When I was little, I used to think that my generation of Atari and Nintendo players would grow up to be the best drivers ever.

But now we're driving around with people addicted to technology when they should be paying attention to traffic. Talk about annoying.

Anyone who has seen my extremely boring, extremely momified sedan might say I have sour grapes, but I think that Internet-enabled cars are accidents waiting to happen.

I get pretty nervous...

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There are going to be free showings of the documentary "Race to Nowhere" at Edmonds-Woodway High School Theater this weekend. "Race to Nowhere" is a movie that promises to challenge conventional assumptions about the best ways to prepare kids for success.

Here is how to get your free tickets:

Friday, May 17 at 7 p.m:

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My daughter has been making critical commentary on my wardrobe ever since she learned how to talk. She's like the pint-sized fashion police.

Yes, I understand that jeans, fleece and clogs aren't all that stylish, but they're really good for grocery shopping.

At least that's what I used to think.

This past week I finally gave in. I wore a dress every single day just like my 3-year-old wanted me to. I also let her choose my accessories. It was our...

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Mother's Day is coming up! If you're a mom to young children, that doesn't mean you get the day off. But at least you get to shop for the grandmas.

My daughter and I had fun going to Fabric of Life, the great boutique right here in our hometown of Edmonds. It's on Main Street, a couple of doors down from

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I often get free books to review for my blog. Some of them are awful and some of them are good.

"A Dream So Big, Our Unlikely Journey to End the Tears of Hunger" by Steve Peifer and Gregg Lewis was so awfully good that the week after I read it for the first time, I was still waking up in the middle of night, haunted.

Steve and Nancy Peifer founded Kenya Kids Can, a charity in Africa that feeds 20,000 schoolchildren lunch each day and builds solar-powered...

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Here’s a fun math game for preschoolers called "Make Me Dinner." This game is deceptively simple. It works on loads of math skills through pretend play.

All you need are two divided plates and game pieces. My daughter and I use square inch tiles, but beans, peas or cereal would work too.

First mom or dad makes dinner on one plate, and then the kid makes an exact copy. Easy, right? Nobody even...

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"Hey, Mom," my daughter says right as I'm ladling soup into bowls. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Making dinner," I say, and I holler for her brother to join us. Tonight I'm heating up Campbell's chicken soup for my kids. My daughter's is shaped like Disney princesses. My son's can has Phineas and Ferb on the label.

Yes, I'm a victim of advertising. But I'm also a mom who's hoping to serve her kids one meal they won't complain about. Wasted food is wasted money.


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Baking chocolate chip cookies is a real hassle at my house because I can't eat gluten but the rest of my family can. Finding a cookie that all of us love has been a two-year adventure.

But we have a winner!

Everyone in my family loves Elizabeth Hasselbeck's chocolate chip cookies from her book "Deliciously G-Free" (You can also find the recipe online

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I'm not stupid. I try to do my grocery shopping without kids whenever possible. Sometimes it just isn't. I don't want to sound like a complainer, but those so-called "kids carts"? They drive me crazy! Every single store has a different cart option. My 3-year-old has memorized them all.

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Spring is here, the Snack Shack is open and my butt is frozen on the bleachers. Little League is in full swing.

It seems fitting to devote a column to all the dads and moms who make that happen.

When I signed up my 7-year-old to play baseball, I had no idea what we were getting into.

Then we got the schedule.

Two practices and two games a week? It's like I signed up my second-grader for a part-time job. There's barely enough time to wash...

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It only took the first paragraph of reading "PICKLE: The (Formerly) Anonymous Prank Club of Fountain Point Middle School" by Seattle author Kim Baker, before I was thinking: "Sweet cheeses! This is the funniest book I’ve read in a long time!"

"Pickle" tells the story of a group of middle graders and their prank club that masquerades as a pickle...

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Get dinner on the table.

If that's your job at home, then you understand the enormity of the task. It's relentless; it's messy; and it starts at the grocery store.

Last month, my family conducted an experiment, "MyPlate on My Budget," and I blogged about it for HeraldNet. Rose McAvoy from "Our Lady of Second Helpings" helped me with yummy recipes.

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Last March I fed my family on $144.80 a week as part of the MyPlate on My Budget experiment. Could I follow the USDA thrifty food plan and feed my family the Choose MyPlate advised daily nutrients? The answer was yes, but it took a big toll on everyone.

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Easter without the gore. That was my plan the first time I explained the basic tenets of Christianity to my son. He was 3 years old at the time, so I left out the passion in favor of the purpose.

I ended with "People all over the world believe different things, but a lot of people use this time of year to remember that even though people die, love lives on and on forever."

My son considered all this very seriously for a moment, and then looked up at me.

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Can I follow the USDA thrifty food plan and feed my family the Choose MyPlate advised daily nutrients? That's the question I'm asking this March with MyPlate on My Budget.

It's Week 4 now and I'm counting the days until this experiment is...

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Picture it, the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, an hour before tea. My daughter and I are sitting on the front lawn admiring the pretty flowers. Then she coughs and throws up all over me.

