December 04, 2017

Tree trinkets

December 04, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

My halls are decked, my tree is up, my gift-shopping is nearly done. I'm a tad early on all my Christmas tasks this year as Jim and I will be out of town next weekend — sharing Christmas joy with our grandsons! (Woot!)

November 27, 2017

Turkey Day hits

November 27, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

Welcome back from the long holiday weekend! I hope your Thanksgiving featured super-sized servings of good food and great times with family.

Our Turkey Day table featured a couple hits sure to make the menu as traditional favorites in Thanksgivings to come.

November 18, 2017

Saturday movie briefs: 5 (possibly forgotten) family faves for Thanksgiving gatherings

November 18, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

My favorite Thanksgiving film is the 1995 treat HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. It's funny and sad and sweet and sorta romantic, and it's the one and only film I must see around the Thanksgiving holiday.

I set out to share with you today not only my Thanksgiving film fave but a few other family friendly movies with a Thanksgiving theme because if your family is anything like mine, watching a film or two together during extended family gatherings is a given.

Turns out the selection of quintessential Thanksgiving movies is slim to none. Those I did find are available primarily only on DVD, not streaming, which means families must decide in advance what to watch together — and how likely is that to happen?

There are still grand options for Thanksgiving weekend...

November 15, 2017

Personalized puzzles for pre-turkey patience

November 15, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

Savvy restaurant servers know the first task when waiting on customers with kids is to provide puzzles or coloring pages for entertaining the little ones while they wait for their food.

Savvy grandmothers and others can follow the same tack this Thanksgiving by providing personalized puzzles to pint-sized guests gathered at the table, awaiting their turkey.

The personalized part makes pre-turkey puzzles more fun — and it's so easily done.

November 11, 2017

Saturday movie briefs: 6 movies for Veterans Day Weekend

November 11, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

I live in a city that survives and thrives in large part due to the numerous military installations located here, those being the United States Air Force Academy, Fort Carson, Peterson Field, Schriever Air Force Base and NORAD.

Despite the strong and unmistakable military presence of my everyday — the patriotic sound of morning Reveille and evening Taps often emanating from Peterson plus eardrum-rattling USAF Thunderbird flyovers directly above my house during football and graduation season, for starters — I unfortunately too often take for granted what veterans of every single military branch have done and continue to do for our country as well as other countries around the world.

Today, Veterans Day, I want to humbly and wholeheartedly...

November 08, 2017

Thanksgiving theatrics: Family fun galore courtesy What Happens at Grandma's

November 08, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

My friend Grandma Joyce from What Happens at Grandma's has done it again: crafted a creative and clever holiday activity for kids! This time it's for Thanksgiving, and this time it's unique among Thanksgiving arts and crafts found online because it's performance art — a three-act play for grandkids to perform for friends and family on Turkey Day. Thank you for sharing, Joyce!

The kids don't know it yet, but they're going to superstar in a post-dinner Thanksgiving play at grandma's this year. Considering their love of theatrics, I'm confident they'll gobble up this opportunity right along with savory sweet potatoes served on the rapidly approaching family day of thankful...

October 30, 2017

A grand monster mash

October 30, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

Hooray for Halloween! And for Halloween fun courtesy JibJab!

Do you make JibJab videos featuring your grandkiddos? I made a fun one for Halloween and hoped to embed it here for all to see. Alas, JibJab no longer allows users to download their videos for embedding (boo!), so here are a few screenshots of my creation.

I'd love for ya'll to see the silliness in full, though, so if you have a sec, click on over to my grand monster mash mixup for ghoulishly goofy Happy Halloween wishes from...

October 28, 2017

Saturday movie brief: Boogie men

October 28, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

Halloween puts me, like many folks, in the mood for scary movies. With Tuesday being Halloween, this weekend is the perfect time for feasting on frightful flicks.

Thing is, it's so horrifically hard to find scary movies that don't make me want to puke because of the gore or hide away in a country compound built just for my family and me because the sickos on screen are too close to some real-life psychos — or the possibility of such — in our current society.

I've yet to come up with a horror flick to enjoy with my husband this Halloween weekend, one with a fair share of scare but not so much I have to flick on every light in the house as I head to bed — or dive onto the bed when I reach it so a boogie man doesn't grab me from beneath. (I'm not the only who still does that, am I?)

I did, though, find this fun montage of old-time boogey men, from...

October 23, 2017

Halloween candy stats by state, plus GRAND Social No. 276 link party for grandparents

October 23, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

We're one week out from trick-or-treat time. Have you stocked up on candy yet?

I recently received an interesting graphic from CandyStore.com on the top treats by state. Scroll over the interactive map for a closer look at the sweet stats.

What's tops in your state? I was surprised to see that M&Ms weren't tops in Colorado, where apparently Milky Ways are king, considering how many pounds of the plain or peanut goodies my husband...

September 08, 2017

Books, Brightly, and Grandparents of Children's Literature

September 08, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

In celebration of Grandparents Day — which is this Sunday, Sept. 10 — I'd like to share with you a grand resource for grandparents that I just recently learned of.

Brightly is a resource for parents, grandparents, and other folks dedicated to raising lifelong readers. The award-winning website, a partnership with Penguin Random House, launched in 2014 and features, as the Brightly site states, "book recommendations from all publishers for every age and stage, reading tips and insights, seasonal inspirations, author essays, contests, gift guides, and more."

Brightly has some pretty great content specifically for grandparents, including the following piece, which I've received permission to share with you in part. Enjoy! And be sure to click for the complete article as well as others, all celebrating grandparents. For Grandparents Day and every day!

AREN'T THEY GRAND? OUR FAVORITE GRANDPARENTS FROM CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
By Tom Burns

Grandparents aren’t just solid sources of extra dollars, hearty hugs, and embarrassing...