Nothing lightens my mood during the holidays like putting up Christmas decorations. And, the biggest part of the decorating is the Christmas tree. I prefer an artificial tree because there are no pine needles to clean up and I don’t have to worry about watering the tree. My family and I pick a Friday or Saturday evening a week of two after Thanksgiving and decorate the Christmas tree together.

There are a variety of Christmas tree ornaments available today. We hang silver and blue Christmas balls along with homemade ornaments from the kids and ornaments that have been given to us as Christmas gifts. We string blue and white lights and place an angel on the top of the tree. My sister hangs M&M™ lights on her tree. Be as creative as you like. Oh, don’t forget the tree skirt.

The decoration you choose for the door lets visitors know what type of home they are entering. A wreath or a sign displaying a holiday greeting implies a welcoming spirit within. A few years ago, I decorated my own wreath for the front door and have used it every year since. It has bells, horns, and ribbons that say “JOY!” to proclaim the Savior’s birth.

I like decorating my home with candles. I scour the stores for holiday scented candles to display. The mingling of sweet holiday smells adds to the warmth of the season. Anyone coming in will think you’ve been baking all day!

Evergreen swags are a popular decoration that doesn’t cost a lot. Twist them around banisters or hang them across the mantelpiece. Adding a string of white lights will soften the look.

Poinsettias will add a splash of color to any room in your home. The beautiful leaves were once thought to be poisonous to children, but resent research has shown that this is not the case. If this is the reason you haven’t bought them in the past, now you can show them off safely.

A special decoration in my home is the miniature glass Nativity scene that sits on the mantle. I want my children and my friends to see the reason why I am joyful at Christmastime. Since our homes are an extension of ourselves, I want mine to be a testament to my faith especially at Christmas.

So, if you have the decorating spirit, go crazy and enjoy yourself. Christmas is the only time of year when going all out is A-okay.

You’re hoping, praying and crossing your fingers that your child gets Mrs. Smith for 2nd grade. You’ve heard so many wonderful things about her and you just know that is the best teacher for your child.

However the notice comes home that next year your child is assigned to Mr. Jones’ class. Ugh! That’s not what you wanted. You just don’t think your child will be as happy in that class. Before you decide that second grade will be a horrid experience, let’s examine your feelings toward your child’s new teacher.

Is it that you really don’t like your child’s new teacher? Or is it that you like the other teacher better? Do you have any first hand knowledge or experience with either teacher? Sometimes it’s easy to be fond of one particular teacher, either because of the good things you’ve heard or because your older child had that teacher. But is that fair to the new teacher?

Did you have a bad experience with the new teacher? Or did some of the other mothers just gossip about how strange that particular teacher is. Consider this: there are an abundance of teachers out of work. If your school had a teacher that was as horrible as the rumors state, don’t you think that teacher would be let go? Sure there’s tenure and all that, but there are too many unemployed good teachers, for a system to hang onto a bad apple.

Or perhaps that new teacher actually did something you don’t agree with. Keep in mind that there is no perfect teacher. Unless you feel that the teacher made a decision that is grossly misaligned with your beliefs, is it something you can live with? If not, make an immediate appointment with the teacher to discuss it. If you still are not satisfied, go to the principal.

All I’m saying is give the teacher a chance. Give him a chance to prove your preconceived notions false. Give him a chance to discuss the situation (which caused your dislike). Most schools will be reasonable with you if you are reasonable with them. Make sure you have data as to why you would like a different teacher for your child. “Because you like Mrs. Smith better” is unlikely to get your child switched into a different classroom.

Lastly, keep in mind that if you prayed that your child would be assigned the teacher best suited for him, then likely that is the teacher your child will have.

Remember that incident from last year? You do? Then it’s time to put it behind you. It’s history! If last year wasn’t such a good school year for your child, you should be even more bound and determined to make this year better than last year!

“But you just don’t understand. Last year this happened or my child Â…” Unless something tragic and life changing happened last year in school, then it’s safe to say, it doesn’t really matter what happened last year, this is a new year; a fresh year.

You may not always be able to change circumstances. However you (and your child) have complete control to change your reactions to situations. Let’s take a few examples of what may have happened last year to make it not so good.

1. Embarrassment – It’s tough being a kid. Things cause us to be mortified. Ever wet your pants in school? I did. I wanted to die. I thought I’d never live it down. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on the planet who remembers that. Teach your child to try to make light of embarrassing situations. Sure that’s easier said than done, but if he can laugh with others, it won’t be so traumatic.

2. Friendship woes. She’s not my friend anymore. I was the only person not invited to the party! I can’t believe she said that to me. Unfortunately, hurt feelings are a part of life. Acknowledge your child’s feelings and put it behind you – it’s a new year.

3. Situation with a teacher. I heard of one 4th grader who didn’t report to the safety meeting at the end of the school year. He told the teacher/coordinator that he forgot about the meeting and asked if he could still be a safety. The teacher said no because the student didn’t demonstrate responsibility. The child fretted for weeks that he’d actually be assigned to that teacher the following year. In his mind, “he hated that teacher”. Guess what? That child was in that teacher’s class. And that child ended up loving the teacher and having an excellent year.

