Camping with Kids

Submitted by Nancy of TutuCute&Moore.

Camping with kids is great family fun and we all become kids at heart when sleeping in the great outdoors. But with a few precautions and a little extra planning the adventure will be memorable for years to come.
Safety tips for happy campers:

• Young children should stay within eyesight, and older children within earshot.

• Children over the age of four should carry a simple survival kit, or at least a whistle to call for help if lost. The standard distress signal is three blows to indicate "I'm lost" or "I need help."

Felt Campfire Set from FranconiaRidgeStudio.etsy.com

• Pack a days worth of clothing for each child in zip lock bags, so clothes stay organized. Every morning your child can grab the bag, with their name on it, and have a full set of clothes for the day. At night the dirty clothes go back in the bag, thus keeping the clean and dirty clothes separated.

• The key to comfortable camping with kids is to dress them in several layers, which can be removed as the sun comes up or added as the sun sets.

Camping Memory Game from 2HeartsDesire.etsy.com

• Children love flashlights, and having one also makes them more at ease after dark. To prevent arguing over the flashlight, allow each child to have their own with their name on it.

• Flashlights are also handy when making trips to the restroom, for making shadow puppets on tent walls, searching for bugs and for reading before bed.

• Bring along a game you all like to play at home. Playing it outdoors with a lantern or flashlights will add to the fun.

Hanging Toiletry Bag for Camp from NannyBoutique.etsy.com

• Teach your kids to treat the outdoors kindly. Make sure all waste is disposed of properly when camping or hiking along the trails.

• Two or more children will entertain themselves for longer periods than will a single child, so you may want to invite a playmate along.

• Get the kids involved by making a check list of camping equipment, games and favorite toys for traveling, food and snacks, rainwear, camera, phone, bug sprays, medical kit, etc.. Don’t forget to check it twice before leaving home.

Play felt S'Mores Set from IFeltItUp.etsy.com

HAPPY CAMPING!

Keep up with TutuCute&Moore on the web.  Check out her Etsy Shop and like her Facebook page!   

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Instilling Green Habits in Your Children

How do you teach your children about conservation, sustainability, and recycling?  Those are big words that young children can grasp if presented to them in the right way.  Instilling green habits is about teaching children positive ways to cook, craft, garden, and explore the world around them.  Earth Day is a great time to think about some ways you can instill green habits in your household.

    One of the most powerful ways to influence children is to set an example. If you talk about eating veggies, take your child to a farmer’s market and plant your own garden (most children love helping with all aspects of planting a garden).  If you talk about enjoying the outdoors, take your children on a hike. If you recycle, have your children take part in the recycling process. Children love to sort.

    A great hands-on way to introduce children to the idea of re-using  and upcycling items around your house is by creating eco-art. Using items around the house that you might otherwise throw away like plastics that you can't recycle or fabric scraps and create art with them. Some eco-art examples are: Toilet paper rolls and old red tissue paper to make trees, corks and foam to create floating sail boats, take old milk jugs and make whales or masks out of them, use old CDs and feathers to make dream catchers.

   Green your school lunches.  Brown paper bags and throw-away plastic baggies add up to a lot of trash. Buy a lunchbox free of lead and, if they don’t already come with it, reusable sandwich bags, cloth napkins and a thermos. Just by eliminating all that daily wasted plastic and paper, your child could save 67 pounds of garbage a year. And don’t forget to lead by example and start taking your own lunchbox to work.

Dorinda's shop, Raising Green Kids, offers eco-friendly products for your family. Follow her on Facebook and twitter and at her blog.

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Happy National Siblings Day!

'Happy National Siblings Day April 10' by HarmonyGirlsClothing

Honoring little kids, their brothers and sisters!

Big Sister Little Broth... PatchesandPupp... $45.95	Bunny Rabbit w/ Fairy S... TwoLittleWitch... $15	SuperHero Sibling Set B... JustJoshinKids $47	Boy Toddler Belt - Reve... LittleTadpoleD... $8
Big Sister Necklace pickledbeads $27.5	Black Lab Brother/Siste... rhoadworks $11	Personalized appliqued ... TriedAndTrueDe... $27	Personalized Name and A... ChewChewsClose... $30
Personalized Toy Initia... cotuitbayknitt... $49	Baseball Brothers Perso... LaurieShanholt... $20	Superhero T-Shirt CopusHagenDesi... $15	All in the Family Felt ... byMaree $18
Twin Bear Hat Set, Gend... littlenogginkn... $34	LALALOOPSY Big Littles ... CoffeeKidsNDol... $21.99	Infant Toddler boy bow ... kbpdesigns $29	Big Lil Bro Sis T's... ThePolkaDotTot... $26

