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So your child wants a circus themed birthday party? Or maybe that’s the theme you picked for your daughter or son. For whatever reason you are reading this, be assured that you are in the right place. This article contains ideas for hosting the perfect circus birthday party.

Invitations

Follow these steps to hand out birthday party invitations that you can be proud of:

1.Buy a pre-made birthday announcement card from your local card shop (many grocery stores have a card section as well) or print one off of your computer. The invitation should include answers to the questions Who? What? Where? and Why?.

2.Now buy a roll of tickets that say something like “Admit One” on them. Tape one of these tickets to the inside of the birthday announcement card.

3.When a child comes to the birthday location on the day of the party, ask for his or her ticket, just like what is done at a real circus.

Entertainment

Party Games:

Try changing popular birthday games to fit the circus theme. Pin the tail on the donkey could become pin the nose on the clown, musical chairs could be played to circus music, and so on and so forth. Alternatively you could set up carnival booths (made from cardboard boxes or using your own idea), each booth having a different carnival game, which kids could play to win prizes. Every child could win a prize, and that would be their guest favor.

Have the kids at the birthday party do “circus stunts”, which could be anything from diving through hula hoops to attempting to juggle. Two other ideas for this are handstands and walking on a rope that is laid across the ground (tightrope walking).

Other Entertainment:

•Hire a professional clown, keeping in mind that many small children are afraid of clowns. Can’t find a clown? Check out http://www.ClownsForHire.com, a large database of professional clowns that you can search by location.

•Buy some long and skinny balloons for balloon twisting and try to teach party guests how to make balloon animals (you get easily get some books on this subject).

Decoration

Decoration sets the whole mood for the birthday party. So, when you’re decorating your house for you child’s birthday party, keep in mind that it’s the circus you are trying to imitate. This means that there should be balloons, banners, and streamers everywhere. You could use masking tape or rope to make a circus ring on your floor, and if you are really ambitious, you could even set up a huge circus tent (made from tarps) outside or even in your house. Lastly, don’t forget to play some circus music.

Food

•Serve common carnival foods like corn dogs, popcorn, and cotton candy.

•As a healthier choice, let guests snack on “circus monkey treats”, or in other words, sliced bananas.

•You could bake a cake or buy one. If you choose to bake your own, a good recipe for the occasion can be found at:

[http://www.kraftfoods.com/recipes/CakesPiesCheesecakes/CakesOther/BirthdayClownCake.html]

•If not, it won’t be very difficult for you to find a cake with a clown on it.

Guest Favors/Goodie Bags

Goodie bags are a great way of thanking guests for coming to celebrating your daughter or son’s birthday. In my opinion, no party is complete without them. If you are planning on using the prizes from your carnival games, you should give away things that you would win at a carnival. These are things like stuffed animals, blow up hammers, and other dollar store type items. However, if you’re not going to have carnival games at your party, put whatever you want in the goodie bags; it really doesn’t matter. Just don’t forget to give each child a balloon on his or her way out.

Whether you use just one of these ideas or all of them, I hope this article gave you some ideas to make your child’s birthday the best birthday ever. Good luck!

Quinn Spicker is the webmaster of http://www.Circus-Street.com, an online community for circus artists and their fans…

Worn out, depleted soil is a major concern for both farmers and consumers, as studies continue to reveal the problematic effects of chemical fertilizers. With no rest from cultivation or fertilization, farmers and agriculturists are noticing that because the soil is so depleted, crop fields are still not yielding despite fertilization with powerful state-of-the-art chemicals.

The problem? Instead of giving the fields rest and relieving them of the synthetic fertilizers, farmers just increase the application of these chemicals. What occurs is a real concern that crop yields will not be able to meet the food demands of the world population. In fact, in some areas of the world, they are not being met now.

In terms of fertility, soil has a limit as to how much support it can offer over a period of years, and then it becomes depleted. Adding nitrogen, potassium and phosphate only works for a time, but this is not enough of a boost to make the soil fertile again. It also has to be enriched with trace elements.

