Do your preschoolers use a ton of chapstick?  Mine do!  And I needed an alternative to help their cracking lips (gotta love winter weather) and something that I felt safe with them ingesting.  I was inspired after reading about a friend who mixed shortening and a juice mix to create a yummy edible lip balm.  We adapted it slightly.  We like a “harder” solution – here’s what we made, and my kids love it!
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What you will need make your own edible lip balm:

1/2 a cup of vegetable shortening
1 teaspoon of …

My house has clutter, lots of clutter and I am often in awe of some of those super organized mommas!  Nicole from Restrained Chaos has offered to guest post a few of her organization tips… I love them!  They are cheap and easy!  Hope you can take and glean from them as I have.  Here is Nicole in her own words:
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Now, I can’t give the key to total organization. This is not because it’s a secret from Martha Stewart’s vault or hidden in a remote (and very clean) monastery …

Are you feeling the post-holiday belt crunch?  I know our budget is a bit tighter each winter.  One of my favorite ways to save is through hounding our local discount grocery store (aka Bent and Dents).  Most of the food is at or near its expiration date, and many of the cans or boxes are beat up, but often I can find food for half the price it would be at the regular grocery store.  Be sure to check the food before you eat it to make sure that it …

Every New Year I take a look at this list I created years ago… 50 Ways to save money.   Including general tips, ways to save money in your household, with your kids, and when feeding your family.  So many of them I slip away from as the year goes on!  Want to join me in pinching some pennies?  Do you have a frugal tip?  I’d love to hear about it!
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General:

Make a goal chart and as you save the amount of money or pay off debts, …

My husband came in and told me that I was taking this ‘decluttering thing’ too far when he caught me vacuuming out my tool boxes. He told me it was against the tool welding code to vacuum tool boxes in the first place. If you have a tool box, it is supposed to be messy and have dust. lol!

But alas… my tool boxes now have no dust. Each one (one for garage and one for house) has a multi head screwdriver (yet another “no-man’s” idea… according to most men I …

More ways to use chores to teach your kids…
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Mopping, wiping, vacuuming and learning:

I use mopping to work on memory skills. Did you already mop here? How can you tell? With our table top we can easily practice deductive reasoning. The area without crumbs and greasy hand prints was wiped down, the other areas still need attention.
With mopping, short-term memory is more important. Often the floor looks about the same. So we work on developing our short-term memorywhile mopping.  Where have we mopped? Where …

My kids love cooking with me. So how can I use those moments adding ingredients, mixing and stirring to teach my kiddos? Here are some of the learning ideas I came up with:
Cooking with your toddlers:

Sequencing steps. It is important for kids to follow specific steps in a process. Example: First, mix eggs, butter and sugar. Then add the flour. Finally, spoon the cookies onto the cookie sheet. This is a great time to discuss consequences and make predictions. If we skip …

Our “theme” for this week is doing chores with our kids, what ways can we use chores and reoccurring daily events to teach our children educational concepts (math, verbal skills, reasoning, etc.) as well as instill in our kids a sense of value for work and appreciation of effort.  I love how excited my kids are to contribute to our family.  Now I only wish I were more willing to take the time and let them help me more often!
Here are some ways we have used washing the dishes as …

I have three kids all under four and they love being useful, feeling needed, knowing that they contribute to our family.  And, I love to look for the sneaky ways to help my kids learn without realizing it, or without the confines of a structured environment.  Chores are a great way for my kids to contribute, for learning to occur and for us to get more done in a day.
Sorting laundry and math skills:

Counting, learning one-to-one correspondence, or learning that “1″ means 1 item.   Kids Love to Know explains …

Does your linen closet (or “place”) look like mine?  I know I am in dire need of a house makeover.  We are beginning a “Clutter Intervention”.  Each week or two we will have new regions of our home for us to work on, of areas to “declutter”.  Challenge yourself to go through the areas discussed and eliminate what is old or rarely used, fold and make those areas neat and spiffy!  We will have a flickr group to showcase our before and afters (if you are daring!).  Happy Cleaning!
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Each week …