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

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Established

Important Dates Print, Key Deign in brown and tan (5x7) by YassisPlace

Personalized Canvas Family Sign by BronStarOriginals 

Embroidery Hoop Art, Custom Family Established  Personalized Sign by KingSoleil

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Finding the Perfect Sibling Outfits

From Salinda of PersonalilTy, Southern Children's Clothing



Why do Moms love to dress their children alike? Who knows, but obviously, this is not a new phenomenon. My Momma dressed us alike on occasion, and yours probably did too. 

With the summer here, many families are planning sibling outfits for vacations, family reunions, weddings and of course, planning the annual holiday card photo.

SweetThreadsClothing

Shopping for girls is easy.  Shopping for boys, can be easy -  if you know where to look!  Mixed gender can be tricky, but finding a shop and seamstress that does custom work helps immensely!

Custom Monogrammed Jon Jon or Jumper from PersonaliTychildren

Preppy Alligator Shirts from SweetThreadsClothing
Lotus Wallflower Skirt and Peasant Dress from rubyandviola
Brother Sister Set, Peasant Dress and Tie Tee from CorinneCitrolo

But, what do you do when your children range from newborn to 12???

PersonaliTyChildren

Here’s an idea. Work for coordinating outfits instead. Put the baby in a seersucker jumper. Match big brother’s shirt to the jumper applique and add a seersucker touch. Finish off the set with a seersucker flower headband for big sister to wear with a white shirt and khaki shorts.

Another idea: Put the baby in a fun print. Find big brother a polo one of the colors from the baby’s dress. Big sister can add color with a bright scarf over her favorite white tee.

Etsy is an excellent source for coordinating accessories. Here are few of my favorites from EtsyKids Team members:

Treasury tool supported by website testing

Work with your seamstress to develop the perfect color scheme for your growing family’s portraits to create a unique and totally personalized look the whole family will be happy with.

PersonaliTy Southern Children's Clothing can be found on Facebook, Twitter, her Blog, and of course on Etsy at her shop:

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How to Travel with Kids ... and avoid yelling

From Emily of BusyChickadee. 


My family lives a little over 4 hours away and I like to go visit about every other month.  I recently decided to go and visit for almost a week. My husband couldn't take that much time off … so we left him at home.

That meant I needed to plan well to avoid…yelling! Grouchy mommies don’t make the best drivers, right? If I have happy kids I have a happy mommy.

Here are 8 tips and tricks I used to have a happy family drive:


1. PACK a LUNCH

I decided to pack a lunch to avoid having to get fast food, and to avoid having to PAY for fast food! That adds up quickly. I packed peanut butter sandwiches (no cooler needed), apples, and water bottles.  Packed in individual lunch sacks, means everyone has their own trash sack and trash stays where it should and not strewn across the floor of my car. 

2. HAVE a CONTAINER FULL of TOYS and BOOKS

I always pack a crate of some kind with small toys and lots of books. Yes, they will end up all over your vehicle because they will drop them after they grow tired of them! I figure this is a mess well worth keeping them occupied. Also, I make sure the container is close to the older ones so they can hand them out to the younger ones. When I was the only older one, I kept it close to me so that I could keep handing them back.

3. The POTTY - NEVER LEAVE HOME without IT!  

When my kids are potty training, I never travel without it. It makes it much easier to attend to “MOMMY, I have to go…NOW!” It is also easier when your kids don’t like public bathrooms. I stop the van and put the potty chair in the middle of the van. I let the child go and then I dump it outside when it is just pee. (Animals do it, right??) I bring along grocery sacks and dump it in there if it is…more substantial! (heehee) Then I throw it in the nearest trash. I wipe it out with wipes when they are done.

4. GO RUN!!

Kids are kind of like puppies…they like to run! When we do stop to go to the bathroom and there is open space, I yell, “Go RUN!!” I like to let them get out some of that energy. Sometimes I even chase them around or walk the stairs in the area around them to get out energy of my own. This helps us get back into the van with less tears.

5. PACK SNACKS

I make sure to fill up a bag with snacks. You never know what is going to be that one thing that keeps everyone together. I like to pack things that can’t get too squashed into the carpet. I bring things like: pretzels, popcorn, Goldfish, dry cereal and maybe fruit snacks. I bring bowls or cups to put the snacks in to make it easier to hand them back. A friend of mine packs them in little baggies and I think that is a great idea too.

