Thanksgiving.....just around the corner

Here is a chance to teach your kids life skills and make memories.  Let you child make the list of what he or she wants to eat for Thanksgiving.  Chances are they have their favorites, recipes that busy parents don't have time to make very often.  Let your child make the list. This teaches them how to plan and practice their spelling!  If your child is very young he or she can draw pictures. In our house there is always a lot of compromising as to what type of pie we will have and they usually can narrow it down to two varieties.

     Then when you go grocery shopping let your child bring the holiday shopping list and keep his or her eyes peeled for the items you will need to buy to make the meal.  My kids love that they get to plan much of the menu, in which they often want children's wine (nonalcoholic wine) which is too expensive to buy anytime other than the holidays and they know it!  Plus if you kids help plan the meal they will be more willing to eat it. 

Yummy!

Painted Rock Hunts

More Rocks Found

Update:  With the weather changing from freezing to almost 80 degrees this past week we started rock hunting again.  Even if you aren't getting park weather where you live you can start painting rocks to hide when nicer weather gets here.

Many small communities have started up in the past year rock hunts.  Families with kids of all ages seem to love to participate in these rock hunts.  People have commented that their T.V. sets are turned off and their kids are getting more exercise and outdoor time.  You paint rocks and then hide them.  When you find other peoples rocks you can take photos and share what rocks you discovered.  Kids and adults usually try to re-hid most of the rocks that they find but they occasionally keep a rock they love too much to re-hid. Since kids of all ages love to participate it is important to treat preschool painted rocks just as important as the more artistically decorated ones.  If you paint a rock, please send it to us to post!  BTW the smile rock is a rock that I found and loved too much to re-hid.

Cute Model Homes

Lots of ideas here.