1. If you don’t own your own camping gear, ask around to see if any friends or relatives have tents, sleeping bags, etc. that you could borrow or rent.
2. Consider camping mid-week or off season. Many campgrounds have cheaper rates at these times.
3. Find a place that’s not too far away, as gas prices can make your expenses go up in a hurry.
4. Choose a location that is near a water source or hiking trails. Find a place with ‘free’ activities nearby. Throwing rocks into a river occupied The Boy for nearly 2 hours on our most recent trip.
5. Consider just going away for one night. It seems like the work involved with getting organized for a camping trip is too much for just one night away, but you’d be surprised. You don’t need to plan as many meals. You could just throw some left-overs (and s’more fixings of course) into the ice chest.
6. Make your own block ice. Block ice lasts longer than cubes or crushed. Start a few days ahead of time freezing your own blocks of ice in tupperware.
7. Ask around to see if any friends or local businesses have free or inexpensive firewood. If you plan to have a campfire, try to find wood before you go. Buying wood from a campground host can be mighty pricey.
8. Cut down on your laundry work when you get home. Store all the dirty clothes separately from your clean clothes.
9. Take along rags to use instead of paper towels. (I must say that I never follow this one. I love a big roll of paper towels and pack of wet wipes to use when camping.)
10. Get together with friends for a camping trip. Share the costs of the campground space, food, firewood and other gear (stove, ice chest, etc.).
11. If you do own all your own camping gear, consider keeping it stored all together. This will make your unpacking much easier when you get back home. We have several camping tubs that live in our garage. It is so easy to pack and unpack for a camping trip this way. Our camping list notes the things that live permanently in the tub and the things that need to be added each time.

VADER: The Emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation.
And neither will your father when he gets home.

VADER: That is correct, Commander. And he is most displeased with your apparent lack of progress.
So clean up the damn living room already!

NINEDENINE: You’re a feisty little one, but you’ll soon learn some respect.
But probably not until they are 35 years old.

JABBA: Soon you will learn to appreciate me.
Again, only when they are 35.

YODA: Hmm. That face you make. Look I so old to young eyes?
So I didn’t know what Twitter was, give me a break!

YODA: No more training do you require. Already know you that which you need.
Except how to do a keg stand. But now that they are leaving for college, don’t fool yourself, they will learn it.

LUKE: Search your feelings, father. You can’t do this. I feel the conflict within you.
So please let me borrow the car!

HAN: All right, don’t lose your temper. I’ll come right back and give you a hand.
Just about anytime your kid is building something that all of sudden breaks the laws of physics and comes crashing down.

HAN: You could use a good kiss!
When your kids try and be cool in front of their friends and refuse to show any affection for you.

HAN: Ooh…I thought they smelled bad on the outside!
Umm.. A Diaper?!

ZEV: (into transmitter) Echo Base…I’ve got something! Not much, but
it could be a life form.
Guys, make sure you say this during the first ultrasound.

HAN: How are you feeling, kid? You don’t look so bad to me. In fact, you look strong enough to pull the ears off a Gundark.
When the kids try and stay home from school claiming to be sick.

THREEPIO: Sir, I am fluent in six million forms of communication. This signal is not used by the Alliance.
You become amazingly in tune with your children’s cries. So when a bunch of kids are playing elsewhere you can tell which one is screaming and hopefully it isn’t yours so you don’t have to get up and check.

HAN: Droid of some kind. I didn’t hit it that hard. It must have had a self-destruct.
I’m waiting for the boy to say this when he breaks yet another toy.

DACK: Right now I feel I could take on the whole Empire myself.
Pretty much an everyday thought of your children. Especially teenagers.

LEIA: Someday you’re going to be wrong, and I hope I’m there to see it.
The kids will tell you this, but don’t worry, you will always be right.

YODA: How you get so big, eating food of this kind?
“Instead of eating that, I’ll stick to my two bites of mac and cheese.”

LUKE: Hey, you could have broken this. Don’t do that. Ohhh…you’re making a mess. Hey, give me that!
Again, every DAY in your life.

EMPEROR: There is a great disturbance in the Force.
VADER: I have felt it.
A great thing to say when the pregnancy test comes back positive. Or what siblings will say when they learn another kid is on the way.

YODA: No, no, there is no why. Nothing more will I teach you today. Clear your mind of questions. Mmm. Mmmmmm.
But why this, why that? Why Daddy, why mommy, why, why, WHY?!?

YODA: So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?
So eat that last piece broccoli already.