6. MUSIC

Bring along the children’s music. This can sometimes bring someone back from the brink of a meltdown. If you don’t have some, just start singing together. Songs like “Wheels on the Bus” and “5 Little Monkeys” are great ways to pass the time.

7. DVD PLAYER

We finally broke down and bought the DVD player for the van. I was one of those people who said, “But I didn’t have one when I was little.” That lady left one day when I realized it would just make long trips easier.  If you haven't broken down and done it yet because you don't travel as much as we do, see if you can borrow one from a friend if you have a long ride coming up this summer. They really do make it easier.

8. GAMES

As I was driving today and thinking about what I would write for this post, I thought about some things I would have done differently. I think next time I will make sure to pack some travel games like tic, tac, toe and car bingo.  The board game isle has travel games you can purchase and small electronic handheld games like battleship, 20Q or yahtzee that are inexpensive and great fun.  You can also look around pinterest and blogs for games you can make or print yourself.

Find Emily online at Facebook and Twitter, by visiting her blog - Raising Busy Chickadees and her Etsy Shop - Busy Chickadees:

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April Showers Umbrella Craft

By Cori of Peace, Baby! Batiks

We all know April showers bring May flowers, but too many rainy days can make you a little stir crazy. These umbrella mobiles  from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman are a fun, easy craft for a rainy day that even little kids can do.

For each umbrella you’ll need:

Paper plate
Stickers, markers, crayons, or paint for decorating
Several blue rain drops cut from blue construction paper (we used eight)
A “J” shape cut from contruction paper for the umbrella’s handle
Glitter and glue (optional)
Thread or fishing line
Hole punch
Tape or glue

Cut the paper plate in half. Cut a slit in each plate, at the top of one and from the bottom of the other. I made my slits about half the width of the plate. Don’t cut all the way through!

Set your kids to decorating their umbrellas on all sides, leaving the area around the slits clear. If necessary, let them dry. My son is going through an ocean and “Finding Nemo” phase, so he opted for sea creature and fish stickers.

Punch holes along the straight edge of your umbrella pieces. I did two on each side of the slits. Slide your umbrella pieces together at the slits to form an “X”. I taped ours together to keep the shape.

If desired, glue glitter to your raindrops to make them sparkle. When they’re dry, tie them to your thread or fishing line and then attach the opposite end to the umbrella. Tie another loop of thread at the top of your umbrella.

Hang and enjoy!

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Saving Money on Monthly Expenses

Today we have a guest post from Sweet Child of Mine.

For many people at the moment money can be a difficult issue, and Erin from Sweet Child of Mine has some really useful tips to make that money go a bit further. 

I've shared tips for saving money on groceries, online shopping and entertainment, now I'm going to give you a glimpse into how my family saves money on our regular monthly expenses. First I want to clarify that this is what works for us. It may not work for every family. We all have our things that we can't (or don't want to) do without, and that's fine.

1. Cell phone- We had a phone through AT&T that we were paying about $45/month for. The cell phone is primarily used by my husband to call home when he's working. We were not using all of our minutes, and even the cheapest plan was way more minutes than we needed. I switched us to Tracfone, and we are now paying about $6 per month for two phones (although one phone is out of minutes so we are only using one phone right now). The service is just as good as AT&T.

So far the hardest thing has been getting family to stop calling our cell phones when we are at home, but after a few times of not answering the cell then calling them back from our home phone, they are catching on. Especially since we tend to not even turn the cell phone on (or even remember to bring it into the house) when we're home.

Now Tracfone might not work for a lot of people, especially if you don't have a home phone or if you use your phone for texting or surfing the web. You might want to take a few minutes to check outBill Shrink to see if your cell phone plan is the best for your particular usage needs.

2. Internet- We switched from Time Warner to Clear and are saving $10 per month. It may not sound like much, but it's $120 per year, plus we can take our modem with us anywhere. I know I'm going to love this next month when we go on vacation b/c I'm not going to be searching all over for free WiFi. I have not noticed any difference in the speed of Clear versus RoadRunner. They are not in every city yet, so you can check availability here. Be sure to type in your address, because the coverage map seems to only show big cities. Or if you really want to save money, you could cancel your internet all together and go to the library. This is not something I'm willing to do, as internet is one of my non-negotiables. I justify the expense though because I have an online business and our home phone service requires the internet.

