Carolyn, Author at Fennell Seeds

Want to Fall Asleep Fast? Now I Fall Asleep in just a Few Minutes with this Solution.

Do you feel so tired when you go to bed that you think you will fall asleep before your head hits the pillow? Then when you do lay down you can’t get your mind to shut off and you end up laying there for what seems like hours before actually falling asleep. I used to swear it took me at least 45 minutes to an hour to actually drift off to sleep. Now that is all over, I actually found the solution to falling asleep within a couple minutes of putting my head down.

A sound machine!

Yes, a sound machine is a must for helping babies fall asleep quickly and stay asleep longer so we should all be using them too. I wish I would have figured it out 20 years ago. I would lay there telling myself I needed to fall asleep right then to get 7 hours of sleep and then stress myself out as the time dwindled away with me just continueing to lay there. Now I fall asleep so quickly that sometimes I can’t even remember putting my head on the pillow.

It is the constant buzz that drowns out changes in other noise. For example, you may still be able to hear the air conditioner kick on if you really focused on it but if you have a sound machine on and you are starting to drift off to sleep the sound of it kicking on no longer jars your body back to being awake. Here is an article that talks about it more scientifically than I can, click here.

It takes a couple days to get used to it. I recommend you try it at a very low setting at first so you barely hear it and then work it louder every couple days to get the full effect.

Here is the sound machine we use in our our house.

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Now I can really say that I sleep hard like a baby. My baby and I both sleep listening to a sound machine.

Mommy’s Favorite Board Game Where Everyone Wins and Nobody is Crying at the End!

by Carolyn 2 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.

Normally I am against the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality but sometimes I just can’t handle the crying involved in board games with siblings. Anyone else with me? 🙂 Someone is always crying at the end because they aren’t the winner. It is just so tiring that sometimes I avoid playing at all. Until…I found Mommy’s Favorite Board Game where everyone wins and nobody is crying at the end. A Miracle!

Now, we don’t play this every time we play board games because I do believe in teaching the lesson that not everyone can win. But, sometimes there are nights that I am just too tired to be teaching life lessons and I want us to all have a good experience together.

Enter, Richard Scarry’s Busytown Game.

There is a little bit of individual movement but the only way to win is to all work together and all win together. Let’s say the educational aspect of this game is team work but the real deal is that everyone is happy.

It is actually a fun game and I am extremely picky when it comes to games. My kids like it to and they are 8 year old twin boys and a 4 year old girl. So if you are tired of the tears from someone not being the winner, then I would highly suggest this one. Do you know of any others? Please share.

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DIY Cardboard Box Horse Stable

by Carolyn

I am always so impressed with my husband’s creativity. Britton has been asking for a stable for her AG-style horse which is pretty large. We both received new bikes as Christmas presents so after he assembled our bikes he thought the box would make a great DIY cardboard box horse stable.

Isn’t he a good Dad? I am thankful we have at least one creative parent in this family.

Here is what he did. He cut the box on the top so he could tape it together to make a pitched roof. Don’t worry about the kind of tape you use as it will be covered up later with paper shingles. He used a box cutter. Then he cut the side and cut it in half to make a barn door that swings open on the top or bottom.

He decided to paint it white because that is what we had on hand (we weren’t going to spend any money on this thing) and he told her that afterwards she could put stickers all over it. What little girl doesn’t love to decorate with stickers? 🙂

The next day, once it dried, I let her take over and add shingles. I just cut construction paper into thirds and let her use a glue stick to put them on the roof. This was the fun part for her to put her touch on the stable. Matt drew the barn door and window.

It has been a huge hit. She has played with it for hours already. I am thrilled for her. One day she may get the real toy stable but for right now this is so fun for her. I like showing our daughter that you can make your own toys out of cardboard boxes. Not everything has to be brand new and perfect.

What have your kids made out of boxes?

