Educents

Along with the post last week with a giveaway for a Conscious Box, I mentioned educents. Let me start by saying, I am an educents affiliate. For those that have been following my blog for a long time, this might surprise you. I don't do many affiliate deals. I really don't want this blog to focus more on products than on the research and what we are doing with our kids. So why the exception? I'm honestly impressed by educents.

Basically it's one of those deal sites, but it's all educational products. I've seen everything from full curriculum sets to support materials. I have already made two purchases from the site in the last couple of weeks. I am not the type to just buy stuff. I typically research things for months before purchasing, so to convince me to buy that quickly is impressive.

Right now they have a deal for a FREE American History Cookbook. It has 50 recipes, aligned with different periods in American History. They are all vegetarian (i.e. you could actually make them in a classroom setting, not just at home). It really is free. They won't even ask you for a payment method.

Please know that if you decide to "buy" this I won't make any money. I just wanted to share because I thought it's something many of my readers would enjoy. Go check out the many deals they offer at Educents.com

Randomness

There's no real connection here, but I wanted to share.

First, a video of wonderful husband teaching the kids to play "tennis".

Here's a picture of my kids dressed up... She is a princess, he's a mail carrier.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Conscious Box Giveaway and help Boston

       


Educents & Conscious Box have teamed up to offer you a chance to win a free Conscious Box – delivered right to your door!
Conscious Box offers a monthly subscription service that delivers the purest, most natural products on the planet, right to your doorstep! You’ll be introduced to the purest, most ethical companies on the planet, every month!  So what are you waiting for, sign up below for your chance to win a box and teach your kids about being eco-friendly!
As you wait to find out if you’ve won the box, we encourage you to:

• Like Conscious Box and Educents on Facebook!
• Leave a comment and tell us why you want the box!
• Share the giveaway with your friends! 

PLUS, if you aren’t the grand prize winner, you can still get a 3-month subscription to Conscious Box for less than $12/month by heading over to Educents.com. For one week only, Educents will be offering the Conscious Box for 40% off!  In addition, ALL profits from the sale of this box will be donated to The One Fund, which will provide funds to help those families most affected by the tragic events that unfolded during Monday’s Boston Marathon. So enter to win, and then head on over to buy the Conscious Box for yourself or a friend to celebrate earth day and support our fellow Americans in Boston!

This giveaway is sponsored by Educents.com. Conscious Box only ships within the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. They can also ship overseas to APO addresses, as well as US territories.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Educents, a flash-deal website, is an easy way to get huge discounts on the educational products you know and love (and maybe even some you’ve never heard of!)
In a world where education is becoming increasingly expensive, Educents is a company with a mission: to provide every family access to affordable educational materials. They focus exclusively on handpicked, unique educational materials including online curriculum, learning tools, educational toys, software, e-books, and more. With new deals added every day, Educents is quickly gaining popularity amongst parents, teachers, homeschoolers and learners of all ages.
 Come check out Educents.com to find your favorite brands at up to 90% off retail prices!


This giveaway is sponsored by Educents. The box will be mailed to the winner on May 10th. I am an affiliate of Educents and any purchase made through my links will result in me earning a small amount of money. Anyone entering the giveaway will have their email added to the Educents mailing list for future giveaways.

Spring Festival

Wonderful husband works for a company that sponsors a couple of festivals for families. This post is about the Spring festival. The kids started by decorating flower pots.

 

Then a volunteer helped them plant trees in the pots. Anything that involves dirt and water my kids will enjoy.

They also had games set up, but most were too complicated for two year olds. Here is one they enjoyed, though they didn't exactly stand behind the line to throw the balls.

The entire area was decorated. Kids won prizes at each game and there were a few balloon artists wandering around.
 

 There was an area set up with a live band and dancers giving lessons. My kids picked an area of grass and "danced" along with the group.

After all of that, their favorite part was this truck. Someone really should set up an area where kids can just see and climb on construction trucks. It's not the big things, the festival with food, games and activities. It's the excitement in the normal things, like seeing a this that really impressed them.

Renaissance Festival

Every year we take the kids to the closest Renaissance Festival. The post from last year shows just how much fun they have.

 The kids loved seeing Daniel the Duke of Danger, but he did give them some ideas which we had to tell them not to try at home.

 They also found the small playground and loved spinning on the tire swing.

 Anyone could ride a horse, my daughter wanted something different. 

He's so happy to be riding a horse. 

 Why is he wearing a hat? No really, WHY is he wearing a hat?

 

 The adults had to get in on the fun as well.

 They each won a small stuffed animal at one of the games. A year later she still sleeps with her pink bear, though it's nose is now gone and it has a couple of small holes. My favorite part of the whole day? We were sitting listening to one of the musical acts and someone sitting behind us gave my kids plastic coins because they had such good behavior. We left when the rain became too much of a downpour and once again the kids were exhausted and slept on the way home.

