I’m saying thanks today. Thanks you, and you, and you in the corner. Thanks you, all of you, for everything. For the last 5 months (it’s hard to write that, actually) we’ve been in absolute crisis mode at my house. In early March, my daughter started throwing up. And throwing up, and throwing up, and throwing up. I figured we were in the middle of a winter stomach flu, like every other kid we knew. From the time school starts…
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Kids can be tricky in the summertime. Believe me, I’m a work-at-home mom, which means summer is a blessing and a curse. I love having my kids home more than life itself, but keeping them intellectually challenged and busy 24/7 is a job in and of itself. We started out the summer with Some Fun Summer Bags for Kids, and a couple weeks ago spent the weekend doing the Kids Adventure Games at Snowbird. We’ve done an Easy Summer Activity…
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This Summer activity book DIY might save my sanity for the next 9 weeks. I’m not really kidding. The month of May was so insanely over-scheduled and hectic it seemed the last day of school would never arrive. Then WHAM! The kids are home and it’s head first into swim team and t-ball and worrying about the infamous “Summer Slide”. It’s a thing, the “Summer Slide”, the thing where kids lose some of their academic skills over the summer. Turns…
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4th of July, 4th of July! You know there’s nothing better than a summer holiday, right? For me, it’s the 4th of July. It’s my favorite holiday, hands down. The weather is gorgeous and hot, the pavement is baking, kids sit on the sidewalk eating dripping Popcicles, and fireworks end the day. It’s the most fun of the whole year, and that’s saying something. I make my famous American flag cake. We sometimes run a 4th of July 5k…
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My kids seem to be growing especially fast these days, so when I find a cute tee or dress on sale for a great deal, I usually buy their current size plus the size I know they’ll soon be fitting into. I found some bright neon shirts at Target a while back and bought a few colors, knowing they would be perfect for school and play time for my 9 year old. But when it came time to size up,…
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Lots of news in the world today: Putin is still being the dictator he is and is escalating his crimes upon Ukraine (and most of the rest of the developed world, heaven help us all), there are 200 schoolgirls missing in Nigeria who’ve reportedly been kidnapped and sold into marriage, and on a less-serious-but-still-rather-heavy-for-my-heart-matter, David Beckham is still retired from the game of soccer. Why can’t he pull a Michael Phelps and (allegedly) come out of retirement already? April has…
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When Easter is over, as it is about to be, what do you do with all the leftover Easter baskets? In my house growing up, my mom would stash all 10 Easter baskets back under the stairs, grass and all, to wait it out until the following Easter holiday. I’m not quite as organized as my mother, maybe because I’m free to wing it with only 2 kids instead of 8, which means each year is different than the next. …
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When I worked outside of the home I enjoyed packing a lunch everyday for myself. I don’t function well unless I’ve had something healthy to feed my brain. I’m sure you’ve all seen salad jars, but have you actually ever made one? I wish I had known about them when I was packing my lunches all those years! I hadn’t seen this brilliant idea until last year. I work from home now, but I still love them. They are easy…
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World renowned portrait photographers Wendy and Tyler Whitacre of Blue Lily Photography have announced their world tour dates for 2014, and guys, you want to get on that train. Wendy photographed my little family on a hot August day last summer on a leg of their 2013 world tour and they’re some of my favorite family photos we’ve ever taken. They’re all about getting the real stuff, none of the canned studio photography nonsense my family won’t sit still for….
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