Parenting Tips

Our rule is the children get to open all gifts and play with everything on the special day. That night everything goes into a bag in the closet until thank you notes are written. I promise you that they will get done, someday. Our oldest turned 6 in May and just finished his notes in December*.

Keep a folder of all the thank you notes your children receive so they have inspiration to write their own. They love getting mail and when they re-read the notes they received it helps them to sit down and send notes to thank others.

Simple wording for early writers:

Thank you Aunt Sue. I like the books. Love, Austin

Dear Aunt Sue,
Thank you for the books. I enjoy reading them at bedtime.
Love,
Austin

For our 5 year old, she dictates what she wants to write (the first example is hers) and we write a template without names or gifts and she copies and fills in the blanks.

Our 6 year old has free reigns and you can tell by reading his notes that he spells everything himself. He does a great job and is very sincere.

*I have to tell all that he didn't fully realize what the rule was until he saw his sister writing her thank you notes in December and playing with all her toys. It took him 5 minutes to finish all his notes. He wrote one round of notes directly after his party but didn't write them for gifts that came in the mail. Poor thing actually forgot about all his other gifts. He wrote all of his Christmas notes on the 26th of December.

I am always concerned that my children are not eating a balanced enough diet so I searched for and found this Food Pyramid site.

I love that I can type in my child's general information and find how much of what foods they should eat each day. There were also great activity ideas to incorporate the children into cooking healthy meals.

Feed your happy children before they are hungry. Low blood sugar can cause children to become irritable making even the simplest situation unbearable.

Here is a handy chart you can print and hang on your fridge for quick snack ideas.

A pikelet is a pancake and if you figure out what the mousetraps are please let me know!

We have a handy little chore chart that has curbed most of our undesired behavior. It is called P.E.G.S. - Practical Encouragement and Guidance System from Family Tools . I LOVE this chart!

Make clean up a breeze and label drawers and shelves. Rubbermaid clear drawers and shelves with baskets work well to hold toys as long as they are labeled as to what belongs.

I pack our Kelty Toto bags with an ice pack and snack cups with frozen vegetables. Frozen vegetables and fruits are the best because they are already cold, and by the time the children are ready to eat them, are defrosted. They can be eaten frozen as well which is a nice treat. My children prefer peas, green beans or mixed veggies in the Take and Toss snack cups with the half-lids so they can open and shut them easily and the lids also limit how much falls out when they drop the cup.

Our external back-up drive went bad recently and I searched for someone to extract my files from it. I had an IT person apply software applications and said that it was the worst he had ever seen. As a last effort, I drove it down to a computer recovery business and was willing to empty the bank to get my 5 years of photos back. They called me and told me that it was a physical error, simple to fix on this type of external drive but the cost would be high. I told him, with a huge smile on my face, I don't care the price as long as I get my photos back.