Reflect and learn with me
I’d like to encourage you to see your situation, your family, and your life from a new angle. In the next few weeks I am going to introduce you to a woman who has impacted me. Each of their lives remind me of the beauty that can only come out of adversity and their stories [...]
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Put ‘em to work!
When Melody approached the topic of how being a mother has changed her home (it is now a mess) and asked for tips and feedback from other moms in her post titled, “I used to have a clean house“, it started a conversation on our facebook page about what we do in our home to involve [...]
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Fortunately / Unfortunately: our thankfulness game
Back in my teaching days (I used to teach second grade) I stumbled upon a fun picture book called “Fortunately.” The main character is taken on a wild adventure filled with fortune and misfortune. It goes something like this: Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party. Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away. [...]
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The opposite game & why it doesn’t work in our house (wink-wink;)
If you want your kids to do something, turn it into a game. It’s simple but the best ideas usually are right? Want an easy game idea? Read on. Its called the “opposite game” and the rules are simple: agree to say the opposite of what you mean. For example: Me: Ashlyn, I don’t [...]
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Top 5 kids’ audio picks for road trips
Earlier this month our family took a 7+ hour road trip together to the coast of Washington. In many ways this distance seems like small beans compared to the times we trek from Northern Idaho to Minnesota or Southern California to visit family. However, any extended car seat time can leave little ones (and their parents) longing for [...]
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is today making a forever memory?
I remember a green felt dress, a moment that I farted and cried when others laughed at me, a ballon tied to my blanket at nap time. . . Isn’t it interesting to look back into your childhood and wonder at the snippets of memories that surface? They can seem so random (why do I remember the interior of [...]
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Fun family games: a Milliwik game giveaway
I don’t know about you but our family loves games. Our game closet is bursting at the seams with old classics like Hi Ho Cherry-O, games that take hours to play such as The Farming Game and fun strategy games such as Ticket to Ride and The Settlers of Catan. I look for good deals when I visit the thrift store or yard sales and love the fun of finding a few family favorite. I have even found fun uses for games that go unused such as this popular blog post showing a easy DYI craft project using an old scrabble board. As our family grows, I have found that it can be challenging to involve everyone in game play. Monopoly with our older two gets saved for the younger kid’s nap time and Dominion gets pulled out when adult friends visit and our children entertain themselves by building towers with and bouncing on our couch cushions downstairs (true story). It is rare to find a quality game that we can all enjoy together despite our varying age and ability levels.
Because of this I was intrigued to learn about Milliwik’s Dance Charades game which combines the creative interaction of charades with the fun expression of dance all within an open age format.
How to play: You have a 40 second song to charade as many items as you can. However, you can’t just charade the item, you have to make it into a dance move! The other players try to guess what you are dancing and you get a point for every one they guess right. The other players also have purple tokens and they can reward you up to three token points during your turn. After the song is over, you collect your points and tokens and add up your total score and put it next to your dance name (i.e. white thunder, sizzle, etc) on the score pad. A game like this is perfect to modify for younger players because let’s face it, kids LOVE to dance!
Another fun and unique game offered by Milliwik is Splashimals®.
Splashimals® float on the water, stick to the bath wall, are easy for small hands to hold and help your kids with their reading skills. You can match them up, play memory, or mix them up to create new crazy animals like the tur-key (picture shown below). Splahsimals have received some impressive recommendations and press including a feature in babytalk magazine and Nickelodeon’s “toys that teach” feature.
Doesn’t it seem fun to be a game creator where your job is to help others have fun?This is just what the owners of Milliwik do! In their own words,
We love to have fun. We will most likely challenge you to a card-throwing contest with our foam cards, a dance off with our game dance charades, or a battle of the wits with our new game laughing stock. Our end goal is to make you laugh through fun activities and games because that is what keeps us happy. We love to have fun. We will most likely challenge you to a card-throwing contest with our foam cards, a dance off with our game dance charades, or a battle of the wits with our new game laughing stock.Our end goal is to make you laugh through fun activities and games because that is what keeps us happy.
At Mom 4 Life we have been working behind the scenes for the last several months to make some big improvements to our website. I am excited to say that those changes are nearing completion. However, as you may have noticed, we have dramatically slowed down the number of new products we have been adding to the site in order to best focus on our site improvement project. Durring this time, I spoke with David, the CFO (Chief Fun Operator) about his company Milliwik and the products that he and his wife have worked to develop. Despite the fact that now is not the right time for us to consider adding their products to Mom 4 Life, I was excited to learn of their desire to take their company to the next level of sales. They have entered a contest sponsored by WalMart called “Get on the Shelf” and are looking to increase sales so that their company can provide a sustainable income for their family. I was happy to help spread the word about their innovative games (such as the ones mentioned above as well as the many others offered on their website) and give you the chance to win either Dance Charades or Splashimals as well as the opportunity to purchase a game at an amazing 50% off discount.
If you would like to win either Dance Charades or Splashimals: simply fill out the Rafflecopter form below (you must be on our blog to enter so be sure to click over if you are reading this via Google Readers or an email).
In addition to the chance of winning the giveaway, I would encourage you to take advantage of their amazing limited time 50% off special on a few of their select games here by simply entering the code “mom4life” durring checkout. While you are there, don’t forget to show your support for this creative company by voting for them to get “On the Shelf” in WalMart!
3 Ideas for creating great family dinnertime discussions
When our children were very young I remember discussions that my husband and I would have about what kind of family atmosphere we wanted in our home. Some of these talks centered around dinner time conversations. It was a goal of ours to place high value on having meaningful dinnertime discussions. Over time we have experimented with different approaches [...]
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Merry Christmas!