This is where soil testing can provide some answers. Soil testing does not work for every type of farmer. It works best for people with gardens and people with smaller fields. Soil quality can vary every couple of yards or even every couple of feet, so it can become very expensive to test the soil of large-scale agricultural operations. All they can do is estimate where depleted soils lie, and to have those tested to keep their testing costs reasonable.

But if you have a small garden, soil testing can be done without too much of a hassle. Soil testing kits can be easily found at a local garden store or online.

After testing the soil, you will specifically know what your soil is lacking. Let me give you some advice. For many gardeners, the reason their soil is so depleted is because they refuse to give it rest. Naturally, plants use the vitamins, minerals, and trace elements in the soil, but if done time after time, year after year, it is never replenished.

God didn’t command us to keep the Sabbath day for nothing. Soil that is continually worked will eventually become worn out and depleted of the vital nutrients your fruits and vegetables need to grow. Don’t wait until your soil is in trouble. Every six years, let your garden have a year off.

As well as giving your garden rest, you will also need to apply a natural fertilizer. You can either make your own with compost, manure, or dead leaves and plants, or if you want to save time you can purchase a natural fertilizer. Remember, natural fertilizers are organic, contain no chemicals, and are extremely beneficial in replenishing your depleted soil. In truth, they are vital to the long-term health of your soil, plants, and even you.

Christopher A. Williams (aka Natural Fertilizer Guy) edits the website: http://www.safe-fertilizer-reviews.com/articles.html

The website contains articles about natural fertilizers and seaweed based fertilizers, as well as general natural gardening tips.

I am a grandmother who has used Nuby sippy cups for many years and my family and I think they are the best for price and functionality.?I was throwing out the sippy cups when the spouts would wear out and I felt badly about doing so because it takes plastic many years to dissolve in landfills.?Then I discovered that Luv ‘n Care, the manufacturer of Nuby products,came out with Nuby replacement spouts for their 10 oz Nuby sippy gripper cups.?/p>

The newest nuby replacement spouts are a better quality of silicone and as such, they seem to be stronger and hold up for a longer period of time. The older spouts were a bit softer and the spout valves seemed to break more easily. There were no reinforcements on the inside of the spout like there are now. In addition, the spouts are made of silicone and are BPA or bisphenol A free.

The Luv n Care company still requests that parents closely monitor their children while they are using the Nuby sippy cup replacement spouts. If a baby or toddler is teething, they have a tendency to chew on the spouts. In turn, although the spouts are touted as being leak proof and spill proof, once the spout valve is broken inside, the sippy cups will begin to leak.

Having personally used these sippy cups for my children and now for my newest grand child who is now 13 months old, I have tried numerous times to make the cups leak. They did leak when I put the lid on wrong. The new Nuby replacement spouts have notches on them. Those notches have to line up with the notches that are on the rim of the lid that screws onto the sippy cup. If you don’t line up the notches and you don’t screw the lid on correctly, you may have a problem. Otherwise, I have tried to make these sippy cups leak by shaking them rather violently and they do not leak if you follow the directions.

The Nuby replacement spouts seemed to last about a month when my granddaughter started teething and had actual teeth erupting. I always check the spout valves now to make sure she isn’t breaking them as she bites and I never leave her alone with any sippy cup. I don’t want her to choke on her milk either.

The Nuby replacement spouts are very hard to find but there may be some Walmart stores carrying them and if not, some of the Baby Depot Stores within Burlington may carry them. Other wise, you can find them on the internet by visiting the resource box below.

If you ever purchase any Nuby product that you have a problem with, Luv n Care customer service is wonderful and they will make every attempt to help correct the problem. You can reach them at their corporate offices in writing or by phone at:

Luv N Care

2805 Saint Charles Ave

Monroe, LA 71201

(318) 388-4916

Find out more about Nuby sippy cup replacement spouts by visiting http://www.shop.nubysippycup.com

Why do parents buy a sit and stand stroller? How do they work? Where can you buy a sit and stand stroller online?

