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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.

5 Tips for Taking Your Kids Skiing for the First Time

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

  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

Filed Under: Let's Travel, Raising Kids

Easy Trick to Keep Car Loving Boys Happy at Restaurants

by Carolyn Leave a Comment

Activity to Keep Car Loving Boys Happy at Restaurants

I wanted to share a fun easy trick to keep car loving boys happy at restaurants. My husband came up the this little activity when our boys were little. My boys were obsessed with cars. I always kept a zip top baggie of cars in my purse or diaper bag so I had them at all times. Whenever we were at a restaurant my husband would turn over the kids menu and use the crayons to draw a little town for them. They would get out their cars and zoom them all over the paper.

Easy Trick to Keep Car Loving Boys Happy at Restaurants

Handicapped parking was always so interesting to them. If we were in a parking lot they would always yell if they saw a handicapped parking space and want to stand on the handicap stick figure painted on the spot. So we made sure to always draw in a handicapped parking spot on the paper. It’s the little things that make 2 and 3 year old boys excited. 🙂

Easy Trick to Keep Car Loving Boys Happy at Restaurants 2

This would also work for kids that are into trains. You could draw a railroad track and water station and passenger depot. We also would take all the sheets of paper and have the roads line up so it could be a larger town. They would spend a lot of the time waiting for their meal just scooting their cars all around their paper towns.

Can you tell which picture I drew and which one my husband drew? 🙂 I definitely did not get any artistic genes.

 

 

Filed Under: Raising Kids

The Most Important Thing I did for Myself when I became a Mom

by Carolyn 3 Comments

I would call myself a social introvert. I love small group social outings, hate big cocktail parties. I really need a lot of social interaction but in small close groups. When I became a stay at home mom, I needed to make sure I saw other adults and have conversations during the day. Plus my husband would like to not be the main person I tell about how exciting the latest sale was at Gymboree. Ha! Enter, the most important thing I did for myself when I became a mom.

Most Important thing I did for Myself When I Became a Mom

The Moms Club. It is the perfect thing for new moms. You can find one in your specific area so you never have to drive far. The group meets during the weekday and have both large group gatherings and also small playgroups that meet weekly. The playgroups are  split up by age groups. 0 – 12 months, 12 months – 24 months, usually up to 4 yrs old. So it is always a small group.

These small playgroups are where I have met some of my closest friends. You can’t help but become super close. Everyone has a huge thing in common, your kids. 🙂 If you become a regular attendee of playgroups usually you all start to meet up other places. For example someone will say, my Thursdays are boring anyone want to do library story time with us? And next thing you know everyone is getting together another day too.

Moms Club Playgroup

Kids are welcome to everything and even siblings to any of the other playgroups if you have multiple children. So no worries if you have more than one child.

One of the benefits that comes later is that everyone is in your area so as your kids get older and they enter school they will already know several kids.

Part of the by-laws of the small groups being a part of the parent Moms Club organization states that most events need to be free so no worries that this would be expensive. There is a yearly $25 fee to join and that is it. Most playgroups are held in homes or if you don’t want to host in your home you can pick to meet at a library or park instead when it is your turn to host.

I can’t stress how important these women became in my life and how much it made me enjoy being a mom. Any question I had would be talked about as a group. If my child was going through a weird stage I would get tips from the other moms on how to navigate through it.

Please take a look and see if there is one in your town. Click here for the main page. I get nothing for recommending them, I just can’t imagine what being a stay at home mom would have been like without this group. They made it fun and not lonely. I love my Moms Club peeps. 🙂

This post will be shared at my favorite linky parties.

Filed Under: Raising Kids

Friday Favorite – Other uses for Waterproof Crib Sheets

by Carolyn Leave a Comment

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

I am so grateful to a friend that told me to keep my waterproof crib sheet. Who knew there are other uses for waterproof crib sheets? I would have never thought I would need it after the crib stage. Now when my kids are sick and I can protect my furniture from potential accidents.

Another Use for Waterproof Crib Sheet

Here is my little girl today.

She had to have a small procedure and the doctor gave her a muscle relaxer to help her through it. He warned me that she would want to lay around the next few hours and to make sure she was on her side if she fell asleep because the medicine could cause her stomach to be upset. Cue Mommy panic about what could happen to the furniture. Luckily, I keep these sheets in the closet so I can pull them out and protect my furniture.

Other Uses for Waterproof Crib Sheets

These are the sheets that we used when the kids were babies.

They were great because you made up the bed with your regular crib sheet and then snapped this over top of the regular sheet. Then when your little one’s diaper leaked in the middle of the night you could just unsnap this sheet and not have to remake the bed at 3:00 am.

I don’t know about you but my boys had middle of the night diaper leaks almost every night. I guess it is a boy thing because my daughter had no problem.

When I bought these I had no clue that they would still be used 8 years later, I would say they have been a good purchase.

 

Filed Under: Raising Kids

Friday Favorite – Making it comfortable for me to give kids baths

by Carolyn Leave a Comment

When people ask me what my favorite baby products this one tops my list. It is the Infantino Tubsider. I seriously cannot imagine giving my kids their baths without this seat. It makes it enjoyable for me and gives them more time in the tub so Win- Win!

I had no idea this product even existed so when I was strolling through Homegoods 7 years ago I saw it and just had to buy it. Now I am on a mission to tell all moms that this thing needs to be on every baby registry. This is going to probably sound like an ad for this product but I promise they have no idea I even exist. 🙂 When I give baths without it my knees and back are killing me. How do people give baths without this thing?

