Thanksgiving Shopping Choices

How early do you get your holiday shopping done? For some, it may mean purchasing things throughout the year. For others, it may mean waiting until the last minute. And for others, it may mean waiting until one of the best shopping weekends of the year: Thanksgiving weekend. In the past, it just meant going out for Black Friday and then along came Cyber Monday. Now, there are a handful of stores that start their holiday deals on Thanksgiving. And while this may seem like a controversial move on the part of the retailers, it also opens up a new venue of savings for holiday shoppers. But where do you stand when it comes to Thanksgiving shopping choices? Are you a Black Friday go-getter, a…

What to Do When Your Toddler Bites

Perhaps you’ve heard that sometimes when a shark takes a bite out of something, it’s an exploratory bite. Perhaps the same can be said about toddlers when they bite and hey, at least with a toddler we know that there’s no risk of being completely digested or losing pints of blood- right? Even if it may not be completely malicious, most toddlers will bite at some point in their little lives. It goes right along with that precious stage of hitting and kicking. It’s a developmental issue but not something that you should make too big of a deal out of. I’m not suggesting that biting people is okay, far from it. But there are definitely things that you should (and should not) do when…

How Will You Decorate for Christmas?

One of my favorite times of the year is Christmas season. And by Christmas season, I generally mean the day after Thanksgiving until a week or so after Christmas. I admit, sometimes I will start listening to Christmas music earlier than that and each year, I debate if I want to take out the decorations sooner. So yes, I am one of those people that will start decorating early. Will you decorate for Christmas this year? Do you have traditions that you uphold? What about homemade decorations? Over the years, my decorating style has changed but I still have a few tried and true decorations that have stuck with me over the years. Each year, it seems, I add new decorations though I tend to…

Easy Letter Matching Activity

Easy Letter Matching Activity

As we have our informal tot school, and by informal I mean we do a fair amount of free play, learning through play, pretend play, reading books, arts and crafts; sometimes I’ll try to sneak in a learning activity. But those learning activities are also play based, or at least have some element of play in them. I want to keep it simple enough for Squeaker and yet still with an element of challenge so she’s working on her skills. Things like fine motor, gross motor, letter identification, and that sort of thing. For Squeaker, this also means playing games and having learning activities that can be quick in nature or that she can come back to when her attention span allows for it. We’ll…

Easy Ways to Start Using Coupons

I will start this off by saying that I am far from an extreme couponer. I just don’t have the patience to go through every coupon site, weekly ads, etc. But, I do like saving money so I’m willing to do as much work as possible to help with that cause. For example, I like digital coupons from places like Smart Source, Coupons.com, and Red Plum. I shop in bulk when need be because that also helps me save money and especially on things that I need like toilet paper, paper towels, diapers, and wipes. I also buy lunch items in bulk, and occasionally meat. When we finally start meal planning, I’ll buy other items in bulk to hopefully save on our food expenses. Today,…

Making the Most of 102 Minutes

We’ve seen it said by experts, or maybe we’ve said it ourselves, “television should not be a babysitter for your child,” and while I do wholeheartedly agree with this statement; I can only agree with it most of the time. I’m a mom of three, certainly not a certified expert in child development but I think I have a grasp on this whole parenting thing. Or at least I’m doing a great job pretending that I do. I’m a stay at home mom, which means of course, that I have all of the time in the world to do crafts, activities, make amazing homemade meals, bake cookies, keep a clean house… you get the picture. So why do I let television occasionally babysit my toddler…