Thanks... now I just spent some $$ on art. Actually, this came at a great time. We remodeled and had blank walls. No more...

Lol. I had to create one of these when we went from a HUGE TV armoire to a stand. I just didn't think of posting it on my blog...

I plan to remove Windows XP and such from my house in 2007. I want to try to run open source stuff. I don't play games much anymore so I don't need the underlying OS to do it. My kids basically surf and e-mail. My wife has her own PC from her work. Linux PC, Linux based web/mail/router server and whatever other…

Wow. My wife and I should have marketed this stuff years ago. We have made these types of games/activites for over 5 years for our kids. I am sure there are others. Guess the internet allows everyone to share...

Our favorite games are alphabet ones. One we do a who what were what.... an Alligator Ate an Apple in Alaska... a Bear Buried Bones in the Backyard. The kids can do this for HOURS. We also do the alphabet sighting game on signs. When traffic gets bad we play a license plate game where you pick a letter/number off…

I found an AWESOME product http://www.recolored.com/ that I not only help test but am a paying customer. The guy who wrote it is VERY responsive to issues in his software. He even called!

You can also just google for some good ideas as well:

We took all our sealed Happy Meal toys and other trinkets and mailed them off to a serviceperson serving over in Iraq. I can't recall the website where I got a mailing address. The troops like this kind of small stuff that they can easily carry and pass on to kids they see.

Our best one was a haunted surgery room. We just had our garage to work with so we divided it into 3 rooms. The first room was the 'checkup' where someone dressed like a Dr would see if you were OK (actually used to keep people from going in twice), the second larger room was the operating room. We had a table with…

I, too, started doing 3D pumpkins last year. I love my cordless dremel with the all the cool bits. I would have to dig up some old photos. I am sad though, no pumpkin carving this year as we are very busy at home http://addingroom.blogspot.com/. It is really cool if you combine this with the way to do portraits as…

Wow. I was just looking up this stuff the other day and saw this site: http://www.stuckincustoms.com/ which had AWESOME photos. Now if someone can come up with a way to get a 30 hour day I might have time for yet another activity.

Man, I hate it when my wife is right (just kidding). I have been itching to pay off our van (4.5%) but our new home equity loan is 8%. Now this calculator actually shows me what she was talking about vs me with my 'feeling'. I would rather have ONE debt. Her, with the 2 for a short term, would save us money…

I helped my daughter, 11 years old, on a science exam study session. We figured out some mnemonics as well as ways to do well on her test. We talked about writing down the mnemonics as soon as she gets the test as well as other facts which might also be in the test. She liked the idea of a 'brain' dump to help her…

Get it. Esp if you are in an apartment. YOU are not the only person in that building. In fact, the rates will vary on the number of units connected. Even if you are in a house/single unit I would still recommend it.

I use a program called Easy Thumbnails to manage my images - especially ones for a

It's funny that common sense things make the news. We have ALWAYS had at least ONE meal a day together as a family even with hectic after school activites. This is one tool we use to keep up with our kids lives and them to ask us about ours. You would be amazed to see how much better your kids act when they know…

This would be a nice tool if they included the company I currently use: US Cellular. The charts and all are an excellent way to start though. I did go through the exercise and compare the final to what I have - and what I have throuhg USC is fine (no, I do not work for them - just a satisfied customer).

This is a good start but the plants also need to taste bad to pets. We had a cat that loved in-door plants. Probably because we watered them and they were therefore tasiter.

I, too, had done something like this not once but twice. Once was with Sylvia light bulbs. I was going through them like candy in my basement. I sent the company a few of the boxes of bulbs back with a letter telling them of my woe. I really didn't expect to get anything back. In about 2 months I got a case of…