A real Christmas tree never fails to delight me, however it is decorated. I prefer the hodge podge of Christmas Past with Christmas ornaments that I have collected for years but the one thing you need to make it special is that is has to be a real Christmas tree and it needs lots of twinkling Christmas lights.

How to find a plumber you can trust. And how to know you can trust...

When our son was born we were told to cut his nails while he was sleeping in his crib. Being the sleep-deprived, paranoid mom that I was, following are the reasons why this did not work for me

We were blessed with two kids who were pretty good spitter uppers…our son more so than our daughter. If scary, eerie music had started playing in our house when they spit up, I would have been looking for a nearby exorcist. :-)

Although solving our plumbing problems by ourselves seems like a good idea - it is not always so.

I know that people have strong opinions about co-sleeping but we found a happy medium. I strongly recommend using a co-sleeper that attaches/sits next to your bed for several months after baby is born. We used the Arm’s Reach Original Co-sleeper with both of our children. With our son we placed it right next to our bed. First on my husband’s side because I was recovering from a c-section so when he was hungry my husband would give him to me so I could breastfeed him. Later we moved it back to my side but I wasn’t able to get any sleep because he moved so much so we moved him back to my husband’s side.

By Aruni Gunasegaram, President and Founder of Babble Soft Excerpt of article written for the International Nanny Association Spring 2008 newsletter.

My now 5 ½ year old son was born by emergency c-section making my post birth recovery time challenging because a) I was exhausted, b) he didn’t seem to sleep very much and c) I developed a breast infection. Now a) and b) are par for the course when having a baby but c) knocked me senseless. I didn’t want to take any more medication given that I had just come off of several after the c-section so I waited to see if the pain would go away.

My kids are now 5 ½ and 3 years old and fortunately the potty training gods smiled on us because both were day-time trained around 2 ½ years of age. Thankfully, our oldest (a boy) was trained about 2 months before our daughter was born. He wore Pull-Ups at night until he was 4 but our daughter quit wearing pull ups when she was about 2 years and 9 months old. Ah, it’s so nice not to have buy diapers or Pull-Ups anymore!

Need to add an extra little touch to that place of residence? One answer....house signs! It is like the cherry on a cake and is a great addition to your lawn and/or garden decor (right beside that cute, little hummingbird feeder).