Hope you’re enjoying the holiday with family and friends. We are! Looking forward to watching a great fireworks show tonight!

Summers always produce many movies for our kids. Unfortunately so many of them add unneeded scenes and language to these *children’s* movies that you have to be careful. I’ve never found that profanity or added curse words made a movie any better. Have you? In fact, I find myself repulsed at them more and more. I wonder how is adding bad language (as well as violence and s-_-x references) are supposed to enhance a movie….. especially one aimed at our children. Hollywood could sure use some wholesome film writers and producers if you ask me.

We love to see movies with a positive message. One of our favorites is “Facing the Giants“. If you haven’t seen, it you should! We love football so it may be no surprise that we also love the movie “Rudy“…… a true story and so inspirational! For my youngest, we enjoy “Veggie Tales“. Even our 13 and 11 year olds love these. They are very entertaining! A couple of movies my husband and I really enjoyed (older kids may enjoy them too) is “Amazing Grace” as well as “Luther“. If you haven’t checked them out, it may be a great date night movie to rent!

If you want to review a movie before you take your kids or allow them to watch it, here are a few movie review websites:

• http://www.crosswalk.com/movies/
• http://www.cbn.com/entertainment/Screen/
• http://www.pluggedinonline.com/
• http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies

Has your computer slowed down too? I have been noticing a big difference in the speed of my computer. I decided to take some time to see if I could speed it up and clean it up and it has helped A LOT! If your windows-based PC computer is slowing down or seems more bogged down, here are a few tips that may help you too.

Before you begin, you can research a bit on Windows Help by clicking here. Make sure you don’t do any damage to your system or make any changes you do not want.

• Schedule the disk defragment program (If you are not sure where it is, mine on my Dell is located under Start Menu –> All Programs –>Accessories –> System Tools –> Disk Defragmenter). I have it scheduled to run once a week during the middle of the night while I’m sleeping.
• Disk Clean Up. Follow the same tip above if you have not done a disk clean up in a while. It is also located in the same System Tools folder on my computer. It will delete temporary files, recycle bin, etc. You can search the Windows Help for more info on these topics too.
• Delete programs you do not use. My computer came with some pre-loaded software I never use. I went to the Control Panel and deleted a few programs that I don’t need or use. Make sure you do not accidently delete any programs you need or may need in the future.
• Check for viruses and spyware. Make sure you are running the most up to date anti-virus program. If needed, do a scan or update your software.
• Check how much memory you have and decide whether you need to add more memory.
• If you leave your computer running for days at a time, sometimes restarting it will help speed it up. Also running several programs at once (guilty ) can cause your computer to run more slowly.

Well I’m feeling better with a faster computer. Hope these tips have helped you too!

Come on moms….. how many times have you heard it already this summer? I’ve heard it once which I guess isn’t too bad. We’ve worked to split up the summer with visiting Grandma, Christian camp and educational camps but I think some time at home is good too. This week the kids have been here and fortunately they’ve found much to do between reading books and their Bible, playing with friends, playing Wii Fit and swimming, we’ve had a pretty fun week. Yesterday afternoon, it was nice just to go watch a movie with my kids. I love summer because most moms are busy with their own kids so my workload lightens which means I, too, have more time to enjoy the summer with my kids. Next week, the older two are off for a week to Grandma’s down near Corpus Christi so I’m sure they’ll get to enjoy some beach time as well as some time with cousins, aunts and uncles. I’ll be anxious for them to get back though. It’s funny how quickly we can miss them! We’ll be looking forward to doing some early matinees, swimming, bike riding and evening walks. Ah, summer! I just love it.

This year at our family camp, we had great speakers who spoke on parenting our kids from a biblical perspective. It was really helpful and my husband and I came away with some wonderful things to incorporate into our parenting. We all know it is a tough job but also the most rewarding job you can have. I’m continuing the study by using their book featured here. It is really helpful and the short daily lessons only take about 10 minutes so definitely something “manageable”. One stat they spoke of that is really frightening is that today’s teens are the least parented generation ever – meaning so many parents these days are “hands off” and just let their kids do their own thing and allow our society, tv, media and peers shape their values and morals. They also asked some important questions on proactive vs. reactive parenting and where our time priorities are in regards to raising our kids.

If you are like me and use Microsoft Outlook, you’ve probably wished that it was easier to back up your files, contacts, calendar, etc. Well I’ve just discovered that Microsoft has added a download that offers the backup option into your Outlook program. You download it and it adds the BackUp option to your “File” menu. You can set it to automatically back up weekly or however you like. If you want more information or to download this option, click here.

It was another wonderful year at Family Camp. There’s always something new and fun and this year was no different. The bromby (sp?) pit or giant mud pit was definitely a new thing. I opted out but the rest of the family ventured into the pit. (See photo). It did make for some fun memories but not something I think they are eager to do again anytime soon! We had three fun theme nights — Aussie Night, What I Want to be When I Grow Up night and Family Feud night where we actually played the game. For what we want to be when we grow up night, we all had fun coming up with outfits for that. At 6′10″ my husband dressed as a Houston Rocket basketball player. I dressed as an 80s Rock Star — just for fun! Our kids were NYC Rockettes, Movie Star, Football Player and a Ballerina. It was so fun. In between activities I was able to rest, relax, read and catch up on email. It is wonderful to be able to take the laptop and not get too far behind on email while away. As always though, its great to be home and in our own beds!

The week of family camp is FINALLY here! I won’t be blogging this week since we’ll be enjoying creating some great family memories! Last night was our Australian themed night which included a little mud pit action. The kids could not wait to try to get the wrist and ankle bands off of dad’s arms and legs. It was quite the site!! Of course, mom was on the sidelines taking care of our baby. (I pretended not to know about the counselors who were caring for the babies back at camp!!) There were a few moms who braved the mud pit and it does make for some great once-in-a-lifetime memories.

More fun to come. I’ll be back next week.

Have you used the terrific resources of searching for online coupons? I recently was looking to upgrade and replace my laptop that was outdated. I found one that I thought was a good deal and it was on sale! But I wasn’t yet satisfied….. I decided to do a quick search for “Dell Laptop Coupon” and tah dah!!! Up came a coupon offer with a code that I put in my shopping cart. It shaved a whopping $350 off my price. Gotta love it. I have done it in the past also when searching for other items. And speaking of deals, one of my friends recently sent me an email offering make up at $1 each. And when you put in the coupon code “Carolina” you get additional discounts. Click here for the site.  So the next time you are shopping for something, simply go to your search engine and type in the store or item you are searching for. You may be surprised at how easy it is to save mucho dollars! You also can do a quick search for “coupon codes” or phrases like that and find sites such as couponcabin.com, retailmenot.com, and couponmountain.com just to name a few!

I recently heard about a couple of good sites for those looking to create more healthy eating habits and lifestyle. As moms, we tend to put our own needs and well being on the back burner, but let me encourage you to take good care of you. The better you take care of yourself, the more energy you will have AND the better you will feel!

Check out these sites for exercise, health and dieting tools:

Stroller Fit - Exercise with Your Baby (Lisa Druxman, owner and member of HBWM)
http://www.strollerfit.com/

Health & Diet information including BMI calculator
http://www.webmd.com/diet/

Free Online Diet and Exercise Journal
http://www.my-calorie-counter.com/

Free weight loss tools, nutritional information
http://www.calorie-count.com/