Candy-Free, Allergy-Free Valentine Ideas

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In my world, kids eat too much candy.  They need more candy like they need a hole in the head.  Couple that with kids who have multiple food allergies, and Valentine’s Day can be a real bummer.  To try to meet the demand for Valentines without adding to the sugar load, I have created a [...]

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8 Unintended Rules We Are Telling Our Children

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When we bring a tiny life into this world as first time parents, we try to do everything right and perfect.  Oftentimes we even project this perfection onto our children by expecting them to fit into a perfect little mold.  Some of it is our own expectations we had of what our future children (prior to becoming [...]

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Road Trip Gadgets for Restless Kids

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Spring Break is just around the corner and that means family vacations and road trips.  Check out this guest post from Dale Cooper. Family road trips are a great way to escape the daily grind. Taking your kids on a trip will provide them with an unforgettable experience, but a long drive can put a [...]

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Strong Families Play Games! “Don’t Show Your Teeth”

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One of the best ways we can come closer together as families, is to have fun together. This doesn’t mean that we need to spend money to go out and participate in lavish expensive activities. There are so many ways we can have fun together at home, or driving in the car, or anywhere we [...]

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When Will My Baby Move?-Mobile Developments

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When we had our first child, I was worried about EVERY developmental stage. Shouldn’t he be rolling over? Why isn’t he walking? What if he walks before he crawls? Out of excitement I jumped the gun a little and wanted him to develop fast. Now after our 4th child, I have finally learned to relax, be [...]

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40 Read Aloud Chapter Books for Young Children

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One of my New Year’s resolutions was to start reading chapter books at bedtime to our sensitive 4 year old son and spunky 2 year old daughter. Okay, the 2 year old might have been a stretch, but we’ll try anyway.  Yes, chances are that your preschoolers, too, can sit still enough to listen to [...]

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2012: A Diagnosis and a Year of Change

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2011 came and went faster than I could blink an eye, with the dawn of many new and great adventures that God presented to us. I wanted to start off this New Year talking about a very serious health problem that I have been dealing with and felt that sharing my experience would help other [...]

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Babies, Babies, Babies! (Looking Back at 2011)

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 This year we were thankful for the babies born in 2011.  Just look at all these adorable faces!          A BIG congrats to 8 of our ANOM writers, (in order) Heather, Keleigh, Melanie, Sarah, Lindsey, Melissa, Valerie and Maria, in the birth of their beautiful babies this year!  (You can read a few of their [...]

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“I’m Bored”

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  “Mom, I am bored!” Anyone hearing this from their kids right about now? Half way through Christmas Break and wondering what to do? I get a lot of parents asking why kids always say they are bored. Although every child is different, here are some suggestions. Let’s start with some interesting findings… Kids now are [...]

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Teaching our Children to Work

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My freshman year in college, I had a roommate who never had to do any work in her house growing up. Didn’t make a bed, cook a meal, clean a bathroom, or help with yard work. At first I though she was soooooo lucky. I wished I never had to do those things. UNTIL the [...]

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Five Things I Never Thought I Would Say

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When I was growing up and thinking about what it would be like to be married and have children, I always pictured perfectly groomed, perfectly behaved, perfect children.  I would never “be like my mother” and say seemingly utterly ridiculous things.  I even had that sense when I was first married and we were childless.  [...]

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Stop the Selfishness-Part 2

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SO… where did we leave off last week? Let’s talk about how we can stop the selfishness. Take Back Control… A spoiled and selfish child knows how to get what they want. Did you know that a child will hound you approximately 9 times to get their way, or get what they want? Don’t give in. The [...]

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Homeschooling When It’s Hard

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Sometimes, it gets hard to homeschool. Well, honestly, it’s always hard to homeschool, but some times it’s worse than others. Recently, I hit a rough patch in our schooling that has caused me to sit back and reevaluate what I was doing.  Is the program for us?  Is the curriculum for us?  Why am I [...]

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Stop the Selfishness – Part 1

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(Part 2 is at the bottom of the post. Watch them with your kids) Is your child unappreciative? Do you often hear “I want” and “Now”? When you ask your child to do something, do they say “No”? Do they always expect to get their way? At one time or another, all of our children [...]

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Leave the Red Pen in the Drawer

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    As a new graduate student I was asked to take a TA class. The training prepared me to assist professors with grading assignments in their classes. One of the first things I learned in that TA course was to avoid using a red pen when I was grading papers. I remember laughing to [...]

