If your family is like mine…then they most likely love Guacamole with some Taco Chips for family snack time. However, it is much healthier for you to make it fresh & homemade yourself instead of purchasing it jarred at your local supermarket.

Making homemade Guacamole is fairly simple and takes less than 30 minutes to make. You will want to keep it refrigerated until you are ready to use it. This recipe makes about 1 1/4 cups of dip.

2 ripe avocados
1 red tomato, finely chopped
1 small jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon of mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon onion, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 Tablespoon of fresh lemon juice

You will want to chop all of your vegetable ingredients and then mash them with a fork or mash them in a blender. Add the rest of the non-vegetable ingredients and stir until all ingredients are well blended together. Place Guacamole in a container and refrigerate it until ready to use.

This is a great Guacamole dip to use with Taco Chips…I like to make it for our family game or movie nights.

Shelly

My husband and I were recently discussing natural diseasters and emergency preparedness and both of us realized that we really are not prepared for a real emergency.

Do you have a plan? Are you and your family prepared? If not, it’s time to get prepared!

While surfing the interenet today for more information on this topic, I found a great web site that I would like to pass along to our blog readers. This web site has a FREE printable emergency preparedness checklist that you can print out and put into action NOW before a real disaster happens.

You can also purchase items that you and your family may need from this same web site (we are not affiliated with this site in any way).

The site is called Preparedness.com and I really think you should check it out. It is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to a real emergency.

Shelly

If you ask any woman here on the planet earth, they will honestly tell you that women do indeed think differently then men. I can remember when that book came out that men are from mars and women are from venus and I ran right out and bought it, and read it cover to cover in 2 days!

Let’s take a look at a few ways that women and men differ on how we think.

A woman loves to spend one on one time with her man and loves to frequently get that one on one attention from him. However, a man will often say that his ‘woman’ is being too needy by wanting a lot of attention from him.

Then we have the man who wants to have intimate relations with his woman numerous times a week but yet…when the woman says she is too tired or not feeling well, they take it personally as something ‘against’ their manhood. (you know what I mean LOL) Men often don’t realize that after taking care of the house, kids and errands all day…that the woman might just be tired and that is all there is to it.

Then we have men who think that women can’t do the same things that they can do. For the most part, they are wrong…we can do just about anything a man can do and sometimes we can do it even better.

The reason for my post today is that I had a nice friendly debate with my husband of 24 years on some of the ‘issues’ that men and women think differently on.

So let’s hear it from our blog readers. What issues do you and your spouse think differently on?

Shelly

Now that Summer is in full swing and the heat is getting us down, one of the things I enjoy is making homemade summertime refreshing beverages for my family.

Some of the beverages I like to make are:

Cold Fruit Smoothies
Strawberry Lemonade
Lemonade
Fruit Punch
Sweet Tea
Peach Flavored Ice Tea
Iced Coffees
Milkshakes
Icees & Slushies

What kind of beverages do you and your family enjoy having in the summertime?

Shelly

A common misconception that many people have about those who work from home is that we have all the time in the world to make fancy dinners and to get those dinners onto the table on time every day of the week. As someone who works from home, I can honestly tell you that at times, I used to have a problem with that.

One way I solved that problem is by being prepared and here is how I do it.

I like to plan our family dinners 2 weeks in advance. I will sit down with my calendar and write down what I will be making each day for that 2 weeks time period and I plan on 5 dinners for each week.

To break that down even further, 2 of my 5 dinners will be something I make in my crock pot (slow cooker), 1 will be a meal that I pull from my freezer (I am big on making my own freezer meals) and the other 2 will be dinners I make from scratch.

When I do my grocery shopping, I use my 2-week dinner plan to steer me into the right direction of food items I need to purchase. I set aside 1 hour of my day to prepare my family’s dinnertime meal.

For crock pot meals I allow 20 minutes in the morning to assemble all ingredients into my crock pot. I then allow another 20 minutes during the day for checking on it and then the final 20 minutes is for finishing it up when its done or for preparing a side dish to go with it. Surely, most of us who work from home can spare a total hour :)

For my premade freezer meals, I will get it out of the freezer the night before and refrigerate it over night. Then 1 hour before I plan on serving dinner, I will finish thawing it in my microwave and then throw it into the oven or on the stove top to finish up its cooking time. While that is going on, I can prepare my side dishes.

For meals I make freshly from scratch….I like to make simple things such as meat loafs, grilled chicken, barbecue sandwiches and so forth.

I save all of my heavy duty cooking and baking for weekends when I have more time.

