My Family Blog

by Betsy Shaw posted in Mom Stories I hated Ian last night. We had a fight. Well, the closest we come to a fight, which is often more like a playground argument spawned from ridiculous miscommunication. Sometimes I swear we speak different languages. With him being British and me being American, I guess you could [...]

Are These Some of the Top Halloween Costumes? Zombies? Finn of Adventure Time fame? A man wearing a grey tie? Are these the top Halloween costumes for 2012? Spirit – the Halloween super store – has locations in over 1000 places each Halloween season selling skulls, bones and Halloween outfits for the entire gang from [...]

It shouldn’t shock you to hear that obesity is a problem in this country.  In fact, you might even be immune to hearing it.  You could be shutting your eyes, putting your fingers in your eyes and yelling “YES!!  I know, I know!” But do you? DO YOU really? Because words like ‘epidempic’ are used [...]

pumpkin spice latte variations This time of year I think we can all admit to falling under the Pumpkin Spice spell. Lattes, muffins, cakes, hot cereal and more – all magically infused with those sweet fall flavors, lovingly known a “Pumpkin Spice.” The most popular of the pumpkin spice offerings is probably the latte – [...]

I’m 34 weeks pregnant. I have 4 Littles under 9, 2 of them under 2, and soon – 3 under 21 months. Call me crazy! Not only do I have 4 kids and a husband but I have a darling little successful {well, not so little} biz I run that is constantly growing, cupcakeMAG + [...]

by Betsy Shaw posted in Mom Stories Last week Unicef released their most recent global child mortality estimates, which show the number of children worldwide who die before reaching the age of five was just under 7 million. This is down to 12 million in 1990. To what can we attribute this decline in child [...]

Superstitions are a weird thing. On the one hand, they’re plainly untrue, which is good because otherwise we’d spend half of our GDP on sidewalk repairs to prevent the paralysis of every mother in America. On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a shooting star without going ahead and making a [...]

That must have cost a fortune! Childcare costs even higher in some states than college tuition and fees. Something that’s beat into the heads of everyone who ever decided to have a kid is that we should have already been saving for college. This list of four mistakes from U.S. News and World Report lists [...]

This is something that has been running around in my brain for a few weeks now…. should kids – young kids – have practices and play in games after 7pm on a school night? Know this:  I am part of a serious sports family.  Both of my small people play soccer, baseball, softball and they [...]

I will start by telling you neither of my children have peanut allergies.  In fact, they don’t have any food allergies at all.  And their school is not peanut free. Since my son was able to have peanut butter, it has been the thing he has requested for lunch.  Every single day. But I know that [...]