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Sinking and Failing at Homeschooling

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If any of you are regular readers of my posts here on a Nation of Moms, you know that deadlines and I do not get along. At all. So, I definitely did not understand that I was getting into deadline heaven when I first started cyber school with the twins. If you refer to Why [...]

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The Natural Birth – Tips, Cliff’s Notes, Sample Birth Plan and more!

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With the impending birth of our third child in a few very short weeks, I have been giving some thought to writing down some tips that helped me with the natural birth of our second child after having had a medicated one previously. Natural birth.  I know these can be scary words, especially the way that [...]

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Baby Goes Vintage

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By Amy Levin-Epstein for Green Goes Simple Babies are cute, but — I’m sorry to say — they’re hardly green. These tiny little humans need a whole lot of stuff! “Between the diapers and the plastic bottles, and the packaging it all comes in, there is a lot of waste,” says green parenting expert Dr. [...]

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30 Needs, to Help our Kids Succeed

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Research shows that kids need certain things to succeed in life. Are our children getting what they need to succeed? As parents it is good to read through the list regularly and evaluate how we are doing. 1. Family support: Our children need us to verbally tell them they are loved, spend time with them, and [...]

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Five Minute Shower

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Do you remember what it was like before kids?  A recent comment from a single friend got me reminiscing about the way things used to be.  She had dropped in to say hello and I asked if she would mind watching the kids so I could run take a shower.  Alone.  Without interruptions.  She laughingly [...]

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8 Sanity Savers to Make Cooking with Your Kids Fun

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The kitchen is often overlooked as a great place to spend some time with your kids. We often think of cooking as a chore, or an activity that takes us away from the family. But it can actually be fun for you and for them if you make it a special part of their day, [...]

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10 Wallet Friendly Ways to Beat Boredom in Autumn

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Submitted on behalf of Primrose Schools: The Leader in Educational Day Care by Emily Patterson (@epatt1062) After a record-breaking summer, filled with scorching temperatures, the cooling fall season is rapidly approaching. Many children are now back in school, so they will typically have homework and other after school activities to keep them busy throughout the week. If [...]

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Dirty Enough to be Happy! (Plus GREAT Cleaning Tips)

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“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.” Phyllis Diller  “Make Your Home Clean Enough to be Healthy and Dirty Enough To Be Happy.” Unknown “Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don’t do it.” Unknown Our family is growing. Every day [...]

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Special Needs Does Not Equal Lowered Expectations

For years, I’ve had to fight against people constantly underestimating Isaac.  It has happened as far back as I can remember. It has been every school year without fail. In Pre-K-I had to fight to send him to the integrated classroom, although it was painfully obvious that he was way past the peers in the [...]

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Career or Kids? Why I chose my kids over “my” life

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I think I lost a friend.  I don’t know how, but I’m pretty sure she’s not my friend anymore.  And, I think she’s not my friend because I have made the decision to put my kids above my career. We all make decisions in life, some big and some small, and we make them everyday.  [...]

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Celebrate the Differences

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Don’t let the similar faces fool you … they are complete opposites. My husband and I have spent the last two hours sitting on the couch talking about our kids. This isn’t unusual. We have sat and talked about our kids since we met, before our kids were born. Lately though, our conversations have changed. [...]

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CaringBridge: Connecting Family and Friends *GIVEAWAY* (Rafflecopter)

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CaringBridge is an organization dedicated to helping families connect with family and friends when they need it the most. At CaringBridge you can set up a FREE, personal, and private journal to record  your health record. In the event of a life changing  situation, CaringBridge can help you share updates, photos, and get encouragement from your [...]

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5 things I wish my son’s new classmates parents knew

  Each new school year brings a new crop of kids in Isaac’s class. Some of them know him and can handle his quirky nature. Others are new to him and don’t quite know what to make of them. When kids go home and ask about why my son “talks funny” or stare at his [...]

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Nightmares and Night Terrors

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  As a parent, it is a horrible feeling to wake up in the middle of the night to your child screaming and crying from a bad dream. Our first instinct might be to hollar “it’s just a bad dream, go back to sleep.” Although it isn’t real, the best thing we can do as [...]

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Our Homeschool Preschool Plan

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I know this might come a tad bit on the late side, but I just didn’t have the time to plan out our school year until just recently.  (Or perhaps I was just avoiding the responsibility because I didn’t want to add one more thing to my already filled plate.)  Hopefully this might help some [...]

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