Family Time

Welcome to our Family Time page. Here you'll find all kinds of articles about the family. There's parenting tips, activities for spending time with family, and ideas to share special moments with your loved ones. Check out a few of our most popular posts here, or scroll down for the most recent projects.

Addictive Summer Reading Lists for Kids of All Ages

by Marie May 5, 2011

Guest Post by Melissa of Imagination Soup. Want to get your kids addicted to reading all summer? Sometimes it just takes finding the right book or series of books. I’ve rounded-up my favorite books, ideas beyond Harry Potter. Many are in a series; many just recently published. These are so good, you’ll want to read [...]

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The ‘Teaching Children Table Manners’ Game

by Mariel April 28, 2011

Table manners?? What are those? The man-of-the-house is all for America adopting the burping is a “compliment to the chef” cultural tradition. The kids would like to add wrestling, fork stabbing, and feet-in-the-face to that. Now, there’s something to be said for having fun and goofing around as a family, I’m all about a good [...]

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Sustainable You!

by Sabrena April 21, 2011

I want to welcome M&T’s newest regular contributor, Sabrena. She’s a long time friend, an amazing writer, and passionate about our world around us. She’s going to be here once a month sharing how she’s trying to live a more sustainable life and offering up a challenge to us all, something small, where we too [...]

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Encouraging Optimism In Your Family

by Mariel April 14, 2011

The sky has been falling on a regular basis, in my home… “This cut will NEVER heal!” “I will NEVER figure out these Math problems!” “I CAN’T eat at that restaurant, they won’t have anything I like!” Oh, puh-lease, right? I know. In my mind, I imagine saying, “you have NO idea how hard life [...]

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Frosting Cookies with Kids

by Marie April 12, 2011

The first time you frost cookies with kids, you will come to learn that licking the knife is an inevitable reflex for those little ones. They just can’t help themselves! Who can blame them, we’ve all done it. But when we’re in a setting where you’re sharing with friends or classmates, you don’t want children [...]

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Organizing All Our Girly Dress-Ups

by Marie March 31, 2011

My girls love to dress up. On a typical afternoon, they’ve managed to change outfits 4-5 times. There seems to be a dress-up for every occasion, tea time, walking their toy dogs, or reading stories. With all these dress ups, I’ve come up with a way to store them, keeping them organized and easy to [...]

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Tips and Tricks for Taking the Kids Grocery Shopping

by Marie March 17, 2011

I’m sure we could all use a few tips and tricks when it comes to taking our kids grocery shopping. I’ve just discovered this darling Grocery Shopping Book from over at Spotlight. She Wears Flowers created this perfect little felt book for her daughter to take with her to the store and help “pick” out [...]

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Donating Your Toys to Charity

by Marie March 11, 2011

We’ve collected a lot of toys over the last 8 years of having children and our playroom was at it’s limit with clutter. We decided it was time to make some big decisions and clean it out, I mean really clean it out. After deciding what toys the kids haven’t played with in a long [...]

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Guess How Much I Love You

by Marie March 4, 2011

This cute little storybook, Guess How Much I Love You, is one of our family’s favorites. I’ve written about it before and how we love to come up with new ways to say I love you. “I love you to the rocks and back”. “I love you to the stars and back”. And so on [...]

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What To Do With All Your Kid’s Projects

by Marie March 3, 2011

I recently wrote an article over at Momformation about the guilt you might feel about keeping or tossing out your child’s artwork, part of their Guilt-Free Week series. I want to expand on a few more thoughts, sharing what I do to manage the school work, projects, and crafts that my kids produce. At our [...]

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