Family Musings

Some of you may remember the essay my husband wrote last year about the naming of our daughter. A few months ago, he sent me the same essay in a different format. I've tweaked it a little more and would like to share it with you. Just click on the image above to see it larger. I would love to have this printed in color so I can frame it and hang in my daughter's room. Some fun things to turn into a Wordle might be A list of your students for classroom teachers, Your favorite quote, A Psalm from the Bible, The names of all of your family members, A famous speech, The text of your child's favorite poem, or Random news stories. If you make your own Wordle, let me know so I can come check it out. It is a lot of fun to play with all of the different options. Among other things, you can change the colors, word orientation, font, background color, and even put the words in alphabetical order.

For my birthday I received a copy of Hello Cupcake . It is an inspiring book that shows even lame cake decorators like myself, how to make cutesy cupcakes. Since I have been hanging out with my family this week, Michelle (my sister-in-law) and I decided to make some owl cupcakes in honor of Halloween. They taste as yummy as they are cute (and for the record, I think they are super cute!) Doesn't this cupcake look wise beyond her years? Making them wasn't incredibly difficult. We frosted the tops of the cupcakes and then split open Oreo cookies for the eyes. Junior Mints filled in for the pupils and the beaks were made of banana Runts. We also sawed the other half of the Oreos to use as the owl's eyebrows and then covered them with frosting. My piping technique needs some more practice, but you still get the gist of what these are supposed to be. These weren't difficult to make at all, but we might have overdone it a bit by making 45 of them! We managed to get two of the...

Tess is back with another homeschooling product review! ************************************ Here I am again with another review that The Old Schoolhouse magazine has set me up to do. I think this particular review would be something a parent of a preschooler to a college student might find interesting. I have learned about a site, Helpme2teach.com , that could definitely give any home schooling family the peace of mind and confidence they need to know that their children are accessing sites that are safe and filled with valuable information they need to help them learn. Here is a website that claims to have 2000 plus safe educational links that are suitable for children, parents and teachers. I say “claims” not in a bad way but just that I can’t sit down and count them. We are all familiar with how to surf the internet for information that we need. If you are anything like me then you definitely know how to search for that hidden gem that you know will give your child the “A HA” mo...

My family calls me the CVS Queen. Let me show you why. Pictured: 4 Colgate toothpastes, 6 G2 flavored water, 1 32-oz Propel, 3 bars of beauty soap, 4 bags of tootsie rolls, 1 Tylenol Rapid Release, 1 dye-free Children's Mortin, 2 bath poufs, 4 cans of Progresso Light Soup, 2 Blade Body Sprays, 1 box of Just For Men (which comes with an $8 rebate) and 2 travel size Christophe Products. Not pictured are 2 more bags of Tootsie Rolls, and 2 Reinventing Beauty magazines. Would you believe that I only paid $11.09 out of pocket for ALL of this?? My receipts say the retail value of it all is $71.43. Plus, on top of that ridiculously low price, they paid me another $13.69 in ECBs ( Extra Care Bucks ) just to take this stuff out of their store. That means, I netted $2.60 this week! I'd say that covered my gas for the three trips I made, but I walked to CVS 2 of those times. (Now aren't you even more impressed with my frugality?) And I still have an $8 rebate to submit, which means I ...

I often find lots of giveaways from other bloggers that I want to share with you. This one I am sharing just because the dress the blogger is giving away is utterly amazing! You have to at least go over and check out the dress, even if you don't enter. Marie-Therese Gown Giveaway

Some people want to label me as a member of Generation X. And, now, someone wants to label me as a member of Generation Huggies. What? Well, Huggies were first introduced to parents 30 years ago, about the time I was born. I have no idea if my mom used Huggies on my sweet bottom, but I know that they are the preferred diaper for my daughter's tiny bottom. Several months ago, I discovered that they stayed with her better when she was moving around and more importantly, could hold all of her nighttime wetness without leaking onto her pajamas or bed sheet. To celebrate 30 years of Huggies baby-love, they have created Generation Huggies , a website, contest, and sweepstakes all in one! The contest is a way for moms to reflect on what motherhood has meant to them. I viewed several of the videos already submitted and loved to see mom, just like me, talking about how motherhood had changed them. It is clear that Huggies will be choosing real moms for their national ad campaign. If you...

Ahhh... natural. It seems that natural is the magic word when it comes to consumers these days. We are all looking for those products that keep our family safe and allow us to claim a shade of green as our own. Personally, I started my rode towards greenness in earnest about a year and a half ago. Sure, I sorted my recyclables and put the ubiquitous yellow bin at the end of my driveway. But that was about it. Then, I was on vacation and found this over-sized canvas grocery bags. I bought 4 of them and never looked back. It is rare for me to forget my grocery bags and I feel good when I use them. I have acquired a few more since then and have them stashed every where - under my seat in the car, in the stroller basket, and around the house. At some point after Charlotte was born, I considered using flannel cloth wipes instead of toilet paper, but my husband absolutely refused. So, we compromised. I bought a set of white cloth napkins at the thrift store, and we gave up paper towels. That...