Lilac City Momma

Mommy Blog

Taking The Stress Out Of Kids’ Parties

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When you have children, one of your responsibilities will be to have all their friends over to wreck your house, scream for three hours and leave half-eaten food everywhere. It is called having a party and is an inescapable duty for all parents. To preserve your sanity and keep your blood pressure under control, it’s worth looking at ways to reduce the stress involved and give your child a party they will love without adding to your grey hairs.

Guests

When they are in kindergarten or just starting school, children usually want to invite their whole class over, and that can be a lot of little people running around your house. As they get older, they will probably be happy to have fewer guests and stick to their close friends, so it does get easier! If you are faced with a long list of potential guests, you might want to consider hiring a suitable venue for the party instead of having it at home. If the party is in the warmer months of the year, putting up a gazebo or large tent outside and letting the kids play in the backyard is a good way of keeping the worst of the chaos out of the house.

Food

Parents often feel obliged to make mountains of sandwiches and finger food for the party guests and spend hours preparing a lavish feast. The trouble is, kids are usually too excited about playing, presents and cake to eat much, so your efforts will go to waste. Keep the catering simple and don’t go overboard, you don’t need to, and none of the kids will notice. A pizza party is nice and simple, just cook up a batch of different pizzas, slice them up and let the kids help themselves. If you need more, it won’t take long to cook a few extra, and if they don’t eat it all at once, they can come back later for a cold snack. Pocket Change Gourmet has a quick and simple recipe for a delicious vegetable dip, which with a selection of vegetable sticks, pretzels or cheese straws, will add a touch of variety and impress the other parents. For dessert, you could follow the theme and have fruit pizzas.

Activities

If you can afford a children’s entertainer, it’s a great way to keep the kids happy and occupied and stop them bugging you. If that’s not an option, try and get them outside for as long as possible, where they can run around and let off steam without causing too much trouble. Outdoor games, balls, a paddling pool, anything that they can all have a go at and doesn’t exclude anyone is ideal.

If you are having a bunch of kids round to your house, it is never going to be calm and ordered, and there is bound to be some wailing, some crying and the odd upset. Aim to keep all your preparations as simple as possible and allow friends and other parents to lend a hand. Having those extra hands and help means less stress for you! Most importantly, don’t put yourself under pressure to throw the best party ever, because kids mostly just want to play and won’t appreciate the effort you put into making lily flowers out of kiwi fruits!

Summer Sun With The Kids – How To Organize Cheap A Vacation

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Every family should have at least one vacation per year. It’s a great opportunity to spend quality time together, away from the pressures of work and school. The kids can play on the beach or in the pool and the adults can chill out. Because everyone is so much more relaxed on vacation, there will be fewer arguments and less stress.

The biggest problem, however, is how to find an affordable vacation. The more kids you have, the more costly a blue sky holiday will be. Fortunately, it is possible to find cheap vacations to family-friendly destinations, and here’s how.

Travel During Off-Peak Periods

Traveling during school holidays is always more expensive. Travel operators bump up the costs during peak travel times, so the average family vacation can double or triple in price in July and August. Many families are restricted to booking vacations during the school break, but if you have any flexibility or your child’s school is willing to let you book a trip during term time, make the most of the cheaper prices.

Book in Advance

There are plenty of bargains to be had if you are willing to lock in a family vacation several months in advance. Popular operators offer great family discounts on early bird deals. If you are lucky, you may be able to book a package holiday to a popular destination where the kids travel free. For families with special requirements, or a burning desire to stay in a specific hotel, this really is the best option, as leaving it until the last minute means places will be limited.

Look for Online Last-Minute Bargains

Whilst making an advanced booking often secures some great discounts, there is also a lot to be said for waiting until the eleventh hour to book a family getaway. Most operators drastically cut their prices because they would rather sell a cheap vacation than have hotel rooms left empty. Travel operators sell off holidays much cheaper close to the departure date. If you are flexible, you should find all kinds of bargain deals to a range of different destinations, including 5* resort hotels.

Take Advantage of Online Deals

There are some amazing deals, coupons, voucher codes and special offers if you have the time to look online. Sign up for vacation websites such as Secret Hotels and wait for amazing deals to land in your inbox. These operators do the hard work and all you have to do is book your dream vacation for you and the kids.

Use Free Points to Go on Vacation

Do you use a credit card for your everyday spending? Many major credit cards have great value loyalty schemes that let you earn points for spending money on groceries, gas, and even your utility bills. You can earn Avios points and spend them on flights and hotels or save up points and redeem them for vouchers to spend on a vacation. What’s not to like about that?

Got any more great tips? Let us know!

What Can You Do With A Criminal Justice Degree?

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Criminal justice is held up as a Swiss Army Knife of college degrees, opening up a wide variety of careers. However, many are ignorant of those job opportunities. What can you do with a criminal justice degree? Let’s review the career options you have, both with only an entry level degree in criminal justice and advanced coursework.

Pre-Law with More Flexibility

Pre-law degrees are almost a joke if you’re unable to get into law school. Conversely, with a degree in criminal justice, you’re equally prepared for law school but you’re able to find work in the court system as an administrative assistant or counselor.

Security guards with a criminal justice degree are more respected and better protected legally than a bouncer without such education. You could work as a bailiff in the courts or court clerk. You could also become a mediator, essentially working as a lawyer without spending as many years in school. If you earn a master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati Online, you’ll be given priority placement in any court-related job short of prosecutor or judge. In a few states where judges don’t have to graduate from law school, you can run for judgeships based on your criminal justice credentials. Or you could simply take the exam to become a paralegal and earn as much as many lawyers without the law school debt.

