E. L. Lane Writer

by E. L. Lane and Stehli Krause When I first entertained the thought of blogging, I put off starting for months. I felt overwhelmed and didn’t know where to begin. But, now, that I’ve been blogging for a little over two years, I’ve realized just how little you need to get your blog off the ground. Here are the five things you need to start your very own blog: 1. A platform. First and foremost, you need a website or blogging platform to put your content in a format that’s pleasant to look at, and easy to understand and navigate. The most popular at the moment is WordPress . WordPress allows you to create a website/blog for free. WordPress does offer paid self-hosting for your website, but that’s nothing you need to concern yourself with right now. You can do free hosting with WordPress to start, then, later on, set up paid self-hosting and fully own your website. Another option is Blogger . Like WordPress , it makes creating a blog quick and easy. The main difference betwee

My husband walks out of the kitchen in a huff, “I’m done,” he says running his fingers through his hair, “I don’t know what else to do. You try.” We cannot get our four-year-old daughter, Leia, to eat. We’ve tried not giving her any snacks so she’s hungry for mealtime and negotiating bribes of desserts/outings/toys/gold/diamonds at the end of a meal. These tactics seem to work at first, but after the novelty wears off, she flexes her stubborn-muscle and squarely refuses to eat. She then uses that muscle to play a game of tug of war with us where she drags our asses through a mud pit and leaves us with bruised cheeks, low morale, and a fair amount of post-traumatic stress. Leia’s entire diet consists of: 1. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 2. Tyson’s Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets or McNuggets (and heaven forbid you try to feed her any other kind of chicken nugget or chicken in any other form!). 3. Pizza Hut, Little Caesar’s, Papa John’s, or certain local pizzeria piz

I got in contact with Dot to Dot Connections because their Instagram feed is full of activities to do with children that seem fun and educational, and they sent me their “Making Tracks Connections Box.” WHAT’S IN THE BOX? This is what you see when you first open the box. I had no idea that I would be getting so many activities in one box! The envelope that says "Thank you!" contains the activity instruction cards and a book. All of the activities are clearly explained on small cardstock sheets and all of the items needed for each activity are neatly packaged and labeled inside the box. Look at how beautifully organized this box is!  There are nine different activities, but this box could easily last you two to three weeks if you spread out the activities. We did three activities every week, so this box lasted us about three weeks. MY REVIEW OF THE ACTIVITIES You can read the rest of this post at  ellanewriter.com.

**I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL. EVERYTHING CONTAINED IN THIS POST IS JUST ADVICE THAT I AM GIVING BASED ON MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE ADVICE OF A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL.** My previous post was all about what happened that one time my daughter needed seven stitches , but now, I’d like to share with you what I learned from the experience that may help parents in a similar situation: 1. Prevention is the best form of treatment. Always tell your child not to run! Specifically at times where it could be dangerous for them to do run.  I never really worried about Leia running because she’s a kid, and kids are always running, but after this incident, I will definitely be more watchful and not hesitate to tell her not to run. You can read the rest of this post at  ellanewriter.com.

Thanksgiving 2017 Family Photo Above is our Thanksgiving 2017 family photo. Cute, right? But look at those bandaids on my daughter’s forehead. These are covering up what remains of our visit to the Science Museum just four days prior, which is also the day I consider the worst day of my life as a mom. If you follow me on Instagram , you’ve probably already read an abbreviated version of what happened that fateful day, but I’m writing this now with the hope that if you ever find yourself in a similar situation (but I pray that you never do), you’ll be able to deal with it like a champ. On the day in question, my daughter had woken up a bit fussier than usual, but I thought, “Eh, she’ll lighten up and start having fun at the museum when she sees all of the fun stuff there.” We packed up the day’s snacks, drinks, lunch, and pull-ups, and drove to the museum. Once there, she seemed to be getting in a better mood. She was awed by the fish, and she was ecstatic while petting a

The exterior of the Museum of Ice Cream. If you look closely, you can see Little Leia and her "Dada." Before I went to the Museum of Ice Cream, I read a few reviews from other moms in one of the Facebook mom groups that I frequent. They weren’t shining reviews by any stretch of the imagination, so I was a bit nervous about going with Leia and my husband. The first thing I took note of was that parking was a pain. The installation is in Miami Beach, so that means that only street parking is available. So here’s the first tip... 1. Get there early to look for parking, but not too early! We got tickets for December 22nd. My husband took the day off of work, and we left our house an hour and a half before the time on our ticket (11:30am). We got there an hour early (10:30am), and found parking two blocks from the building. We tried to enter the museum early, but they explained that they couldn’t let us in until 20 minutes before our ticket time. So we went across the street