We’ll try to answer these questions now.

Parents of two children who are two years or more different in their ages, and one of whom is a baby, know the following problem well. When you go out you have the baby, who is fairly passive and who is easy to take around in a stroller, but also a two or three-year old, who is much more active, and who doesn’t like being strapped into a seat for very long – he or she just gets frustrated and difficult to handle.

The solution is a stroller which allows both children to be carried, either as a double stroller (with an infant car seat) or as a baby seat plus a standing board for the older child. The best sit and stand strollers allow the standing platform to convert to a normal seat. Safety is provided by way of seat belts and safety straps.

Such sit and stand strollers are usually suitable for children up to 45 pounds in weight, so are useful for a long period. They are also normally easily folded up to put in the car.

So what do parents of two children who use such strollers think of them?

Often, they have already tried ordinary double strollers, and have given up on them because they are too wide to easily manage in the street or in crowds, or to use in stores with small aisles, and difficult to get through some doorways. On the other hand, they find that the sit and stand strollers, being narrower and less bulky, are much easier to handle and easier to control.

The other main benefit which Moms usually mention about a sit n stand stroller – and let’s be realistic, it is usually Moms who use strollers – is that it makes it easier to keep the older child happy. They can sit in the stroller, stand in it, or walk beside it if they can and if they want to. Managing the child in public becomes a bit less stressful.

To have a look at the styles and models of sit and stand strollers which are available, go to my sit and stand strollers page.

Sal Malleny is a parent who finds the Internet is the best tool ever created to investigate everything before she purchases it.

Have you ever thought, I wonder what events on my birthday have made history? What great events happened on the day you were born, or the same date years or event centuries apart? Well, we collected some information that we thought may be able to help:

My Birthday:

• 10th January: Is your birthday on 10th January? On January 10th 1956 Elvis recorded “Heartbreak Hotel”.
• 25th February: On 25th February 1862 paper currency was first introduced to America by the President at the time, Abraham Lincoln.
• 2nd May: If your birthday is on 2nd May then it falls on the same day as the release of the first science fiction film in 1902. Believe it or not, the name of this science fiction film was “A Trip to the Moon”.
• July 17th: On July 17th 1995 Forbes Magazine announced that Bill Gates was the richest man in the world with $12.9 billion.
• September 10th: If your birthday falls on September 10th then you are celebrating the anniversary of the opening of the first theatre in Hawaii.
• December 25h: Apart from Christmas, another great event that falls on your birthday if it’s the 25th December is the first sighting of Hayley’s comment on its return by Johann Georg Palitzsch.

Adult Birthday Party Ideas and Themes

Talking of events on my birthday, what a great theme for an adult birthday party! Have a “Heartbreak Hotel” birthday party for the 10th January and play Elvis music, and then have foods and activities that take you back to the 1950′s or 1960′s.

Otherwise, have a general “events on my birthday” theme where you have pictures and displays of different events that took place on your birthday that people can go and look at while enjoying cheese and wine and listening to classical music.

Get guests to find out what great events took place on their birthdays and discuss this. PLay a “Guess what happened” game and give guests clues to what events happened on your birthday and have them guess what these events were.

You may also want to specialize the “Events on my birthday” theme so that it focusses on sporting events, musical events, theatrical or literature events, etc. Get guests to bring stories related to these particular themes to share.

Publish a web page for your party

Once you have all your ducks in a row for your “Events on my birthday” party then create an exciting, “eventful” web page that will both tell people about these events and invite them to join you for a great party and trip down memory lane.

Create a web page that reflects these events with photos, video clips, audio clips and whatever else you like. Then send guests an email with a link in it to the invitation page where they can respond, see who else is coming and start interacting.

Your guests will love it! They will find your page unique and exciting and it gives them the opportunity to start networking with others who are coming to the party.

