Just Thought I'd Let You Know...

There are some cool things I have found (from other people's blogs) that have helped me out as a parent and as a person.

#1--I have a hard time reading my scriptures every day. There I said it. It is out in the open now. My home teacher gave us this calendar with Book of Mormon pictures and a reading schedule to read the Book of Mormon in a year. I think it breaks down to about 18 verses a day. I was doing really well with that, but at the end of the pregnancy, I was just too tired once I made it to my bed at the end of the day. And I fell behind. Then, I read about this website, and immediately signed up. You can set up your own schedule (I am reading it in 90 days) and they email you the reading every day. Once you have completed your reading for the day, you hit the completed button at the bottom of the page and they will send you your next reading assignment the next day. There is even an audio option available. So if I remember, I will listen to it while I nurse Squirt in the morning, or I will read while I pump. It is really working out well for me. I am a quarter of the way through the Book of Mormon.

#2--My kids love to play on the computer. We have a few toddler CD-ROM games for Munchkin that don't require mouse abilities, but the older kids love games on the internet. The problem with that was some of the games would have links to other sites, or YouTube videos that were approved had links to unapproved videos. So again, I found this on someone's blog. It is a special browser just for kids. It has all the sites for the popular kid TV shows, and you can add others. We added ET's reading website from his computer class at school. There are parental controls and no pop-ups. Just another way to keep your kids a little safer.

#3--I just set up the parental controls on the kids TV. I knew it was there but I had never looked into it. I set up a certain time window where they can watch TV and blocked anything rated worse than TV-Y7. The first day, they just about freaked out when the TV "turned itself off!" It was awesome!!! Now if they could just stop fighting long enough to find something to play with...

I don't know if any of this helps anyone else but it has really helped me.