A year or two ago, my sister and brother-in-law gave Grace a car washing play set. Ever since, Grace has been dying to wash my car. Finally, last week, Joe got around to the job.

They filled buckets with soapy water, procured rags and sponges, and opened up the car washing kit.

I was inside working when Joe called me on the phone.

“You really should come out here and take some pictures. You’ll probably want to write about this on your blog.”

He was right.

Grace and Allie ran around and around my car, creating suds on every surface they could reach. They were soaking wet, and suds ran down the driveway.

Before long, Allie had a spray bottle (because Joe took the hose away from her), and she was spraying down every vehicle she could find.

Joe’s car was not immune. It got washed, too. So did Grace’s bike and scooter.

It’s a good thing the cats weren’t outside. If they laid down in the driveway, they too would have been washed.

The only problem was that they don’t seem to have rinsed the car. Or maybe they didn’t dry it. The next time I got in it to drive, I had to run the windshield wipers just to see out of the window.

There was no pollen on the car and no dead bugs, but there were spots all over.

Fortunately, it rained a few days later; the car got a good rinse.

I’ll let them wash my car again the next time they ask. They enjoyed it.

I’ll just hope for a rainy summer.

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.

Something happened this week that is so typical of Allie right now.

One of our cats, Zeus, is testy. He has a giant personality, and he always has. He doesn’t like men at all, and he has always pushed Grace around.

Grace is afraid of him. She won’t walk over him in the hallway; she waits for him to move. If he meows at her, she will jump off the couch, jump out of his way, or jump up onto a chair to get out of his reach. She’s learned that he only talks when he’s mad, and if he’s mad, a swipe may soon follow.

Just today, Zeus and Grace were sitting in our oversized chair with me. I was brushing him (a task of which he does not approve), and he complained. Grace was off my lap and across the room in one step.

When he started purring again, Grace came back to sit in the chair with us. Allie joined the party, sitting on Grace’s lap next to the cat.

I was still brushing.

He cried, voicing protest to the ruffling of his feathers.

Grace gasped, trying to wiggle out of the pile.

Allie sat up straight, looked at me with wide eyes, and squealed, “ZEUS! TALK! TO ME!”

And then she grabbed him around the neck with both arms and hugged and squeezed and rocked his head back and forth.

“Zeus! Nice! Nice Zeus!”

I held my breath, waiting for him to cry again and scratch her, waiting for him to stand up and defend himself.

He never got the chance. It’s hard to scratch someone who’s hugging your neck.

She continued to hug and rock and gush about “Nice Zeus” and “Zeus talk!” for longer than I thought he would allow.

He never made another peep, and he never scratched.

When he’d had enough of her loving, he stood up and jumped down and left the room.

Zeus may have a giant personality, but Allie’s is bigger.

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.

I would have posted these photos anyway, but this is a sponsored post for Hershey, PA.

Last summer, Joe’s brother gave Grace Hersheypark tickets for her birthday. We spent eleven hours at the park, staying from before the park opened until almost closing time. We all left exhausted but excited for our next Hersheypark adventure.

Shortly after that, we bought season tickets to Hersheypark.

This year, our first Hersheypark trip was opening day.

Allie is too small for a lot of the rides, but Grace is big enough to be her responsible rider for some things. This makes Grace feel very grown up, as you can imagine.

Hersheypark has over 65 rides – everything from crazy thrill rides (like the Great Bear) to little kid swings (which Grace says don’t go as high as her swing at home).  There are rides that everyone can ride together, like the giant historic carousel, rides just for kids, and rides just for adults.

We spend most of our time on the kids’ and family rides, as you might imagine.

When I was about ten, I loved driving my mom and sister around Geauga Lake Park in these antique cars. We’d all pile into one, and Amanda would laugh the whole time.

I remember the smell and the jerky motion of the cars like it was yesterday.

Now it’s Grace and Allie’s turn to pile in and laugh the whole time.

The first time, Joe and Grace sat in the front, and Allie and I sat in the back.

The lines were short, so we immediately jumped back in line so that Allie could drive her own car. Joe said she turned the wheel the wrong way the whole time. (Fortunately, there’s a rail that keeps you on the track.)

Of course, Grace couldn’t ride while Allie drove. She had to drive her own car, separately.

Allie fell asleep not long after we arrived, so Joe and Grace rode some grown-up rides like the Whip and the Music Express. (Can you tell that the ride isn’t moving?)

