A survival guide to everyday motherhood



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I am a photography fanatic. I love taking pictures, tweaking pictures, and finding the beauty in every day items
Showing posts with label websites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label websites. Show all posts

Monday, October 6, 2008

Real Families, Real Answers

FAMILY MOMENT MONDAY
Anyone of you who reads my blog knows how much I value family time. I truly believe that most of our problems can go away if we are strong and together as a family unit. When your family life is good, your WHOLE life is good. Work doesn't seem so hard, annoying neighbors don't seem to bother as much, and the little stresses of life start to show their true insignificance when you are happy in the home. I know I freak out and stress over silly things when I am not being the best wife and mom and Curtis even notices that his job drags on him more when we are having hard family times. Because of this I am constantly looking for more ideas, activities, crafts, lessons, and just nice thoughts about families that I can share with you all and by doing so, I ran across a GREAT website called... "Real Families, Real Answers".

This wonderful website is posted by the School of Family Life and Home and Social Sciences programs at Brigham Young University. It has some wonderful ideas on families and how to help maintain them. Covering areas of how to strengthen a marriage, family relations, protecting family time, handling/dealing with anger, how to become a better parent, and dealing with family finances. They even go into some more specific areas that a family may have to deal with including overcoming family tragedies and how to keep pornography out of the home. I find this very helpful especially in today's world where sex is everywhere. It isn't a question of whether your loved ones will see it, but a question of teaching them to be stronger than it.

If you are a single parent, a blended family, or parent of a teenager they have information molded especially for your needs and situation as well.

My favorite section that I have seen so far is "Protecting Family Time" . Here they focus on the fast paced world that we live in, where everyone from children to adults are over scheduled and pulled thin on time. They have suggestions and guidelines that can help our families become more connected and less stressed. If you would like some more information about the website and their publishers you can read more about what they do here.

Please remember to add your link only if you are participating in Family Moment Monday. Family Moment Monday consists of people who are sharing crafts, activities, lessons, ideas, service projects or anything else that you can learn/do/enjoy as a family in your post. Please remember to link back to Motherhood For Dummies, so others can learn about F.M.M. and participate too.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Movie Ratings For Kids

When it comes to what Curtis and I watch on TV or in the movies, we have guidelines. Not just for our selves, but for our children as well. Okay, so we only have 1 kid and she is only 6 months, but we are planning our rules and guidelines for all those future kids. We do this because I feel pretty strongly about movie ratings. I believe that if Hollywood can actually stand up and say that they feel no one under 13 should see that movie, then we probably shouldn't. I don't know about you, but I don't think Hollywood usually sends the best messages and standards, so if they have set a bar then I think that I should at least follow their standards.

But their is still problems with Hollywoods ratings because certain kids are more mature or certain movies really aren't rated fairly. Like "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" it is rated PG-13, but still written for younger children. Would I let my kids under 13 see it, probably, because it is PG-13 for adult concepts such as fighting for your life and witchcraft type fighting scenes, not nudity and swearing. The movie doesn't have any sex, drug use, or horrible language.

It is hard for parents to decide what a child should see when the movie industry can lump movies like, "Harry Potter", "Austin Powers", and "I Am Ledgand" all into the same catergory. Austin Powers has sexual jokes and contant filled throughout the movie, but then I Am Ledgend would give some children nightmares. So, Hollywood has set their standards and yet, they are still sometimes off. So how does a parent help keep their children away from seeing filth, but at the same time letting your little angels (sometimes devils) enjoy movies and slowly start letting them see movies more age appropriate? Well, I have an awnser for you...... http://www.kids-in-mind.com/.

Curtis and I love this website. It is completely free and allows adults to go online and see why each movie was given its rating. It break everything down into three main standards; sex & nudity, violence & gore, and profanity. An individual can sit down and see exactly how many swear words, which ones even mild words like idiot. What kind of nudity, everything from cleavage in a low cut shirt to how graphic a love scene. Every movie is profiled by these categories with a scale of 1-10 and a written explanation in detail. At the bottom of the movie page, they have even posted a summary of the message behind the movie and what you can learn from it.

We have even used this website for ourselves many times to help us avoid some of the movies that we might not want to see. So, if you are a parent, wife, husband or even just an individual that has been wanting to be more informed about what you and your family is viewing, simple go to Kids In Mind and check out the flick for your self.



Sunday, March 16, 2008

Petunia Petunia

If you like finding cute one-of-a-kind items for your kids, you might just love this. I discovered an adorable little website and just thought I needed to share it with you all. Petunia Petunia is a website with all homemade items that are just perfect for your sweet unique kid....and I mean unique in a good way....not like.... "Ohh little Jimmy likes to lift his shirt over his head and do circles?....well... good for him for not going with the crowd" - kind of unique.



Petunia Petunia designer and founder is Alessandra Lopez-Kiely. She is a very talented successful woman who has apparently worked with well known names of footwear and accessories companies such as Joan & David, Calvin Klein, JCrew, and even home furnishing companies such as ABC Carpet & Home and Martha Stewart.



The website specializes in the design of quality, hand knitted & crocheted accessories and baby bed linens and they have just the cutest little knick-knacks. Everything from blankets, dolls, tooth fairy money holders, to monster bombs!


Okay you may be asking your self right now what a monster bomb is. Petunia has made a cute soft bomb that is suppose to help keep monsters from under your dear children's beds. If you kid has a monster infestation problem, simple place explosive under the bed and BAM... the problem is gone. If you have a more closet situation then bed problem, that is where the closet door lock comes in handy. Simply place the monster lock on your child's closet door and no more monsters sneaking into the room waking your child up.