Wordless Wednesday

Something Special

Me to my kids: "Thank you for helping clean. Now we can do something special. What would you like to do?"
Sweet Daughter: "Can we make a pattern?"
Sweet Son: "With beads?"

My kids are so weird. And yes, they are currently making patterns with beads.

Ultimate Blog AFTER Party

What's better than the ultimate party? When you have so much fun, you just have to join the after party as well. This was my second ultimate blog party and I too exhausted to join the after party last year. This year I'm so excited I just want to continue the party.

Here are my top 8 blogs I discovered this year through the UBP.

Must Love Mommyhood - A mom of 4 who is getting ready to pack up the RV and move to Texas. 3 of her kids are on the Autism spectrum, she homeschools, and blogs about it all - including cooking, natural living, and saving money.

Switching Classrooms - A mom and a teacher. She shares ideas from both parenting and educational perspectives.

Start Dreaming - Another homeschooling mom, who happens to love gardening.

Discovery Days and Montessori Moments - A homeschooling mom to two girls, who uses a Montessori and project approach to her teaching.

A Daddy Blog - The title is fairly self explanatory. He started this blog after his daughter was born.

Days of a Domestic Dad - Another Texas family, this one with 5 kids. He started the blog when he was laid off from his corporate job.

Twelve Makes a Dozen - A family with 12 kids spread over a 23 year age span. They also happen to be Mormon.

Caution! Twins at play! - Also self explanatory. Many photos with activities for young kids.

In case you are wondering why I would do a top 8 instead of a top 10 - it's because I wanted to include a couple of blogs that participated in the party, but I had already discovered.

Bento Lunch - If you haven't heard of bento lunches, this is the place to start. They are cute lunches that kids want to eat. She even makes it look easy. There are a few recipes on here I have used and my kids have loved them all.

Tales from the Motherhood - A former child actress who writes about her 3 kids and believes in keeping it real. My favorite posts feature her daughter's clothing choices.

Pump It Up

We were invited to a birthday party at Pump It Up. It's one of those places filled with different inflatable bounce houses, slides, and obstacle courses.

In other words, the kids run and jump and the photos all come out exceptionally blurry. That is Sweet Son going down a big slide. Trust me, it is.

Here Sweet Daughter is climbing up one part of an obstacle course. 

That's better, climbing through (it has plenty of clearance for her) and not blurry!

It's a much tighter squeeze for me going through.

There are a couple of things that everyone should know about Pump It Up. First, this place would be much more fun without all the kids getting in the way. I appreciate that they let adults participate, but it's hard to race through an obstacle course when preschoolers are in front of you. (We refrained from pushing them aside or pulling them off.) Second, everyone who participates for the full 90 minutes (the party is 2 hours, but 90 minutes was in the inflatables) will want a nap after. We had planned on letting the kids sleep and getting stuff done around the house... instead we all took a nice afternoon nap.

Wordless Wednesday

Speech and a Party

See that sweet face? She's not always sweet. We were at IKEA and Sweet Daughter was being a brat. We are on our way out. She is in my arms because she lost the choice of walking with us. She is not happy about this. She's not crying or screaming, but is loud and vocal. What I hear her saying is, "I will follow directions" over and over and over. A stranger comes up to us and very kindly asks, "Did she just say she wants an erection?" trying her very best not to laugh out loud. Which really just goes to prove, it's not just me who hears my children saying inappropriate things.

These photos are from an art party she attended. They started by paining on the walls then moved onto painting treasure chests. It was fun and messy and perfect for this age.

 She only ate a couple of bites of the cake and none of the icing, but the ice cream? That she finished.

Blog Party 2013!

It's that time of year again! I'm joining the ultimate blog party.

I'm Jessica and this blog is about what we do and why when it comes to parenting. There have been controversial posts - TV and Computer Time for Babies, crazy posts - Traveling with twin babies (yes, we did 7 trips in their first year), helpful posts - Circle Time, and just plain funny posts - It's not what you think.

In case you think those things are limited to the past I can assure you there is much more to come. In May you can read about taking our 2.5 year old twins on their first BIG trip (Italy, Poland, and Germany). This Summer I will have many posts with neurological research and tips and tricks to getting preschoolers to do chores and like it.

Basically when it comes to parenting there is something here for everyone and at least a few things that will offend everyone. I like to keep it fair like that. Welcome to my blog and I hope to see you here again soon!

Family Time

We went on a quick trip to visit family. As usual, the photos are only of the kids.

First the kids discovered the chair opens and closes.

This was more fun than we would have predicted.

Then we went outside to feed the geese. He was brave and got close to them.

She wasn't as brave, but practiced her throwing skills.

We walked to a local elementary school and the kids played. They loved the bouncing horsies. It was colder than we expected, so we all borrowed sweaters. It was a fun trip and the kids still remember it.

Wordless Wednesday

So Proud

Sweet Son just picked up a book that has never been read to him and sounded out each word and read the entire book. No encouragement, no help, just to make himself happy. This is just awesome!

On the other hand, Sweet Daughter is proud because she can fart louder than Sweet Son.