Holidays

Saving Time and Money During the Busy Holiday Season

November 30, 2009 by Painter Mommy 2 Comments

Twittermoms and Staples are having a contest. They want us Bloggers to post about our Savvy Shopping Tips, Money Saving Ideas, Top Gift Ideas and Time Saving Tips. I decided to join in and so can you! You might just win some great prizes!

I decided to write about “Saving Time and Money during the Busy Holiday Season”. Here are a few tips that have helped make things a little easier for me concerning the Christmas holiday.

1. Christmas Gift List. Asking your friends and family for a list of what they might want for Christmas will help take the guess work out of shopping. Some people are more difficult to buy for than others. So, a list to refer to can help so you are not walking around the store or surfing the web aimlessly.

2. Shop Online. This is a great way to save time. You do have to pay for shipping, but if you are like me and most stores take about 20 or 30 minutes to get to – you still wind up having to pay for gas, so the shipping may not be as big of deal. I also like to find online coupon codes for the different stores I am shopping at. You can often find coupons for free shipping or 10% off. I actually posted recently on this very subject – check it out: Save Money by using Coupon Codes when Ordering Online.

3. Order Photo Christmas Cards Online. This is a great gift which I always do each year. We try to take a really nice family picture and then I upload it online to whatever company has the best deal at the time. I have a large list of people that usually is around 100. I used to do all the cards by hand – shopping for the perfect card, printing the pictures, writing inside the card, hand writing each address, putting the postal stamp, and licking the envelope. This was a LOT of work and extremely time consuming. So, a few years back, I decided to save myself time and money and go with the cards that could be ordered online. Another great way to save time is to create a labels list for all of your addresses so that instead of hand writing them, you just print them out and stick them on. I really need to stop procrastinating and do that!

4. Watch the Christmas Movies on TV. I am not sure if you would consider this saving money, but in my home, we are big movie renters. We also LOVE Christmas movies. But the great thing about the holidays is that most of the great Christmas movies will show on TV at some time or another. I was thinking how neat it would be to use our new recorder device to actually record some of the movies and put them on cd. I would have to edit out the annoying commercials of course, but it is something that would be great so that we could watch the movies anytime. (No we don’t have Tivo yet). 🙂 Oh, and we still need to go to Radio Shack and pick up this adapter cord to even use out video recorder machine. Will have to get on hubby about that. 🙂

Well, those are just a few things that I can think of that might help someone time and money during this Christmas season. Be sure to stop by Twitter Moms to check out more great ideas and even enter a post of your own!

Deals for Busy Moms This Holiday Season

Check out This Week’s Deals!

About this TwitterMoms Blogging Program

Being Thankful Everyday, not just on Thanksgiving

November 25, 2009 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

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Being thankful and grateful is something that I try to practice on a daily basis. It is so easy to lose focus especially when life throws those curve balls at us at the most inopportune times. There will always be something that we can complain about. But in spit of life’s ups and downs, it is important to turn our focus from the negative over to the positive. Yes, we have had a rough week, but thank God we still have food to eat. Yes, our car broke down, but thank God we are still healthy.

We have to remember that our children are always watching us. They soak in every little word we say and every attitude that we show. If we are speaking negatively in front of them about the things that we are going through, then they may unconsciously take on that negative spirit. It is hard work sometimes choosing to be positive when that is the last thing you FEEL like doing. But it will have a tremendous impact on our kids. I am not saying that we should hide the difficult things from them and pretend that our lives are all peachy. But we can express our struggles open and honestly without getting angry and without complaining.

So, on this Thanksgiving, even though it has been a tough few weeks – I still have so much to be thankful for. Check out my video blog to see exactly what those things are!

What are your thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful day!

What are your 5 Favorite Family Holiday Activities?

November 24, 2009 by Painter Mommy 1 Comment

To celebrate the premiere of Dora’s Christmas Carol, Nickelodeon and TwitterMoms want to hear your favorite holiday activities that you like to do with your kids! For your chance to win a $100 gift card go Here and check it out.

Here is my list of Fun Holiday Activities that I enjoy doing with my kids:

1. Thanksgiving Day – This really depends on whether or not we go anywhere. Sometimes we travel to spend the day with family in NJ. But for the past few years, we have been sticking close to home due to me being pregnant. When we stay home, I do the cooking – turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn, and usually a store bought pie (I am not much of a baker). And since my husband is home for the holiday we spend the rest of the day getting all the Christmas stuff out and together as a family we start decorating.

