Easter is coming up quickly! Here are a few ideas for activities you might enjoy doing with your family.

1) Easter egg treasure hunt. Number the eggs from #1 to #??. Starting at the beginning, leave a clue with each egg telling your child how to get to the next egg.

2) Surprise neighbors with Easter eggs all over their yard. With this activity, it’s probably best to use plastic eggs so that nothing spoils before the neighbors find out about it. (I loved this idea especially so because I could see potential for turning this into a service project,... more

We had fun today with some of our traditional April Fool’s silly activities.

Our favorite is the “Traditional Kitty Litter Cake”. A cake is baked in a new, clean kitty litter pan. Plenty of Oreo cookies are crushed into the frosting so that, when spread over the cake, it looks like kitty littler. Large Tootsie Rolls are softened in the microwave for 30 seconds so that they can be hand molded into kitty excrement (yum, huh?!?). New kids and guessed are always appropriately disgusted. Everyone else loves the tradition.

Honestly,... more

Saint Patrick’s Day is coming up quickly! Only a few more days until Saturday, March 17th. Although it’s not one of the major holidays celebrated at our house, it’s still one that we like to celebrate by having a bit of fun together.

Since we don’t have any St. Pat’s Traditions in our family (yet), we’re still looking for fun new ideas to try. In my search, I came across the following websites. They’re only a sampling of what’s out there in cyber-land, but hopefully these will give you some ideas to use with your kids.

More than anything, have... more

We have been having a difficult time anytime we have visitors. We basically are homebodies and are settled into our day-to-day routine. Maybe once a month, maybe more or less depending on the season we will have family over in small groups, and each time we do the next day is very difficult for Livi. She loves having company, gets over stimulated but that’s typical of most children.

She interacts well and we have tried hard to limit affection except from Grandparents and we encourage high fives and handshakes. We are the only ones meeting her needs during... more

We spent lots of time at our house this evening working on making up Valentine’s Day cards for the kids to share with their classmates at school tomorrow. Some of the kids are excited about having parties even; we put together cookies and candies for those. Others of the kids helped me put together a little Valentine’s Day gift for my husband (a “date in a box” – new DVD and his favorite snacks; we can have a “date night in the other room” some night, soon hopefully. Beats getting a sitter and hoping the kids behave while we’re gone!)

After... more

It’s the first day of a brand new year – and my first day as a brand new blogger! I am really excited to spend time sharing ideas and resources about adoptive parenting. Hopefully, ideas shared can help both the experienced and the novices to the world of adoption. My name is Theresa. With my amazingly patient husband, we are parents to 27 absolutely amazing kids. What we’ve come to be known for, although never our intention, is parenting extremely difficult children. As such, our tribe gives us some very interesting experiences that... more

Things are slowly getting back to normal here in our household. Thank Goodness. Don’t get me wrong, it was a pleasure and a joy to experience Christmas with a toddler, but yikes am I exhausted and Oh man was my girl over stimulated and can you guess whom she lashed out at? That would be me… Mama. On Christmas night she hit me in the face, not once but twice, nice gift huh? I broke all my attachment rules, messed with her schedule and allowed affection from people she does not know very well. She was kissed, hugged and passed around and around.... more

What a whirlwind this Holiday season has been, I promised myself I would relax and truly enjoy it this year instead of being the perpetual hostess and running around like a chicken with my head cut off as is typically the case. I stayed true to my word and I took my own advice from my stress free Holiday post. I downsized my gathering,I said No, I cheated and bought store bought lasagna, and easy bagged salads, I dressed up a store bought cheesecake and spent all the time I saved with my family. Things still got hectic, as hard as I tried to... more

From Our Family to Yours... wishing you health & happiness this Holiday Season

I know most people have shopped by this point in the season, besides for those true brave procrastinators out there who will be shopping this weekend. Perhaps you forgot about someone, or a guest calls and asks if they can bring along a friend, maybe you need a hostess gift or you need something fast. I always try to have a few general small wrapped gifts for this scenario. I like for everyone attending my gathering to have something to open. A coffee mug filled with hot cocoa packets & cookies, a box of Chocolates, a Christmas CD, a stocking filled... more