Teaching Kids Gratitude & The Power of a ‘Thank You’

When Cody and Nick were younger and we celebrated their birthdays with big parties and cake and by inviting friends and family to celebrate I always made it a priority to purchase thank-you cards for them to fill out. I say fill out because when they were little it was much easier for them to fill in […]

“Thanks A Lot” Board Game {Review}

I have always loved board games. I can still remember the year I got the original Trivial Pursuit board game for Christmas. I was in high school at the time and it was at the very top of my list that year. As a matter of fact, that very game sits in my family’s current […]

Learning how to parent

This morning while making and packing lunches for Cody and Nick I remembered a conversation I recently had with my friend, Kelly on Twitter. We’re friends because we bonded over pairing wine and popcorn. Also though, she created a great product for lunchboxes and you should totally be using them. They’re durable, BPA-free, and have […]

18 Summers, Minus a Few

Nick has an 8th grade promotion ceremony this afternoon. I don’t really get the point of this, the same as I didn’t really get the point of it at the end of elementary school. I’m happy and proud to celebrate accomplishments in the lives of my kids, but moving on to high school is something […]

Facebook and kids

This post has been on my mind for a long while now. I was one of those parents who allowed my child to have a Facebook account before the legal age. He expressed that all of his friends had accounts and that he just had to have one, too, but that wasn’t the reason I […]

I’m feeling a little stressed right now

I’m beyond excited. Not only am I leaving in less than two weeks for an amazing blogging conference, BlogHer, but it also happens to be in my most favorite city, San Diego. When my husband and I were first married we lived in San Diego. As a matter of fact, we lived about a five minute walk from […]

I don’t care what anyone thinks – a lesson from a 12-year old

I love how laid back that summertime is, at least for the most part. I mean there’s still an alarm to set for Paul on his work days and Cody attends summer school three days a week, but aside from that, I like the relaxed feel of a bright sunny day. Yesterday after shoving Paul […]

Summertime, Me, and a swimsuit

There were several great prompts for MamaKat’s Writer’s Workshop this week, but the one that I decided to go with was the vlog post. For two reasons, really. One is that I’ve been wanting to do more vlog posts and the other is because the question she asked was one that I was able to […]

Writer’s Workshop – Six word memoir

So I started participating in the writer’s workshop over MamaKatsLosinIt at a couple of weeks ago because I was in desperate need of some inspiration, plus I was eager to get to know some new bloggers, but last week I didn’t write anything. Who knew that even with a little inspiration I’d still struggle? I […]

Having a sex talk with a middle schooler

I always knew in the back of my mind the day would come when we Paul would have to sit down and have the talk with Nick. I say Paul because everyone knows we have that particular talk with the same sex child, right? Right? Thank you for agreeing with me on this because Paul […]