With many households consisting of both parents who work outside the home it may seem difficult to spend time together with your little one — or your family for that matter. After a day of work and additional various activities it can seem as if there are not enough hours left in the day to spend quality time with your children. Here are some tips for maximizing your time together: Make it a point to keep your calendar free. If you know me, you know that I’m very selfish with my time. When I leave work my afternoon belongs to my little one. I’ve learned that it is OK to say no to commitments …

As our television time has decreased over the past few weeks, one thing has most definitely increased at our house — the time spent in the kitchen. My little one loves helping me out and over the course of the past few weeks we’ve tried new recipes, enjoyed cooking dinners and made many desserts together. When my little one is helping me in the kitchen things always seems to take a few minutes longer, the kitchen is always a little dirtier than if I cook alone and sometimes I don’t always get to everything I wanted to cook. And I’m OK with all of that. The memories that we make and the love …

This weekend my little sister moved away. I mean, really far away. Like halfway around the world away. Her husband is oversees and while it’s best for her family that she’s with her husband, we’re going to miss her terribly. Even more specifically, my little one is going to have a hard time when she realizes that she can’t see her aunt as often as she has gotten use to seeing her. With my sister gone, it brings up something to think about — how do you keep your little ones in touch with family members who live far away? I know many people deal with this on a regular basis, but I have lived …

I’ve always been one to want a big family. I absolutely love spending time with my family and I’ve always loved the idea of the more the merrier, especially when children are involved. It seems that in January of next year my husband and I will be blessed by the addition of a new family member. We are excited about our little one becoming a big sister and we are overjoyed at the thought of a new baby in the house. When we told our little one she was going to be a big sister she immediately began telling us that she wanted a baby sister.  Not sure if this was going to be the case or not, we …

Motherhood Matters has moved to Tuesdays. Read Amanda Vandeford's column every week. This week my family and I did something most people will categorize as crazy, well maybe not crazy, but absolutely weird. We turned off our television this week. While there are plenty of studies that point out the negative aspects of children watching television, that’s not primarily why who choose to do this. You see, my husband and I both work full time jobs and we come home tired in the evenings. It had become all to easy for us to turn the television on to a previously recorded children’s show and allow …

Yay! School is back in full swing! I hope that your children had a great first week back. Getting the school year off to a great start is a wonderful way to help your child be successful during the school year. Here are my tips for helping your child start school on the right foot. Make a routine. In case you haven’t figured out, I’m a scheduled person. At my house we have what I call a flexible routine. It’s something along the lines of school, homework, play time, dinner, bed (yes, my little one has a small amount of homework nightly). While the times may be different each night we try to …

Last week I came across something that completely upset me, especially as a mother of a young girl in today’s society. Maybe you heard about it — a 10-year-old model posed for French Vogue in what I feel are some completely inappropriate pictures. If you haven’t heard about it you can read the article now. After reading this article I spent a lot of time thinking about what message society is sending to our little girls — the message that girls have to fit society’s idea of beauty to be successful, society’s idea of beauty to be popular and society’s idea of beauty to be loved. Dare I say …

It’s here! The last week of summer before school starts back. Take this as an opportunity to do a few last things with your children before their days are occupied with school, homework and sports. Here are ten ideas to get you started on how to spend this last week with your children before they start back to school. Take in a movie Start a back to school family tradition Check out something on the events calendar here at the Barrow Patch Go back to school shopping if you’ve not done so already Create a backpack full of school supplies to donate to a child through your local school Take a …

School is starting soon! For many children that dreaded time of year is fast approaching. In two weeks, Barrow County Schools will start the 2011-12 school year. Some kids look forward to this day with great excitement, while others dread this day like no other. It seems this is the case for most parents as well. Some are looking forward to their child starting back school so they can get back to their family routine, while others are dreading that time when they send their little one to someone else for eight hours a day. I tend to have mixed emotions about school starting. I love my routine…

This past week my husband was gone on a mission trip with our church. Being ten hours away from him, I was a single mom for the week. It was a hard week and being a single mom is not something I hope to ever do again. Despite being a hard week there were some things that helped me. For instance, we tried to get out of the house at least once a day. The weather last week seemed blistering hot, but I knew that if we stayed inside all day that it would prove a rough day for my little one. Sometimes we would go eat lunch and I would let my little one play on the fast food playground. Sometimes we…

