20 Creative Writing Ideas for Kids of All Ages

20 Creative Writing Ideas for Kids of All Ages

Just because summer is here doesn’t mean the kids need to stop learning!  I wanted to make learning fun this summer so with the help of some friends I put together a list of 20 Creative Writing Ideas for Kids of All Ages.  My kids are all very creative, and...
Cincinnati Chili Spaghetti Pie

Cincinnati Chili Spaghetti Pie

Growing up in the Greater Cincinnati area makes it hard not to love “Cincinnati Style” Chili.  It’s not like your traditional hearty chili recipes, Cincinnati chili has a bit of sweetness to it and it’s perfect atop noodles and smothered with cheese.  We have our local preference on where to...
Sandusky:  Cedar Point and Hotel Breakers

Sandusky: Cedar Point and Hotel Breakers

Recently we made our first visit to Sandusky, Ohio for a long weekend spent at the Hotel Breakers.  While much of my time was spent learning great things at the Bloggy Conference, we also spent many hours exploring Cedar Point (known as the Roller Coaster Capitol of the World) getting...
Rowe Woods Cincinnati Nature Center

Rowe Woods Cincinnati Nature Center

The Rowe Woods Cincinnati Nature Center is one of my favorite places in the Greater Cincinnati area to spend a day in the woods exploring nature.  There are over sixteen miles of trails in Rowe Woods and they meander past a lake, over bridges, along boardwalks, over hills and through the...
Pesto Cream Cheese Dip

Pesto Cream Cheese Dip

You must know by now how much I love easy appetizer recipes.  Well here’s something you might not know about me, I cannot go to a party empty handed.  That’s where all of my easy appetizers come in…I have a collection of easy appetizers that I can throw together in no...
Spend a Day in Hamilton Ohio

Spend a Day in Hamilton Ohio

Edit:  June 2023 – I have come to realize that this post has some outdated information so I have deleted places that have since closed in Hamilton and will endeavor to make a day trip to Hamilton to make some updates this summer!  That being said, there’s still some good...
Our Chicago Vacation

Our Chicago Vacation

For Spring Break 2014 we took the kids on a mini-vacation to Chicago for three nights and four days. We crammed as much fun as we could into those four days and had adventures all over the Windy City. For our next trip, we may even take a trip to...
Five Easy Appetizers

Five Easy Appetizers

I have lots of favorite easy appetizer recipes, because I love making Hors d’oeuvres for any occasion.  Over the Thanksgiving weekend we had five different events going on!  So I had lots of easy appetizers to make.  I put together five of my favorite easy appetizers this weekend and thought...
Our Favorite Slow Cooker Recipes

Our Favorite Slow Cooker Recipes

My slow cooker is my best friend during a busy school week. I really don’t know what I’d do without it. If you don’t have one, I really recommend buying one! You can browse the best ones at somewhere like https://buyersimpact.co.uk/ to see if there are any that take your...
Cheap Date Nights in Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky

Cheap Date Nights in Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky

My husband and I value our date nights.  We have four children, we love said children, but we also cherish our alone time.  Sometimes we will jump at any chance to have a date night.  While we enjoy having nice dinners in swanky restaurants from time to time, we also...
Family Fun in Siesta Key & Sarasota

Family Fun in Siesta Key & Sarasota

Last year we took our family of six to Siesta Key for a long vacation.  We had so much fun exploring Siesta Key and the surrounding area, that I wanted to share my ideas for family fun in Siesta Key with you.  Our focus was mostly on beach lounging, so...
Getting Organized :: Children & Chores

Getting Organized :: Children & Chores

I am a stay at home mother of four children. I hate housework, but I also hate a messy house. It’s a frustrating way to live. And with five other people in this house with me, keeping up with the housework is a never ending task. My husband and I...
Walt Disney World with Kids :: Tips for a Fun Trip

Walt Disney World with Kids :: Tips for a Fun Trip

For Spring Break last year we took the family to Florida and spent three days at Walt Disney World. It was a blast! I was so thankful to have the tips & advice from friends and family before we went…I felt somewhat prepared for the special kind of chaos that...
Our Favorite Homemade Pizza Recipes

Our Favorite Homemade Pizza Recipes

Homemade Pizza with Salad is a favorite dinner around our house. I would venture to say we have homemade pizza on the menu almost every week. Homemade Pizza When Michael and I were first married he would make the dough and I would make the sauce, and we made some...
LEGO Birthday Party