Remind your child that things are not always as bad as they seem. Remind them that things have a way of working out. Remind them to worry about nothing. Ninety percent of the things we worry about never happen; and as for the other ten percent, it’s out of our span of control anyway.

Make a conscious decision to have a better year this year!

The key to helping your teen make good choices at school is to train him up in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it. The End.

Ha! Don’t we wish it was that easy? Even with the best upbringing teens don’t always make the best choices. Shoot, adults don’t always make the best choices. So what can parents do to tip the scales in the teen’s favor?

1. Talk Talk Talk. Even if your teen goes into silent mode, keep talking with your child.
2. Lead by example. You can’t expect your teen to behave in a manner contrary to your own.
3. Depending on the situation, you may want to share some of your own examples of what happened when you didn’t make good choices.
4. If your teen mentions that so and so was caught with drugs in his locker, or her friend had sex with someone she met at a party – don’t immediately condemn or judge those people. Use their poor choices as a springboard for open dialog.
5. Make it easy for your teen to be honest with you. Reinforce that no matter what, you still love her.
6. Remind him that you’ll be more disappointed if he lies to you, rather than by some behavior he chose to participate in.
7. Accept that your teen may make some poor choices. Let that experience be a lessons learned for both of you. Examine what led up to that decision.
8. Denial is not a river in Egypt. If you have blinders on, it’s time to take them off. No teen is perfect. Look for warning signs.
9. Don’t give your teen too many liberties. Respecting ones privacy is one thing, but you still need to be the parent. Once your teen moves out of the home, you won’t have the authority you do now.
10. Give your teen unconditional love.

When storms come, don’t waste oxygen with should haves and could haves. There’s no point in playing the “it’s all my fault” card. What benefit will that pity party bring?

If your teen thinks she needs to be perfect, examine where that thought pattern originated. Some teens make poor choices because they rebel or because they don’t feel they can live up to mommy’s and daddy’s expectations.

All you can do is your very best. You need to be able to look yourself in the mirror and know that you’ve provided your child with all the tools she needs to be a happy, well balanced teenager.

Eight hours later, she woke from her coma. She was in Emergency Room with her parents sitting by her side. She was dazed and confused. Earlier that day she was having an asthma attack, so one of her cabin-mates at camp shared some of her own medication to help her breathe. What no one knew was that the capsule was coated with egg whites. That is common in some medications to help make them more slippery and easy to swallow. The camper was highly allergic to eggs; and consequently went into anaphylactic shock. Camp counselors couldn’t revive her, so they called an ambulance. That is a true story.

Unless you or a loved one has food allergies, it’s impossible to convey how consuming avoidance can be. It is a little more in depth than “don’t eat the peanuts”. Severe allergic reactions can occur merely by smelling or touching the forbidden food.

Now that it’s back to school time, what can you do so that you child isn’t the one who gets sick?

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology issued a statement on Anaphylaxis in Schools and Other Childcare Settings. The statement outline requirements that school staff, childcare providers, and food service personnel must take. But please don’t rely solely on staff adherence to these requirements. Take matters into your own hands.
Here are some proactive steps you can take to preclude allergic reactions in your child:

1. Inform the staff specifically what is needed to ensure no problems at school. Let them know that you want to work with them to keep your child healthy and not cause classroom disruptions. Get familiar with the school building, lunch facilities and policies regarding snacks.

2. Don’t make assumptions about the staff’s knowledge. Give them information and resources. Help them understand how to administer medications or to use an epi-pen. Remind them that since they are required by federal law to assist your child and to include her in normal school activities, you’d like to help make that happen smoothly.

3. Empower your child. Reinforce the importance of knowing potential food allergy triggers and identifying them to her teacher. Med-Alert bracelets are helpful, too.

Sure it may take some adjusting on everyone’s part, but by working with the school and with your child, you should be able to have a safe, happy and healthy school year!

“Ashley’s not my friend anymore! I hate her!” Whoa, before you go off on a tirade because your six year old used the word hate, take a minute to find out why she is feeling such a strong emotion.

Good, bad or ugly, friendships at school are a magnificent necessity in your child’s development. As a parent, it’s your duty to foster that development. Since the day your baby was born, your first responsibilities were to feed and protect your young. That started the bonding process – the needed link for balanced development.

Watch the motherly instinct that surfaces when a mom finds out someone hurt her baby, even if it was that someone said something mean to her. Forget the sticks and stone, words DO hurt. We want to protect our children from skinned knees and broken hearts. But the fact is we are not training them up in the way they should go if we don’t allow them to experience a little pain. It’s a necessary evil in life.

Let your baby cry on your shoulder. Welcome the opportunity to use the experience as a springboard to talk about friendships at school. Look back at your own high school yearbook. How many of your friends signed it, “BFF” (Best Friends Forever) yet twenty years have passed and you haven’t seen them since graduation day?

It’s your responsibility to explain to your child that friendships are fragile. Everyone wants to be loved and accepted. Boys are not exempt from friendship woes; it just tends to be more dramatic with little girls.