After Allie woke up, we had lunch. I was pleasantly surprised to find gluten-free pizza available by request at the pizza shop. There were other gluten-free options too, according to the park map.

After lunch, we set out to ride the girls’ favorite rides.

Since I’ve gotten older, I can’t ride many of the fast, exciting, grown-up rides, so I stick with the things the kids like (for the most part).

We all love this steam train. It’s in an old time pioneer area, and in the fall, they decorate it for Halloween.

I love that the family and kids’ rides are sprinkled all through the park. If they were all in one place, we wouldn’t get to see the whole park, but we cover Hersheypark from one end to the other, stopping here and there for rides and shows.

Grace and Allie both love the seal and sea lion show. It’s not to be missed, especially if you have kids.

We all like the Ferris Wheel and the Monorail, both rides for the whole family.

Joe and the girls rode almost all the kiddie rides. Grace is getting a little too big for some, but she still rides along with her sister.

There were so many things to do that we didn’t get to all of them on opening day. There wasn’t enough time, and the girls got too tired.

Grace especially was dying to visit ZooAmerica (included in your park admission), but I told her we’d do that another day. You can get into it from Hersheypark or go just to the zoo through its separate entrance.

I’m hoping to get there every week or every other week all summer. It’s important to me that we take a break and spend time having fun as a family.

Hersheypark also has motorized wheel chairs available for rent, so my mom is going to try to come with us to the park. The girls and I are really looking forward to that.

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Hershey Entertainment and Resorts. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.

Need to entertain your toddler for an hour?

Give her a bottle of glue and a box of buttons.

Okay, it might not have been an hour, but this was definitely the longest-lasting activity Allie has ever done.

It all started because Grace was working on her rainbow button craft, and Allie was not content to be left out. I spread some glue on a piece of paper and gave her a handful of buttons.

There is something amazing about a pile of buttons, whether you’re 2 or 35. They’re all different sizes and shapes, colors and finishes, weights and materials. Some have shanks, and some are completely flat.

This was a fun art project, but it was also a nice sensory experience and fine motor skills practice. Chubby little two-year-old fingers have to work pretty hard at handling the smaller buttons.

Safety note – This is not a good project for toddlers who still mouth things. Pay very close attention. Buttons can be a choking hazard! 

At first, she was content with this situation. She picked through her buttons, declaring them pree! which I can only imagine means pretty.

When she ran out of buttons, I gave her another handful. She stuck them into the glue one by one.

And then she decided that she didn’t have enough glue.

This part made me a little twitchy.

Allie grabbed the giant glue bottle from the middle of the table, and she began squeezing blobs of glue onto her paper.

“No, Allie! You just need a little bit of glue!” I said, taking the bottle away.

She didn’t seem to mind that I’d taken the glue. It was more about making some puddles, I think, than about who controlled the bottle. She was happy to stick some buttons into her puddles.

Eventually, she declared her picture finished and threw all the rest of the buttons on the floor.

Her picture is hanging on my china cabinet with Grace’s masterpieces. It may not be much to look at, but it’s her artwork, and she’s proud of it.

I think it’s really important to display kids’ artwork in your home (even the ugly ones). Seeing their work on display gives them a sense of confidence and importance that saving it in a drawer or box just can’t provide.

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.

Joe gets up and goes to church early every Sunday morning. He’s part of our church’s worship team, and they practice before the service.

This leaves me to get the girls fed, ready, and out the door by myself.

I don’t mind getting the girls fed, ready, and out the door by myself. I do it every day of the week, but the process is complicated slightly because I can’t seem to get myself in bed early enough on Saturday night.

So.

I came up with a getting ready for church plan that I thought was fairly brilliant.

I dress the girls on Saturday night in their church outfits, and they sleep in them. We almost always go for knit, comfy, unwrinklable fabrics, so they are no less comfortable than pajamas, but they look nice.

One Saturday evening a few weeks ago, my dad took us out for a fancy Taco Bell dinner. Joe and I had both forgotten to bring a bib, and Allie’s food ended up on Allie’s shirt.

I mentioned that I’d have to change her clothes before she went to bed, and I was disappointed that I’d have to find another church outfit.

“You dressed her on Saturday for church?” My mom asked, incredulous.

