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Luke 2:8: And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.

Like the shepherds of biblical times, parents today are also watching over their flocks, their children, both during the night and during the day. Unfortunately, try as any parent may, the “flock” has a tendency to wander out of sight, and an even greater tendency to leave a trail of personal belongings behind everywhere they have traveled.

In the case of the average child, these personal belongings can be t-shirts, hats, school books, water bottles, sweaters, and even shoes that get left behind in classrooms, cars, or at friend’s houses. Unfortunately, as much as you may try to teach your child to be more careful about coming back home with everything they leave with, kids will be kids, and misplacing stuff is part of the process of growing up it appears.

However, as a parent, you can fight back with personalized labels. In fact, it’s a very pleasant surprise to see how much more often lost items get returned or can be recovered simply by having your child’s name clearly labeled somewhere upon them. Teachers, coaches, parents of friend’s, and anybody else who might happen to come across a misplaced item of clothing or a personal belonging have a much greater time figuring out who to return it to if the item or garment is labeled.

Today there are a lot of easy and convenient ways of labeling your children’s belongings. With clothing, it’s no longer necessary to spend countless hours sewing labels into t-shirts, sweaters, and underwear one-by-one. Instead, iron-on labels can be applied without any needles or thread in as little as 15-20 seconds.

Similarly, there are dozens of styles of stick-on labels available from various online retailers that can be used on everyday items like school books, water bottles, calculators, binders, and anything else with a clean, hard surface. Often time kids take each other’s things without any malicious intent, but simply because they all have math books, P.E. shirts, etc that look identical. The simple act of applying a stick-on label can help prevent a lot of confusion and frustration as there will be no doubting whose stuff is whose. For back packs, a lot of retailers even offer personalize ‘bag tags’ that can be used as a name tag or even an allergy alert.

As parents, “tending our flocks” in this day and age is getting increasing complicated. We suggest using labels as a way to at least alleviate a little bit of the headache that comes with kids being forgetful and leaving their things all around town during the course of a day.

Find out more about personalized labels for clothing, back packs, and school books at LabelYourStuff.com.

by Rachel Paxton

If you are looking for a fun summer activity for your family, try making homemade ice cream! I have fond memories of my dad making homemade ice cream when I was a kid, it was always a special treat when he pulled out the old ice cream maker.

Ice cream makers haven’t changed much over the years, the ones you can find today are much the same as the one I remember from my childhood. You prepare the ice cream mixture, pour it into an aluminum mixing canister, and place the canister into a wooden bucket. After adding layers of ice and rock salt around the outside of the aluminum canister, you just plug the ice cream maker in and let it run for about 45 minutes, and then you have homemade ice cream!

Of course there are a lot of instructions that come with the ice cream maker, and if you don’t follow them just right, you won’t end up with the great ice cream you were expecting. It takes a couple of times of going through all the steps to really get the hang of what you’re doing, and then it is quite easy. You also aren’t limited to the recipes that come with the ice cream maker. There are many great ice cream recipe books, such as The Ice Cream And Frozen Yogurt Cookbook and The Best Ice Cream Maker Cookbook Ever.

The ice cream maker I purchased is the Aroma Ice Cream Maker that is available at Target for about $60.00. If you can’t find it there you can buy it online from their web site or from Amazon.com.

If you are looking to eat more natural, homemade foods, homemade ice cream is a great treat to add to your summer menu. All the ingredients are natural and fresh, and it is also delicious! Your kids will also think it is really fun to make.