LEIA: I love you!
HAN: I know.
The moment you realize they are all grown up.

VADER: I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.
I’m laughing too hard about this one to write anything. Just say it to your kid one day when you told him something and then changed your mind.

THREEPIO: The city’s central computer told you? Artoo-Detoo, you know better than to trust a strange computer.
MySpace, Facebook, Twitter. You know what they say. On the Internet, boys are boys, girls are men and children are FBI agents.

C-3PO: How did I get into this mess? I really don’t know how. We seem to be made to suffer. It’s our lot in life.
This sounds like something Calvin would say to Hobbes after breaking something and being sent to bed without dinner.

LUKE SKYWALKER: But I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters.
Power converters, skateboard wheels, the latest GTA. Kids are always going somewhere to pick up something when you need them. Even if they weren’t the second before you asked them to do something for you.

LUKE SKYWALKER: Well, if there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that it’s farthest from.
Sounds like your typical teenager to me.

DARTH VADER: I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Your response to, “Oh Mom, we are never going to get there in time! Why do you drive so slow?!”

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Or the corner store. Or that sketchy area of the playground where the kid who already uses deodorant hangs out.

HAN SOLO: Sorry about the mess.
Reminds me of every day of my life.

HAN SOLO: Watch your mouth, kid, or you’re going to find yourself floating home.
Said towards the end of the ubiquitous summer car trip.

SECOND TROOPER: What was that?
FIRST TROOPER: Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.
Replace Second Trooper with “Parent” and First Trooper with “Child”

DARTH VADER: Your powers are weak, old man.
The first day your kid schools you in some sport or game.

HAN SOLO: Great kid! Don’t get cocky.
Your response to the above comment.

And, one more paraphrased quote.
Riding a Big Wheel ain’t like dusting crops, boy.

The National Wildlife Federation has some great magazines for kids. Our personal favorite for toddlers is Wild Animal Baby, which comes in a board book-type cover. Highlights also has some great kids magazines available. Amazon is a great place to find out about magazines and sometimes has special deals or offers. Be sure, however, that you follow through on your gift and check with the recipient to make sure they have received their first copy.

This will require some patience and a deck of cards. Preferably a deck of kids’ cards with pictures of Elmo or Winnie the Pooh. The Boy has a set of Thomas cards which have pictures of the Thomas characters – 4 of each. This set has given us many hours of fun and hasn’t even gotten all bent up an thrashed yet. We first used the set to play things like matching ‘games.’ The Boy would turn over cards until he found two of a kind. Each set of 4 cards has four different colored borders, so color matching is another ‘game’ we played. He’s now has a pretty good attention span, so lately we’ve taught him Memory and Go Fish.

For Memory, I pull out anywhere between 3 and 10 pairs of cards, shuffle and lay face down. We take turns turning over 2 cards to see if we can find a match.

For Go Fish, I deal each of us 5 cards and we put the rest in the middle, in a ‘fish pond.’ Here’s where we deviate from the rules a little. We lay our 5 cards out in front of us so we can each see what the other has. It is too hard for The Boy to hold onto the cards in his hand and he hasn’t gotten the hang of keeping what cards you have a secret. So we have to ‘cheat’ a little – usually in his favor. Right away he picked up on “Mommy, do you have a …?” and the response, “No, Go Fish!”

The tricky thing for both of these games is that he often wants to play Now! So we’re learning patience too. I think we could start learning a game like Uno in this same way – placing all our cards on the table in front of us.

* Provided a predictable life with a reasonably ordered environment
* Held and touched often
* Talked to (or sung to) often
* Read to frequently
* Exposed to interesting experiences
* Given many opportunities to learn through play.”

All things that we at SIP advocate and encourage. The best part? None of these things will take your life’s savings. “Interesting Experiences” do not have to include flying to another country. It can mean taking an exploration walk around your neighborhood to look for insects, birds or colors. It can mean taking a backroad to Grandma’s house instead of the freeway in order to stop at a local cheese factory. Try it today!

Before you start cramming everything into your car and lashing stuff to the roof, consider these tips.

1. Many hotels and resorts provide baby gear such as pack and plays and high chairs. Restaurants provide booster seats. Call your destination before packing to see what baby/kid gear might be offered.

2. If you are traveling to a major city, there are usually baby equipment rental possibilities. Baby’s Away and Babies Travel Lite are two such rental outlets.

3. If you are traveling to visit relatives, ask them if they have baby equipment already or if they know of friends/neighbors in their area that might be willing to lend to you.

