Beaded Snakes: The Best DIY Fidget Toys We’ve Found Do your kids like having something to fidget with as much as mine do? If so, making your own homemade DIY fidget toys is a fun family activity for a rainy afternoon or a day of summer camp at home. And if you already have kids’ …
How To Steam Veggies In The Microwave: Steaming vegetables in the microwave is about as easy as cooking gets. If you haven’t done this before – or if you wish your kids would eat more veggies – then microwave-steamed vegetables is a technique worth trying. Originally published May 10, 2016; last updated July 2020. Microwave-steamed …
How To Make Steamed Vegetables In The Microwave (Fast & Easy Side Dish!) Read More »
My Seven Fave Supermarket Hacks and Shopping Tips for Busy, Budget-Conscious Parents: I love a morning of leisurely shopping as much as anyone. But ever since I became a parent, running errands has become more like a tactical strike operation. While single me would spend an hour of Sunday afternoon browsing store ads for the …
To Exhausted Parents: Give Yourself Some Grace! I am exhausted. The fatigue I’ve been feeling lately has only been getting worse, not better, as parts of the country slowly start to lift their stay-at-home restrictions. And I know a lot of my friends are also feeling like exhausted parents right now: Supervising virtual school has …
Bucket-Filling Mom Hacks for Self Care (Quarantine Edition) Read More »
Your Positive Parenting Crash Course for Stuck-At-Home Life: What the heck is positive parenting? And how can a positive parenting crash course make life cooped up at home easier? As parents, it can be hard to focus on praising our kids’ positive actions, rather than correcting undesirable behaviors. It’s easier to tell kids what they …
Positive Parenting Crash Course (The Stuck-At-Home Edition) Read More »
How To Avoid Tick Bites This Summer: Your Best Bet for Preventing Tick Bites (Originally published May 20, 2017; last updated May 2020) Summer is just around the corner in the Northern Hemisphere. Are you ready to protect your kids from tick bites? Since at least 2017, it seems that each spring brings fresh warnings …
How to Protect Your Kids From Tick Bites: What Works Best? Read More »
Help for Managing Your Virtual Family Schedule: Keeping track of a packed family schedule was hard enough for a busy parent before the world shut down. Things seem ten times harder since we all switched our face-to-face interactions to virtual living: You’re now your kids’ virtual tech support, as you troubleshoot online class meetings, assignments, …
(Virtual) Family Schedule Organization Tips & Hacks Read More »
Homemade Comfort Food, Fast: Shortcut Cassoulet Recipe If your family is like ours, I’m guessing you’re cooking from scratch even more than usual, though your ingredients are often limited to what you have on hand. Yet paradoxically, between homeschooling and trying to get your own work done, you’ve got less time to spend in the …
Fun and Easy Earth Day Recycled Crafts and Activities: These are strange times we’re living in. I never thought we’d be stuck at home for literally months on end, homeschooling while trying to get our own work done. But here we are. There’s no just popping out to the store for last-minute craft supplies, and …
Recycled Earth Day Projects With Toilet Paper Rolls Read More »
Growing Vegetables From Seed For Beginners: So you’re thinking about starting your first vegetable garden from seed this year. Congratulations! There’s only one problem: you have no clue where to start. That was me a month ago. When I was growing up, my father used to cultivate about one and a half acres of vegetable …
How To Cook Dried Beans In A Slow Cooker: Even if you didn’t cook at home much before, I’m betting that recent global events have you spending more time than ever in your kitchen: Restaurants are closed except for takeout and/or delivery. Store shelves are often out of half of what you want. And if …
The EASIEST Way To Cook Dried Beans (Foolproof and No-Fuss!) Read More »
Rice Krispie Easter Eggs that are pretty AND easy: Looking for a fun, easy dessert for your Easter table that your kids can help make? A few weeks ago, the girls and I tried a variation on the original Rice Krispie treats recipe: we made them into Easter eggs that were as yummy as they …
Easy Easter Desserts Recipe: Rice Krispie Treat Easter Eggs Read More »
From Home Office Setup to Working From Home Productivity: Parents everywhere are in a brave new world: working from home while trying to homeschool our kiddos. Sometimes with guidance from their teachers, other times, not so much. For those of us fortunate enough to still have jobs we can do remotely, working from home can …
Working From Home: Tips For Success (Even With Kids Around!) Read More »
How To Talk About COVID-19 With Your Children: It looks as if the leprechaun traps are back on for St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow. My girls have been obsessed with building them since preschool, even though that was over half a lifetime ago for them now. They’d planned to skip the ritual this year, because we …
Coronavirus And Your Family: Discussing COVID-19 With Your Kids Read More »
A Better Way To Have The Birds And The Bees Talk: Being a parent is anything but easy. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by day-to-day life, let alone finding time to sit down and talk to your kids about the really important stuff. And if you’re a parent, sooner or later you’re going to need …
Overwhelmed by Parenting? Practical Self-Care Tips To Stop Being An Exhausted Mom: Have you ever had one of those weeks that just throws you for a loop? When you look at your to-do list for the day and think, “How the heck did things get so out-of-control?” Honestly, that’s been my life ever since January …
The Ultimate Self-Care Checklist for Overwhelmed Moms (Free Printable!) Read More »
Let Peanut Butter & Jelly French Toast Fuel Your Morning: Already a fan of regular French toast? Looking for something a little different for lazy weekend mornings at home? Or a surprisingly elegant dish for your next brunch? What about Peanut Butter & Jelly French Toast? PB&J French Toast is deliciously decadent, but SO simple …
Recently someone asked me what to do about toddler tantrums – specifically, toddler tantrums in public places. You know, like when your toddler throws a tantrum in a store. Toddler tantrums in grocery stores are by far the worst, and can be SO embarrassing if you’re That Parent. So what to do when your toddler …
Want to know how to lose weight and keep it off? This program did it for me: Do you struggle to make healthy eating choices, squeeze in exercise, eat a balanced diet, or resist that sweet treat or second helping of dessert? If you answered “yes” to any of these, I’m guessing you may have …
Need a last-minute holiday gift idea for someone on your list? Short on time and/or funds? Then you need some of The Best Homemade Christmas Gifts that are Fun to Make AND Give: Time’s running short – Christmas is almost here! But you’re still looking for the perfect “little something” for the neighbors, the neighborhood …