Here is their lovely model…

Tubsider

I went upstairs to the kids bathroom to take a picture of ours and after 7 years of it being beside the tub it is looking nasty so I’ll spare you. Let’s pretend our bathroom looks sparkly clean like the one above. 🙂

I found this at our Homegoods 7 years ago  and I just found out they no longer make it but you can find it on EBay.

Here is a link to the place to purchase. I need to stock up on these to give them to friends having babies.

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Raising Kids

Bow Bootcamp – How I Got My Little Girl to Wear Bows

by Carolyn 7 Comments

Let’s just say I was sort of tomboy growing up, well…maybe I was a major tomboy. 🙂 I hated dresses, bows or anything girly. But in a fit of hypocrisy, I wanted my little girl to wear bows and not pull them out as soon as I put them in her hair.

I had 2 sisters and no brothers so my parents were just fine with me being into sports, jeans and tennis shoes. Then I had 2 boys and it made me long for girly things. Bows, pink, dresses and dolls where do I sign up?!?! Four years later, I was blessed with a little girl and I got to play and dress her in anything I wanted, until the toddler years.

BowBootcampFB

 

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Raising Kids

Friday Favorites – Water Bottles

by Carolyn 2 Comments

When you are a Mom to kids who are getting into sports you realize your water bottle needs change quickly.

First – they all go missing….ALL THE TIME!

Second – you stop worrying so much about quality

Third – you find a kind you can live with the quality/cost and stock up on a bunch of them.

I used to buy the Thermos brand. I liked that they didn’t sweat and they were well made and great for not getting things wet in their lunch boxes. My daughter has one and they work great for when I am still in control of their backpacks and getting them to and from their activities and school so I can make sure we don’t leave without it.

Here is my daughters…

Britton's Water Bottle

Then your kids grow a little and their sports practices become so often that the parents finally say to each other “This is crazy for us to all be driving here every day…Let’s Carpool!” This is awesome in so many ways except the one negative. The kids become responsible for their own sports gear and getting it off the field and into the car of their ride home. I don’t know about your kids but my kids have no sense of responsibility. We start missing random things like a shin guard or ball or the most often is water bottles.

We have been through a bunch of water bottles and this one is my new favorite.

Boys Water bottles

Here are my reasons why I love it the best (as of this week).

  1. simple, only 2 pieces
  2. large enough for all the water they need
  3. doesn’t have a lid that could potentially not be closed properly and leak
  4. cheap enough that I can buy a bunch to keep on hand and not be completely annoyed when they lose one.

Moving on to these type of water bottles makes me feel like my boys have grown up….no more characters. 🙁

If you want to purchase these you can use my affiliate links.


What type of water bottles do you use?

Filed Under: Raising Kids

Friday Favorite – Preschool Scissors

by Carolyn Leave a Comment

Is your preschooler still holding their scissors funny while cutting? My little girl was having the toughest time and the more I try to correct her grip the angrier she became and she wouldn’t want to cut anymore. Funny how that happens when working with 3 year olds. Ha!  I found some preschool scissors that have really helped.

Preschool Scissors with spring release

See that little yellow thing between the handles? They have a little spring mechanism that helps the scissors reopen after she cuts the paper. That was the toughest part for her and made her want to hold the scissors incorrectly. These scissors come in the craft box by Alex. Ready, Set, Cut.  Here is the craft box I purchased.

Now the scissors will only cut the thicker paper that comes in the box. I am sure once we are finished with the cute projects in the box I can find some thicker cardstock that she can continue to use these. She is finally starting to think that cutting is fun and learning the proper technique.

Preschool Scissors that teach proper technique

 

Filed Under: Raising Kids

Friday Favorites – Child sized Headphones

by Carolyn 2 Comments

Child size Headphones
Did you know they make headphones in a child’s size?

I didn’t until we kept going to the library and tried to use the computers in the kids section and the headphones didn’t fit my kids heads. Someone next to us said “I don’t understand why they don’t have kids headphones at the kids computers.” All of a sudden all my times of trying to fit my earbuds into my kids ears and the frustration they had of them constantly falling out all came to a head….why didn’t it occur to me that they make child sized headphones!

Here is an affiliate link. We have the Sony brand but it won’t let me link so just click on this and search for Sony if you want the same kind as us.

Kids are happy to have their own headphones and I am happy to not have them turning the volume way up to hear over their siblings.

 

Filed Under: Raising Kids

Vicks on the feet stops sniffles

by Carolyn Leave a Comment

Vicks on the feet

My Mom asked me about this tip again the other day. In our family whenever my kids have a runny nose or the start of a cough we use Vicks. This comes from my husbands side of the family and trust me, when he first did it I was questioning why he was rubbing that sticky stuff on their feet. My kids have always easily run fevers whenever they are sick, so the start of sickness has me worried about all the missed school and activities. If they show signs of colds Matt will rub Vicks on the bottom of their feet at night before bed and put socks on to cover them. When they wake up their sniffles and coughs are never worse and after a couple nights of the treatment the symptoms go away. I swear it has helped ward off so many colds in our house.

You can get some Vicks through my Amazon affiliate link here.

Let me know if Vicks on the feet works for you!

Filed Under: Raising Kids

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Welcome to Fennell Seeds. I am Carolyn Fennell and I have twin boys and a little girl. Do you feel like you are struggling to keep up with your house, life and all the little things? Let's figure out short cuts and helpful tips together. Welcome! Read more...

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