3. Home phone- We use a Magic Jack for our home phone service. If you've never heard of it, the Magic Jack is a device that you plug into a USB port on your computer, then you plug your phone into it just like you would a normal phone jack. The device is $19.99 and service is $19.99 per year (or cheaper if you buy 5 years at once). Since calls go through your high speed internet connection, there's aren't taxes and usage fees added in. I was paying AT&T $25 per month just for local phone service without and extras like caller ID, call waiting or voicemail. For $19.99 (or less) per year you get unlimited local and long distance calling, caller ID, and voicemail. There are occasional glitches (which are probably caused by my computer) but I've always been able to fix them by restarting my computer. The occasional glitch is a small price to pay for such savings. The other downside is that the phone service only works if your computer in on, so you need to keep your computer on. This isn't a problem for us, because our computer is on most of the day anyway. We are saving over $280 per year and aren't adding to our electricity costs since our computer was on most of the time anyway. You would have to figure for yourself if it would be worth it, but I'm guessing it would not cost an extra $23 per month to keep your computer on, especially if you work full time and aren't home all day anyway.

4. Utilities- I try to conserve energy in any way I can. In the summer, we keep our thermostat at 75, and in the winter I try to keep it around 67 and dress warmer. I say try because my husband is constantly turning it up. At night, I turn it down even lower. The kids and I sleep in the same room, so I close the door and use an electric heater (I follow all safety guidelines, plus our heater has an alarm that goes off it it gets too hot). I only do the laundry if there is enough for a full load (who am I kidding, there's always enough). I would love to use a clothesline when it's warm to save even more- that's on our to-do list. Our computer and TV (+dvd player, converter box and antenna) are plugged into surge protectors which are turned off when not in use to save energy.

5. Baby Care- This is not meant to start a debate, but I breastfeed, which has saved us a ton. Also, I followed the AAP guidelines and did not give my kids solid foods before 6 months of age, which also saved us money. When my kids did start eating solids, I didn't bother with the processed, packaged baby foods. I just gave them whatever the rest of us were eating (Isn't that what kids want anyway?). It's way cheaper than the jars of baby food and it's less work! I also use cloth diapers. I used disposables on my daughter for the first 6 months, and spent $50 per month. I've spent a total of $400 on cloth diapers and have so far gotten about 51 months of use out of them between my 2 kids, so that's a savings of $2150 so far. If I have 2 more kids like I want, that's approximately $3600 in additional savings. Yes, there is the additional cost of the extra load of laundry per week, but since our water bill is only $40 every quarter I can't imagine that 1 extra load each week is adding much. Plus I'm still assuming the $50/month for disposables that I paid in 2006 and I'm sure diapers have gone up in cost like everything else. I'm also not factoring in gas money to buy diapers, because I'm sure there would be times that I would have to make trips to the store specifically for diapers. I'll stop there, because this post isn't meant to convince anybody to switch to cloth diapers, just to share what has worked for my family.

6. Gardening- I don't have any hard numbers here. I'm not sure exactly how much money gardening has saved us, but I know from July-October I don't buy tomatoes. This year I plan on canning a ton. Even if my own garden doesn't produce enough, I plan on shopping the farmers markets and even the grocery stores while produce is in season to stock up and can at the cheapest prices. Plus I'm really hoping our peppers do better because they are expensive in the winter!

7. Gym- We pay $50/month for our YMCA family membership, which is cheaper than the other gyms on the area. The Y also offers free or discounted memberships based on financial need. Some people may be able to completely do without a gym membership, but this is one thing I refuse to give up! As a work-at-home mom, I need my "me" time in the form of Zumba classes! Plus my 4 year-old loves her daycare time, and she's starting soccer tomorrow.

8. Cable- We don't have it! The only "must watch" show for us that we can't get on regular TV is Burn Notice. We just watch it on the network's website the next day.

9. Meal planning- We eat most of our meals at home. Planning meals ahead of time helps me to save money on groceries, because I try to plan meals around what I already have on hand (which I've usually paid next to nothing for int he first place). Since I already know what we're going to have for dinner, there isn't an impulse to go out to eat. This is not to say I've never had a rough day and said, "Screw it- we're ordering pizza." The majority of the time though, we eat home cooked meals.

10. Vehicles- We buy our vehicles used and don't have a payment. Of course with how much gas costs, it feels like we're making a car payment.

So there are 10 ways that my family saves money each month. Some might work for you, some might not. The important thing is to be flexible and reasonable, because there's no point in being frugal if it's making you miserable. But if you think you can scale back and live without somethings for a while, then it's worth a try. I remind myself that by saving now and paying off debt, we will be able to enjoy some of the extras in the future!

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