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By Brianna and Ariel In which Brianna and Ariel discuss Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth. What is grit and how do we cultivate it in ourselves and in our children? Duckworth shows us how. This post contains affiliate links. By using them you help keep Busy Nest Nest up and running. Thank you for your continued support!  Summary: Grit by Angela Duckworth Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth tackles the age-old question - why are some people more successful than others? Our natural tendency is to point out inborn talent as the deciding factor. Duckworth has her own theory. She believes success can be attributed to grit - a special blend of passion and persistence that allows us to improve exponentially.
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By Ariel In which Ariel discusses The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn - a simple story with a profound message for those of us dealing with both short and long term separations. This post contains affiliate links. By using them you help keep Busy Nest News up and running. Thank you for your continued support! For month of the military child, we are choosing books that can be used to foster and strengthen relationships over long distances, such as deployments - books like The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. Being away from your loved ones is hard. Period. But it doesn’t mean your relationship or your spouse's relationship with your child has to suffer. If you plan for it, deployments provide a unique opportunity to connect in meaningful ways.  by Brianna In which Brianna selects a few toys to help kids celebrate their family's military service. This article contains affiliate links. By shopping with these links, you're helping to support Busy Nest News. Thanks! As we’ve mentioned before (and will again in the coming weeks), April is the Month of the Military Child. Military kids sometimes have a pretty tough gig. We’ll talk more about those specific challenges in other articles, but today we’re looking at something fun: toys! Military kids are still kids, and so most of the toys they want will be the same toys every other kid in America wants. However, I believe there are some toys that will particularly resonate with their situation. I’ve rounded up a few fun toys to help military kids understand and celebrate their family’s service. Let’s get started!  by Brianna and Ariel In which Brianna and Ariel review and discuss a book that has been labeled a must-read for all parents of girls. This post contains affiliate links. By using them, you're helping to support Busy Nest News. Thanks! Strong Is the New Pretty, by Kate T. Parker Strong is the New Pretty is a collection of photos captured and compiled by photographer Kate T. Parker. While photographing her own girls and their friends, she noticed that the most beautiful pictures captured them when they were being most themselves. These moments could occur during a moment of quiet reflection, intense competition, or any time in between. Parker set out to capture girls of all ages and backgrounds doing what they do best: being truly themselves. The result is a massive collection of stunning portraits of various girls laughing, playing, winning, and learning. Parker’s own girls, Ella and Alice, make many appearances within these pages, and it’s fun picking them out. Accompanying every photo is a brief quote from its subject, reflecting on what strength means to them, explaining what they were thinking in the moment, or telling a bit of their story. Parker captured the girls’ images, but the stories within this compilation are all theirs.
By Ariel In which Ariel makes a bold statement. Sandra Boynton is Ariel and Bean's favorite children's author. Read on to see if you agree! This post contains affiliate links. By using them you help keep Busy Nest News up and running. Thank you for your continued support! Sandra Boynton  I was more nervous to write this post than any other post before this. Why? Because we – Bean and I – love Sandra Boynton more than any other children’s book author. That is a bold statement; I know. But sometimes bold statements need to be made. In our opinion, she cannot be beaten.
by Brianna In which Brianna reviews two picture books ideal for Women's History Month. This article contains affiliate links. When you purchase something using these links, you're supporting Busy Nest News. Thanks for your continued support. Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty and David RobertsThis month, we’ve been reading and writing about children's books that celebrate Women’s History Month. While learning about women from the past is very fun, I also enjoy finding books that depict girls and women living and working in a way that is true to who they are. Whether these books are fiction or nonfiction, it is important for all children to see that girls can be and do just about anything they want. In short: representation matters. The latest book in this vein that I’ve read to Monkey is Rosie Revere, Engineer, by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts.  Rosie Revere is a little girl who is very quiet in her grade two classroom, but in her attic at home she builds amazing machines and inventions with her classmates’ cast-offs and broken things. She used to build and demonstrate her inventions for her family, until an uncle reacted in a way that she did not feel was very supportive. From then on, she hid all of her inventions, and kept them to herself. That is, until her great-great-aunt Rose, who used to build aircraft, comes to visit. Rosie can’t resist building her a machine to help fulfill her dreams. When Aunt Rose witnesses the failure of Rosie’s machine, she surprises Rosie by offering sincere congratulations on her efforts, as well as encouragement to try again, and books to help her along the way. After that, Rosie feels free to invent in the open, and she and her classmates celebrate trial and failure every day.
