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celebration -

If you're tripping over wooden staffs and sparring gear chances are you have a budding martial artist under your roof. My little firecracker took karate three times a week for a number of years so I feel you, karate mama. We went through two complete sets of youth belts (Little Ninjas, Karate Kids) followed by quite a few belts on the adult system. We finally had to call it quits when she couldn't remember all of the sequences required to pass the belt test. Do you have any idea how hard it is to teach your little grasshopper that many moves in that many routines? Hard. Very...

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celebration, holiday, recipe -

Yay! It’s Pancake Day or as I like to call it – Mom’s-had-coffee-so she-will-now-make-you-breakfast Day. Pancake Day is celebrated on Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, also is known as Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras and Shrove Tuesday. To honor all those pancakes being served, I am giving a shout out to my favorite children’s book when I was a wee brat, Sam and the Tigers. My edition – written by Helen Bannerman, illustrated by Eulalie, and published in 1955 – told the story of an Indian boy who outsmarts 4 tigers and ends up with 143 pancakes. That’s a pretty sweet ratio.  Although the book...

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celebration, Easter, holiday -

Okay, first of all, I like Christmas, and Thanksgiving, and Halloween (oh yes, especially Halloween) but as a mom – and a Catholic one at that – I have a problem with Easter running second or third or even lower as my brats’ favorite on their perennial list of My Favorite Holidays.

Soooo in an effort to put back the emphasis where it rightly belongs – on Easter – we now have a few additions to the traditions from when I was growing up. Joining our lineup of favorites like coloring eggs, making candy eggs, and going to Pappy's for an Easter egg hunt? These four new traditions. Hold up, is "new tradition" an oxymoron?

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