How to set Parental Controls on NetFlix – Learned After a Big Mommy Fail

by Carolyn 3 Comments

So it happened! The big mommy fail yesterday. One of my children woke up at 6:05 am on a weekend morning and after having him poke me in the back a hundred times I just handed over my iPad and told him to go entertain himself in the family room while the rest of us all slept. Over an hour later, I come out and just heard cartoon type voices so think nothing of it until…Bam…all sorts of inappropriate jokes. I find out he is watching American Dad. An adult cartoon. This one is about women who work the pole (I don’t even want to type the name here due to internet searches) and there are lots of jokes about crabs and other totally inappropriate things.

OMG!!!

I completely freak out but try to hold myself under some control because it is my fault. I never set up the parental controls on his Netflix profile and I have been meaning to do it. A few months ago he was watching a teen movie that I didn’t really like but it wasn’t as completely inappropriate like the show yesterday. It had made me think I needed to set up the controls but of course I never got around to it.

So this morning I started my research on how to get the controls set. Turns out you must be on a computer, not a mobile device to do it. Probably reason number 1 why this wasn’t done before now because we only watch Netflix on our mobile devices.

It was very simple once I figured out my password. I can never remember them so I had to have them email me to reset it.

How to set Parental Controls on Netflix

Be on a computer, not a mobile device.
Sign in and go to My Account

Click My Profile – Manage Profiles
Click on the Profile you want to change the controls. Everyone in my family has their own profile. So I clicked on my 2 boys and made their choice for Older Kids and Below. My daughters I selected Little Kids Only.
Then hit Complete

I feel so much better!!

Here are the 4 choices you have as control options

Movies:

Little Kids	Older Kids	Teens	Adults
G	PG	PG-13, TV-14	R, NC-17, NR, UR

TV:

Little Kids	Older Kids	Teens	Adults
TV-Y, TV-G	TV-Y7, TV-Y7-FV, TV-PG	TV-14	TV-MA

Go take the time to do it for your kids and save yourself the awkward conversation I had to have with my almost 8 year old about what he saw.

By the way, want to know the show my kids are obsessed with lately? The Little Couple! I am thrilled they want to watch a show that I also like to watch. I am so tired of Curious George and Doc McStuffins.

Fun and Easy Way to Keep Your Preschooler Learning this Winter

by Carolyn 2 Comments

As you are starting to learn, I am all about short-cuts. 🙂 When my boys were 3 years old I was running out of ideas of how to keep them busy during the winter months. I am not a crafty person so I used to read homeschooling blogs to get some ideas of easy crafts and fun educational things to do with the kids. Some of the crafts I had a hard time doing because I just don’t keep a lot of craft supplies on hand.

One day I was reading a blog that is no longer in existence and she was not a home school mom but had purchased a month of home school curriculum from a company called The Learning Box. From her pictures I figured out that it was just what I needed. It has a book that walks you through each days activities like you are a preschool teacher and best of all…..it has all the crafts and craft supplies ready in individual packets! No need to pre-cut or gather a ton of supplies. On Day 1 is all of Day 1 activities in individual bags, even the craft. Go to the site and look at the sample pages. It is amazing.

I bought 1 month and it lasted me about 3 months because I didn’t do it every day and honestly I would skip around a bit and do the activities that I wanted to do and skipped some others. It was great for a person like me who needs things spelled out for them and needs the craft supplies pre-cut and all ready in one packet.

This company really does everything for you and the kids have so much fun with the activities. It may seem a bit pricey but not having to buy tons of craft supplies that would just sit in my closet helped justify the price. This Learning Box is a full curriculum such as the whole month is based on one theme. I think this January is a Polar Bear theme so the box will come with a book about Polar Bears and the songs, activities and crafts every day will all be based around the theme.

If you just want crafts I also recommend the Alex Busy Box of Crafts. I love that box too for having everything right there ready for you. I talk a little more about it in this post of gifts my 3 year old received and my thoughts.

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Please share any ideas that you have with me too? I am always looking for easy crafts to do with the kids.

