Spring is here! Pending any awful pranks from Mother Nature, we will start being regulars at the park very soon. While we haven’t come close to listing all the wonderful parks the Fox Valley offers, here are 15 worth visiting this year. If we missed your favorite, leave it in the comments.

March is National Nutrition Month and the perfect time to think about ways to improve your family’s eating habits. We can always do better when it comes to feeding our children and ourselves. My husband and I have experimented with various ways of eating in the past, but now that we’ve added children into the mix, meals (and eating in general) have definitely changed.

All the reasons we really like this easy-to-make, grab-and-go recipe. And bonus: it includes everything from veggies to fruit (avocado) to whole grains to protein! We call it “Not your Grandma’s Chicken Salad” since we’re replacing the often-used mayo with savory avocado.

Reading is one of the most important life skills. Yet some children and adults will never know the joy reading can bring. So, how do we instill in our children the love of reading? Here are some steps that we can take to start fueling the desire to read even before they can.

Back to sleepless nights…this time for completely different reasons. Even though we may not get eight continuous hours of sleep in the foreseeable future, an optimal wake-up time is still within our reach. An optimal wake-up time? Let me introduce SmartWake by Verlo.

My younger daughter came home from school recently with a library book. It was called “The Book with No Pictures.” She requested that I read it immediately, and I’m not proud to say that I tried to blow her off.

I don’t remember what started the disagreement with my 11-year-old daughter. Maybe it was a late math assignment or a missing permission slip. But I’ll never forget the sorrow-filled way she looked up at me from her bedroom floor, tears streaming down her face, as she asked: “Mom? Why don’t you like me?”

Eating at a restaurant with a child (or multiple children!) can be a challenge. Time ticks about 10x slower when you’re awaiting the food for a hungry child. I put together these Restaurant Busy Kits and keep them right in my car. They’ve been a real sanity saver and have made dinners out actually enjoyable again!

I’m not going to lie, life with 2 children under 2 years of age is quite the whirlwind, to say the least. My 2 sons, Harrison and Benjamin, are 18 months apart. I thought life was going by crazy fast with just Harrison, and now with Benjamin’s arrival, it has sped up exponentially. God blessed us with the most mellow baby known to man, to complement the wildest toddler known to man. Without exaggerating whatsoever, I have no clue where the time goes.

Ah, February. The month of love and hearts and chocolate and roses and … Whew! With all that plugged into one month, it’s easy to understand why February is also American Heart Month. To help celebrate, our team of Mealtime Mentors has rounded up some of our all-t <p>Whew! With all that plugged into one month, it’s easy to understand why February also is American Heart Month. To help celebrate, our team of Mealtime Mentors has rounded up some of our all-time favorite heart h