My four-year-old daughter is as feminine as daughters come, I believe. She has yet to eat a meal without a napkin in the past two years. She's all about glitter, poofs, silky-shiny dresses, and sparkly shoes and makeup. Ribbons and painted fingernails, too much lipstick, and flailing ballet steps. Even when she goes fishing, she has her hot-pink Barbie worms. This girl does everything in style. That said, ask her what she wants to be when she grows up. Obviously, she wants to be somethin...

Jill had a really great article on children's creativity. And I've written on how they absorb just every little thing they're exposed to -- they're so amazing! My daughter is in a weekly program where she memorizes scripture in small amounts. This helps her learn the Word of God in small portions. She hears a preacher on the radio as we drive and she'll pipe up, "Hey, I've heard that story before!" I'm always amazed at what children are equipped for and how little we think they can do. ...

I built my daughter a HUGE wooden dollhouse two Christmases ago. This Christmas she got lots of furnature and some dolls for it. She set it it up quite well on her own, to my surprise. I was pleased that she saw the utility of each room. We're trying to set aside one night a week after our daily chores to work on the dollhouse. Last night we painted a few of the rooms. For those of you who don't know, dollhouses are VERY expensive to make nice. One can purchase portraits for the walls, wa...

This is one of the few books I'm reading right now and I highly recommend you to read it with highlighter in hand! It's a non-fiction book about how to get your household managed. I have learned countless amazing tips and it has completely inspired my spring cleaning. I'm decluttering my entire home right now. I'm using Kathy's tips in every area of my home and WOW is my home getting efficient. I'm seeing more time carved out for myself too. I'd never put all my sheets for one set into on...

Today I learned one of the saddest things I've heard in a long time. I really felt like crying but I couldn't. For someone who wears their emotions on their sleeve, it was difficult. My friend and I visited a girl about our age. She has five foster children all under the age of six; the youngest is 2 months. The three year old cannot talk. She was just talking to us about their new house and showing us their rooms and all that fun girl stuff. That little boy came up to me and hugged me so...

Saturday, I took my daughter to the square in town to hunt Easter Eggs. I thought, how cute! A town Easter egg hunt. The children will look so nice and it will gush old-fashioned values. I'm in. We got up to the purposely-overgrown lawn to await the hunt. She was wary of the oversized bunny. No big deal, I would be too. (Later she said, "At the Easter egg hunt, something strange was going on. The bunny had grown-up shoes on." I said, "maybe his feet were cold." "no, it wasn't cold." "ma...

I pay a LOT of money for health insurance with a prescription benefit. My daughter is sick, needed some medicine so I went to the pharmacy after her doc had called it in. They were 60 dollars! Ack. I'd not bugeted for such extravagance. Eye drops and a bottle of cough medicine. On the up and up... cough medicine is coming in very interesting shades nowadays. I've seen the red, pink, purple, clear, and yellow even. But this... this is new. Her last bottle was a greenish blue. The liqu...

Yesterday, my daughter had an issue with a piece of skin near her nail. Those rips of skin that hang off are the WORST! She picked up a terry-style pony tailer and one of its threads got stuck to her little piece of skin. She came carefully walking into the kitchen with this pony tail holder dangling from her finger as if by magic. I saw the very thin green thread when she got close enough. "Don't touch it!" she said -- as only a kid can. "I can cut the skin," I said. I got some nail ...

I had my freshmen rank a list of 33 values in order of importance. I noticed a very interesting occurance: my hispanic kids always marked "family" as first. My black kids usually marked it first. My white-non-hispanic kids almost never marked family first. They usually put success, money, friends, or other such things as first.

Wow! Everything's been crazy lately! I'm loving my new job. My daughter is loving kindergarten. She's so amazing and precious. I'm teaching on regular 50-minute periods now instead of the 90-minute blocks I did last year. Wow has that screwed up my time-frame within my mind. It's a lot like jet lag. I know my kids think I'm hyper. I think we're never getting enough done. I plan waaaaay too much. I'm like, "yeah, sure we can read the Odyssey in a week, do our weekly vocabulary words, and...

Did you hear that teens aren't getting enough sleep? The average teenager needs 9 hours of sleep according to Betsy Flagler, United Feature Syndicate. Teens get about seven and a half hours on average. I remember from psychology that lack of sleep can build up and by the weekend you can be zonked. Thats why teens will sleep till 2pm on Saturdays. I also remember that as a teenager, you're a polyphasic, meaning you sleep more than one time a day. (Late teens through college years.)...

I was listening to the radio the other day and a woman was talking about a strategy she uses with her children. I so stole the idea and it is working beautifully. I wish I remembered her name because I'd give her credit... but just so you know, this isn't my idea. It's a Saturday Box. On Sunday, I give my daughter a little money. She's five so a dollar bill is a beautiful thing to her. She keeps it all week long and it is hers. She can even call it squishy... Everynight after she ...