This post is not sponsored by the Learning Box. I just really loved the product and wanted to share.

5 Tips for Taking Your Kids Skiing for the First Time

by Carolyn 2 Comments

Since we just got back from our first family ski trip, I thought it would be helpful to share what worked for us and made our trip a success.

We went to Gatlinburg, TN for our first trip. I have 3 kids, twin boys who are almost 8, a daughter that is 4 and my husband who is a beginner as well. It was a little intimidating planning the trip and worrying how everyone would handle learning a new skill. Especially because I was the only one in our immediate family that is an experienced skier. I really wanted them to all have a good experience and love it.

Here are the top 5 tips for taking your kids skiing for the first time.

Book your lessons before you get there. Let the experts teach them the proper technique for their first time on skis. I am an experienced skier but I am not at the level to teach others. Plus, I am not the most patient person in the world (both my sisters are cracking up right now if they are reading about me talking about patience).
Get a locker for your shoes and extras. Don’t think your kids will walk from the car to the slopes in their ski boots like you have in the past. The first time they are in the ski boots they have a very difficult time walking. Have them walk as close as you can to the slopes then put their ski boots on and we have one adult take all the shoes back to the locker.

Get to the slopes early. Most people don’t show up until about 11:00am. My kids are early risers so it was no problem for us to get there right when the slopes opened at 9:00am. This means we had over an hour with hardly anyone on the slopes. This helps make the whole situation less stressful and intimidating. If we had a bunch of people around like I saw in the afternoon it would have been very distracting.
Plan on an early lunch. My kids were hungry at 11:00am. The first day they had their lesson at 9:00 am and then had worked on the bunny slope for another hour and after 2 hours of really using their brains and bodies they were ready for a break. I find eating at the real restaurant with servers is a good idea for our crew. It is too stressful for me to try to deal with carrying trays of food and drinks for a lot of people. Plus we needed a break so actually sitting down at a table was a good idea.
Leave them wanting more. Isn’t that a classic saying? 🙂 But it is true! Be sure to leave when you hear the first “I’m cold” or “I’m tired” statement. Don’t push beginners past the point of exhaustion. We made sure to only do about an hour more after lunch and then went tubing. This made them really excited to go back the next morning.

Using all these tips helped make our trip way more successful than I expected. I had planned to only have them ski 2 days and they ended up begging to ski all 3 days. I just love ski trips so am looking forward to having a new family activity.

Any recommendations on where we should go for our next ski trip?

For my post on our thoughts of Gatlinburg as a ski destination. Click Here.

This post will be shared at my favorite linky parties.

Guest Room Clean Up – Before & After

by Carolyn 9 Comments

This is what happens in my house when we go on a ski trip. Yikes!

Now to be fair, to go on a ski trip we have to bring down a lot of bins from the attic with our ski clothes. We have been back a couple of days so all our suitcases were just thrown into this room. Plus, we had a lot of other odds and ends stored in this room that needed to be put back where they belonged in the rest of the house. Yesterday morning when my youngest was in preschool I decided to tackle this mess.

Let’s take a look, suitcases, throw pillows, ski clothes, storage tubs for the ski clothes. All making a jumbled mess.

I decided to start with something that would make a large difference and give me some room to move around in the here. The suitcases belong in our guest room closet. I managed to puzzle them together to make them all fit into the closet. Then I moved some of the pillows back to the places they belonged.

Did you see some room in there? Now I had to put some ski clothes back in the bin and the other half to the laundry to wash it and I will put them in the bin when they are done.

For some reason there were tons of stuffed animals and kids toys that don’t belong in here. I delivered them to where they belong and then….Ta Da!! A room that looks 100% better. Ugh….why does this always happen to me?? I see some ski pants on the bed that I didn’t even notice. I am just not a detail person…I didn’t even notice when I was in the room. I just see it now, hours later, in the pictures. Oh well…

I was putting this off and really it went so much after than I expected. I get so overwhelmed I don’t want to even start and then when I do it goes really fast.

