I’m guest posting for my friends at Melissa & Doug today — come see how Clara and I made Patriotic Note Cards (while sneaking in some learning fun too)!

Wishing you and your lovely family a wonderful holiday weekend!!

Hello ladies.  I don’t usually write guest posts, but when I do it looks something like this:

Leave Comments — The ladies love this. Of course this involves actually reading her posts and NOT JUST LOOKING AT THE PICTURES!  Guys are, for the most part, fairly competitive.  See if you can get the first comment.  I’m looking at you, Ticia and Wonder Mom!

Write a Guest Post — or at least offer to write one.

Trouble-shooting — Does your wife want to move her blog from Blogger to WordPress? Is she working to set up an e-newsletter? Offer to help! Even if technology is not your thing, seek out other online resources for help.

Show Some Interest — Ask her how things are going with her blog. What are her biggest hopes for it? Tip: Actually listen to her.

Celebrate Milestones Together — Did your wife’s blog make 1,000 page views in a day? Did she win a blogging award? Did her web traffic double in the last month? Milestones are important to recognize and should be celebrated, even if they appear insignificant to you.  Bring home some tasty dark chocolate, unless she is diabetic or allergic to it.  Then I’d advise bringing home something else.

Give Her A Space Of Her Own — It doesn’t have to be big, but it should be special. A desk with room for a laptop or computer, plenty of good lighting, and a few good social media books will go a very long way.  It also keeps her away from your desk.

Subscribe — Sign up for your wife’s RSS feed, follow her on Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest/G+.  Mail filters are quite powerful these days!

Take Some Photos — Your wife may have a hard time getting into the photos for her own blog unless you are there to take a few photos for her. Offer to take some once in awhile.  Make sure to take pictures that she wants you to take, and not just what you want to take photos of, if you know what I mean and I know that you do.

Spread the Word — Do you know co-workers or other friends who may be interested in your wife’s blog? Let them know about it!

Need an idea for what to do with the kids on a rainy day? This pretend pizzeria kept Clara happily occupied and provided plenty of imaginative play time fun!

We had already recycled our cardboard cafe into a cardboard classroom, and now it’s been recycled yet again into a pretend pizzeria. We used a wire cooling rack for an instant oven, some paper plates, cups, straws, and cloth napkins. The felt pizza set is made by Melissa & Doug — it comes with its own pizza box and plenty of toppings!

The bears enjoyed browsing their cardboard menus, but one bear wanted to pass the time coloring. Clara was very accommodating to his request!

Then, the bears were ready to place their orders!

The pizza is prepared and baked to perfection!

Clara was hard at work plating all of those slices of delicious pizza.

Serving it up!!

Always check to make sure your customers are happy with their orders.

Have fun!!

For this week’s post in our Connect with Your Kids series, Joyce from Childhood Beckons and I asked some of the most interesting and creative bloggers to share their best tips for helping kids to connect with faraway friends and family! Here is a summary of the responses, along with ten main themes that emerged from the discussion.

1. Write Letters –

“I help my 4 year old daughter write letters to her grandparents in NY.” – Rebekah from The Golden Gleam

“[My daughter] keeps in touch with her friends who no longer stay close-by, by either sending postcards or emails (since she’s very fond of typing)”. – Rashmie from Mommy Labs

“My 3 yr old son has a couple of pen pals in different countries and they send post cards to each other.” -Kelly from Happy Whimsical Hearts

“We use the webcam every weekend as well as draw pictures and write letters to our family.” -Cerys from Rainy Day Mum

“[My daughter] has recently began writing letters and I scan them and send out as email attachments. She loves hearing about her letter in her next chat sessions and loves getting replies from them. We do send post cards often too”- Roopa from Putti Prapancha

2. Mail Your Child’s Artwork –

“My mother will email pictures of their travels to the girls. They love looking at the fun things that their grandparents find. We also try to send some of our drawings and artwork to their grandparents to share some of the fun things that we do.” - Terri from Creative Family Fun

“I do send art packages to my parents, his parent, and his grandpa with printed pictures at least once a month.” Amanda from The Educators’ Spin On It

3. Schedule Regular Phone Calls –

“[My son] also likes phoning nanny and his grandparents and listening to them on speaker phone. It’s not a two way conversation yet but it’s nice that he hears their voice.” Ray from Taming the Goblin