By Ariel In which Ariel discusses a bike trailer that allows her to get some cardio in whilst entertaining an active toddler. This article contains affiliate links. By using them you help keep Busy Nest News up and running. Thank you for your continued support. InStep Take 2 Double Bike Trailer  If you are either an outdoor enthusiast or a parent trying to fit in exercise while entertaining kids, a bike trailer might be for you. As someone who straddles both categories, I love ours! I chose the InStep Take 2 Double Bicycle Trailer and I could not be happier with that decision.
If you have read any of my reviews you are probably familiar with my own personal criteria for choosing clothing, gear, toys etc. In anything I purchase I look for durability, versatility and cost-effectiveness. It should be able to make it through all three of my potential children and it should serve more than one purpose. Bonus points if the item is pleasant on the eyes! The InStep Take 2 Double Bike Trailer meets all of my criteria. By Ariel In which Ariel discusses how seemingly innocent comments warning us about the teenage years can undermine the parent-child bond and how to stop them in their tracks. Don't Demonize Our Children I have yet to experience the parade of judgment meted out to new parents from the older, wiser more worldly veteran caregivers. This may be because of simple dumb luck. Or it may have something to do with the “I don’t give a beep” stare I dole out when I hear the judgment train rumbling down the track. Please do not misread what I am saying, I have received countless tidbits from experienced parents that have truly truly had a positive impact on my parenting. We should learn from others! Why make the same mistake twice? Learn from my foibles and do not (I repeat) do not give your child all of your backup luvies at once. She now needs all five of them to sleep at night. She counts them to make sure!
What I have experienced is the knowing look “seasoned” parents give when they warn me about parenting daughters. Their comments usually fall into one of three camps. There are the comments that demonize her like, “She may be easy going now, but just wait! You are in for it,” or the comments that sexualize her such as “Oh the boys will go crazy for this cutie!” or the comments that predict MY inevitable melt down under the hormonal tsunami.
By Brianna
Wherein Brianna introduces and reviews an app for organizing your whole family. This post contains affiliate links, which help keep Busy Nest News going. Thanks for your continued support! Cozi
It’s been a little while since I’ve brought you some helpful tech, dear readers, but my review of Glow is still quite popular, so I know app reviews can be filed under Things The People Want. Any time I encounter a problem, I immediately start looking for solutions. If one is not readily available, I stew on it for a long time. Example: I'll look at a disorganized bookshelf or another problem area in my home every day, and work on the problem in the back of my mind until one morning in the shower (obviously it's in the shower) the perfect plan falls into place. So when I tell you that Cozi is the closest thing to a perfect calendar app we have right now, I need you to understand on what a profound level I am enjoying this app. With that in mind, it will take quite a bit of effort to only hit the high points in this review without getting into the weeds of Cozi’s deeper features.
The primary function of Cozi is an incredible calendar, designed with busy families in mind. Each family member has their own username, but the whole family shares one password. You can add accounts for members who do not have email addresses, such as young children and pets(!). All accounts are color coded for extra ease of use. With the basic version of Cozi, you can set one reminder for each event in your calendar. An example of how we use this feature is I have Cozi text my husband a reminder that our anniversary is approaching two weeks in advance. You can set your one reminder to text, email, or send a push notification anywhere from zero minutes to two weeks before the events you schedule.
By Ariel In which Ariel shares some articles that have enlightened or amused us recently. What are the easiest ways to make a house feel like a home when you move frequently? If your kids get the hangries after school why not feed them early? What is a 'widowmaker' and why should we know? How do Montessori teachers foster independence and critical thinking with simple phrases? What's the best way to psych yourself up? Why not let your kids plan family activities? What are Yoga Joes and why do you need them? These are the big questions in this weeks Links We Learned From. Links We Learned From in March  Brianna and I are readers - readers of books, readers of articles, readers of blogs etc. We read. When we find something interesting, absurd or promising, we share it with the other. That is the beauty of sharing this crazy wild journey that we call parenthood. Twice the resources! This is a curated list of links (in no particular order) that I think will have a significant impact on how I parent.
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AuthorsAriel and Brianna are friends who met while working in a library. Now they collaborate to develop life-enhancing book club experiences. Archives
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