“Well, yeah,” I replied. “I don’t have to dress her again on Sunday morning. Ingenious, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t call it ingenious. I’d call it lazy.” She said.

I was speechless.

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.

I get excited by volunteer plants, remnants of last year’s planting that survived the winter or grew up to make seeds that sowed themselves. We have at least one volunteer every year.

I read a neat article on Nurture Store last week, about gardening with wild cards. Cathy and her two daughters garden in the city in the UK, and her experiences are a bit different than ours (gardening in our backyard in Pennsylvania).

We have more similarities than differences.

In her post, Cathy says one of her favorite gardening traditions is throwing in a wild card each year – something they’ve never grown before, something that is exciting, something that is a risk.

Joe is growing loofah gourds this year. I think those qualify.

The same day I read Cathy’s words, I went outside with the girls and found two (2!) volunteer plants in places they shouldn’t have been.

I found both of them in flower pots still holding remnants of last year’s annuals, apparently planted by squirrels hoarding seeds cast aside from last year’s pumpkin adventures.

(I may have neglected a pumpkin or five in the backyard to be devoured by the local wildlife.)

I have no idea what these little plants will become, nor if they will become anything at all.

We’ll see!

After I wrote and scheduled this post, we had a hailstorm that I fear killed the smaller of my two wild cards. Time will tell, but I think the stem is broken.

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.

We had a pamper yourself day at MOPS last week. There were stations set up around the room with massage chairs and nail polish and assorted paraphernalia.

One of the areas was a craft station where we made hand scrubs.

I’m not a hand scrub kind of person.

I think I still have two salt scrubs that I bought for myself in my teen years. Or maybe I purged them in the last great bathroom decluttering.

Probably the latter.

At any rate, I was pretty excited to make a scrub and give it to my mother, whose skin has been decimated by chemo.

And then I smelled it and decided that Grace would like it.

And then I used it to wash my hands (because I was wiping off the jar I’d poured it into). I hated the gritty, dirty way it made my hands feel. Gross.

I thought about throwing the whole thing in the trash or bringing it home and rinsing it down the drain.

But then I rinsed them off.

It was magical. My hands were soft and smooth and smelled like chocolate orange.

How about that, I thought. Dirt under my fingernails straight through to nice and soft and pretty smelling in twenty seconds!

It was then I knew I’d have to share the recipe with you.

I made my mom a jar of chocolate orange hand scrub, but I haven’t shared my jar with anybody.

Every day, I work out in the garden (without gloves because they impede me). My nails get dirty and gross, and my skin gets covered with soil.

I come in the house and wash my hands twice with liquid hand soap to get all the dirt off. I scoop a bit of my chocolate orange scrub out of the jar. I rub it into my fingernails and cuticles. I rub it into my palms and the heels of my hands and all over the backs of my hands. I rub it into the wrinkles of my knuckles and into my fingernails and cuticles again.

Then I rinse and my hands feel and look like they’ve never seen a garden.

Ever.

It’s like magic.

It is magic.

I don’t know how it works. I guess the sugar is a mild abrasive and removes the dead skin and dirt, and the oil soaks in and plumps up your freshly cleaned skin cells? That’s just a guess.

I tried to find this recipe online, and I didn’t have any luck. I did find a similar recipe labeled as a lip scrub, so I think this one would work for that, too.

If you haven’t gotten your mother anything for Mother’s Day yet, you could throw this together in five minutes. If you don’t have essential oils, skip them. The cocoa powder will still give you a nice scent.

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.

Now that her new and improved bedroom is finished, Grace wanted to have a big public reveal. We invited a few friends to come over and enjoy a little party.

When this sponsored campaign with Disney and Glidden began, I assumed that Grace would want to makeover her pink bedroom into a sparkly princess bedroom. I committed to have a princess reveal party – and then she decided that she wanted Peter Pan and Tinkerbell on her ceiling. It was too late to switch to a fairy party.

We stuck to the original plan – a princess party – and we oohed and ahhed over Peter and Tink in the actual bedroom. Nobody complained. They were too busy making messes eating cupcakes and creating crowns to care.

We know a thing or two about throwing a princess party at my house. We’re seasoned professionals.

Not really.

The first activity was to make princess crowns (so that the princesses could wear them for the rest of the party). I had cut out foam crowns from hot pink foam (to match the bedroom walls), and the girls used sticker jewels, glitter glue, and regular glitter with cow glue to decorate them.