2. Christmas Music – We hardly listen to music in our home for some reason (probably because of all the chaos with the kids, etc) but after Thanksgiving we always have the radio station playing that has 24 hour Christmas music. My husband LOVES Christmas music and it makes me happy to see him humming and singing along.

3. Christmas Movies – We have a nice collection of Christmas movies and we spend the month before Christmas watching them over and over. We have lots of different Christmas shows for the kids like Barney Christmas, Bob the Builder Christmas, Mickey Christmas. It is special because this is the only time we watch them and then they get put away again once Christmas is over.

4. Christmas Eve – My parents started a tradition for my brother and I when we were kids that we could open one present the night before Christmas. Now we do the same with our kids. So, after we get home from our church’s special Christmas Eve Service, we allow them all to open one small gift.

5. Christmas Day – I like to keep things very organized and in order as far as gift opening goes. I don’t allow my children to go and open their gifts right when they wake up. We actually have breakfast first and then read the Christmas story together. And since we don’t keep the gifts under the tree, we then take all the gifts out of the closets and put them under the tree. Each child has their own pile of gifts. We then pass them out one at a time so we can all watch each other opening a gift.

So, there ya have it! Those are some of my familiy’s holiday traditions. Be sure to stop by Here at Twitter Moms and enter YOUR 5 Favorite Holiday Activities for your chance to win some great prizes!

Watch Dora’s Christmas Carol Adventure Dec. 6 on Nickelodeon

Favorite Holiday Activities with Kids

How to Set Boundaries with Children and Halloween Candy

November 1, 2009 by Painter Mommy 4 Comments

Last year my children didn’t get dressed up because I had just had our third baby about a week before Halloween, so things were hectic. But this year the kids asked if they could. Here are a few pictures of my cuties on Halloween.

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We don’t live in a good neighborhood for trick or treating because the houses are far apart and there are long driveways (the kids would probably get exhausted by the 4th or 5th house). LOL I am not against trick or treating or anything like that. We have taken them when we were visiting my mom’s one year. She lives in the suburbs of Jersey and there are houses EVERYWHERE. It is a trick or treater’s paradise!

I am so happy that we have a great alternative to trick or treating. My church puts on a Harvest Festival each year where the kids can go to play games, get their faces painted, and get a big bag of candy.

As a mom though, I really don’t like the candy aspect of Halloween. It can really become a battle, not only with the kids, but with yourself. Having all that candy in the house can be very tempting! 🙂

Here are a few things that I do, to keep the peace in our home concerning the Halloween candy nightmare.

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1. Keep the candy out of reach. This is huge. I have seen a lot of parents just put the candy in a big bowl that would be kept on the counter where the kids could dip into it anytime they wanted. This is not good at all. If the candy is that easily accessible then you cannot monitor your child’s sugar intake. They could be sneaking into that bowl every few minutes. Keeping the candy out of reach of your children will help them to appreciate it more and it will be something special.

2. Allow one piece of candy per day. For us, after a holiday like Halloween or Easter when the kids get a lot of candy, it becomes a focal point for a week or two. In order to keep my children from taking control over the candy situation, I set clear boundaries. I allow them to choose one piece of candy per day and it is to only to be eaten after they eat their dinner. And if they do not eat all their dinner (or most of it), then they don’t get the candy. This is a bit of an extra incentive for my picky dinner eaters. So, the candy actually becomes a reward.

2. Store the candy in a large clear ziploc bag. If you have multiple children, then this idea is definitely a good one. If each child has their own bag with their name on it, then you are less likely to have battles break out between siblings. And because the bag is clear, this will help the child see what candy they have without having to dump out of the container in order to make their selection. Sometimes I don’t even allow them to open the bag until they point to what candy they want. Let me tell you, I am all about making things easier – less mess, less strife.

So, there ya have it – my tips on setting boundaries for your children and their Halloween candy. How about you? What do you do?

Video – Kids Singing Easter Song

April 10, 2009 by Painter Mommy 12 Comments

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My children will both be taking part in an Easter presentation we are having at church. They will be singing a song with their Sunday School class. Here are the words:

Jesus died for me

Oh, I know, Jesus died for me

He rose again

Oh, I know, He rose again

Now I’m free

Oh, I know, Now I’m free

Here is the video of the kids finally getting to sing their song in church for Easter Sunday. I caught the end. The church was packed, but they weren’t nervous at all!