How do you like to plan out your weekday evening meals? Do you struggle with getting dinner onto the table each evening even though you work from home? Do you have any tips to share with our readers?

Shelly

Now that summer is in full swing, do you and your family enjoy outdoor picnics? I am not talking about big family reunions & gatherings, what I am specifically talking about is some family time with just your spouse and kids?

One of the things we enjoy doing as a family is going out to remote areas, public parks, etc. and planing an afternoon picnic.

Now if you have never done this for your family, here is a list of things you will need:

Picnic Blanket or Picnic Table
Picnic Table Cloth (if using a table)
Plates, Napkins, Plastic Utensils and Cups
Picnic Basket and/or a Cooler with ice
Trash Bags (for clean up)

You don’t need to get all elaborate with your food choices…you can plan simple sandwiches/subs, macaroni or potato salad, some chopped up fresh fruit, potato chips & pretzels and perhaps a few pickled eggs.

While out on your picnic, you will want to bring along a few things to keep the kids busy or activities that the entire family can enjoy such as: a ball, kites, fishing poles (if near water), bubble blowing machines, bocci ball, frisbee or any other small & portable outdoor activity that you can think of.

The most important thing is to keep it simple so that you don’t stress yourself out. Remember, this is family time so you will want to plan ahead for a stress-free afternoon outdoors!

Shelly

Now that it’s the middle of the summertime season, what kind of family activities do you enjoy doing outdoors? One of the things we have always enjoyed doing as a family in the summertime has been kite flying.

Kite flying is an inexpensive family activity because all you really need is a kite! You can buy inexpensive ones at your local dollar type of store or you can go for more expensive ones at a kite shop.

If you have small children, I recommend getting the cheap and easy kites. If you have older children, you can purchase the more expensive kites…but either way, kite flying is a lot of fun!

When we plan kite flying family days, we also pack a picnic style lunch. All you need are some sandwiches, fruit, a snack and a few drinks. While you are at it, don’t forget to pack a blanket!

So this summer when you are thinking about a good family activity to do outdoors…consider going out and flying a few kites!

Shelly

When our daughter was younger, she used to love various homemade snacks that we used to make using popcorn and this recipe was one of her favorites.

Chocolate Marshmallow Popcorn Balls

5 qts. popped Pop Corn
1 jar (7 ounce) marshmallow creme
1 pkg. (12 ounce) Chocolate Chips
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place popped corn in a large greased pan. Melt marshmallow creme and chocolate chips in top of double boiler, stir in water and vanilla extract. Pour chocolate mixture over pop corn, mixing thoroughly. Shape into balls and place on a nonstick silicone baking mat or parchment paper until they set up. Makes 10 – 12 balls.

Shelly

If you are looking to keep older kids busy this summer, how about letting them tie-dye their own T-shirts? You can go out to your local craft store and buy kids T-shirts for about $3.00 a piece or better yet, dig some out of your child’s closet and use those!

I recently did a product review for a company called Simply Spray which has these awesome spray fabric paints. Sort of like traditional spray paint but made for fabrics! These were really easy to use and it only took me 90 minutes to make a tie-dye tshirt for my nephew (allowing for drying time).

Here is what you will need to make one:

100% cotton T-shirt
Simply Spray Fabric Paints (3-5 colors)
Newspaper

You will want to do this project outdoors during a nice weather day. Lay down several sheets of newspaper. Take your cotton short and scrunch it up. Stand back about a foot or two and lightly spray your T-shirt. I left mine dry for 10-15 minutes, rearranged the shirt by scrunching it again and then sprayed on another color. Repeat that process until your shirt is done.

Note: You do not need to heat set the paint! I left mine dry for 72 hours before washing it.

Pretty easy and fast! A great little summer craft project for the kids to keep them busy.

Shelly

When it comes to hosting a birthday party for your child, what kind of things do you like to do? Are you the type of parent that does the same old thing every year by just having a sleep over party or do you get creative and look for alternative ideas?

I raised a daughter so I have hosted a lot of birthday parties and been to hundreds of kids birthday parties over the years. I have seen some common theme’d ones and some really over the top parties.

Here are some that I have attended over the years.

Bowling Alley
Circus
Spa Salon
Backyard Pool
Backyard Carnival with Games
Public or Private Park
Outdoor Wilderness – Camping
Backyard Camping
Roller Skating
Ice Skating
Game Night Slumber Party (board & card games)
Movie Slumber Party
Movie Theater Party
Horseback Riding
Miniature Golf
Game Arcades
Arts & Crafts Party
etc. etc. etc.

So my blog question today deals with kids Birthday Parties. What kind of parties have you hosted for your children?

Shelly