4. Unless you have a 15 hour flight or a seriously long road trip, you really don’t need too much for actual travel time. Keep your kids entertained with games like I Spy or the Alphabet Game. Take along books on tape or cd for the car. If they are old enough, give them a specific ‘travel’ bag that they can fill will activities. Or, my favorite, plan your travel for during nap time and hope they sleep most of the time!

Happy Traveling.

Younger kids might enjoy the counting and colors books and older kids will like to see the dinosaurs go to school and play with their friends. The silly, rhyming text is accompanied by great illustrations of dinosaurs with human parents. These are fantastic books for older kids who are into dinosaurs too.

1. Form a Playgroup. If you don’t know anyone in your area with kids, start hanging out at the park or another play area. If you already have some friends who are also stay at home parents, organize one or more day(s) per week to get your kids together to play. A park is an ideal place to start. When the weather turns bad, try a play area inside a mall or other free play area. This may not be a structured activity, but it will get your child playing with and around other children, an important part of early socialization skills.

2. Plan ‘Classes’ at Home. Plan an hour (or 10 minutes) every day (or once a week) to do some structures ‘class’ activities at home.

For Gymnastics: Put some pillows on the floor and let the kids do tumbling. Practice balancing on one foot, hopping and doing other stretching/tumbling activities.

For Art: Put a protective cover on the table and get out the paints. Use crayons, colored pencils, watercolors, scissors, glue, stickers and paper and simply let the kids explore different types of media.

For Music: If you are not a singer yourself, find a cd or dvd that has some good singing and encourage your kids to sing along. If you have toy musical instruments, get them out and have ‘band practice.’ Find songs that have a good rhythm for clapping hands and tapping toes. Sing songs that include movements like “Hokey-Pokey” and “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.”

Picking up Toys: I think the best way to start forming good habits is to have kids help pick up and put away their own toys. Teach them early on that part of playing with toys is putting them away. Even if you put away 90% of the toys and they only put away 10%, it is a good start.

Laundry: Putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket is a good place to start for kids helping with laundry. After they get undressed, ask your toddler to pick up the clothes and take them to the laundry basket. This works best if the laundry basket is low to the ground. If you have a taller hamper, consider putting a small step stool nearby. Toddlers and preschoolers might also be able to help load the washer and dryer, especially if you use front loaders.

Dining Table: Most preschoolers can start to help setting the table. Be prepared for things to be put in the wrong place and dropped on the floor though. Silverware might be a good place to start. For example, ask your child to take these spoons and put one at everyone’s place at the table. Or say, here is your cup, go put it at your place. Cleaning up after meals is a little more tricky. We typically head right into potty time or bath time or nap time right after meals, so help in clearing a washing up will have to start a little farther down the road for us.

Cleaning: Dusting is a great place for toddlers and preschoolers to begin helping. Give them a damp dust rag while you are dusting and let them go at it. They might just move the dust around instead of wiping it up, but at least they are getting the idea of wiping down the furniture. *Remember to keep toxic cleaning chemicals away from your child.

Yard Work: Most kids love to play outside. Make outside chores a fun activity for your child. If you are working in the garden, let them have a small plot in which to dig and use a watering can. Weeding (provided you are specific about what is a weed and what is not) can be another fun chore. The Boy also loves helping pick up clippings and taking them to the street or to the compost pile. Sometimes a child-sized accessory (like kid gardening gloves) is all it takes for kids to actually want to help out!

This program is amazing. It can watch your picture folders, adding new ones anytime you plug in your camera. It creates thumbnails of all your videos and pictures for easy organizing and editing. You can do a lot of basic editing, cropping, red eye reduction and a bunch more.

One of the best features is you can choose what format to print pictures in. You can have wallets, 5×7, 4×6, all the common formats. You can print out the best pictures and give to family members as gifts!

You can also have it resize images before you email them so you don’t clog your family’s email accounts with glorious pictures of your kids.

Once I discovered this, I threw out the horrible Canon software and have never looked back. And that was about 6000 pictures ago!

-Spread it out and let your kids go crazy with crayons or markers (just be sure the markers don’t bleed through to whatever is underneath).

-Cut it into smaller pieces to use for travel placemats or smaller coloring pages.

-Spread it out as a table protector for messy art times.

-Let your kids practice cutting with scissors (and supervision!).

-If it has a print, cut out the animals, flowers or whatnot and use them for other pasting crafts.

If you have to buy a paper tablecloth, be sure you get your money’s worth out of it!

