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I don’t know about all of you but I am currently on the hunt for Mom/Daughter activities.  This year I have vowed that I will stop working on time during the school week - even it it means I have to work late at night so that Emily and I can do some fun stuff together.  We love to scrapbook, we love to draw, we love to play cards, but I have been hunting for something different.  Activities that will be new and surprising for both of us.

Well I just found this cool set of Hunkin’s Experiments.  All of these experiments are illustrated as cartoons - which is really fun - and what a variety!  There are tons of fun quick food experiments like, how to make orange peel fangs, or how to bake a potato in the sun.  Then there are more complex and interesting experiments like instructions for actually making paper.  I can’t wait to explore all of these with Emily and make a list for our experiment adventures.

It’s that time again.  We are winding down from summer camp and vacations and trips to the pool.  We are making endless trips to Target and Kohls stocking up on school supplies and school clothes.  I’ll bet your kids are ready to go back.  I’ll bet you are ready for them to go back.

Well as luck would have it, we discoverd a way for you to kill three birds with one stone (you know we would never actually kill any birds - it’s just an expression.)

1.  Quiet the end of summer chants of “I’m bored Mom, what can I do?”

2.  Assist your back-to-school organizing and cleaning efforts.

3.  Give your kids some really cool and original supplies to go back to school with.

On the Daily Danny website we discovered a great step-by-step guide to making cool crayon creations out of your old, stubby crayons.  You know - the ones we throw away all the time because we don’t know what else to do with them.

We loved the idea of using all of your cookie cutters you have sitting in the back of your kitchen drawer to make some really stylish crayon shapes.  Check out Danny’s blog for all of the instructions.  Emily and I are going to try it and will post our pictures here.  We’d love to see the results of your efforts too!

Here are some pictures from Danny’s website… cool huh?

If it seems funny to you that we are posting about a way to organize the mounds of American Girl Doll stuff your daughters have acquired only one day after we posted about spoiling your children… don’t worry, the irony isn’t lost on us.  Here’s the problem. While we, as parents, have the best of intentions, they, as grandparents have the best of intentions too.  What kind of grandmother can resist the pleas of a poor, disadvantaged grandchild (who has horrible parents that don’t buy the child anything).  Truthfully, what kind of grandmother can resist the American Girl Catalog and the abundance of choice (and doll clothes on sale) from Emily Rose.

So - the question is, when your American Girl Doll stuff gets out of hand, what’s a parent to do?  Well, Wilyhacker on the instructables website has come up with a plan to create the fabulous American Girl Doll storage unit that you see above.  Granted - we didn’t actually try making this - so although it looks relatively simple - I can’t vouch for it.  Especially since I’m not handy at these kinds of things.  But we would love to see and hear from anyone who has given it a try.  And hey - if it all goes really badly you could always just give up and buy one of our doll trunks.

Yes, we’re still in the throes of Summer and hopefully having fun.  Its been a great Summer so far with trips, travels and visitors…and nice weather to go along with it.  But if the Summer is seeming to get too long for you and the kids here are some great creative ideas.  Here are some ways to answer the age old cry: Mom, I’m bored….

It is a list of 100 (yes, one hundred!) fun things to do with your kids.  The list was produced by Ronit Baras at Family Matters.  It comes in 5 parts of 20 activities each.  There are so many here that some inevitably won’t fit but if you find a few that do then its a winner.

We speak to a lot of Grandparents here at Emily Rose.  We love chatting away with excited Grandmothers as we advise and guide them on making the perfect choices for the perfect birthday gift, or little Grandma surprise.

I have a vivid memory of how important my Grandparents were to me as a child.  They lived in London - a three hour drive from where we were on the West coast of England.  Three hours doesn’t seem like a lot - but distances in England seem a little longer when in three hours you have driven most of the way across the country.  We saw them a few times a year and they always arrived bearing presents and cuddles and lots of great stories.  I can remember sitting on the sign-post at the end of the road in great anticipation to see their car turn the corner.

My own daughter lives many, many miles away from her own, very much beloved, Grandparents.  They are in two different states and both sets would require a plane journey for a visit.  As we become a more mobile civilization and jobs and commitments draw us to all parts of the world, I think that Emily’s distance from her Grandparents is not unusual.  The big question is, knowing how important that Grandparent relationship is to our children, how do we help them nurture that relationship so they will have the same sweet Grandparent memories when they grow up?

Luckily our children have a few more resources available to them than we had as children.  We didn’t use the phone very often as it was way too expensive, and we certainly didn’t have computers or video cameras.  We found this great article on eHow that suggests using both modern technology and a good old fashion pen and paper to keep those long-distance relationships flourishing.

You can read it here.

Summer is coming and your kids are about to have loads of free time.  Pretty soon and you will start to hear the common summer refrain, “What can I do Mommy - I’m bored!”.  Well, Emily Rose is here to the rescue.  We will be scouring the web for great craft, activity and fun ideas for you and your kids to share some quality time together this summer.  Here’s one we came across this morning.  You have a whole three weeks before July 4th - so there is no excuse for no having all your kids decked out in cool, red, white and blue tie dye t-shirts.  Sherri Osborn from About.com has listed detailed steps for guaranteed success in this fun summer Red, White and Blue t-shirt project.  Why not make it a family affair and include your American Girl?  You could pick up our Three Tee set and make a matching tee for your 18 inch doll member of the family as well.

Have fun with this one.  We would love to see pictures of your results.  Send them to us and we will post them on Emily Rose as inspiration to others.  Happy tie-dying!

This time of year some of need help getting creative with our kids.  Well 5 Minutes for Mum is trying to help.  Starting yesterday they are posting 8 days of new ideas (and some freebies) to keep things busy in your household.  There’s a contest for each day too - just leave a comment on each separate post for the items that you’d like to win.

Here’s the link: http://www.5minutesformom.com/3636/creative-summer-days/