Author: Anahi Gutierrez

Hello, ever wonder what to do with the kiddos for fun wether it’s just to spend time together as a family, play date with friends or a birthday party!! Well I found an awesome place in town and I am so glad I did The Painting 🎨 Camp, about a month ago my daughter was invited to a friends birthday 🎂 🎁 party at the Painting Camp. She fell in love with this place it’s full of fun figures, princess characters, unicorns my daughter favorite right now and mugs, jewelry and boxes etc……, the list can go on forever! The place is super welcoming and the staff very helpful. Jin Duan the owner of the The Painting Camp opened in 2018 and has been open for seven months she is a Business Major, and took the leap in opening her own business. She loves painting and her inspiration was “Color me Mine” the pottery shop, that she absolutely loves. Jin felt she wanted a similar business that was at a more accessible price point for families to be able to afford, to bring there children to a place they could be inpired and creative that wouldn’t break there budget. It’s a great place to spend an afternoon painting not only for families with children but great for a girls night out with friends. Jin is also a mother to beautiful baby girl who is eight months old she is looking forward to seeing her daughter grow as well as her business. Jin looks forward to the day her daughter can come and start painting and making her own memories at her mothers business. The Painting 🎨 Camp is located in Bolingbrook, Illinois minutes from the Promenade Mall.

Book your next Birthday Party!! 🎨🎈 🎂

Walk Ins Welcome!!Open Monday-Sunday (hours vary, check on Google)

The Painting 🎨 Camp

514 E Boughton Road

Bolingbrook IL 60440

Email: info@thepaintingcamp.com

Phone: 1-630-410-8579

If your home is anything like mine I am sure you will be able to relate, the on going war between you and your children about time one the screen. The problem now isn’t what we lived as children growing up in the early 90s seems like light years away when it comes to technology. In my home there were six people my parents and the four of us kids there where two TVs , One land line with two phones and a Radio to play CDs/Cassette this was our technology. When my husband and I talk to our children about this they look at us like if we were dinosaurs and it was millions of years back. My son said to me Omg mommy no internet what did you do all day, my daughter has said she is thankful she wasn’t born in the other century which makes me feels super old. My husband and I try to talk about the way we grew up as often as we can, we explain to them how we spent most of our childhood outdoors playing hide and seek, ding dong ditch lol, jumping rope, riding bikes or just enjoying a snack with our friends in our back yard.

When it comes to scheduling screen time it sounds ideal to have set days they can use it, but now we run into this problem both of our TVs in our home are Smart so this means they can still watch the dumb videos on YouTube sorry if I offended anyone but some of these videos have no point to them and are not even close to being educational. So when we say no tablet, computer, no using our phones (our kids don’t have cells yet hope to keep this way for a while) we also have to add no YouTube on the Tv, luckily I have the YouTube linked to my cell so I can see when there watching and the history and, what they have watched in the past. Oh! and now I have to add no Nintendo Switch since they got this for Christmas but honestly I would rather them play a game on the switch for 30 minutes then spend 30 minutes watching a video that has no meaning or educational background. At least with he switch they get up and move my daughter has the Just Dance, and it motivates you to exercise a bit.

So the question is how do you control all these devices the only way we have found works for our family is letting them know they may only use tablets, cells, and computers only every other day and Sunday is no screen day except tv since this is the day we may get together to play on the switch or watch a good movie as a family. The every other day thing actually does work and they can’t use anything until after dinner and homework is done. If they mis behaving or something goes on in school that we feel is a problem we will take away the screen time anywhere from 2-5 days, we let them know screen time is a privilege if you mis behaving at home or school there will be a consequence.This has worked for our family I have consider making a chart so the kiddos can have a visual and so my little 2 year old can understand even though he doesn’t really care for screen time right now he would rather destroy my house or write on walls. I do have to add that I wish more apps added screen time limits like YouTube kids I do like that I get to chose how long my child can watch and the screen will just turn off on its own. So if any of you who read this make apps for children especially ages 2-12 years please add a timer for parents to adjust. Would love to here what works for your family!

Go check out my Pinterest board on Screen time!

https://pin.it/cudofyrwf6abkv

Welcome! To part 2of my potty training tips, First I will share with you that my baby boy is officially in big boy undies. It took me a good solid month to make it happen I know he would have learned quicker I just wanted to take my time and not rush into it since this can back fire I have seen it happen before with my students when I was a two year old teacher kids would get potty trained super fast and then for some reason all of sudden they didn’t want undies anymore. I started by shopping for pull ups which I don’t love but help when you’d can’t just take off work to potty train your child he was so happy when he say the Cars and Mickey Mouse pull-ups, then we took out our big boy potty we put one in our basement since we have no bathroom we put the other in our bathroom upstairs and in our half bath we put a toddler seat for the toilets which are awesome the take up no room. After all this a couple days went by and then I bought him Elmo big BOY undies .Well every child is different in my case I took my time because I wasn’t in any kind of rush he was only 2 years and 4 months when I started to potty train him, my goal was always to potty train him before Spring and I did it !! I just didn’t want to go another summer caring diapers & baby wipes all the time. He had been showing interest since around Christmas time 2018 and I just would sit him when he asked or showed interest I just didn’t want to do it during the Holidays, today is March 24, 2019 and he has been in BIG boy undies for two whole weeks!! So I did it right before Spring I am so proud of my mommy skills right now lol. I have to thank his awesome two year old teachers who made this work too, they are awesome for all they do.