Creating this great web page is free and all you need to do is go and sign up for an account at Events Listed and start creating your web page and inviting people. Don’t waste any more time, do it today!

Tamara Ford is the wife of an Internet Entrepreneur who specializes in Event Launch Marketing applying social media and internet marketing strategies. “I initially started writing to help my husband and have since become hooked”. If the content of this article interests you, you may be interested in reading another article I have submitted titled Birthday Planning or you may want to visit our site to learn more about our free web publishing tool for Children’s Birthday Parties.

I wanted to write about something wonderful that my 14 year old son did for me yesterday. He bought me a bunch of flowers. Big deal you say. Well, actually for me it was enormous. You see, I am a divorced person with four children, three of them boys.

Did the boys ever see my ex husband buy me flowers? Possibly a few times but it was definitely not the norm. Did the kids see their dad treating me with respect? Not always. In my opinion the boys saw a pretty crazy interaction between husband and wife. And yet, three and a half years down the track, my 14 year old son voluntarily spends his own money buying his mother a beautiful bunch of yellow tulips.

It nearly bought me to tears. Not the fact that I received a present, but the fact that obviously something has been sinking in about the way that women need to be treated. The boys have a younger sister and I am very careful to let them know that women need to be treated with dignity and respect. Whenever the boys treat their sister in a rough way or rudely I let them know that it is NOT OK. I ask them to apologize and they do.

I also talk to my boys often about the need to treat their mother as they would want to treat a future girl friend. I think I saw a glimpse of that yesterday with the flowers that Kieren so lovingly picked out for me. They are absolutely gorgeous. Needless to say I made a huge fuss over him and told him how they made me feel.

I asked him why he bought them for me and he said that he thinks I am special and I deserve them. How sweet is that? I have no doubt that when Kieren gets a girl friend he will know how to treat her, as he is practicing on his mother and I think that is great.

It will become second nature for him and it will be so easy when he does get a girl friend. He makes me feel so proud. But more than anything he feels proud of himself which is even better.

So, that’s my story. Even though my kids might not have had the best role models prior to my divorce (now I am meaning both parties here), it is possible to turn things around by consistent hard work and lots of encouragement. I have a champion in the family and he knows it. On ya, Kieren. Keep up the good work. Love ya!

Kim Patrick is a single mum with four children who lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. She is author of the book, “Get Your Child To Behave In 30 Days Or Less.” For more information on how to get your child to behave, you can go to http://www.mychildcanbehave.com/main.html

Infant Massage

When you were pregnant, you imagined blissfully holding your infant all day, getting to know him or her, bonding, feeding, and napping. Not so suddenly, the baby’s on the outside, and you find out that there’s a lot of stress for you and your baby. You’re not getting enough sleep; you worry every minute that you’re doing something wrong; you wonder if what you’re doing at this tender age will make your child one day sit on the therapist’s couch and say, “You know what my mom did when I was a baby?”

You both just need to relax! But how? Truthfully, you both need a massage. We’ll leave your massage up to you and your ability to drop not-so-subtle hints to your partner, but your baby’s massage, and subsequent relaxation, can be a very relaxing experience: for both of you!

Benefits of Infant Massage

Perhaps the most important benefit of infant massage is its ability to help baby sleep – a top concern for parents of infants. Because infant massage can assist in the reduction of stress for baby, it relaxes babies and encourages more sound sleep – something everyone in the family will benefit from.

Feeding and digestive problems, such as gas and colic, can make a baby and parent miserable. One of the many benefits of infant massage, according to The International Association of Infant Massage, Inc, is the increased production of oxytocin in the breastfeeding mother, allowing more complete feedings. Regardless of how you feed your baby, infant massage also benefits baby and parent by increasing baby’s circulation and decreasing gas, constipation, and symptoms of colic.