And then they got fancy when I wasn’t paying attention.

Never underestimate the mess-making potential of five small children with a bottle of glue and a can of glitter. (Mistake #1)

I wasn’t thinking.

Obviously.

Moving on.

How about these fancy cupcakes?

Grace wanted cupcakes that were the same color as her room with glitter, and I was pleased with how they turned out.

Hot Pink All That Glitters Cupcakes

I mixed a box of cherry jello with a box of Funfetti cake mix, then I added the ingredients for the cake. I had never baked with jello before; I was just guessing.

To a can of prepared frosting, I added most of a second box of cherry jello. (Careful with how much jello you add to the frosting. If you add too much, it will be grainy in the frosting, and that will be strange. Kids won’t complain, but adults will. I know from experience.)

The pinkness was just right, although the cupcakes were a wee bit too moist. I think the jello alters the consistency enough that removing an egg or part of the oil is required. Again, just guessing.

Have I mentioned that the kids didn’t complain about the weird cupcakes? They didn’t.

Have I mentioned that the adults said the cake was a little strange? They did.

There you have it. For the next party, I’m only serving cupcakes to the children.

My cake mix made 12 cupcakes with enough batter left over to fill an 8-inch cake pan, so I made a small cake for the adults. (Mistake #2)

The pièce de résistance on these amazing hot pink glitter cupcakes is colored sugar sprinkles. We just happened to have hot pink and purple sugar, so that’s what we used.

As with all glitter, apply the sugar generously.

After eating cupcakes, the children washed their hands and played dress-up in Grace’s new fancy room and paraded out into the living room in fashion show after fashion show.

I’m thinking about turning Grace’s bedroom into a playroom and moving her bed into Allie’s room. The pixie dust glittery room would make a great playroom, don’t you think?

The flock of princesses thought that was a fine idea. I just might do the furniture moving one day next week, while Joe is at work. Won’t he be surprised?

Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, and the All That Glitters fairy dust extravaganza

Here’s what the whole room looks like in panorama, from my last post.

Peter and Tink are above your head. (Amazing to me that the pink reflects on the white ceiling in this photo. Crazy pink walls.)

Their trail of pixie dust surrounds them (see how Joe cut in and finished them? I love it.), goes across the ceiling, down onto the right wall, back up onto the ceiling,

across to the far pink wall, down,

curves under the shelf, back up the wall (around in a loop), turns the corner, expands from a thin trail to cover half the wall,

and then widens further as it covers the entire wall behind you, behind Grace’s bed and dresser.

I am certain that Grace’s friends are all begging for their own glittery bedrooms. I’m sure their mothers will thank me later.

{ahem}

I must be philosophical for a moment.

Childhood is so fleeting.

Grace, who yesterday was two and throwing a fit in the fabric store, is two weeks away from turning six, and tomorrow will be too old and too cool and too wise for Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.

Perhaps this is a logical argument for not painting fairy dust on the ceiling and all across the room.

I don’t think so.

I was eager to create the room Grace dreamed up, just as she dreamed it. When she wanted pink, we did pink. When she wanted fairy dust, we did fairy dust.

Grace believes in fairies and the magic of Peter Pan. In her imagination, they are real people, and I like to think of her, pretending to fly with them across her room and out the window, off to Neverland.

One night last week, she asked me to point out the second star to the right. I showed her a bright one (Arcturus, if you know stars), and she was awed.

I thumb my nose at her growing up too soon. She may have figured out Santa and the Easter bunny, but I win this battle.

She still believes in Peter Pan.

And I think there’s enough topcoat left in the All That Glitters can to apply some fairy dust to her dresser and cabinet. I think I’ll do that while Joe’s at work, too.

Compensation and products for review were provided by Glidden via MomTrends.  The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions of Glidden.

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.

This is an awesome homemade Mother’s Day gift that you can make in an afternoon. If you are my mother, mother-in-law, or older sister, you should stop reading now.

Or keep reading and ruin your surprise. It’s up to you.

A few weeks ago, my little sister sent me these two photos on Facebook.

I thought they were really neat, but the link with them was spammy. I scoured the internet to find instructions to make them, trying all kinds of different searches on Swagbucks, Google, and Tineye.

Finally, I found the original crafter’s information on Craftster.org (a message board for crafters).

After reading over fifty pages of explanations, warnings, and tips, I decided we could make these melted bead suncatchers.

