Homeschooling 101

Although it’s becoming quite a popular education choice, the decision to homeschool can lead to some overwhelming questions like: 

How do you get started? What does a typical day look like as you entertain and educate your kids all day long? How do you keep toddlers from emptying the cabinets on a daily basis while you teach your older kids? What about socialization?

8 Tips for Saving on Birthday Gifts

I don’t know about you, but it seems like I’m always toting my kids to a birthday party. Buying all those gifts can be a real budget buster, and nobody wants to go into credit card debt trying to impress little kids (and their parents!) with lavish gifts. Below are 8 money-savings tips to save hundreds of dollars every year on birthday party presents.

Check your budget. This will be harder for some of you than for others, but I promise if you stop worrying about what other people think, you will automatically save some serious cash. Focus on your own finances, and spend only what you can afford.

Click here for the other 7 tips!

8 Birthday Traditions You'll Want to Try

Every year when I was a kid my parents would let me choose where I wanted to eat dinner out for my birthday. Another birthday tradition they kept going was to have a small party for me with family and friends, including a cookout since I have a June birthday. Kids love to feel special, and it can be a challenge to find the time to come up with ways to make a birthday a knockout. Never fear! Below are 8 ideas for birthday traditions to start with your own kids. Pick and choose a few of them each year … and stick with the ones you and your birthday kid love!

Read about all 8 traditions here!

Woolzies Wool Dryer Balls #Review

Okay, so everyone is going green(er) these days, right? I mean, going green is not new. We were kinda green in my family back in the 80s when my mom was big into recycling and could not stand to see someone throw an aluminum can in the trash. She rescued several poor cans during the 80s.

Mom (she reads this blog, go figure!) used Bounce as her fabric softener in the dryer always, and so did I. Then I learned about these wool dryer balls and wanted to give them a try.

The positives of Woolzies wool dryer balls are:

1. They are good for the earth
2. You buy them once and they are good for 1,000 loads, so you are saving money over buying sheet fabric softeners
3. They are hypoallergenic, so nobody is going to get a runny nose or have a reaction after wearing clothes dried in a dryer with these
4. They work: our clothes were static-free and soft!
5. They are just fine for people with a sensitivity to wool

The one negative for my household personally (and it probably won't affect you) is that there are SIX of them to keep track of. I had a hard time sorting them out from my clothes and leaving them in the dryer. Some would always come up in the laundry basket with me, then when I would try to get them to walk themselves back down to the basement, invariably a kid or a dog would get ahold of one of them and it was time to PLAY BALL!

I still give them 5 protein bars out of 5 (I've moved away from the Dove chocolate system, sorry to disappoint)

Protecting Kids From the Internet

Do you ever wish you could “un-see” something? Maybe you’ve driven by a violent car accident and glanced over, catching a horrid vision that you now can’t get rid of. Sometimes you see it in your sleep, sometimes when you are awake. It has affected you.

We protect our kids from violent and racy movies when they are young for a reason: we know those visions will stick with them and sometimes even give them nightmares. (who wants to be up in the middle of the night soothing a freaked-out kid?!) So why do we think that letting our kids have unlimited access to the Internet, via personal computer, laptop, iPad, tablet or phones, is a good idea?

You might know that my husband finally agreed to let us get Internet access in our home. Of course, we are worried about things our kids might see when they are on normal sights like YouTube or when they do a Google image search of something as innocent as, say, “cats.” My laptop is the only computer with Internet access, and it has my own password on it. My kids have to ask to use it, and I try to only agree when I will be around them to check in.

But, having 5 kids and homeschooling, I often get busy and am taken to other parts of the house (to wipe butts or take my hourly bubble bath … ha!). I want to know that my young kids are not seeing violent images or naked ladies in precarious positions while I step away.

That’s where eHomeShield comes in. It’s a new Internet monitoring product that I personally know is HALF the cost of some other software out there. It analyzes content, blocks potentially naughty sites and is only a few bucks a month. (but of course if you deem something blocked as fine, you just type in your own little password and BAM, you are good to go, for that site anyway). And for you non-techies like me, it’s easy to set up AND it covers all devices with Internet in your home.

Check them out here at their helpful website for even more great reasons to get this product for your own home. They are now raising money in a campaign on a Crowdfunding site called Indiegogo, and they would appreciate your support there to help get their product out and to get the word out about what they offer.