Works For Me Wednesday: Who Goes First?

By MAD21

Picture, if you will, two sisters going into rest time. They always get a story before having to turn the lights out and be quiet. All of the things that need to be done before retreating to the bedroom get done. All is calm until... "It's MY turn to pick it out!" "NO! It's MYYY turn!" "NO! My turn!" ..... "MOoooOOOOMM!!"

It only takes so many days of this happening before you have no patience left and realize you need to find a better way to help your kids get along, and learn to take turns and share. (And be happy about it-HAHA!) Something needs to happen both for them, and for you.

Our girls are finally both old enough that they can do a lot of the same things, have a lot of opinions, and almost always want to go first or be the one who gets to choose something. I, like any parent, am always on the look out for fun ways to get things done. And this situation is no different.

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Life Is Funny: This is NOT a Toy

By MAD21

We have a very determined cat. KC is a wonderful pet. For the most part she stays out of trouble. But on the occasion when the urge overcomes her, she has been known to get in big trouble.

I was going to post a story about the day the veil of ignorance was removed from KC's eyes regarding how much fun it would be to play with the Christmas tree (even after it had been up for a few weeks).  But this story is much more funny than finding ornaments all over the living room floor, and hearing what can only be described as someone shaking the tree into submission.

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YOB: Adventure Alaska

By Lara

As I may have mentioned, Alaska wasn't on the Year of the Birthday list. However, it was my 30th birthday present to myself. I am rarely one to turn down an opportunity to travel. I have felt that Alaska was calling my name for a long time. I was finally able to cross it off the list in May. I was also able to be more specific about the things I want to see when I go back to Alaska.

This article would probably be about twenty pages long if I were to describe the entire trip in detail, but I still wanted to relive the highlights. Keep in mind that my goal on the trip, aside from wanting to see the breath-taking scenery, was to see both a moose and a sea otter up close and personal.

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Works For Me Wednesday: Help! The Toys Are Taking Over!

By MAD

For this week's themed edition of WFMW, I get to turn the table on you, my reader. I get to ask, "What works for YOU?" Yay for me!

My girls are still at the young stage when their toys all take up a lot of space. Doll houses, little people houses (barnes, stables, amusement parks, train, circus, playgrounds... you get the idea), kitchen sets, dress-up clothes, big plastic cars, dress-up Elmo, dress-up Larry (veggie tale), train sets, big leggos, bouncy balls, hula-hoops, store sets, stuffed animals, and drawers full of all the assessories that go along with all this stuff.

Initially it wasn't too hard to either give toys away, or put them away until our younger daughter was old enough to want to play with them. But now our girls have similar interests and love to play with the same toys.

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Fingerprint Friday: Snowdays

By MAD21

We love snow in our house. Ok. Let me rephrase that... the people in our house love snow. I'd prefer the snow not actually be in our house. Our kids love the snow not just because of the days they miss school, because they are too young to really understand snowdays off from school. But really because it's a opportunity when we can have time playing together as a family playing that may include throwing things at each other without getting hurt or in trouble.

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