In my house, Halloween prep begins in late August or Early September. A little background for you about our family: I am married to a Halloween-crazy man who puts on a semi-famous
haunted house in our basement every Halloween. When I say he creates a haunted basement, I don't mean the "stick your hands in a bowl of peeled grapes" type of home haunted basement. In my husband's haunted basement the children of the neighborhood are scared-to-death by the following:
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My post today is part of Family.com's Comment Mania! Contest . They'll give a prize to the person who leaves the best comment this week (on the full article, not this blog post), so be sure to go over there and check it out! Here's a sampling:

We were browsing through the store when we passed by the women's department. Since I wanted to try on a pair of jeans, I said it was OK for Katie to try on some "women"-sized shirts… Read More

I am not ready to wear the dreaded "Mom Jeans". However, it does seem at times, that the fashion world forgets that there are women over the age of 18 that buy clothes. And that some of these women are not 6 feet tall and 100 pounds. If you are a mom, not ready for "Mom Jeans" and want to find a unique look this fall, I have some places for you to visit to get some great ideas and… Read More

One of the reasons I hate to see summer end is that it means I have to get more organized. Back-to-school for the kids means back-to-routine for me. This is usually a good thing but it's always hard to do for me. I am not a naturally organized person and I find it hard to organize myself and my family in the usual ways.

I have to confess that I spent my life trying to think up ways to better… Read More

The search for the perfect backpack or messenger bag is the most important (and dramatic) part of our back-to-school shopping experience. Even though my oldest is in 8th grade, I am not an expert in backpack shopping. I'll give you some of my advice and what has worked for us. But I have found that as the kids get older, what they like to carry for school changes dramatically from year to year.

Backpacks for Preschoolers
They don't really

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One of my girls is already back in school, if you can believe it. My younger daughter starts back to school next week. Here in the Midwest, it's blazing hot right now. It's been over 100 degrees every day this week. So you can imagine how happy the kids are about going back to school right now. As their mom, I think it's way too early to go back to school.

However, the school board and the state legislature… Read More