Summertime, when the kids are home from school, can be a real challenge for parents. If you are fortunate enough to have a stay at home parent in your family, then you have probably skimped and sacrificed to make that possible. And the way things are right now, not many of us have a lot of extra money to spend on entertaining the kiddies (or anything else) right now. But keeping the kids cooped up in the house won’t last more than a week with most families.

Fortunately, there are some great low-cost and even free avenues…

Last weekend, my family recently adopted a beautiful, one-year-old Doberman from the Doberman Rescue. Her name is Gracie and we adore her!  Though our household has only had a cat for the past few years, Gracie will be the third dog to be a part of our family, so we’ve had experience in the past.

We know that Gracie is a good fit for our household, and vice versa. My sisters and I will be leaving for college soon, and the way we see it, Gracie can counter the “empty nest syndrome” that my mother will be experiencing for the…

The end is near… of the school year, that is.  As the end draws closer, parents are faced with a new challenge – keeping the kids motivated and focused on their schoolwork.  It seem like it is getting harder each year.  There is a real danger of children checking out mentally with several weeks of homework, tests, and grades still on the horizon.

It can sneak up on you.  I happened to our third grader before we knew what hit us.  His usually stellar grades slipped abruptly.  He wanted to stay up late and struggled to get out of bed…

The latest in the string of card games that my son has brought home is Bakugan.  Really, to call it a card game does it somewhat of an injustice.  Bakugan is, well, a different thing altogether.

The Bakugan themselves are little colored spheres, the size of a big aggie, or a giant gobstopper.  (Wow, I managed to date myself with two references in a single sentence.)  The Bakugan have a little magnet embedded somewhere in the sphere.

The first object of the game (there are several) is to roll your round little Bakugan across the playing area and onto one of…

When my younger son asked for Aqua Sand for his upcoming fourth birthday, I gave him one of my best non-committal dad answers to give me time to think it over.  I had seen the commercials, so I was familiar with the basic concept.  I had seen enough to realize that I needed to do a mental pros & cons checklist before I committed to the gift.

On the plus side, it isn’t all that expensive.  The starter kits clock in at under $20 at my local Wal-Mart.  Checkmark for affordability.  It also got a checkmark for not being a video game or DVD.  Anything that…