but if you use them for printing t-shirts, you'll get your own logo. I was really impressed with the ultra saturated colors. It seems most screen printed t-shirts wash out or fade after a while, but this one didn't. And they do have a wide variety of clothing types to choose from. My only disappointment with the site was that quotes are only available over the phone. I understand why they do this, but it would be nice to have a ball park figure before you get too invested in the process. I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com . Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissi...

A blessing of living in FL, besides all the sunshine we get in January and February, are the strawberries that are grown here. We can get them super cheap this time of year and I often have more than I can use. But don't you worry... waste not, want not! I have a plan for using them up. Most years, I make and can strawberry jam to last the rest of the year. For example, in January 2010, my family and I picked 30 pounds of strawberries. Most became jam, a bunch were eaten right away, and the rest were individually frozen to enjoy year round. This week, I found myself with a clamshell of strawberries that had frozen in my refrigerator. I do not like to eat previously frozen berries unless they are in something, so I made something with the berries. I think this recipe will hang around through the summer and next fall as a great way to have a taste of FL winter year round. Strawberry Quick Bread 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup sugar 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp nutmeg 1/4...

I've found a pretty cool children's book resource that I wanted to share. It's called Story Time For Me . This website has about 30 animated story books that you can watch with your kids. Charlotte really liked the Fern series and was disappointed that there was only 1 Flame the Dragon book so far. The Ben the Mouse series is really cute too. Each book focuses on different characters in at Ben's school and also on different character attributes. They allowed Charlotte (just 3 1/2) and I to have some good conversations about sharing, feelings, and how we treat our friends. Soon, they will be adding personalized story books with animation of your own children. I recently bought a personalized story book and know an online, animated version would go over really well in our house! Also, if you fan the Story Time For Me Facebook page , you will be entered in to a drawing to win a FREE personalized story book. Let me know which stories you and your kids like! I rec...

And you are lucky to have a friend like me!! :) I wanted to pop in a second time today to share how to earn free Redbox movies between now and Thursday, March 17. Here are the instructions from Redbox: Sign-up for a redbox online account at www.redbox.com/luckymoms . Why? By signing up for an online account, you can see what movies are currently in redbox kiosks near you and reserve your picks to guarantee they’ll still be waiting for you when you get there (until 9 p.m. the next day). Redbox will email you a personal web address link Share the link with your friends Every time someone reserves a movie online through your personal web address, you’ll receive a credit in your online account for a free one-night DVD rental If it is your friend’s first time reserving online, they’ll also receive a credit for a free one night rental Spread the luck! Email it, post it to Facebook , Tweet about it! FTC Disclosure: This post is an entry to win free Redbox movies and movie sn...

Do you know what a seasonal consignment sale it? I do, and I love them!!! And I love giving away gift certificates to my readers! (Keep reading for details.) March and April are the most popular months of the year for these sales as moms start looking to pack away the parkas and mittens. Fortunately, Lakeland is blessed to have a couple of these. The first consignment sale of the season is Savvy Shoppers . It was started by my friend Debbie and I am pleased to tell you more about it. Savvy Shoppers Children's Consignment Sale March 24-26, 2011 90 Lake Morton Dr. Junior League Building (near the Lakeland Public Library) This is what Debbie has to say about Savvy Shoppers: We are here to help during these hard economic times. Moms need to make their dollars stretch. By consigning your gently used clothes, toys, games, etc., with Savvy Shoppers you will earn 70% of your sales. You can increase your earnings by volunteering at the sale. You can shop out great selection at aweso...

A couple of months ago I switched from planning weekly dinner menus to planning monthly dinner menus. I read the idea months ago but was nervous about making the switch. I was finally convinced because I realized that weekly planning was not the best use of my time. Here are the pros to planning a monthly dinner menu: I only have to browse my cookbooks or recipes online once a month. I can space out my "filler meals" which ensures we don't eat spaghetti every other night. It is easier to guarantee that I do try the new recipes I do find. I'd been in a rut making the same handful of meals every week and even Mary was getting bored.  My budget is relieved. We get paid just once a month and by knowing at the beginning of the month what our main food expenses will be I can plan better.  I do not need to make a big shopping trip on a weekly basis. This is better for the girls attention span and for my sanity. Sure, I stop in for milk and produce throughout the mon...

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but my baby is not a baby any longer. Mary is 18 months old now and is a lot of fun when she isn't crying for her pacifier. (I know, she shouldn't have one at this age... its her only vice though.) Some quick facts about Mary: She says Momma a lot. As in, it is probably the only sound you'll hear if her mouth is open. Sometimes, she will Dadda if prompted and I think I heard her say some version of Charlotte today. But I only think it was Charlotte because she was pointing and chasing her big sister around the play ground. Mary likes to give hugs.  One of her favorite things to do is empty things out - bags, doll houses, toy baskets. If you can fill it up, she'll want to empty it out. Fortunately, she also likes to fill things up again. We find the remote in Bruce's boots. Mismatched shoes in the blanket box. Toys in the plastic cabinet. One day we'll be able to harness this for good when she learns where things bel...

I just don't feel like writing. I have several posts half written, either online or in my head. I have a couple of giveaways that need to get started. I have some product reviews that are getting close to over due. I have a camera full of pictures that need to be downloaded and edited. So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to just let it go for another few days and see then if I feel like writing. Hopefully, I will. But I make no promises (or apologies) if I don't. In the mean time, why don't you link to your most favorite recent post. If I'm not going to write, I can at least read what you are writing.