How to Encourage Your Family to Unplug
The average person checks his or her phone more than 80 times a day. And many people feel like they spend too much time on their phones. This can be a problem because it wastes time and can also cause anxiety.
Tag: moms
Planning Your Family’s Summer Vacation
Whether your kids are in school for the summer or not, it’s never too early to start planning their next vacation. As the day heats up, there are more adventures to be planned and a whole host of fun ways to keep your family active and entertained while on vacation.
Making Spring Cleaning a Family Tradition
Spring Cleaning is more than just cleaning your house for Spring. It’s having a day set aside for everyone in the family to pitch in and help out. Everyone pitching in can help make cleaning enjoyable and stress-free, so I decided to give a few tips that can help you get started organizing and teaching your family the importance of pitching in to do spring cleaning.
How to Mold Your Children Into Givers
So how do we make children into givers?It is up to you as a parent to instill kindness and sensitivity toward others and to teach your children skills that reflect generosity. It is vital that you make sure your kids develop an understanding for others, knowledge about what makes them happy, an emotional connection with giving, and the skills to give.
Parenting 101 – How to Raise a Reader
In 2021, over 21% of adult Americans cannot read. Over half of them cannot read above a 6th grade level.
Reconnecting with Friends After the Kids Return to School
For many people, today’s world is starting to feel like it was pre-pandemic. But that’s not the case for everyone. Have you lost touch with some of your favorite people in the last two years? Do you miss the conversation, the laughs, the connection with other humans?
If the answer is yes, it’s time to reconnect with your pre-pandemic people.
Celebrating Teacher’s Appreciation Week
Life becomes hectic for families in May as children reach the end zone of the school year. There are concerts, plays, projects, and award ceremonies. As your child, and the entire school, go full force towards completing all their objectives for the year, it can be easy to overlook the positive impact teachers have made in our lives.
Fall Break Staycation Ideas for Families
Think back to some of your most cherished childhood memories. I’m going to bet that a lot of them are centered around summer vacations with trips to visit family, hitting the beach, or enjoying amusement parks. And chances are you’ve been trying to recreate those kinds of memories with your own family. But now that the summer is over, it may seem like those opportunities are fading with the heat.
If you want to do something fun with your family this fall but don’t have the time to go on a long trip, consider these staycation ideas in your area:
- Fall Festivals & Pumpkin Patches — During the fall, there are plenty of local fall festivals and pumpkin patches that can provide you with plenty of opportunities for family fun. Many of these don’t just have the opportunity to buy or carve pumpkins. They also feature cornfield mazes, games, arts and crafts, and great snacks like funnel cake and hot apple cider.
- Haunted Houses — For those with older kids, you might want to check out the local area for a haunted house. Many of these attractions are enlarging over the years from a simple house to outdoor trails through mazes or the woods complete with scary characters ready to give you the chills.
- County Fairs — Another great activity during this time of year is annual county fairs that pop up in locations across the country. These fairs, complete with kiddie rides and more exciting activities for the adventurous, are really popular. And you might even want to try one of the scary fried concoctions that appear every year like fried Oreos or even fried bubble gum. (Yes, that’s really a thing.)
- Camping Trip — Once the summer heat dips, then fall is a great chance to get outside and do some camping. Whether it’s in a cabin in a state park or just a tent in the backyard, all of these activities let you get back to nature. This is also the perfect time of year for this so that you can enjoy the fall foliage and watch the leaves change colors.
- Get Outdoors — Even if camping isn’t your thing, this is also a good time to enjoy outdoor activities. Try hiking a trail or taking a kayak for a short trip around a lake.
All of these activities are great opportunities to build memories and bond as a family. The fall also presents you with staycations that you don’t get to try during the rest of the year.
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Whether you’re buying, selling, refinancing, or building your dream home, I’m here to help you explore the many financing options available. Ensuring that you make the right choice for you and your family is my ultimate goal. I am committed to providing my customers with mortgage services that exceed their expectations. Find out more by visiting my website.
Backyard Summer Camp for Kids
Summer is coming and for those of us who have been tucked away in quarantine, it may seem like we’ve already been on one continuous break with the kids. But, now that distance learning is taking a break, there may be fewer activities for you to keep the kids active. But you don’t want to let them become couch potatoes and video game zombies.
Here are ways to recreate the summer camp experience in your own backyard.
These activities are guaranteed to help you keep the kids from being bored and help you maintain your sanity this summer.