One of the best benefits for parents and baby is the connection that it provides. Infant massage connects parents with children, both physically and emotionally. Babies thrive on touching and skin-to-skin contact. According to Deborah Olsen, a licensed massage therapist in Hershey, Pennsylvania, infant massage is “not a new concept. It’s been around for thousands of years, but unfortunately our culture has gotten away from it. Touching is a very important aspect of early development.”

This touching, in fact, improves communication and trust between infant and parent. Spending time touching baby and figuring out what is pleasurable to your baby and what is not, improves communication and trust between the infant and parent. After practicing with different massage techniques, parents learn to read their baby’s cues more accurately and therefore, are better able to respond to their baby’s needs.

Massaging your baby gives you confidence in your ability to care for your baby; in addition, it can be a time when you actually enjoy your baby, in a different way than feeding and changing diapers allow. As parents become more responsive through massage, babies cry less, and the parent and child become more attached and less stressed, providing a better basis for which the two of you to begin to know each other.

Another plus: Infant massage also stimulates your baby’s brain development and improves his sensory awareness. With infant massage, your baby may one day say, “I’m glad my mommy massaged me!”

The process is not complicated; simple techniques can provide a multitude of benefits for parent and baby, foster relaxation, bonding, and stimulate emotional and physical growth.

Katie Franklin is a researcher and writer on parenting, children and child development. She is a regular contributor at Child Development Media Inc She also contributes at Quality Toys and Hobbies

Does your breastfeeding baby have problems like gassiness, green poop and excessive spit up? Then you have a problem with oversupply…or too much milk.

While some women struggle to make enough milk to feed their babies, when you have an oversupply, you may have too much foremilk which can causes feelings of fullness in your baby. However this foremilk does not have enough calories or density to allow your baby to remain satisfied resulting in fussiness, stomach upset and gas.

A forceful milk letdown can also cause some of these problems. An overly abundant milk supply and forceful letdown often go hand in hand. Often mothers with these issues notice baby is trying to clamp down on the nipple to slow the supply or will notice spraying if the baby pulls off.

Here are three things you can do to help relieve these oversupply issues:

1. First, offer only one breast each feeding. This will decrease your breast milk supply slowly. If the other side gets uncomfortable, express by hand a little milk to relieve some of the pressure. Don’t express too much, because this increased pressure lets your body know that it should start decreasing the amount of breast milk being produced.

2. Calm your milk letdown by expressing just a little bit of breast milk before latching baby on. This will help to avoid a sudden rapid flow into your little ones mouth.

3. You can also put your baby in a more vertical position. This will allow you to use gravity to slow down the letdown reflex. (Your baby is also less likely to gag or choke this way.)

Once these steps are taken, most moms will be able to curb the oversupply and see a happier baby.

Sheri Lynn is an editor for Breastfeeding Magazine a great online source for breastfeeding support and encouragement. For more information on breastfeeding issues, visit http://www.breastfeeding-magazine.com

We as parents are working very hard to earn good money to provide all the needs of our children. We make a lot of sacrifices including our health and sometimes the time to be with them. With this, we must teach our children to value money not only to save but also to prepare them when they are old enough to work. The earlier you teach them, the better. So when your child starts to understand what money is for, here are very useful tips on how to teach them to manage money properly:

Let him know your work. If your child sees you look tired from work, you can tell him that it is because you have to earn money for his needs. If you do this frequently, he will somehow be aware that earning money is never a joke. By explaining to him how a simple business works and grows, he will be able to conclude that money is very important to his everyday life. In addition, you are also making him feel that you are doing all your best to give his needs.

Teach him to how to budget. If your child is about 11 years old and above, you can start training him to handle his own money by giving his allowance on a weekly basis instead of daily. Let him control himself from buying unnecessary things even if he has money on his pocket. If he does so, do not give him extra money and let him suffer the consequences of his action. By doing this, you are also teaching him to be strong from temptation.

Require him to work for it. Yes, you read it right. Require your child to work so that she can feel how hard money is being earned. Teach your child about simple household activities like washing the dishes and give her money. But you must be careful in doing so because she might always demand for money before doing something. You should be clear in explaining that she is under training and the money for her salary and not a reward.

