High Maintenance Mom - Holidays/Celebrations

Start a Halloween tradition with the Halloween Phantom

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:34:27 -0800

I opened my door this morning to a fun surprise! The Halloween Phantom visited my family! A trick or treat bag filled with fun games and cookies sat on my step with a note. My kids were thrilled. Read on to start this tradition in your area......

WordWorld Birthday printouts

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:43:10 -0700

One of our favorite shows, WordWorld, is celebrating its birthday and offering downloadable birthday items including invitations, name tags, and thank you notes. We think LeapFrog videos (Letter Factory / Talking Words Factory / Talking Words Factory II / Learn to Read at the Storybook Factory /Math Circus) helped B learn to read and WordWorld is helping N learn to read. See our earlier post, WordWorld for more information about the show.

Happy Mother's Day!

Sun, 11 May 2008 15:28:54 -0700

I hope you are having a great Mother's Day. My special alone time this morning included an exercise class at the gym where I heard the following comments from friends. "This class is the highlight of my day. The rest of the day will include the usual errands, cleaning, and cooking." "My child made me a flower pot in Kinder but on Friday all I received was a note from her friend apologizing for breaking it." "My children like to tell me I can clean tomorrow instead." I hope you have the opportunity to do something you really enjoy today!

Planning a seder for kids

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:40:45 -0700

The first night of Passover is this Saturday night and we are once again thinking about how our celebration will change each year as the kids get older. We often start reading the stories to the kids the week before. Our kids love the (Sammy Spider Passover books (story, fun book, and haggadah). I also make copies of items from the fun book for the kids to do during the seder. We try to have them help us clean the house and we talk a lot about the food. Both kids really like matzah so it's an exciting time for them. Last year we used the My Very Own Haggadah, which is basically a coloring book, for our seder. Because it was a school night, we skipped some of the story so we could eat earlier. Then when the kids had finished eating, they watched The Seder on Planet Matzah Ball while we finished eating. It was a huge success...

New Years Eve with the kids

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 20:58:23 -0800

B, now five, is excited about the new year, which we thought was because of kindergarten but we now believe to be based on an online game that should be available in Jan. 2008. We haven't done much with the kids in the past but this year in addition to explaining how software releases work (his Dad missed Halloween because of one so we should have a story he can relate to), we will also have a special New Years dinner at home. During our celebratory dinner we will talk about our yearly highlights - what was fun, what we learned, what made us laugh. I'm not a big fan of resolutions but I hope to talk about what we want to learn or do differently in the new year. If all goes as planned... I will write down parts of our conversation and seal it in an envelope for next year's celebration. Hope you have a Happy New Year!

Picking out stamps to help kids write thank you notes

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 08:28:22 -0800

Teaching the kids to say thank you is an important part of the holidays for me. We try to break down the process to fit our kids abilities - saying thank you on the phone, "signing" their name on a card, drawing a picture, telling me what to write, writing a few words themselves, to finally writing complete sentences. Of course we have to make the time to do it but once we do, we can often write one thank you note every night or every other night. Having cute stationery and fun stamps really helps the process. As always, there are cute holiday stamps available but if you look online there are also more kid oriented super hero stamps (from Marvel and from DC Comics) and Disney (with the little mermaid and with Aladdin).

Holiday pictures and books - including personalized ABC book ideas

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:15:26 -0800

This week is a great time to take holiday pictures if you haven't already. We like using the Shutterfly collage option, as I mentioned last year (along with including kids' stories in holiday letters). It's great for those of us who can't get everyone to look remotely happy for a family picture. You can also choose to make cards out of your kids' artwork (my parents made our moving card out of a picture I drew when I was five and it's in my baby book). Another great gift is a family photo / artwork book. They take a little time to make and only cover the things you've photographed throughout the year but they are really fun to look at and last longer than calendars. My kids also each have their own ABC book with pictures I've taken of them or things they like...

Halloween tips

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 07:58:05 -0700

Happy Halloween. Here are a few tips we use to make the evening enjoyable. We always plan a very simple dinner for Halloween night since the kids are usually too excited to sit and eat for very long. Tonight we are having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with cut carrots. It's something we can also eat in the car on the way home from school (at 5:45 pm). I usually find one of my children wants to trick or treat longer than the other so I do small circles around the neighborhood. That way I can drop off a child to help hand out candy with his dad while the other continues to run around...

Halloween - One of my favorite neighborhood nights

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:09:27 -0700

I have fond memories of trick-or-treating in my neighborhood as a child. The neighbors who left their lights on were always so nice as my brother, friends (East Coast Mom), and I would rush around trying to get as much candy as possible. Now I get to share that excitement with my kids. They get rewarded with treats for ringing doorbells while I get rewarded by a sense of community and a glimpse at the latest remodels. Plus I offer to buy my kids' candy back from them so I'm happy to spend a few hours collecting treats that will later turn into Legos and firetrucks...

Fire Prevention Week: October 7-13

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:13:26 -0700

It's Fire Prevention Week and the National Fire Protection Association is scheduling the Great American Fire Drill (check out their pdf fire plan checklist and grid). Pick a day in October, make a plan, then practice. Afterwards, record your drill on sparky.com (a fun site for kids who love fire trucks). Lego City and NFPA are also running a trivia sweepstakes.

Last day of preschool plus a break from the kindergarten anxiety

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:35:21 -0700

Tomorrow is B's last day of preschool. I've been excited about him moving on to kindergarten but I've had to temper my enthusiasm. About two or three months ago, B started to revert to behavior we hadn't seen in a while. There was loud roaring, hitting, and lots of crying. The teachers said it was due to anxiety about the upcoming change in their lives, something that hadn't occurred to me. Of course, now that B is fine, I'm beginning to see how much of our lives are going to change...

Happy Mother's Day!

Sat, 12 May 2007 22:33:49 -0700

Happy Mother's Day. I hope you have time to enjoy yourself and spend the majority of your day smiling. We have friends coming into to town but I am planning to go on a short hike with the kids followed by an arts and crafts project that will provide me with something fun from them. When I told B about Mother's Day he asked if he could get a present. I told him it was a day about me and he replied, "that's not fun. we didn't do that last year." More on our struggles another day. Tomorrow I will be focused on smiling, and cleaning before our guests arrive...

Donating for the holidays

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:11:13 -0700

One of the exciting, or possibly not so exciting, parts of preparing for the holidays is cleaning the house. For Passover, you are supposed to clean the entire house and remove all of the leavened products. I look forward to my spring cleaning as a time to take out all of our food and figure out what we are going to eat and what should be donated. There's something liberating about the cleaning process. This year I took a bunch of food, clothes, and other household items to a local shelter...

Holiday cards and stories

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 20:58:29 -0800

One of the highlights for me this year in the card giving area is the ability to make collage cards from Shutterfly.com. We have a hard time getting a picture of the whole family so it's nice to be able to include separate pictures of the boys doing things they like to do - smiling as a family apparently isn't a highlight for them...

Halloween plans

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 21:54:26 -0800

It's Halloween time again. B is still deciding what he wants to be. I've given up helping. First it was Power Ranger or Wolverine; then prehistoric cat, dog, or bear; then Policeman; then poop (seriously he was very specific about finding a way to be rounder); then another random animal that can jump high; and most recently, the cow he was last year. N still seems excited to be a fireman, now that he knows he's not going to be a fire truck. I ended up buying chocolate candy to give out after an article by a dentist somewhere talked about the benefits of chocolate over more sticky candy that is harder to remove from teeth...