“Jake stays connected to his grandparents with Skype and the phone.”- Katherine from Creative Playhouse

“My daughter calls my parents every morning[...] She usually talks to her aunts at least once a week as well.”- Carrie from Crafty Moms Share

“My daughter also loves to call and leave messages so family members can listen to her voice over and over.”- Adrienne from The Iowa Farmer’s Wife

4. Virtual Tea Party –

“Sometimes when we set up a video call (on Skype, Google+ Hangouts, or Facetime), the kids like to bring out their play tea set. They ask whoever we are video chatting with different questions like ‘Would you like sugar, or milk in your tea?’, ‘One lump, or two?’. There is always lots of stirring, and then they hold the little cups up to the camera for our guest to take a sip.” – Valerie from Inner Child Fun

“We use Skype, of course, to talk to the grandparents every weekend. Sometimes we set it up on the coffee table or couch and video talk that way; other times we set it up on the dining table as we are eating dinner (which coincides with lunchtime for them), so it’s like we are all sitting to eat together. They love that, and so do their grandparents. Other times they have ’virtual tea parties’ through Skype (we have a fab photo of our older daughter feeding Granny through the computer screen when she was 2!).” – Jane from Mama Pea Pod

“My kids live 4 hours from their dad and visit him every other weekend. Between visits they talk with him over webcam during their bedtime snack. Besides typical “how was your day” chat, he will often share silly videos and songs with them from Youtube. They get such a kick out of it.” -Krissy from B-Inspired Mama

5. Keep a Travel Journal –

“What about a traveling journal? One person writes in it, draws a picture, or glues a picture, etc and mails it to the other who does the same and sends it back to the first person.”- Andie from Crayon Freckles

“I want to set up a cousins “book” that my toddler and his 7 year-old cousin can send back and forth. They could draw pictures and such.”- Jennifer from The Good Long Road

“What about starting it by sending her some fun materials to decorate/create the notebook?” -Genny from In Lieu of Preschool

“I show [my son] photos of [far away family] all the time, and one of the activities I’m going to do with him soon is to make a family photo book with him where he can stick the photos in, and decorate it.” —  Katherine from Toddler Titbits

“My mom travels a ton. We have been able to Skype from central America and Europe! Plus she always creates cool scrapbooks for my boys about her travels. Very special.” — Marnie from Carrots are Orange

“When [my kids] were babies and too young to understand Skype, we made them a family photo album. We got this wonderful one just for babies that has a soft, fabric cover, like baby books do, and we put pictures of each family member inside. We looked at the book each day from the time they were newborns, and talked about each of the people. Once they were toddlers, we also used the book to help jog their memories of times they had spent with them in real life by saying things like “Oh, there’s Uncle Marc, remember when we went camping with him and he scared the bear away with the car alarm?” It helped them to hold on to the memories of real life interactions with them for longer.” — Jane from Mama Pea Pod

8. Set Up a Blog –

“We actually began our blog so that our family could see our son in his everyday life. They always looked forward to seeing new posts and pictures showing how much he was growing.”  – Gina from Famiglia and Seoul

“My first blog was set up to share with my family what we are doing and getting up to and I guess that is one of the reasons I have Rainy Day Mum as well. My mum comments most days on the blog and my brother reads it at least once or twice a week.” — Cerys from Rainy Day Mum

Resources for Keeping in Touch:

1. Recordable Storybooks – http://www.hallmark.com/online/in-stores/storybooks/recordable-storybooks/

2. Skype – http://www.skype.com

3. Ecards – http://www.123greetings.com/family/

4. Google+ — http://plus.google.com

5. Virtual Flowers – http://www.iflowers.com/vir/vir_newgallery_date.asp

A big thank you to everyone who shared a tip with us, and to Joyce for helping to summarize the responses! Do you have a great tip for keeping in touch with kids while you’re away? We would love to hear about it! Leave a comment and share your stories with us!

I am guest posting for my friends at Melissa & Doug today, and you can come see how the girls made their own Trunki Town! You may want to make a one of your own!

Wishing you and your lovely family a wonderful fun-filled weekend!

I’m guest posting for my friends at Stonyfield today to share tips for organic gardening with your kids!

Have you started a garden with your kids? We would love to hear about it! Leave a comment and share your stories with us.