With Independence Day celebrations happening today many people are cooking out, eating with family and friends and enjoying firework celebrations. This also means that many parents are taking with them jars of baby foods only to throw away the containers after their little ones are done. When my little one was small one of the easiest things we did to help save money was to make homemade baby food. It took about 15 minutes a week and our little one ate fresh, homemade food instead of food that had been processed and prepared at a factory. You have complete control over everything that goes …

This weekend we added another first to our list as parents: our first trip to the emergency room with our little one! Yep, my daughter and I spent Father’s Day morning talking with a doctor as she determined if my little one needed stitches. Sunday morning my little one fell off the couch and hit her mouth on the coffee table. Anyone who knows me knows that blood and I don’t go well together, so I called my mom and as she assessed the situation, we determined a doctor's visit was necessary. Off to urgent care we went only to have urgent care send us to the emergency room. If you find yourself…

With Father’s Day coming up this Sunday I thought we would take some time to be thankful for the wonderful relationships that many dads have with their children. I also thought it would be fun to have some reader participation. Take a few minutes and let us know about your little ones’ favorite activities to do with their dads. My little girl loves spending time with her daddy! When they get quality time together there are quite a few things she enjoys doing. Some of these include: A visit to Home Depot —Home Depot frequently does building activities of some sort on Saturday mornings. A few …

I am feeling ahead of the game right now … Father’s Day is just around the corner and I’m already on top of the Father’ Day gift for my husband from my little one. This is rare for me. While I’m usually really good at shopping for Christmas year-round, I’m not so good at shopping for any other particular holiday any earlier than the weekend before. So to help get you ahead of the game as well here are Father's Day gifts that won’t break the bank. A movie — Have your little one create a “Why I love Daddy (or grandpa or uncle Jake)” video explaining all the reasons why his or her dad (or …

And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know’ I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me. — Lee Greenwood, “God Bless the USA” This Memorial Day I hope that in the midst of cookouts and family get-togethers you take a few moments to honor the ones who gave the ultimate sacrifice so we could live free in this great country! Thank you to the men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice so we could live in a country where we have the freedoms that many people only dream of. Thank you just doesn’t seem enough …

Yay! Summer has arrived. School is out and vacations have started. Vacations were something that I always looked forward to when I was younger. My parents would schedule vacation the week before school started so we had our whole summer to look forward to the beach and then school to look forward to once we returned. My husband and I took our daughter to the beach last year and six hours in a car with a little one can prove a little challenging to say the least. While taking a road trip with a little one is usually a means to an end, the time on the road can sometimes be an adventure in …

I love to cook! While I will be the first to admit I’m not a great cook, I still love cooking for my family. I love sitting down for a meal together. I love talking together about how our day was. I love when I cook something my husband loves eating. Cooking with a little one can sometimes be difficult. After a full day at work the last thing many moms have the energy for is preparing a nice meal. All too often meals become sandwiches, macaroni and cheese or something extremely quick and easy and not necessarily healthy. One thing that has helped me spend less time preparing food and has …

This weekend my little one was under the weather. When that happens it always makes for a rough time. Between taking care of a sick child and managing a family things can get sometimes stressful. Here are a few things to do that will make things easier when your little one is sick: Know your doctors emergency number — Most doctors have an after-hours line where you can speak to a nurse if needed. When my daughter was firstborn I had a hard time knowing which fevers were OK and which fevers were something to worry about. These nurses helped out tremendously during this time and I still have …

Here on Barrow Patch you will find a weekly feature titled Pets of the Week. This is a wonderful article that allows for local Barrow County animals in need of a home to have help in finding one. I am extremely thankful this feature is ongoing. Those of you who know me personally know that I am a huge fan of animal adoption and currently have two rescue dogs. Dogs can be a wonderful addition to any family. They can become best friends to little ones, protectors of families and great listeners to anyone who may need to talk. When bringing a new dog into a family there are some things to take …

My little one absolutely loves technology. She also happens to be really good at using simple forms of it. It almost seems as though children are now born already knowing how to use and operate various pieces of the most complicated forms of technology. Knowing how to supervise our little, or not so little, ones can be somewhat overwhelming. For many families, parents are trying to supervise children on something that children are much more familiar with than parents and that can produce frustrating circumstances and results. Here are some tips for keeping your child safe while using various …