Stay at Home Mom

With the holidays coming up many families consider getting a new pet for their kids.  But is your family ready?  This is such an important decision for a family.  As a family who volunteers at a pet rescue shelter we see so many animals that are such good animals but for some reason became too much for their owners.   How Do You Know You Are Ready for a Family Pet? by Michaela Schmidt Petfinder estimates that approximately 57 percent of households in America own at least one cat or dog. If you are in the 43 percent that doesn't have a pet, your children may be begging for a cat or dog. So how do you know if your household is really ready for a pet? Before you start looking, it is important to evaluate your own readiness and determine if a pet is right for your home. A Lifetime Commitment Dogs and cats may not live as long as humans, but they do live for a significant period of time. The average lifespan of dogs is eight to 16 years, while the average lifespan for c

I am a Stay at Home Mom of four children.  As you can imagine with six people sitting around a dinner table there is hardly ever a single dinner where everyone at the table loves everything on the table.  The worst part for me of fixing dinner for a large family is that it always comes at dinner time every day - the hour of the day when I seem to completely run out of steam.  My lack of energy combined with varying levels of complaints about the food service product built up until I finally snapped.  FINE!  You don't like the food? Then you do the cooking.   That's basically how it went at our house almost 10 years ago now.   We made up a schedule and every person in the house was in charge of dinner one night a week.  On Friday we would have family movie night and we would order pizza.  Yes, a couple of the kids really were too little to fully prepare a dinner on their own but they were still in charge of deciding what we were going to eat and they had to help in all o

Once school starts in September it seems like the family calendar begins to move forward in hyperdrive.  We have school pictures, football games, harvest festivals and on to the big holidays of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.   Many moms lament seeing Christmas decorations going up in their local megastores but they're there. So even though we are still working on Halloween costumes for the little ones it is still not too early to begin thinking about Thanksgiving.  With just a little preparation it is easy to celebrate a meaningful holiday that is fun for the entire family.  Here is a guest article from Stay at Home Mom Kristie Wall. 5 Simple Family Traditions to Start This Thanksgiving Thanksgiving has focused on family and gratitude since becoming a holiday in 1863, but nowadays it tends to center on overfilling our bellies. Make new traditions and memories this Thanksgiving and welcome Christmas with a full heart. Demonstrate Your Gratitude Take a break

One of my bucket list travel destinations is to celebrate Halloween one year by going through the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.  This year my friend Angela Cavallari Walker was able to take her family to a not so scary Halloween party. She has shared some of their favorite moments with us on YouTube . What are your favorite Halloween memories?  Share your thoughts on the Stay at Home Mom Facebook page or G+ page.

Today is October 4th.  10-4.  In first responder language that means Acknowledgement Rec'd.  In Smokey and the Bandit language it means OK got your message 10-4 good buddy generally implies that you got the message and everything is ok. We celebrate 10-4 every year.  This year is even better because 10-4 is also a Friday which is awesome. For most people 10-4 is just another day.  But when you have kids it is fun to make special family traditions that are just for you and your family and it is even more fun to let your kids know that any day could be a good day to celebrate. For me 10-4 is a fun day to remind me how lucky I am to have such an awesome family.  It's all good.  We aren't all perfect and on some days our little quirks can really irritate each and everyone of us.  At the same time we can celebrate today because we have each other.  In our family we have a mom and a dad and four kids.  So everyone in our house knows that there are at least 5 people in th