- Sprinkler Fun — Let’s start with a tried-and-true favorite from everyone’s childhood: playing in the water sprinkler. This is the perfect way to get cool on a hot summer day.
A DIY idea for this is to make your own sprinkler. Get a 2-liter soda bottle (empty) and poke holes in the plastic with a knife or scissors. Then, attach the garden hose to the bottle and affix it with duct tape. Once you crank up the water, it will come shooting out of the holes and your kids can have fun jumping through the stream.
- Soda Bottle Rocket — While you’ve got those empty soda bottles, try this little science project. First, tape pencils to the sides of the bottle so that the bottle can be placed opening down without covering the neck of the bottle.
Then, fill the bottle with vinegar, add baking soda, and then quickly cover the bottle opening with a cork. Flip the rocket upside down so it rests on the pencils and wait for the chemical reaction to shoot the rocket into the air.
- Make a Shaving Cream Painting — This one may sound bizarre but hold on a minute. It’s actually a great way to get artistic expression and fun sensory play combined.
Get several cans of shaving cream from your local dollar store. Then, use food coloring to dye the shaving cream into different colors. Set up a tarp in the backyard and let your kids use the colored shaving cream to create pictures from rainbows to sky scenes to whatever their imagination can conjure up.
It’s messy fun, and the tarp can be easily hosed down and reused later if the kids want to try this again.
- Tightrope Walking — If you want to help your kids train for a career in the circus (or at least work with their motor skills), do a tightrope play area. If you have two sturdy trees, run two soft ropes between them. It doesn’t have to be high—just a couple of inches.
Then place the second rope high enough for your child to use as a handhold as they walk across the lower rope. If you don’t have a pair of trees, you can also use fence posts or poles in a pinch.
This year, we may still be dealing with a quarantine lockdown in our homes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t let your child explore their backyard and turn it into a home summer camp with these activities.
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Whether you’re buying, selling, refinancing, or building your dream home, I’m here to help you explore the many financing options available. Ensuring that you make the right choice for you and your family is my ultimate goal. I am committed to providing my customers with mortgage services that exceed their expectations. Find out more by visiting my website.
Easy Self-Care Routines for Busy Moms
If you’re a mom, then you know just how selfless the job can be. Time can seem like a commodity just as important as money or credit.
But most moms also know that they have a tendency to spend their time on others—balancing family, career, volunteering, and the dozen other myriad activities that make up our day.
What usually gets lost by the wayside is time for yourself. And this can be very dangerous. If you don’t take time to care for yourself, then you’re at risk of running yourself so ragged you can’t take part in the activities you are needed for.
That’s why you need to implement these self-care routines to improve your overall health and well-being:
- First, let’s talk about self-care for the body. You must stay active if you are going to keep yourself going. Unfortunately, active doesn’t mean bouncing out of the minivan to pick up a Starbucks coffee in between work and dropping off the kids at sports practice. Spend some time each week to just do some kind of physical activity. After you drop off the kids at practice, take a walk around the field or the block. Spend an hour each week practicing yoga. Or you can just spend time at home, outside, doing something physical and a little Zen like working in the yard or tending to a garden.
- Next, you also need to keep your mind engaged. Studies have shown that incorporating good habits to keep yourself mentally aware can stave off diseases later in life like dementia. So for now, spend a few minutes each night before bed reading something for yourself or quietly meditating. You can also start keeping a journal to document your ideas and feelings. If you are artistic, drawing or painting classes might help out. (If you aren’t artistic, but wish you were, pick up an adult coloring book that are at every bookstore.) Take some time to work on a jigsaw puzzle or play a board game. (This one’s easy to do because you can get the kids involved.)
- Finally, do something nice for yourself regularly that can help you on a personal or spiritual level. Take a class where you can meet new people and experience new things. Have a girl’s night out once a month to just unwind and relax and socialize. Or you can even just set aside an hour each week for a nice long relaxing bubble bath. All of these can help you cleanse the spirit and rejuvenate you for the rest of the week.
Moms have a rough job, but a rewarding one. But you aren’t good to anyone if you let yourself get worn down by doing too much. Take care of yourself as well as your family and you will be better as a mom in the long run.
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Whether you’re buying, selling, refinancing, or building your dream home, I’m here to help you explore the many financing options available. Ensuring that you make the right choice for you and your family is my ultimate goal. I am committed to providing my customers with mortgage services that exceed their expectations. Find out more by visiting my website.