My biggest tip to you as a Teacher and Mom is to whatever or whenever you decided to potty train your child stick to it!! Children know very well when they aren’t following a set routine and for potty training they need to have an idea. My son knew that once he woke up in the morning he had to go sit on the potty first. Then he got into the routine potty when he woke up and before we walked out the door in the morning. Once we arrived to School he would wash hands and his teachers would have him try again. During his day at School they would have him go sit on the potty even if he didn’t go, this to will prevent many accidents if you get into the habit of sending your child to to potty every 15 minutes or so as long it was consistent. At home we would sing the ABC song while he sat or whatever song he wanted to sing sometime it was twinkle twinkle little star. This time around as a mom was pretty easy I didn’t have to do much with him. With my first my daughter we had a goody bucket with things from the dollar store like bubbles, stickers, crayons, and playdough and with my middle son I did a potty chart with stickers and would give him an M&Ms sometimes. Ofcourse every child is different so I would do something that would interests your child, there also plenty of potty training books you can read to them. Below I will leave my Pinterest link to my Potty Training board. I hope you enjoyed my potty training !!!!

Pinterest https://pin.it/rb3xqpnlzktz7m

Email               anahigutimom@gmail.com

Pinterest  https://pin.it/opyrzeriuwmbgw

Well here we go again my 👶🏻 is two and half another tiny human to potty train. Oh the joys of being a momma of 3!!! I have done this way to many times, even though I am ready to say goodbye to diapers as a mommy, it’s crazy it makes me 😞 this it my BABY. My journey and the chaos and craziness of potty training as a mommy and a teacher. Potty training can be a breeze depending on the child and the patience you have as a parent it also depends how ready he/she is. Are they really ready or is it you that’s wants to do it and get over with I will tell you right as a teacher if they are Not ready it will take longer and it will be super frustrating. These are a couple of tips that may work for you. Go shopping with them for the first set of big boy/girl undies or pull ups make it fun. You can find plenty of potty training books 📖 and videos online you can find to make them interested. Go shopping for a big kid 🚽 together. Here are some tips on a couple of things that have worked for me. Well here we go again my 👶🏻 is two and half another tiny human to potty train. Oh the joys of being a momma of 3!!! I have done this way to many times, even though I am ready to say goodbye to diapers as a mommy, it’s crazy it makes me 😞 this it my BABY. My journey and the chaos and craziness of potty training as a mommy and a teacher. Potty training can be a breeze depending on the child and the patience you have as a parent it also depends how ready he/she is. Are they really ready or is it you that’s wants to do it and get over with I will tell you right as a teacher if they are Not ready it will take longer and it will be super frustrating. These are a couple of tips that may work for you. Go shopping with them for the first set of big boy/girl undies or pull ups make it fun. You can find plenty of potty training books 📖 and videos online you can find to make them interested. Go shopping for a big kid 🚽 together. Here are some tips on a couple of things that have worked for me. I would love to hear from you!!!

pin.it/dnmnmds7ujon3z

I want to say hello to all my beautiful women that work so hard every day especially all those moms and working moms because it’s not easy to do it every day we multitask all day and barely take care of ourselves ever I want to dedicate to you all you beautiful women out there. In the year 2009 I became a mom of a beautiful little girl I realized how pure love could really be I had such a hard time leaving her to go to work so since then for almost 10 years I’ve only work part time since I love working with children I’ve been in the early childcare field for 10+ years and currently still work at a school I’m starting to wear out as a teacher so I just wanted to share my experience as a teacher and at the Mom especially so my children will one day have time to look back and read all these blogs that I definitely dedicate to them from the bottom of my heart being a part time working mom or a sham it’s never easy you are always being.I just want to tell you that we are always being judged whether you are a full-time working mom for a part-time working mom for a stay at home mom you are always being judged at least that is how I feel whether you work too much or you don’t work enough whether you dedicate too much time to your children or you don’t multitasking all day because that is all we do is mommies and we never take time to look out after ourselves.We are always on the go constantly my day starts off around 630 if not earlier in the morning and it doesn’t end till about 10 PM at night starting off with crazy children jumping on your bed wanting breakfast wanting milk spilling milk spilled cereal all over the floor preparing them for school preparing myself for work taking them to school driving myself to work it sounds like the lives of many of us we never slow down we really do need to take the time to enjoy time to ourselves because our little humans really need us to be all there. I would love to hear feedback on what you mommies out there all to you to keep saying what you do to take time out for yourselves I have recently started walking more going windowshopping more and even sitting down and just reading and totally just ignoring the chaos around me these little tiny humans that we raise take out all her energy but then when do us as women take time for ourselves I hope you enjoy this blog I will have many more fun things for you thank you and take care hello mommy is everywhere!

https://pin.it/opyrzeriuwmbgw

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton