Fun ideas for throwing a simple Fancy Nancy themed birthday party that are super easy to execute (fancy for “do”) When my youngest daughter turned 5 we threw her a Fancy Nancy birthday party. At the time, she was really obsessed with the Fancy Nancy books by Jane O’Connor. Heck, she practically WAS Fancy Nancy!…
I’ve been seeing quite a lot of hype about this book, so I was excited when I was asked to review it. I have devoured it. Devoured. And I am excited to implement the principles I’ve learned in my own household. In the introduction, The Eyres explain how entitlement is the “one reason parenting is…
After three weeks of my children being in school, it’s clear that my willpower has been depleted. I know this because I have forgotten about some important things, despite the many reminders and writing them in my new, awesome planner. Because I yelled at all three of my children last night while we were working on…
A back-to-school feast and family theme is a great way to kick off the school year for your kids. This tradition is something they look forward to every year and helps them to be excited to go back to school. Tonight we had our annual Back to School Feast and introduced this year’s family theme….
Did you know that I minored in Linguistics in college? Not that a linguistic minor makes me any sort of expert on language or anything, but it does mean that I really love language and that all of its intricacies absolutely fascinate me. As a Vocal Performance major, I was required to study the diction of English,…
This week, we introduced the Family Rule Book, which is part of my Project Walking Into a Hug. It took nearly two hours, but together we came up with about 30 family rules and their attached consequences. At first, the girls seemed to think that things like “not spitting on people” and “don’t slam doors”…
An overview of what a visit to American Girl Place in Chicago might include My girls are obsessed with American Girl. Totally obsessed. Before our trip to Chicago, they combed the catalogs, trying to decide what they would buy when we arrived at The American Girl Place, where all of their dreams would come true. On…
While we were in Chicago, we stayed at a hotel that was a considerable distance from downtown, and took the train in every day. This was (usually) fun for the children, and it saved us lots of money so that we could actually do more exciting things on vacation. The only downside was that we often found ourselves on…
The Art Institute of Chicago. My favorite painting of all time (on which one of my favorite Broadway musicals is based). My beautiful little family. Fun with photography. Who could ask for anything more?
We just arrived home last night from spending a week in Chicago. We’re completely exhausted, but only because we had a ton of fun and did as much as we could possibly cram in for the week. I took hundreds of photos and we made millions of memories. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to go through all…
One of the most difficult parts to learn in the opera I just finished was a scene that incorporated “Shall We Gather at the River” with a Finnish Lutheran Hymn. In that scene, I was assigned to be a Methodist, and so I sang “Shall We Gather at the River” which is a hymn I’ve song…
A few weeks ago I sang an opera aria (Vissi d’Arte from Tosca) at a funeral. After the service, one of my neighbors came up to me and said, “Who knew that the woman who runs up the hill to the bus stop in her pajamas every morning could sing like that!” After I overcame…