Law Enforcement

Many states require at least one year’s worth of college courses before you can become a police officer. You’ll typically be paid more if you have a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from a school like the University of Cincinnati. Then you can do more than simply be a probation officer or correctional officer. Another option is civil service, whether you’re working for the FBI, DEA, Secret Service or TSA. Or become a state trooper working the highways. If you are leaning toward protecting the planet, work as a fish and game warden. If you want to protect the homeland but don’t want to go overseas in the military, become a customs enforcement agent.

Investigation

Private investigators can find work in a variety of industries. Work for a family law firm to find out whether or not a spouse is really unemployed or whether or not they are supervising the children properly after school.

Or work for insurance companies investigating potential cases of fraud. These cases range from suspected faked car accidents to people pretending to be disabled. Serious cases include suspected arson and drug abuse. Conversely, you could work for the postal service as an investigator/inspector. These individuals are involved in investigations of mail theft, vandalism, mail fraud and identity theft.

Another option is working in conjunction with social services. You have the necessary skills to verify that children live in attendance zones for a school district or you may work as an interviewer and investigator for suspected cases of neglect and abuse along with social workers.

A criminal justice degree opens up a number of court related jobs and positions in law enforcement. Look at all the possible avenues that criminal justice can lead you through and pick one that fits your preferences and aptitudes.

Can You Use Ulthera to Refresh Your Look?

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Nobody really wants to look their age, particularly not once we start to get older. We have makeup, lotions, and potions, but they are only effective to a degree. Going under the knife is always an option, but one most of us want to avoid. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to reverse time completely, but there are some options that can help a little bit, one of which is Ulthera.

Ulthera Is Nature’s Finest

What’s so amazing about Ulthera is that it is completely noninvasive. Rather, it focuses on the body’s own desire to be healthy and young. If you have a facelift, then you force the skin to enter something unnatural. But with Ulthera, you simply stimulate natural collagen and elastin production.

Collagen is a very important protein that keeps the skin tight. As you age, it becomes loose and the skin starts to sag. Once that happens, you know you are on the road to more wrinkles and sagginess. What Ulthera does is stimulate your cells to produce more collage. This takes a little bit of time, which is why the full results of Ulthera take about three months to appear. But once you see the results, they will last for around two years.

Ulthera truly delivers results, and that is what people want when they have cosmetic procedures completed. Ultimately, you want your skin to continue to produce enough collagen and this takes time. But that doesn’t mean you don’t see any results at all before those three months are over. Your skin will start to tighten a little bit immediately, and some people feel there is a noticeable difference almost instantly. Of course, these results are not hugely dramatic, and you won’t leave the clinic looking like a whole new person. However, you should look a little better and therefore feel a little better about yourself as well.

While you might love to have full results in an instant, it is better for things to be gradual. First of all, if you look 10 years younger in the space of a minute, you may find yourself somewhat shocked about your own appearance. Secondly, it will be so obvious that you will have to tell absolutely everybody that you’ve had “something done”. When the results take a little while to appear, you will simply become more youthful, fresh, and beautiful in a gradual way, and nobody will be able to put their finger on how you did it.

The Ulthera results are very subtle, particularly when compared with a full facelift. But they aren’t invisible either, and even the immediate results are such that most people are very satisfied. The most important thing, however, is that it is a completely safe alternative to the facelift, and it means you don’t have to go under the knife. Lastly, unlike with Botox, you don’t have to go back for repeat procedures all the time. The effects usually last at least for a year and a half, as opposed to the few months Botox lasts.

 

Important Considerations to Make about Breast Reconstruction

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The WHCRA (Women’s Health and Cancer Reconstruction Act) was signed into law in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton. The goal of the bill was to make sure that if a women had to have a mastectomy due to breast cancer, she would be able to access breast reconstruction through her insurance as well. Indeed, before the WHCRA, many insurance companies did not cover these procedures, classing them as “elective cosmetic”. Yet, despite this law now being in force for almost 20 years, the National Cancer Institute has reported that, as of 2012, still only 20% of mastectomy patients have reconstructive surgery.

Why Some Women Do Not Have Breast Reconstruction

There are numerous and very complex reasons why women do not access breast reconstruction services. One of the first reasons is that women are too busy battling cancer. Survival, at that moment, is far more important than reconstruction. As a result, it is seen as something “secondary”, rather than a full part of the overall treatment plan. Hence, although the law states it should be part of the process, the reality is that, practically, it continues to be almost elective.

Thankfully, more and more physicians now understand that part of the recovery should be for the woman to feel whole again. And, for many, this means having breast reconstruction surgery. The fact that only 20% of women access this means, however, that not enough emphasis is placed on it.

Of course, there are other considerations to make as well, including:

  • The fact that reconstruction will often require multiple surgeries, and women don’t want to go through that after already going through breast cancer.
  • The fact that there is an element of vanity associated with it, when surviving breast cancer is about being humble and thankful, not looking better.
  • The fact that many women with breast cancer are somewhat older, and they often feel they no longer “need” their breasts.

The latter is something few physicians will sign up to. However, it seems that, on a psychological level at least, many women feel that it is true. They feel that they have gone through a huge battle to survive cancer, and physical appearances simply aren’t as important anymore as what they used to be. Physicians, however, feel that recovering from cancer is about more than thankfulness, humility, and courage. It is also about feeling strong, whole, and confident, and this may mean having new breasts.

Ultimately, it should be down to what the patient wants. Sometimes, not having surgery, or delaying surgery, is the best option out there. However, never should a woman who has survived breast cancer be made to feel like she shouldn’t have surgery because it makes her vein. The procedure is there to complete and finalize the healing process, when a woman is ready for it herself. Embracing a new body is fine, but it is equally find to want to return to the previous body, or even to have somewhat of an improvement.