Perhaps Martin Luther King didn’t have the elementary school drama in mind when he said, “Can’t we just all get along,” but the emotion was likely similar. It’s heart wrenching to hear your child lament how Katie was her best friend, but then Shannon had to come along and ruin it. “Now Shannon and Katie are best friends and they don’t include me!”

While explaining the facts of fickle friendships may not fix things for your child, she may actually hear you now and listen to you later. Parents have a natural instinct to fix things and make their baby’s life easier. Acknowledge your child’s broken heart and use the tender moment as a learning experience.

Saving up for a dream vacation? You can probably afford it sooner than you expected when you use these 15 budget travel tips from the “Budget Travel Guide”.

You can get this free report by clicking here.

The report shows you:

- The best days and times to book flights so you can save big on airfare (pages 5-6)

- Which website alerts you when the price of your ticket drops (page 6)

- How to save on children’s airfare (page 7)

- How small changes in your itinerary can make big cuts on your costs (page 7)

- Who can get discounted airline tickets – it could be you! (page
…and much more! Grab them here.

Hot lunch at school can become quite expensive. Figure on average, hot lunch costs $2.10 per day if you include milk with the meal. If you have three children, $6.30 a day, multiplied by five days, that’s $31.50 a weekÂ… just for lunch! Is it convenient for parents? You betcha. Can it be expensive? You betcha!

I’m going to give you some excellent money saving lunch ideas. It’s important to remember that you must not embarrass your children with the lunch you force them to take (egg salad sandwiches aren’t real popular in school). You need to come up with some fun, tasty meals that will make your child the envy of the lunch table. The object here is to save money and ensure your well thought-out lunch doesn’t end up at the bottom of the trash barrel.

I remember a day when it was cool to bring a thermos to school. Mine had My Little Ponies (the original ones) and my brother’s was Lost in Space. Kid’s thermoses are quite adorable, however a word of caution: they don’t keep hot foods as hot as the trusty metal and glass thermoses. Just be certain to preheat the thermos with boiling water, and then put the hot food directly into the thermos. Your hot food should stay warm until lunch time, four hours later.

Leftovers make great thermos food. Make sure you get a wide mouth, shorter thermos. You could fill it with soup, stew, mac and cheese, hamburger helper, chili, spaghetti and even hotdogs. Another idea is to fill the thermos with taco meat with the cheese already added. Then put a hard taco shell or a soft tortilla into the lunch bag and your bambino is ready for a fiesta!

Of course you could also serve cold lunches in the thermos. How about tuna salad, macaroni salad, or spaghetti salad? Or fill it with antipasto and a variety of meats and cheeses. Don’t forget about celery and peanut butter or crackers and cheese. Roll-ups go over well, too. There are a couple different variations: Cream cheese spread on a slice of salami, with a sweet pickle inside; or instead of rolling up a slice of salami, roll up a tortilla that is stuffed with ham and shredded cheese.

Forget those pre-made lunches in a cardboard box. Forget the standard PBJ. Think out of the box. Economical can also be fun. Your child’s friends will try to trade their lunch for the fun meal you packed!

It’s almost Mother’s Day again. Every year I rack my brain thinking of just the perfect gift to give my Mom – and I know husband and kids do the same for me.. It has to be something simple but meaningful, something non-extravagant but something she will really cherish. It’s tough to come up with a winner year after year.

It’s much easier for me to figure out what I would like to receive on Mother’s Day. How about you? If your kids, your husband or another loved one asked you what you would like for Mother’s Day, what would you say?

I’ve got a suggestion (and I hope I’m on the right track). Tell them you’d like:

* a little free time to spend as you please
* a little more help running the household
* a little more family togetherness

There is a gift that can give you all this – membership in Dine Without Whine. As a Dine Without Whine member, you will get weekly meal plans, recipes and grocery lists. This will give you at least one free hour every week (no more poring through your cookbooks to do meal planning). And with meals all planned out, you’re more likely to eat at home, together.

So if anybody asks, tell them Dine Without Whine is what you want for Mother’s Day.

Teaching your kids the importance of Earth Day is the first step, as they will be the caretakers of our planet in years to come.It is important to explain to your kids what Earth Day represents, and what you do as a family; not just one day, but every day can keep the environment free from further damage.

• Plant a tree in the yard
• Commit to recycling everything possible.
• Walk or bike to school
• Turn lights off that aren’t being used.
• Unplug appliances that aren’t being used.
• Make and display Earth Day posters.
• Check for and fix leaky faucets.
• Turn water off when brushing teeth.
• Limit shoer time.
• Wash car less often.
• Replace filter in air conditioner often.
• When shopping at grocery store, use recyclable bags.
• Volunteer to help clean up your local park
• Teach kids how to grow plants and herbs
• Build a birdhouse in your backyard

Use these ideas and you will teach your kids important concepts including energy conservation; recycling; increasing plant and tree growth; respect nature; save water; reduce toxins in the air; keep the environment clean; planting trees and flowers to increase oxygen; reduce air pollution; and to love and respect all animals who inhabit the earth.