Show the negative effect. Let your child watch the news about poverty and the economy. He should understand how fortunate he is to enjoy living without working. Make him realize the good effect of handling money properly by showing to him actual street children and homeless families struggling hard to survive. These images will stick to his mind and he will be reminded that someday that he can be joining them if he will be wasting money.

Do not waste your money. Of course, you cannot teach your child to save money if you are wasting it. Explain to him carefully whenever you buy something that does not look valuable to him like jewelries and other accessories, and that can also be an investment. Although you have the right to enjoy the result of your hard work, you should show your child the difference between proper spending and overspending.

Although money is not the only source of happiness, it is still necessary for our children to understand its value and how to manage it.

I am a Filipino engineer who found himself more comfortable in writing letters instead of numbers, and interacting with humans rather than machines. For more tips about child care, health, growth and development, safety, education and all about effective parenting, please feel free to visit Effective Parenting Tips at http://www.whatparentsshouldrealize.blogspot.com.

Quilts and quilt designs are created when the quilt maker combines blocks.

A block is the basic unit of a quilt top. Typically blocks are square. They can be made any size, and frequently a quilt is made using many blocks with the same design. They can be pieced together from smaller pieces (called patches) or could be appliqu? It is also possible that a block could be a solid piece of fabric.

The smaller components of a block are called patches. They can be many different shapes – triangles, rectangles, squares, diamonds, or curves – but the idea is to sew patches together so you end up with a square.

By changing the shapes of the patches within a block (i.e., substituting triangles for squares) and/or changing the placement of the colors of the pieces (i.e., you can create a new design for your quilt, yet the sewing won’t change.

Simple is the name of the game for many quilters. Using one or two shapes for all of the pieces in your quilt makes it easy to sew; and easy-to-sew squares and triangles offer many advantages in terms of simplicity. As a beginner quilter, making the sewing simple gives you the opportunity to focus on learning and practicing basic quilt making techniques that you will use as you develop your craft.

Interesting variations in quilt blocks can be achieved through placement of the fabrics in addition to how each patch is divided.

A simple nine patch quilt block can be used as an example of how different a block can look just by changing the placement of colors within the nine patches of one block.

Using only two colors of fabric in alternating squares creates a design like a checkerboard. With the same nine patch of two colors of fabric, using only square patches in each block, you can create a pattern that looks like a big X in your quilt simply by placing the colors in a particular position in each block. Thus, the Irish Chain, and variations of it.

Getting a little more complex, you can take some of the square patches in the blocks and divide them in half from corner to corner (commonly called half-square triangles in the quilting world), and create a star design.

Using only half-square triangles and square patches, by simply re-arranging the fabrics, your checkerboard or square turns into a basket, or leaf shape, a bow tie shape, or even a series of diamonds.

Another type of triangle that is easy to make is a quarter-square triangle. That triangle is made by cutting a square patch into half-square triangles, and then cutting the half-square triangles in half once more, thus creating four small isosceles triangles.

You can add complexity to your design by increasing the number of colors in your quilt, and your design changes once again. What once was a black and white checkerboard can transform into a block that looks like the letter H.

Your block can look like it is 3-dimensional by using specific colors in designated places.

And all of those design changes can be created by using only three basic shapes – squares, half-square triangles and quarter-square triangles – plus a little imagination in the placement of your colors.

As you sew your blocks together, they can look completely different. For example, you could take blocks of two simple half-square triangles, place them in columns, alternate the direction of the cut of the triangle, and create a quilt that looks like columns of zigzags. Using the same blocks, placing them so all of the diagonals are facing the same direction, your quilt could look like an old-fashioned scrap quilt.

Penny Halgren http://www.How-to-Quilt.com Penny is a quilter of more than 26 years who seeks to interest new quilters and provide them with the resources necessary to create beautiful family heirloom quilts.