Finding Joy in Everyday Family Life - Mama Smiles - Joyful Parenting

Are you looking to make an awesome advent calendar your kids will love? Check out these DIY advent calendar filler ideas!
I am kind of obsessed with advent calendars. I have a thing for organization and packaging, and advent calendars combine the two. Also, while I enjoy other holidays, Christmas is the only one I truly care about. Advent calendars extend Christmas into...

This DIY snow ornament is so simple to make that kids can put it together with just a little bit of supervision! You may also like our polymer clay snowman ornaments.
We moved to California from Massachusetts over five years ago, and the snow is still something the kids really miss. The kids love reading snow-themed books like The Snowy Day. We created this craft to bring a little bit of snow to our California Christmas...

Weighted blankets are popular, but most use poly pellets. Learn how to make a weighted blanket without pellets. How to sew a weighted blanket sewing tutorial.
My weighted blanket sewing tutorial is one of my most popular posts on this site. After years of helping readers with their projects – I get emails every day with questions even years after that initial post – I decided to dedicate a series of blog posts...

We’ve got a lot of travel planned for November, and I’m sharing top tips for traveling at Thanksgiving.
Traveling at Thanksgiving
We used to travel every Thanksgiving – often up to my brother’s place near Sacramento and then sometimes all the way up to Chico to visit Mike’s extended family who live there. We eventually decided to stay closer to home, when possible, although we...