Let’s see the other side of the room.

After the laundry is finished (I had mountains of it but am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel) I will have my husband put the bins back in the attic. Then we will be ready for guests!

Want to see some of my other decluttering jobs around the house?

Bonus Cleaning – After Christmas Clean Up – Before & After

Bonus Cleaning – Daughters Clothes – Before & After

This post will be shared at my favorite linky parties.

3 Things You Need to Know about the Dixie Stampede Show

by Carolyn Leave a Comment

While we were in Gatlinburg, TN over the long weekend we decided to book tickets to the Dixie Stampede dinner show. A family member told us that it would be great for our group. Traveling with us were 7 adults and 5 kids that were age 7 and under.

There are 3 things you need to know before you go to the Dixie Stampede.

They do not provide silverware. You eat with your hands, or if you are like us, you bring in your own plastic silverware.
They do not serve alcohol. This was surprising news and I definitely heard lots of groans from some of the men in our group. To be honest, I would have liked a glass of wine myself. 🙂
It is actually a pretty impressive show. We all agreed that we liked it, even the men.

The dinner show we signed up for started at 6:00pm. They told us that there was a preshow that started earlier and we meant to get there in time but we didn’t arrive until 5:45….big group problems. 🙂

We got there just when they announced that it was time to move into the big arena. We saw everyone get up at the same time and while it looks like the pre-show was good, it was in a big room that had lots of popcorn and frozen drinks for sale so I was glad we hadn’t arrived in time because it would have cost us a lot more money and ruined my kids appetite for dinner. So happy that arriving late worked to our advantage this time.

We were seated and everyone sits at a long table facing the arena. Luckily, there is a way to get out of your seat without having everyone in your row get up. I was worried about that with young kids that you never know when they need to go the bathroom. The servers quickly came to take drink orders.

A big thing we were unaware of is that they do not serve alcohol. A few of the men in our group, that will remain nameless (cough, cough), were a bit put out by this news. 🙂

The servers all come out at the same time with all the parts of the meals. Everyone gets the same meal so there isn’t any ordering. But for example, when it is time for soup, all the servers come out of the kitchen at the same time. The food was ok, nothing amazing and nothing terrible.

The show was absolutely fantastic. I was impressed. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much and I was pretty blown away. It kept all the kids attention the entire time, even the 22 month old in our group stayed in her seat the entire time. That says a lot!

My father was actually picked to be a part of the show. I don’t know how that happened. He did get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the show so maybe they grabbed him while he was out of his seat? But the kids were super excited to all of a sudden see their Grandpa in the middle of the arena. A great memory.

I will say that it was expensive but if you can afford it it was worth it. I would actually take the kids again in 2 years and I think they would enjoy it again or I hear they have a Pirate themed dinner which may be a good option for us.

Let me know if you have even been to the show? Was it worth it to you?

This post will be shared at my favorite linky parties.

Gatlinburg, TN Ski Trip – Our Experience

by Carolyn 4 Comments

What a great introduction to skiing. We met up with family in Gatlinburg for a trip to introduce my twin boys to snow skiing. I have only been to Gatlinburg one other time when I was very young and didn’t really remember much of it. So I didn’t really know what to expect.

The first day we arrived in the afternoon we unpacked at our cabin. We stayed at Parkside Resort in a 4 bedroom cabin. It had a hot tub, fire pit and movie room. It was beautiful and perfect for our crew. It is a little bit out of town but had great amenities. That evening we decided to walk around Gatlinburg and pick a place to eat dinner. I had no idea that Gatlinburg was like walking through a state fair. Candy shops, arcade games, indoor putt putt places, etc all lining up the street. It was so fun. I think the kids could have stayed busy on that street for the entire trip.

