Two years ago, my daughter Hadley and our family were delighted to walk the parade route of the Arvada Harvest Festival with Arvada West High School’s cheerleaders. She was one of many kindergarteners from six elementary schools that feed into the high school who took part in this local tradition.
We looked forward to doing [...]

**CONTEST CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO WINNER BOBBIE ULIBARRI**
There are plenty of fabulous kid-friendly performances that come through Denver each year but for my family, we have one must-attend event: the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Circus!
Their latest production, Fully Charged, is an all-new surge of circus entertainment coming to the Denver Coliseum September 29 – [...]

Dear Mama Drama:
My kids are back in school, but are still on summer time bedtime and wake up schedules. This is causing a lot of stress and crankiness around our house. They can’t get to sleep earlier in the evening and are groggy and slow in the mornings.
We need help!
~Stuck in Summer Mama
(photo credit)
Dear [...]

I hate to say it, but summer is saying goodbye and snowy season is just around the corner. So what can you do to keep you kids busy when the temperature starts to fall? Check out these awesome FREE DAYS at places like the Denver Art Museum and the Children’s Museum!
September
2 – First Friday Art [...]

Are you a mom who has a job outside the home? What do you do when you are a professional with outside responsibilities as well as a mother? If you are considering asking your parents or in-laws to help with the childcare, make sure you think it through and discuss it before taking the leap.
I [...]

**CONTEST CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO WINNER EMILY MOOTZ!**
Surprise! Tomorrow is September! Where did the summer go? Here comes a new season and a whole lot of new fun to be had! There’s a new Fall Festival destination in town, a new place to create new traditions with all the fun of pumpkins and corn mazes and [...]

It doesn’t matter if your kindergartner goes to school half-days or full days. It doesn’t matter if they went to preschool for 2 years or it’s their first school experience. The transition can be difficult, baffling, but fun. Our sixth child, Beatrix, just started kindergarten two weeks ago. Thankfully, I know some of the issues [...]

One day before a 7.0 earthquake laid waste to Haiti last year, a shipment of humanitarian aid, including 450 stuffed animals, cleared customs in Port-au-Prince.
Pure coincidence, but the timing couldn’t have been better, says Wendy Clark, the Littleton woman who founded Loving Hugs Inc., the Colorado nonprofit organization that sent the toys.
During the earthquake’s aftermath, [...]

Life sometimes gets in the way, as I’m sure most of you are aware of. But when it comes to a child’s education, removing roadblocks is a necessity.
When my 6-year-old brother Simon was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on June 16, 2011, our family had to adjust to a new “normal.” With countless doses of [...]

A new school year has begun, which inevitably means homework. Well, in my case, the teacher smartly did not assign any homework to my newly minted fourth-grader in the first week of school. It was enough for her to get used to a new classroom, a new teacher, and attempt to cope with the fact [...]