LEGO Birthday Party

Last summer we had a big birthday celebration for all four kids at a local Civic Club. I wanted to find a common theme that they were all interested in, and settled upon a LEGO Birthday Party! They all love their LEGO blocks and especially their Minifigures. When I told...
Thirteen Ways to De-Stress

Thirteen Ways to De-Stress

I have days where I feel stressed & overwhelmed all day. There’s a huge amount of reasons, one is that I’ve just found out that I can get cheaper broadband deals with the help of someone like Usave, but there are many other things that are stressing me out. I’m...
Create Your Own Chihuly Sculpture

Create Your Own Chihuly Sculpture

Our family loves the arts, and we also love creating our own works of art. A few months back I read about a very cool art project for kids on the blog Mary Making and it inspired me to do a similar project with my children. The project was to...
Homemade Spaghetti & Meatballs

Homemade Spaghetti & Meatballs

Spaghetti and Meatballs is a quintessential comfort food, and a favorite at our house.  I found this recipe years and years ago and have tinkered with it over the years until I deemed it perfectly delicious.   This recipe is written for making mass amounts of sauce and meatballs…because I...
Latest entries

Excellent Muffin Melt Breakfast Recipe

Excellent Muffin Melt Breakfast Recipe A little while back one of my favorite bloggers, the Pioneer Woman, posted a recipe that made me drool…Make Ahead Muffin Melts.  I had to have them.  And so I did.  The recipe was so easy to prepare — my favorite kind of meal.  You make the egg/bacon/cheese mixture the...

Giveaway Winner: And the Binkie Clip Goes To…

And the binkie clip goes to….lucky #1! Micaela, who said: I LOVELOVE the little turtle paci clip!!! Congrats to Micaela and thank you all for joining us for this contest, and for all of the sweet comments you leave on my posts.  I love reading your feedback &  I love sharing my world with you! ...

Banana Bread Revisted

Max has been on a banana bread kick recently.  He and Ella love the stuff, but lately he has been asking me CONSTANTLY to make some, and it’s easy to oblige him, as I usually have bananas rotting & waiting to move on to their next life in loaf form.  And to make the job...

Yard Sale Find

Look what I found at the world’s longest yard sale this morning!  I have a growing salt & pepper shaker collection on a lovely set of shelves that my husband built into an old ironing board cabinet in our kitchen (see this old post for pictures of my cool shelves).   am always on the...

{this moment}

Inspired by Soule Mama: {this moment} – “A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all...

crawling

Origami for Children

Origami for Children

Today Ella and I had some fun with origami while the boys napped.  We had borrowed some books from the library, appropriately entitled “Easy Origami” and happened to have some paper in the basement that we had been given a long time ago. Origami is a great activity for grade-schoolers.  It’s good for working on...

Hand Made Pacifier Clip Giveaway

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW OVER Are you ready for another fun giveaway?!?!  This one’s for all of the cute baby readers I have out there. Well, it’s for their parents anyway… I bought Henry this adorable “Bailey the blue dinosaur” pacifier clip from what the scrap?! on Etsy.  Isn’t it sooo cute?  He has an...

Organizing Kids Toys with IKEA Shelves

 I recently organized the boys’ bedroom using an awesome IKEA shelf.  I realize that I have spent quite a bit of time talking about IKEA for the past couple days.  I love that store.  The reason we drove 30 minutes to go shopping there this week was to buy a shelf for the boys’ room. ...
Creating a Mural with Children

Creating a Mural with Children

When we went to IKEA yesterday we bought a big roll of paper (under $5!). Ella wanted to make a mural like Ramona and her father did in the book Ramona & her Father by Beverly Cleary.  So we gathered our supplies…markers, crayons, and colored pencils. Once we had all of our supplies ready all...

Field Trip: IKEA

Today we took a field trip to our local IKEA store.  The kids had a great time exploring the showroom, playing house, and checking out all the cool rooms.  And Mama got all kinds of new organizing ideas. What kinds of unique 0r unusual field trips are you taking with your children this summer?

Ladies & Gentlemen, We Have a Winner!

Using random.org i drew the #4 for the lunch-fun giveaway! Congrats to: Brandi in NKY she said… To make lunches special for my kids, I like to put special notes for them in their lunchboxes to claim your prize email me at: katie@cards-by-katie.com stay tuned! more giveaways to come!