We went to dinner at Cherokee Grill. It was probably the most fancy restaurant we saw in the entire town. My parents like nice gourmet style restaurants and I must admit that I don’t mind them either, so we had a great meal of steaks and seafood. My little girl had quite the meltdown when she had thought ordering grilled cheese was the same thing as Macaroni and cheese and I was super impressed that the waitress immediately said she was going to go get her a bowl of macaroni and cheese and she ran to the restaurant across the street and got her a bowl!! Wow!! She was amazing.

The very next morning we got up early to get to the slopes for ski equipment and ski lessons. We laughed because we were rushing to get there and showed up and we were the very first people to arrive for the day. Seriously, we parked in the very closest parking spot. I guess skiers sleep in, unfortunately my kids do not know how to sleep late.

With our rentals taken care of and while the kids and my husband took lessons, I went up the lift to take a few runs to refresh my body on how to ski. It had been 13 years since my last ski trip. I forgot how much I love to ski. I used to go for a week out west each year so have lots of experience but need to take a few runs by myself before I could think of helping others.

If you arrive early the process to get ski equipment and lessons was super easy. If you arrived after 11:00am I noticed that the lines were super long and the parking lot was so full you had to park at the bottom of the hill and take a shuttle so a much longer trip.

We ate at the restaurant upstairs that had a great view of the ski slope. I must say that my reuben was so good I ordered it 2 days in a row. It is a pretty good place to grab a bite to eat in the middle of the day. I looked like they have a great set up for Apres Ski at the end of the day too but unfortunately we didn’t get to partake in that tradition.

After lunch we went tubing. Make sure to buy your tickets the day before downtown at the office at the bottom of the Tram. This was a hit with all the kids. Even my 4 year old and my 3 year old nephew absolutely loved tubing and went every day. The tickets are for 90 minute sessions and for the first 30 mins of your session it is a little more crowded and then quickly the crowd dwindles and then there isn’t very many people tubing. I am surprised that so many people buy the ticket and only go down the hill twice. But I will say that 90 mins is plenty of time. We were about 15 mins late to get there every day and were ready to be done about 15 mins early.

I will say that my boys at almost 8 years old were the perfect age to learn to ski. They took to it very fast and we were going down the green hill the 2nd day and even went down a blue the 3rd day. I about had a heart attack watching them go down the blue (intermediate) hill super fast and a little out of control. I told them only the green hill after that.

My 4 year old did not do as well and was not as interested. We did a lesson for her the first day and she could just barely go 4 feet down a small incline into my arms by the end. Then the 2nd day she only put on skis for 15 mins and the 3rd day not at all. She went tubing both of those days instead of skiing. My husband only likes to ski for a little bit and then would take our daughter to do other things the rest of the day.

Tomorrow I’ll write about our experience at the Dixie Stampede. All 12 members of our family went and I would love to share about it in case anyone is thinking of going.

Sorry this is so long but I love to read about what other people did on trips before I consider going to the same place. This was a perfect trip for 4 nights and really we could go back and do even more. I especially would love to go in the summer.

Have you ever been to Gatlinburg, TN?

This post will be shared at my favorite linky parties.

Fennell Family Life

by Carolyn Leave a Comment

Has anyone else had so much fun with the lottery being so high? I love the conversations we have of what we would do, where we would buy a vacation home (beach vs mountains), etc. It is worth the price of the tickets just for hearing my boys funny ideas. One wants 365 footballs so he won’t get yelled at for leaving them outside, everyday he can just get a new one. My husband wants 365 pairs of new underwear. Too funny!

A couple weeks ago I mentioned freshening up our family room decor. It is such a slow process. I found this basket when I was rushing through HomeGoods for something else and it will be perfect to go above our fireplace. We have these weird nooks 2 stories high that I have no clue what to do to make them look good. I have found a couple random pieces to throw up there and need to find more.

We are doing something fun this weekend since it is MLK so this blog may be a little quiet. I’ll tell you all about it next week.

Let’s test out a video to see if I can get it working. Click Here. 🙂 We found the boys old balance bike and Britton immediately loved it. She is getting pretty good and will probably be riding her regular bike without training wheels soon. I love these things.

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