Planning a Family Reunion or need a family website?

I was helping plan our recent family reunion. We talked about creating a website where our families could go to post things about the reunion, add photographs and have discussions. After some searching, I found the perfect website .... myfamily.com. You can create a family website for free. On our personal family site we have uploaded documents, photographs and videos. You can schedule out birthdays, events and milestones. When a family member post something new, every family member who has joined the site will receive an email. It's really a great way to stay connected especially when family is spread throughout the United States.

Gift Wrapping vs. Gift Bag

My kids are getting ready to go to a birthday party. Now I could just stick the present in a gift bag, which is becoming the norm and very unoriginal, or I could take the extra 4 minutes and actually wrap the present in gift wrap. Do kids really like opening gift bags, I mean how boring. You get to pull out tissue paper and voila, the present. Or do kids prefer digging in and actually ripping the paper of a fun package?

I love buying plain colored wrapping paper and using ribbons and bows to make a statement ~ tulle is my favorite wrappings for a girl's present. Happily my kids tell me that their presents usually get opened first.

Which would you prefer?

I think, once again, our busy lives had made giving a gift in a bag completely acceptable. Well, not in my home. Even if I give a gift card, we put it in a huge box and wrap it, sometimes we even double box it and wrap both boxes just for fun.

I can secretly tell you I have an absolutely enormous amount of gift bags saved in my wrapping closet [from gifts my kids have received]. The bags have sat there for years and years. I'm not throwing them away, but I'm not using them either.

All Edge Brownie Pan - A Review

All I can say is W - O - W !!

This pan is the best. I've actually purchased it here and I've had it for about a year now. Honestly I have only used it for brownies. If you are anything like my husband and myself, you like your brownies to be edges and your brownies to be done, not gooey. well, here is the pan for you. This makes all edges. There are actually a bunch of recipes here. Lasagna, cobbler, bar cookies, cheesecake and, of course, all kinds of layered brownie goodness. I always use a box brownie in the 9x13 size. I would think the 9x9 size would be too skimpy.

Lacrosse - A new favorite sport

I admit I didn't know much about Lacrosse when Bear decided he wanted to play this year.

After their first game, I was hooked. I really, really like this sport. We're down to our last two games and Bear is having a blast. He especially likes playing goalie and here he is all padded up. Those little balls are hard as golly gee. He's received many bruises on this legs. Here, as goalie, he is wearing a padded chest protector plus his normal shoulder pads, padded pants, padded socks, elbow pads and gloves, plus an extra neck protector hanging down from his mask. Wow.

Here he is, as goalie, where he caught a shot from the opposition and is throwing it far far away from our goal.

Here he is playing defenseman. I'm sure these two are working out their plans of the perfect play. He "only" has on shoulder/chest pad, elbow pads and gloves. They had a game on Mother's Day and all the boys, at half time, ran across the field to present their mothers with a flower. Too sweet.

How many cups can 3 kids go through in 1 afternoon?

Is it just me or does anyone else's counter look like this. Most of these cups are half full of water too, which, at times, get knocked over and ends up a mess. I can just about guarantee that the purple and pink are little girl's doings and the blues are the boys. This is crazy, isn't it?