Infants may not understand the words, but they will certainly understand the soothing sound of your voice while you read to them. At this age you are already beginning to model reading fluency to them even if you don’t know it! As your baby grows, begin to choose books that have bright pictures and easy cadences. Rhyming and pattern books are good to start with too.

Older babies may start to grab at the book or even eat it! Don’t worry, keep modeling good reading. You can give them a board book or vinyl book to hold/play with while you read to them. When babies start to reach the toddler phase, they may appear to not be interested in books or sitting still. You can, however, still model good reading to them. Sit and read your own book, magazine or newspaper while they are playing. Read out loud just one of their stories and then go back to reading your own material. Read to your child in little spurts. One short book before each sleep time or maybe even a short book while they are eating a meal.

As your toddler begins to show more interest in books, let them choose what they want you to read to them. You may find yourself reading the same things over and over. If this happens, after a while, pause at familiar lines and see if they can ‘fill in the blank’ for you. To vary the reading selection use the ‘you pick one book and I’ll pick one book’ routine. While you are reading the same book for the fifth time in a day for the fourteenth day in a row, remember that one day you will probably walk into the room to see your child ‘reading’ that book aloud by himself! And all because you read it to him so many times.

When your child is old enough and has the attention span for it, try short chapter books. Read one chapter or more per day. Continue to read to your child (even for just 5 minutes per day) as your child progresses through school. One day they will probably be too ‘old’ for that. Treasure this special time that you have with them and love of reading it will develop.

For the very young: Write thank yous for the gifts your young children have received on note paper made from their own drawings. Let kids fingerpaint or color on blank notecards or on regular paper that can be cut down or folded to fit in an envelope.

For toddlers and pre-schoolers: Let your child ‘write’ the thank you themselves. Then ‘translate’ the scribbles into readable English. If the kids are starting to write their own names, let them sign the thank you note.

For primary ages: Kids can draw a picture of the gift (wearing the sweater from Grandma or playing with the toy from Uncle Matt) and you can write the thank you words they dictate to you. By this age, though, many children should be able to start writing sentences. A simple Thank You Frame (see below) is appropriate for this age.

For older elementary kids and above: By the time your child is in fourth grade an above, they should be capable of writing thank you notes themselves. One strategy for getting kids to get thank you notes done is to not let them use the gift until the thank you has been written. Another idea is to set aside one morning or afternoon for thank you writing. Put all the supplies that kids will need (pens, pencils, paper, envelopes, stamps, addresses, gift lists) on the dining table. Sit down as a family and have everyone complete their holiday thank you notes. You can do yours at the same time and be a good model for your kids!

All Ages: Take a digital picture of your child with or without the gift and attach it to an email to the giver. Or print the picture on regular paper and use that as your stationary.

Re-live all your favorite toys and maybe get some holiday shopping ideas!

1. Find some greenery. We have a juniper tree in our yard that works very well. If you can, go with something that won’t get brown too quickly. Evergreen-type branches work the best. Cut an armful (more if you want a bigger wreath).

2. Cut some rosemary (if you have it) to use as well. This lends a wonderful aroma to your wreath.

3. I used some red berries from a tree down the street (get permission if you are trimming from a neighbor’s yard!).

4. Lay out a sheet (especially if you put the wreath together inside the house).

5. Find some malleable wire. I used beading wire and it worked quite well.

6. Gather one or two pieces of your evergreen, one or two sprigs of rosemary and one sprig of berries. (I only used 4 sprigs of berries total; not every bunch had one.)

7. Bind them together toward the bottom with the wire.

8. Repeat for as many bunches as you need for the size wreath you plan to make. I think I made about 10 bunches.

9. Now lay the bunches out as you want them to look in your wreath.

10. Bind each bunch together by finding a sturdy part of the evergreen and using the wire to fix it to the next bunch.

11. If you can, purchase or make (using a wire coat hanger) a circle to anchor your wreath. I did not do this.
My wreath is fairly sturdy (I used quite a bit of wire), but it would have been much easier to just affix each bunch to a wire wreath instead of to each other.

12. Attach one more loop of wire to use to hang the wreath.

13. Add ribbons or ornaments to make it even more festive.

hints:
-If you have little ones, do this during a sleep time, as your hands will get very sticky and sappy.
-Our front door gets direct sunlight for most of the day. The berries turned brown after about 5 days and now, after about a week, the greenery is beginning to brown. I estimate that it will last about one more week. If you want to spend a little money at the outset, purchase fake berries to use year after year.