Tag Archives: Youth

Oranges and My Family (A to Z Challenge)

17 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by in Advice, Blogging, Busy Dad, Challenge, Dad, Family, Kids, Parenting

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Ambersweet oranges, a new cold-resistant orang...

Ambersweet oranges, a new cold-resistant orange variety. USDA photo. Image Number K3644-12. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had a hard time coming up with something to post for the letter “O”. So Busy Mom helped me out with this post. I have to give credit when it’s due, so get ready for a post about oranges and my family.

Oranges is a fruit my youngest daughter (L) loves eating. She loves oranges so much that she could be happy just eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if she could get away with it. My whole family likes oranges but not at the level my youngest daughter does. Right now I’m not sure if this is just a phase she is going through.

To make it interesting at my house is the fact my oldest daughter (M) loves bananas. So almost every morning we have the smell of oranges or bananas or even both in the kitchen. I’m so glad I like both fruits. The boys are willing to eat both fruits about really don’t have any preference on with one they like more.

On another note when Busy Mom (my wife) was pregnant with my second son (J), she had a craving for oranges all the time. It didn’t matter if it was the fruit or sometime that had a similar taste of an orange like orange slice candy. She was craving it. And yes I had to run out in the middle of the night during that time to get oranges at the grocery store in the middle of the night. That was the only time Busy Mom craved oranges.

I could talk about oranges more but due to me trying to keep my posts under 300 words for the challenge. I’ll add to this at a different time and post.

Now I’ll leave you a couple of questions to answer in the comments if you wish to. You don’t have to answer both but you could if you can. What was the most interesting or most bizarre thing your wife or you craved while pregnant?

The second question is if you had food that you could eat all of the time if you could, what is it and why? Is it your favorite or just a food you crave? Leave your comments about the post or the answers to the question below.

 

O

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It’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Day in My House (A To Z Challenge)

03 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by in Activities, Blogging, Busy Dad, Challenge, Dad, Family, Kids, Parenting

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choc-chip-cookies

 

Today my oldest son (T) turns eleven years-old today. He is growing up so fast that in a few years he will be in high school and then college. So to honor his birthday today I baked chocolate chip cookies so he can take them to school and the cake part of a jello cake. My wife did the jello part of the jello cake.

 

I know you are thinking that I have 4 kids so that should be normal thing in my house. But it is not a normal think in my house. We try to keep healthier type of snacks in our house like peanut butter and cheese crackers.

 

So this is a big deal in my home and the kids are very excited about it and the chance to have pizza again this week. My family could eat pizza everyday of the week. But this is for another post at a later time.

 

I’m used to making cookies and cakes from a pre-mixed bag. The kind that only needs the liquids and an egg added to it. But last night I made them from scratch. I also realized how hard it is to make cookies from scratch compared to the pre-mixed bags. I also thought how many birthdays I could do this before he leaves my house for a place of his own.

 

So making them from scratch is well worth the hard work since he will only be eleven only once. Especially when I can control how much chocolate chips can go into them. Did I ever mention how much my family and I love chocolate.

 

I could go on with this topic in more detail, but I’m writing this for the A to Z Challenge and will stay close to their rules on how much words are in a single post. This is an awesome challenge by the way.

 

Have you ever done something hard that you found out the value is well worth it? This could be baking something, building something, or even doing something in your life. Please share your experiences in the comments below.

 

C

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bedtime Rituals (A To Z Challenge)

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Activities, Busy Dad, Challenge, Dad, Family, Kids, Parenting

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Today’s letter is B and so I’ll talk about Bedtime Rituals for my kids.

The bedtime ritual at my house is pretty straight forward and boring at some times. But seeing the smiles on my children’s faces is well worth the time and energy to do it. The only time we don’t follow the ritual is if we are traveling or staying the night other than our home.

So here is our normal bedtime ritual. Each night starts with a bedtime snack. This can be as simple as peanut butter and crackers to even ice cream sometimes. As long as they think it is special you can give them any type of food you want.

Then my kids will pick out certain books (One book per kid) they would want me to read to them. I’ll start with the boys books first and finish reading to the girls. The books don’t have to be long novels type, but short simple ones like “Why Are You So Grumpy About” by Tom Lichtenheld. Longer ones I tend to break down into chapters per night. Even sometimes my kids would want me to read a story out of their kids bibles. The fact you are reading to them is the main thing they remember.

Then I will tuck the younger ones in and let them read for a little bit longer by themselves or have them listen to a CD like Frozen. Which my girls almost know every song by word and sound now. The boys favorite right now is “Everything is Awesome” from the “Lego’s Movie”.

Then I’ll check back later to remove books and shut off the radios and lights in their rooms.

Since I told you what the bedtime ritual is like at my home, what are the ones you do in your home? Are you a parent that has a ritual you follow or one that fly by the seat of your pants? I would like to here other bedtime rituals from other parents. Just leave a brief comment explaining it or even a link if you have written about it on your own blog.

B

 

 

 

 

Why I Wrote “Be a Courageous Dad”

15 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in Advice, Blogging, Busy Dad, Dad, Family, Kids, Parenting

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I wrote a post a few months ago called “Be a Courageous Dad” and I got the following question in my comments section from nickvanval.

“Great post! What made you write this?”

At that time I gave the following response.

“Children today are getting away with too much and getting into trouble more often. Majority of people that are in prison didn’t have a father or had a father that didn’t really do anything in the family so they got there fathering from someone else.

Having a strong father presence in a family allows kids to be raised and taught values, ethics, and just how to be a father. The bible has taught me as well as a couple other blogs on how to start being a Courageous Dad.”

I want to go a little bit deeper on my response and decided to turn it into a post on my blog. I do believe that kids do get away with too much than when we were kids. It seems we are hearing how kids bully kids and also how they are committing more crime on the television and in the papers more frequently than in the past. This is a trend that is growing more as the economy is still in the toilet. The question is why this is happening.

I read several sources report that they did a survey in prisons to see why inmates commit crimes and got some results that was shocking to me. Majority of the inmates didn’t have a father figure or a father in their lives growing up. This was because they are in a single parent family or their fathers were always way from the house due to work or other issues. Without a father figure in the family, the kids turn to other people to be that father figure and majority of these people don’t have the kid’s best interest in mind.

Having a strong father presence in a family allows kids to be raised and taught values, ethics, and just how to be a leader and father in their families. This is a big problem that some people or groups of people are trying to fix by teaching fathers to be good fathers to their children. Mark Merrill President of Family First, AllProDad with Tony Dungy, fatherhood.org, and Fathers.com are just a small list of people or groups that can help men become great leaders in their families.

I highly recommend reading a book called “All Pro Dad: Seven Essentials to be a Hero to Your Kids” by Mark Merrill to start with. Why this book? Because I’m currently reading this book and getting a lot of good and helpful information from it. I really enjoy reading this book and I’ll let you know more after I finished it.

Here is a link for more information about Mark Merrill’s book.

My New Book – All Pro Dad: Seven Essentials to be a Hero to Your Kids « Mark’s Blog.