February 08, 2018

Throwback Thursday: Valentine's Day Marshmallow Pops

February 08, 2018/ Lisa Carpenter

This #TBT piece by Lisa Carpenter originally published February 3, 2015 on Grandma's Briefs.

What you need:

20 large marshmallows

4 ounces or so vanilla candy coating, aka Almond Bark

festive decorative cookie sprinkles

20 lollipop sticks (popsicle sticks might work equally well)

What you do:

Have kiddos poke sticks into marshmallows, all the way...

February 05, 2018

Final football photos

February 05, 2018/ Lisa Carpenter

Final football photos!

With Sunday's (spectacular!) Super Bowl marking the end of football season, I figure I should go ahead and share my favorite football photos of the season. Photos I forgot to share soon after they were shot.

My favorite football photos of this past season are — surprise, surprise — of my three desert-dwelling grandsons. Photos not of them playing football, but watching football. Well, even better than watching football, my grandsons were attending their very first professional football game!

February 01, 2018

Throwback Thursday: How to tell grandkids 'I love you' in another language

February 01, 2018/ Lisa Carpenter

I tell my grandsons I love you a lot. Returning the sentiment to those who say it to them was one of the first phrases they learned, though it did sound a bit like a foreign language at first, one only family members understood. Phonetic translation of Camden’s first utterance of it: Wuh woo!

Such I love yous in a language foreign to all but family members can become a shared sweetness, carried on through the years. But have you ever said I love you in Finnish? Swahili? Russian? Or even Spanish, for those of you who — like me — have not even the most basic of foreign language skills?

While I love you sounds the very same in some languages — think Malaysian and Maltese — there’s a whole world of ways it can be pronounced in other languages.

January 22, 2018

National Handwriting Day

January 22, 2018/ Lisa Carpenter

Tomorrow is the day we celebrate all things cursive... and hand printed. Yes, my friends, January 23 is National Handwriting Day!

National Handwriting Day, a day created to honor all things related to penmanship, was designated in 1977 and is sponsored by the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association. January 23 was chosen for the annual occasion as it's the birthday of John Hancock, whom we all know had quite the flair with signatures and such.

January 10, 2018

7 significant BEs of being a significant grandmother

January 10, 2018/ Lisa Carpenter

BE unconditional

Grandchildren come in assorted shapes, sizes, aptitudes, attitudes, with varied qualities and quirks. Love them because of those, regardless of those, in spite of those.

BE fair

Wherever two or more grandkids gather or grow, possibilities for playing favorites flourish. Avoid the all-too-human temptation to...

December 08, 2017

Cooking with grandchildren: Make the kitchen a classroom

December 08, 2017/ Lisa Carpenter

Each year, families spend a lot of time in the kitchen together during the holidays. These moments not only make happy memories, but can be teachable moments as well, where grandchildren can learn valuable knowledge about the world around them.

Cooking and baking can be enjoyable pastimes for grandkids and grandparents who incorporate science in fun, interactive ways, ranging from the basics of measurements to thermodynamics and beyond.

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 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.