Our two oldest kids are home from school and we have been really loving the lazy days that provides us. Thanks to Pinterest, I have been inspired with some fun new ideas, crafts and traditions. I will share some of my favorites below and encourage you to see all of the ideas I saved here. [...]
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Hunger (hands response)
If your heart has been stirred by this topic of hunger than I hope that the ideas on how to help the hunger (both locally and internationally) mentioned below will help motivate your family into action. I realize this list is limited so I would encourage and ask you to leave a comment if you know of other great resources or opportunities.
Hunger (heart response)
Yesterday’s post was pretty heavy. The statistics of the hunger needs are very discouraging and can leave us feeling overwhelmed. However, I don’t believe we are expect to solve the problem. We are told in the Bible that the poor will always be with us (Matthew 26:11). What we are told to do however is to stand up for the poor (Psalm 146:7) and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30). I realize that if ANY of us had neighbors dying at the rate of 4 kids a minute we would be overwhelmed with urgency to help. This week I realized that if these foreign families lived here in the United States under the same conditions they are in now (no clean water, no healthy food, sleeping on the ground. . .) CPS woud swiftly come in and take the children away. These families may live far away, but they are still our neighbors. I urge us to respond in love rather than to walk away in dispair. Below I have outlined some starting points for your heart.
Hunger (head knowledge)
Yesterday I shared my experience in Costco that almost brought me to tears and my heart on the topic of hunger. Today I want to share with you the first of three posts that will give you a starting point for how to begin to understand the hunger need (Head), some ideas on ways to guide your family to an internal response (Heart) and practical suggestions on how to respond outwardly (Hands).
Because I believe that you cannot fully address a situation until you understand it, lets begin by immersing ourselves in some facts/statistics and videos that will help us get a better understanding of the Hunger needs both domestically as well as internationally.
The trickle affect
Every action has a reaction and every choice creates a consequence. These are lessons we are teaching our kids and it is true for us adults well. I received this email last week from Mom 4 Life blog reader Michelle and was really encouraged by her words as it reminded me how we are all learning from and encouraging each other when we make positive choices.
1,000 ways to see life for the first time
It is two minutes past eight. The sun has gone to bed. The children are asleep. The house is quiet, almost. The kitchen hums with the sound of drying tomatoes fresh from our garden. The gentle and rhythmic breathing from my youngest at my side. The wood lapped by the flames in the stove. These are the sounds wrapping me up like a warm, soft blanket as I reflect.
Happy Father’s Day to the man in our home
We are terribly blessed to have a great father in our home. I interviewed our kids to ask them some questions about their dad and learned a few new things. First of all, Hunter informed me that his dad’s favorite food is Broccoli and Cauliflower. The only thing that shocked me more than that was [...]
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Bike Helmets are for Bikes
Several months ago, my 6-year-old received his first bike from another family whose son had grown out of it. He was so excited about the bike, and almost as excited about the helmet. In fact, he would sometimes wear the helmet while playing in the yard. I never gave it a second thought to it. [...]
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Last Year’s New Year’s Resolution: become a bookworm
I realize that I am about four months too late to be writing a post about New Year’s Resolutions, but don’t let that distract you. You may remember when I shared a few food resolutions with you last year, however, in re-reading that post I saw that I never got around to sharing my personal goal: [...]
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Misson: Get yourself some updated family photos!
(Be sure to read to the end of today’s post if you are looking for tips on getting your own family photos taken)
During our recent trip to California over spring break we stopped and visited some friends who live in our old town of Redlands. This is always bittersweet because we don’t have enough time to see everyone we would want and never have as much time as we would like to visit with those that we do see. That said, it was really lovely to catch up with the two families we saw. As a wonderful bonus, the orange trees were in bloom and the smell is nothing less then heavenly! One of the friends we visited also happens to be an amazing photographer (and an amazing mom—read more about her story here). I happened to come prepared for a family photo shoot and she was kind enough to take us to a beautiful grassy field nearby to capture some memories. She had her work cut out for her as she attempted to get a shot with everyone together and looking at the camera at the same time (a difficult task with three young kids)!
How to: eat out with young kids
Eating out meant something entirely different before we had kids. Frankly, we had no true appreciation for the joy of simply sitting and enjoying a slow, relaxed meal! Things are different now. Apart from planned “date nights” where my husband and I revisit the “old days” of eating out, we do, on occasion, brave the [...]
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Good Gifts for Your Children
By Angela Gifford (our Customer Service Assistant and blogger at Let’s Talk About Boys) Our tree decorating time this year was a little disjointed. This is the first time ever we haven’t done the whole tree as a family, but our work schedules just didn’t make it possible. One night I waited up as long [...]
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The passing of the pee alarm
We now have a graduate! Just a little less than a month ago Ashlyn began the “pee alarm” adventure with the goal of training her brain to wake up her body during the night BEFORE having an accident in her bed. After having a week of dry nights and seeing regular successful midnight bathroom trips, [...]
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A pee what?
I have officially had it with wet nights. Every morning Quinten wakes up with a ripe poopy diaper (and usually clothes). Oh well, he’s only one, what can I expect? BUT his older siblings. . . well lets just say (hypothetically of course cause that wouldn’t be fair to have this on their public permanent [...]
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There has to be more
Looking for the weekly giveaway post? It is right below this one;). It is midnight and tomorrow morning is Friday. The start of Labor Day weekend. Logically this is the wrong time to blog–no one is reading on a holiday weekend. Forget logic, I am pressing the “publish” button. Maybe it is just me, my [...]
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A month in review: courtesy of Cozi
Three months ago I started using a website called Cozi to organize my calendar (and my life). I LOVE IT!!!! If you don’t have a calender system that you love, you are in for a treat. Do you have an active family with mulitiple schedules? This just may be a dream come true for you. [...]
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