Thankfully, my new coat took most of the action.

I knew what we looked like, the awful Americans with the coughing 3-year-old. But my daughter only appeared to be a walking germ-factory. Really, she just had asthma. Two minutes later she was feeling all better and begging...

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I have seriously had chickens on the brain recently. That's why this post is something to cluck about.

Brian from The Real Housewife of Snohomish County invited my family to meet his chickens Chynna, Wendy, and Carnie in his Edmonds back yard. (OK, actually what happened was that me, in my chicken-crazed-frenzy, invited my entire family over to his house, and Brian...

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I feel guilty as soon as my husband sees the computer screen. He doesn't even have to say anything. The look on his face says it all: "What the cluck!"

I was supposed to be in bed a long time ago, but instead I'm online, looking at chicks.

Amish, Quaker, lean-to: they're all up there on the screen, plain as day. I've spent the last two hours lusting over chicken coops.

I've got chickens on the brain. It happens to me every year right about now.

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Can I follow the USDA thrifty food plan and feed my family the Choose MyPlate advised daily nutrients? That's the question Rose McAvoy and I are asking this March with MyPlate on My Budget.

It's the end of week 2 and my...

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Can I follow the USDA thrifty food plan and feed my family the Choose MyPlate advised daily nutrients? That's the question I'm asking this March with MyPlate on My Budget.

Rose McAvoy from Our Lady of Second Helpings is...

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"I'm from Seattle." Have you ever found yourself saying that to somebody while you're on vacation, even though it's not true?

You know that if you said, "I'm from Edmonds," or Mountlake Terrace, or Marysville, or Clearview, somebody from New York would probably stare at you blankly.

And the part that really bites? Thanks to the "Twilight" series, if you were to say, "I'm from Forks, Washington," that New Yorker would totally know where you are talking about.

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Can I follow the USDA thrifty food plan and feed my family the MyPlate advised daily nutrients? That's the question I'm asking this March with MyPlate on My Budget.

Rose McAvoy from Our Lady of Second Helpings is providing support, guidance and yummy recipes.

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Dress me in petticoats because I'm a huge "Little House on the Prairie" fan. That's why I'm so excited that "Laura Ingalls Wilder: Growing up on the Prairie" is going to be performed Monday at the Everett Civic Auditorium.

Every time I read any of the "Little House" books, I always come away with the feeling that the Ingallses were the ideal family. All they needed was each other. Add a cow and 160 acres, and they were entirely self-sufficient.

I must have read...

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Prepping for the MyPlate on My Budget Experiment means figuring out what the USDA wants me to eat

Can I follow the USDA thrifty food plan and feed my family the MyPlate advised daily nutrients? That's the question I'm asking this March with MyPlate on My Budget.

Rose McAvoy from

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Admittedly, I'm obsessed.

It all started a few weeks ago when I was at Trader Joe's. I was just there to pick up "a few things". When I got to the register, the total came to $67!

As I was driving home I kept thinking about how lucky I was to be able to afford a spontaneous grocery store trip like that. I also started wondering what items I would have put back, if I had been on a tighter...

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Do you want to know six words that will make a rainy afternoon more exciting? Try hearing your daughter say, "There's an apple up my nose."

Fire the nanny! Oh, wait, that's me …

The first thing I did was call the doctor. I didn't freak out until the receptionist asked me to be put on hold.

"No! I won't be on hold!" I shouted.

The poor lady's ear must have been bleeding, but I wanted immediate instructions. My daughter wasn't turning...

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Admit it. Those paintings your child brought home from preschool? Two of them are up on the fridge. The other 10 have mysteriously disappeared.

It's not that you don't care about your kid's artistic endeavors. But unless you start plastering drawings up like wallpaper, there just isn't enough room to display everything.

That's why I was excited to hear from Adrienne Herom, a Snohomish mom of two who has...

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Learning to ski turns back the clock

Every Saturday my husband gets a third child: ME. That's because I've been learning to ski this winter, and I'm a real mess on the slopes.

My dependency starts the night before when my husband lays out my clothes for the next day.

"It's going to be 25 degrees," he says. "I'm putting hand-warmers in your coat pocket."

Then he packs my lunch. I'm kind of a picky eater so he has to be creative. He...

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On Feb. 11, The Herald published a letter to the editor from Carla White of Lake Forest Park that moved me deeply. It was titled "Values seem lost on business side."

Ms. White wrote about how her personal finances were directly impacted by reoccurring cancer, inadequate health insurance and a volatile job economy for the past five years. Then, despite being a...

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In honor of Valentine's Day coming up Thursday, I thought I would offer some empathy to all of you moms and dads who didn't book a baby-sitter.

It might be fun to thumb your nose at Hallmark, but dinner at Mardini's in Snohomish would have been fun too. Maybe next year …

Lots of us are in the same boat. Our big plans involve folding laundry, packing school lunches and falling asleep watching reruns on TV.

If you're lucky, there might be a...

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