Melted Bead Suncatchers Materials

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of our materials. Sorry.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Glitter Pony Beads - I bought these same ones at the craft store. Any plastic pony beads will work. If you use opaque pony beads, the light won’t go through your suncatchers (there is one opaque bead in one of my pieces below). Plain transparent pony beads are a little cheaper than ones with glitter, but we really liked the glitter look and spent the extra money.
• Metal pans – Any metal pans should work, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat out of a pan that I’d melted plastic beads in. The plastic does leave a ring around the edge that I couldn’t get out. We gave ourselves a budget of $15 and hit the Salvation Army Store. We got all shapes and sizes of dishes, including a really neat heart-shaped mini muffin pan. Most of the dishes were 99 cents.
• Normal cooking stuff – hot pads, timer, big metal tongs (for turning the pans)
• String – You could use fishing line, but I can never get it to tie a nice knot, so I got Classic Crochet Thread in Size 10. It is thin enough to almost disappear in the sunshine, but it’s sturdy enough not to fall apart.

How to Make Melted Bead Suncatchers

1. Fill the container with a single layer of beads.

Get as many beads as possible into the container without allowing any to jump up into a second layer.

Grace was really into this part for about five minutes, long enough to fill up the heart tray below.

The hearts below worked pretty well, except for the ones that needed an extra bead. It took a lot of heating to get the two on the right side of the middle row to look like hearts. They didn’t have enough beads.

Another thing to note is that the beads that are flat (with the hole facing you) will melt into a sort of hexagonal shape. The beads that are up on their side will melt into a square or rectangle. A combination of both makes for an interesting pattern.

2. Melt the beads.

After all my craftster.org reading, I decided to melt these in the oven. Preheat to 400, melt for 20-30 minutes, check for adequate melting, heat longer if necessary, remove and cool.

Simple, right?

I also read that the melting plastic produces copious noxious fumes, including possibly cyanide gas (no idea if that’s true or not, just retelling what I read on craftster.org). I did this on a beautiful day, opening all the windows in the house, and turning on the ceiling fans. I gathered my three house cats and tossed them outside, and for the first time in ten years, plucked my turtle from his tank and moved him to a semi-enclosed part of the yard under Grace’s watchful eye.

Then we waited. I came back into the house to check on the beads after 20 minutes, and they weren’t done.

The fumes, however, were nauseating.

After 30 minutes, they still weren’t completely done, but I didn’t know enough to realize it. The arrows in the photo below show all the holes in my first suncatcher (partly due to not enough beads, but also due to not getting melted enough).

This one was in the oven at the same time. It melted perfectly, and is still one of my favorites even though I’ve now made almost twenty of these things.

This one is my most favorite. I just love the colors and the pattern they made. This one took almost a whole bag of beads; it’s really big.

During this outside siesta, the cats ran around, thrilled to have grass under their feet. The turtle was less thrilled.

Obviously.

It took a good three hours from start to finish before our home was re-inhabitable, and I was hesitant to go through all that again. The turtle alone was a lot of work.

Joe suggested that I try melting the beads in our grill outside. It seemed like a good enough idea – temperature controlled, well-ventilated, and required no evacuations.

For the next set of beads, I sorted out colors (making an all-red one, all-pink, all-purple, and all-turquoise, as well as some different color patterns), preheated the grill to 400-ish, and got started.

The grill worked so much better. I highly recommend using a grill if you have one. There were hot spots in the grill that required a little bit of moving and turning, but it was so much easier to deal with the fumes on a small scale (just within the hood of the grill) than throughout my whole house.

A note on that plastic pan – This plastic pan from the Salvation Army said it was oven safe up to 400 degrees. I may have overheated it. Or maybe the melting beads simply fused to it? I don’t know. The melted beads wouldn’t come out. I ended up breaking the whole dish in half trying to get the pretty melted bead disks out of the pan. Stick with metal pans.

I also found I was better able to control the melting of the beads in the grill, probably because I wasn’t trying to hold my breath to avoid breathing in poisonous fumes.

In the grill, the beads took a little less than 20 minutes to melt, and they took less than 5 minutes to cool outside. It was a sunny but very breezy day. I’ve since melted beads twice more using the grill, and the timing was about the same. My results have been consistently good with the grill.

