Family & Parenting Articles

1. Traveling with Kids

By Susanne Myers A little preparation will make a big difference in how enjoyable traveling with your kids can be. Use some of our tips and ideas below, whether you and your children are traveling by car or plane. After all, this is the time of the year when we are ready to relax and rejuvenate, not stress about how to get to our favorite vacation spot while listening to “Are we there yet?” every 10 minutes. Outli... read more

2. I'm on the Jesus Diet

By Alli Ross Drawing on the inspiration of loaves, fish, and wine, a doctor from Florida has published a self-help manual called What would Jesus Eat?. After the launch of this unique book, Jesus officially joined the US fight against fat. Eating is a lifestyle; a day-to-day routine that should sustain a healthy emotional and mental attitude and pump us with continuous energy. Ok, enough talk, are you ready fo... read more

3. Bridal Shower Themes

By Samantha Taylor It is the maid of honor's duty to organize the bridal shower and to ensure that the party is everything the bride expected. The best way to ensure that everyone will have fun is to create a theme around the bridal shower in which everyone can participate i... read more

4. Raise Your Glasses!

By Samantha Taylor Every wedding warrants a number of toasts…..to the bride, the groom, the families, the bridesmaids. Whether you compose your own or refer back to the classics, there are a few things to mindful of when making a toast. Be sure that your glass and the glasses of your guests are filled. You will want to raise your glass with your right hand, approximately shoulder height. Now make your toast,... read more

5. How to Choose Goldfish

By Nate Jamieson How you choose your goldfish, depends largely on two things: the type of fish you really like to see, and the kind of container you intend to keep them in. People in warmer climates, like to populate their outdoor ponds and pools with goldfish, which is a wonderful addition to the outdoor décor of your lawns and gardens. These may be natural ponds, or manmade pools that are actually vinyl line... read more

6. Raising Strong Daughters

By Mark Brandenburg When my daughter was born, I must admit there was a distinctly different feeling to it when compared to the birth of my son. Part of me was thrilled, but part of me was unsure of how to deal with a gender that I still couldn’t quite understand. When my son was born there was a clear sense that this was territory that I knew: there will be wrestling, playing ball together, playing with cars and,... read more

7. Bring Back a Memory Night

By Brook Noel Here’s a great tip for when you are setting a special table for a family gathering or for close friends. It can be a birthday party, a family reunion, an elaborate dinner, a holiday or anniversary – the more people, the better, although any number can “play.” For your place cards and seating arrangements use a “picture-from-the-past” of each dinner guest. Raid your scrap books and picture albums f... read more

8. Weird Celebrity Baby Names

By Alli Ross Celebrities seem to be competing for the wierdest baby names. Among the social elite, you'll find names like Apple, Banjo, Cosima, and Daisy Boo. As always, Americans seem to be following suit. Walk into the classroom and you don't see the same Jack and Jill's of yesteryear. Today's names are often made unique by alternate spellings, combinations of two names, and even made up names. Here ... read more

9. Telling your Kids your Stories

By Mark Brandenburg A few years ago, my three-year-old son and I settled in for the last stage of his good night routine. It had been a good day for him, he had been very active and had spent a great deal of time in the sand and in the water. Right now he was tired, and I was as well. We lay down together in his little bed and after a few moments he said, “Daddy, when I get big can I live with you?” I assured him... read more

10. Choosing Koi For Your Aquarium

By Nate Jamieson While you may purchase young, small koi, like other species of creatures, they will adapt their growth and size somewhat, to the restrictions of space. Food and overall conditions in the aquarium will also affect their growth rate, with premium food being important, and overfeeding to be avoided both for the health of the fish, and the health of the tank environment. Clean water is a must, as ... read more

11. Exposing the Damage: TV and Kids

By Mark Brandenburg There are millions of young children in this country who are being horribly mistreated by their parents. These parents aren’t physically abusing their young children, and they may not even know that they’re mistreating them. The mistreatment? Millions of kids under the age of two are watching TV in this country. In fact, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation of over 1... read more

12. Baby Sleep Tips

By Criss White Getting a baby to adjust to a normal sleep schedule can be a challenge for new parents. Here are some tips so that both you and your baby can get a good night's rest. 1) Establish a routine - A kiss good night or stroking the baby before sleep can calm the child, or bathing and cleaning the child before bed time. Make sure to repeat these patterns. Once the baby becomes ... read more

