Ancestral Gold, Murder, and Ghost Stories

Every week, there are interesting genealogy workshops, classes, conferences, webinars, and events to attend. Some of them might be going in near where you live! Here are a few that will be happening soon. Ancestry.com LIVE has two webinars scheduled for this week. One is called “Genealogy Brainstorming: I’m Stuck. Now What?”. It will take place on October 9, 2012, from 1:00 in the afternoon until 2:00 in the afternoon, EDT. The other one is called “How To Up Your Genealogy Game”. It will happen on October 11, 2012, starting at 1:00 in the afternoon, and ending at 2:00 in … Continue reading

The Early Years: How Much Do They Really Understand?

The age of your child at the time of your divorce has a profound impact on the way they respond to the changes in their life. Don’t expect them to understand everything that is going on, but be aware, they may know more than you think. Here is a guide to gauge how much your child comprehends the split during the early years and how to ease that transition on them. From birth to 18 months children can feel the tension in the home, but don’t understand the reasoning behind it. They may begin to show some signs of separation … Continue reading

It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year for Thrift Store Bargains 2

As you wonder what to do with all of your leftovers, take advantage of other people’s leftovers, too…leftover stuff, that is. This is the best time of year to get wonderful merchandise for pennies on the dollar at your local thrift store. If you missed the first part of this topic posted earlier today, click here. You should also find a lot of toys, as parents, overwhelmed with all of the gifts, either donate brand new items in an effort to bring the gift giving under control, or donated older toys to make way for the new ones. I found … Continue reading

Privacy, Teens and Parents—Part Two

Earlier this morning I introduced the important topic of privacy as it pertains to adolescents and parents. While I wrote about WHY I think how we negotiate privacy issues can be such a big deal in the teen years, I also wanted to talk about the areas where I think we need to figure out how we will handle privacy issues with our teens. Some of the biggies when it comes to teens and privacy are their rooms, their possessions and things like book bags, journals, e-mail messages, etc. I think that a general rule of thumb can be that … Continue reading

The Problems and Solutions of Delving Further Into a Topic

One of the great things about homeschooling, unit studies and lapbooks in particular, is the fact that when we are learning about something, we can delve off and explore one part of the topic. If we want to we can even make a separate unit or lapbook on the things we want to explore more. The “problem” comes in when there are so many parts of a topic that we want to learn more about. For instance Jonathan’s all about me lapbook lead to a my body lap book, which in turn is looking like it is going to lead … Continue reading

Reading With Your Older Preschooler

Before long, your older preschool child (4-5 years old) will be beginning kindergarten. Most kindergarten curriculums are full of reading enrichment and literature. It is very important to continue to read to your child at this age. At this stage, children begin to pay more attention to word form and develop phonological awareness. They can identify if words rhyme or do not rhyme. They can conclude if two words begin the same or differently. Older preschool children are also ready for more reading comprehension. They can make predictions about what will happen next in a story and recall what has … Continue reading

The Advantages of Participating in Institute Classes

This is the time of year to be thinking about enrolling in an institute class. Institute is a program that teaches religious classes on campuses throughout the United States. The institute program is also available for young adults who are not currently attending college. Many areas also offer institute classes to single adults. There may be women’s institute classes available in your area. Institute classes give you the opportunity to study a gospel topic in depth with a group of people. The class topics vary from studying the Book of Mormon, Old Testament, and New Testament, to learning about temples, … Continue reading

My Day on the World Stage

In 1993 the opportunity arrived for me to shut up or put up. There was a woman by the name, or rather using the name, of Deborah Laake. She’d written a book called “Secret Ceremonies: Diary of a Mormon Wife” – a work of pure and sad delusion. This poor woman, if she told the complete truth, was at the mercy of a father who took unrighteous dominion to new levels. Whatever the perceived truth, she became extremely disenchanted with the church and proceeded to betray every covenant she’d half-heartedly made with the Lord. Where do I come in? Well, … Continue reading

Benefits of Bartering

My 8-year-old cries poor like the Pentagon before commencing a $10 billion nuclear weapon upgrade. Granted, she doesn’t get a regular allowance, but with grandparents like these, she wants for very little. Actually, she wants a lot, but as the only granddaughter, she typically gets it all, which is why I don’t give her an allowance. This, of course, has led to many heated discussions on money, spending habits and budgeting.  However, thanks to a recently covered Social Studies unit on our country’s earliest settlers, we’ve added a new topic to our financial discussions:  bartering. Bartering is the exchange of … Continue reading

The League of Incredible Vegetables

There is exciting news from Veggie Tales! They have released a new DVD, called The League of Incredible Vegetables. The theme is handling fear and who can handle that topic better than Thingamabob (Bob the Tomato), LarryBoy (Larry the Cucumber), and the rest of the gang? The DVD includes a new silly song called Super Hero and a music video by the Newsboys. If you are a Veggie Tales fan or if you never watched an episode this is the place to start. I have been a fan of Veggie Tales for over a decade. My first child loved Bob … Continue reading