3. Drill little holes in the plastic.

I knew I wanted to have a large piece, then a medium piece, then a small piece, then 3 hearts on the suncatchers for my mom and mother-in-law, and smaller ones for my sister and Old Grandma. I used a Sharpie to make a dot where each hole should go, and then Joe did the drilling for me using a very small drill bit.

I do not recommend Joe’s drilling method.

In fact, I only took this picture to show the Emergency Room doctor how Joe drilled a hole in his leg. Fortunately, I didn’t need it, but that does not mean this is a safe way to drill the holes.. Put the suncatcher on a workbench or something.

Also, don’t drill on the kitchen table, counter top, deck, or any other surface you want to remain nice. You have to put something underneath it for the drill to sink into.

4. String the pieces together.

I used the crochet thread (which was exactly the right size to string through the holes Joe made) to connect the pieces together. I played around with spacing, deciding on shorter strings between the bigger pieces and longer strings for the hearts at the bottom.

I just strung the string through all the pieces and tied a plain old knot in the two ends of the string, pulling it tightly and trimming the ends.

I want to show you all of my creations, so I created a slideshow below. It contains some tips and tricks as well as photos of almost all the suncatchers I’ve made so far.

Melted Bead Suncatcher

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Picture 1 of 12

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.

The best vacation of my entire life was our honeymoon. Joe and I splurged on a 10-day cruise to Florida and Mexico. It was incredible luxury vacation, from nightly 4-course meals to extravagant excursions at every port.

To me, a cruise is the ultimate vacation. Nothing will ever change that. I’ve been bitten by the cruising bug, and I’ve been looking forward to our second cruise since we got home from our first.

Now that we’re parents, our priorities have changed. We still want to go on a cruise, but we prefer kid-friendly menus over escargot and lobster tails. We prefer kiddie pools over adults-only pools. We prefer rowdy games and craft activities over the serenity and peace of the spa.

(I never thought I’d say that. I really like serenity and peace.)

The awesome thing about a cruise is that you don’t really have to choose. If your kids are old enough (and adventurous enough) to participate in the on-board kids’ programs, you can still experience some of the grown-up activities while they’re off making new friends.

The thought makes me giddy.

Norwegian Cruise Line has a program called Splash Academy where kids ages 3-12 can play, learn, and make new friends while mom and dad enjoy a little private time. (The program includes babies from 6 months to 2 also, but a parent is required to attend.)

I think Grace would be excited to participate in Splash Academy because they offer a circus program – juggling, tumbling, and performing tricks – as well as craft workshops, movies, and Wii.

At 5, Grace is old enough to flex her independence a wee bit and enjoy some time with Norwegian’s trained counselors, but if she preferred to stay with us, that would be okay too.

When we’re looking for family activities, we look for things that we can all do together, like the Kids Pool, family sports challenges, and the Nickelodeon on Norwegian activities.

Because Dora and Diego are Allie’s best friends after her sister. Dora’s Dance Party? Yes, please.

In any vacation, we look for family activities and family meal options. Our kids are little. They don’t sit still; they aren’t always quiet. They’re picky and messy.

And sometimes, they sleep through meal times.

Norwegian Cruise Line’s Freestyle Dining Program is perfect for families like mine. Basically, you can eat any time you want, in almost any restaurant on board. If you miss a mealtime because someone is napping, no problem! You can go somewhere else instead. (Having a prescribed dinner time was my least favorite thing about our first cruise.)

I love that Norwegian caters to families, with plenty of options for activities together and apart. I love that the price is all-inclusive. There are no extra fees for the kids’ workshops or for entertainment or for normal meals. (There are a few things that cost extra, like babysitting and some restaurants.)

We’ve been saving our pennies for another cruise. I’m pretty sure we’ll be cruising with Norwegian. I hope it’s soon!

Please visit Norwegian’s site to learn more about their family vacation experience

Enter to win a cruise for a family of four!

No kidding.

BlogHer and Norwegian Cruise Line is offering a voucher for a cruise for a family of four to one lucky reader. (One winner will be chosen from comments on all the participating blogs, not one winner from Feels Like Home.)

To be entered for a chance to win, tell me about your family’s dream vacation in the comments.
Rules: 

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

Entries from all participating blogs will be pooled for winner selection; only two entries per household.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 5/7/2013-6/2/2013.

Be sure to visit Norwegian Cruise Line’s brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!

© 2013, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.