13. Wedding Planning

By Samantha Taylor Depending on your personal preferences and the preferences of your husband or wife-to-be, a wedding can take anywhere from 6 weeks to 2 years to plan. If one step in the planning process is missed, the whole wedding could be ruined. To prevent this from happening, we have created a wedding checklist in order to ensure everything goes according to plan on your big day. 7-12 Months Prior ... read more

14. Video, TV, and Kids

By Mark Brandenburg There's been a great debate in our country for the last number of years concerning violent TV and video games. There are thousands of studies indicating that there's a link between violent video images and increased aggressiveness and violence in children. There are also studies that say there's little relationship between the two, and that there may even be some visual/spatial benefit... read more

15. My Son's Deployment

By Kim Olver One of the most difficult struggles in life for a parent is the struggle that occurs when the parent is attempting to keep their child safe and the child is attempting to explore the world and find their place in it, often times not in the safest manner. A discussion of Inside Out cannot occur without me sharing some of my own personal struggles with the concept. Today is one of those days. I... read more

16. Summer Cleaning Tips

By Mary Findley Summer Cleaning Tips By Mary Findley copyright@2003 Oh those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. Those lazy days turn into hectic days when a few summer hazards pluck away at your time. Let's take a look at a few easy solutions to summer problems. First, when you head to the gas station to fill your lawn mower gas container, place this container inside a heavy-duty plastic bag then inside a ... read more

17. Vultures and victims

By Rachel Lane Has anyone noticed how many loan companies now fill up the commercial breaks? Sofa, after of sofa of happy couples are shown, with carefully manipulated stereotypes discussing the consolidation of their finances, recommending a particular provider. Couples, who have had loan requests knocked back from the standard, high street or traditional credit lenders, find themselves turning to alternative... read more

18. Water and Weight Loss

By Kim Beardsmore ** Attn Ezine editors / Site owners ** Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety as long as you leave all links in place, please do not modify the content and include the author resource box as listed. The most under-rated aspect of weight-loss By Kim Beardsmore © July 2003 If I were asked, "what is the most difficult thing many people find to do when they start a weight-loss... read more

19. What Is Diamond Clarity?

By Francine Johnson The clarity of a diamond is perhaps one of its most valuable selling points in the eye of the consumer. A diamond, that has flash and fire, will stand out even above others that are far larger. That's because diamonds are basically prisms, which capture light and reflect it back and forth, before it leaves the stone. If you had two similar stones and were wondering which of them was the dia... read more

20. How Much Time Do You Have?

By Russell Turner Imagine there is a bank that each day credits our account with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening when we go to bed it deletes what we didn’t use during the day. What would we do? We’d use every bit of it every day! Every one of us has such a bank. It’s the Bank of Time. Every morning it credits our account with 86,400 seconds. Every night when we go to bed it write... read more

21. How to Choose a Baby Gate

By Jackie G. Maxwell Once your baby is out of their crib and playpen, you're going to need some way of ensuring their safety. That's why learning how to choose a baby gate can be one of the most important things you'll do while baby-proofing the house. The first place you'll want to install a baby gate, is at the top, and bottom of any stairway the baby may have access to. Gates installed at the top of stairways ... read more

22. Deadly Relationship Habits

By Kim Olver How many of you have ever been involved with a significant other who wanted you to do something you didn’t want to do? I doubt that I’m the only one. By virtue of a significant other relationship, there will be times when our partners will want us to do things we don’t necessarily want to do and conversely, there will be times when we will want our partners to do things they don’t want to do. T... read more

23. All About Aphrodisiac Foods

By Micheline Stansfield Throughout history, rightly or wrongly, many gustatory delights have been termed aphrodisiac foods, in the belief that consuming them contributed to one's desire for the opposite sex. For the most part, the foods had less to do with the mood, than the tom-foolery that went along with eating them! Asparagus - Believe it or not, this green stalk, reviled by your kids, was considered a phallic sy... read more

24. Scrapbooking Ideas for Kids

By Kathleen Hudson Many times at auctions, or estate sales, a box of books will turn up a real treasure, like a scrapbook that was kept by someone in their youth and sometimes through their adulthood. The book could be 50 or 60 years old, and a source of great fun to look at the pictures, news clippings, and personal mementoes. The hobby of keeping such collections is enjoying a resurgence of popularity, with pe... read more