The Old Town Warrenton Spring Festival returns to Main Street in Warrenton Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., bringing food, entertainment and the promise of good weather.

Princesses Violetta, Noelle and Jalissia are scheduled to attend from 11a-2pm, so be sure that you find them, say hello, and get a picture as we debut our newest characters!

So have a little faith in yourself. Love,

Its really the ultimate way of recycling, because from good spells come more good spells.

Look at all this positively precious pixie dust! Its just the right size for a little fairy princess!

Craft supplies can take over your crafty space! I have the hardest time with supplies because I’m a seriously messy crafter! I spread stuff everywhere when I’m working on a project and cute storage ideas make a world of difference to me when it’s time to straighten up.

via 22 Tips to Organize Your Craft Room.

Bunting is everywhere, but it is so sweet and simple, and goodness knows I won’t be sewing it anytime soon! So I whipped little thank you card {with my computer rather and needle and thread} from me to you. But for you to download and pass on your thanks.

Get the pdf here. Two to a page, print, trim and fold.

via friday freebie – 74 Lime Lane.

“Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.” – Alfie Kohn

This is a terrific question. How can we “enforce” our limits?

The short answer is, we can’t force anyone to do anything. All we can do is help our child WANT to meet our expectations and help him develop the emotional regulation so he’s able to do so.

Sure, force, or the threat of force, works temporarily. Timeouts scare young children into complying because they’re a form of ritual, temporary abandonment. But they don’t teach kids to regulate the emotions that drove them to behave badly, so the misbehavior continues. Eventually, kids rebel and you have to escalate your force. You can drag your flailing child, but sooner or later you won’t be able to do that, and in the meantime he’s not learning to manage himself.

What’s more, the more often you resort to force, the less your child will WANT to cooperate. I hear frequently from parents of six year olds who have become defiant, now that they can’t be dragged to timeout. The six year olds who were never punished with timeouts (or other punishment) but were instead taught loving family expectations and emotional regulation are much better behaved and cooperative. So force doesn’t actually get kids to behave any better. In fact, research shows that punishment makes kids misbehave more.

Read more of this GREAT article!… via Can you “enforce” your limits without force?.

Leave your cleaned and gently loved, outgrown Spring dresses, Prom gowns, and boys suits to be donated to local families just in time for Easter.

Drop Off Location
Warrenton United Methodist Church
(Behind Pizza Hut)

Dressing up has always been Princess Genevieve’s favorite thing to do.  In 2009, she she began hosting this twice annual event. In the spring for Easter clothes and the other in the Fall for Halloween Costumes.

Stay up to date on www.facebook.com/kingdomofazuria or find out more about past Dress Up Drives.

“My 7 yr old daughter seems to have a difficult time having her ‘cup filled.’ Even after 5 (or more) minutes of games where I’m doing what she wants whether it’s the tickle monster game or a game of cards with her—something that I consider quality time —she is still needy and can’t turn it off. Even if I’ve given the 2 minute warning, she will continue to jump all over me and then when I’ve clearly stated it’s time for bath, etc., she stomps off. Her attitude at that point then, in my mind, negates the fun time we just had. Even when I try to validate her feelings by saying that I know it’s hard to stop the fun, I can’t get through to her. I do understand that she is probably trying to tell me that we need to do this more often and I am working harder at making sure we get that quality time together given school, work and life in general but at times, when I’m just spent at the end of the day, I don’t know how to respond to her need for more more more when I feel I’ve just given. ” — Amy

We can all relate to Amy’s lament, right? After all, she’s just spent time focusing intensely on her child, “filling her cup”. It’s the end of a long day, and it isn’t easy to summon up our patience and presence to spend special time with our child, even for a few minutes. At this point, any sane parent is moving kids toward bath and bed. After this nice interaction with Mom, shouldn’t her daughter go off to her bath with a smile?

Well, maybe some children would, at least some of the time. But many kids won’t. And if we want to get through the evening with our sanity intact, it helps to know their reasons.

via The Transition from Play: When Your Child Wants More More More!.

Have you ever made the joke about the queen coming to tea? Well, for my daughter’s 4th birthday, we actually had the Princess! (Didn’t know a kid-friendly princess lived within commuting distance of Prince William County, did ya?)

Jennifer Faulconer, aka Princess Genevieve is the ultimate in a character study. When I first contacted her about doing my daughter’s birthday party, she actually responded to me “Dear Queen Kristina”. No joke. She does the Disney Princess giggle, comes dressed in a ball gown, and has an entire kingdom, complete with a map, a flag, and a crest…

However, our girls…well, they were, to use Princess Genevieve’s word, enchanted.

When I told my daughter that a princess was coming to her birthday party, she spent the entire week talking to anyone that would listen about the fact that “There is a REAL princess coming to my birthday!! A REAL PRINCESS!!”. People in the grocery store, the post office line, and the library quiet room were all very understanding. Savannah (my daughter) was so excited that when Princess Genevieve actually knocked on the door and arrived, she rushed to the door with all of her friends and, and…

And she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even quite look the lovely vision in blue in the eye. Actually, none of them could!

Princess Genevieve, however, took this all quite in stride, and floated in (she actually really did float! Pageant girls take note!) with her bag full of treasures from Azuria and proceeded to captivate an audience of 8 completely silent 3 and 4 year old girls (and one very talkative 5 year old brother) with her stories about unicorns, four leaf clovers, fairies, and mermaids. Mysteriously, the two older boys in the room disappeared to the basement to complete some Lego work

By the time Genevieve finished telling her stories and inspecting the treasures that said brother brought down, it was time for some dancing and singing!

I would imagine that the Pied Piper couldn’t possibly have gotten a more instantaneous reaction when asking children to rise. The girls all stood up and started slowly moving to “Happy Birthday Princess”. Slowly, one by one, they got comfortable as Princess Genevieve twirled them around the room, and by the end of another song, they were all dancing in a circle to Genevieve’s directions.

After that, Princess Genevieve helped with the singing of Happy Birthday and the cake cutting, and without missing a beat, placed herself on the floor among the happiest little girls I have ever seen in my life to talk with them while they enjoyed their refreshments. Kind, happy, and amazingly understanding of the preschool dialect of English that usually only mothers are fluent in, Princess Genevieve talked with the girls while they munched happily and asked her questions. She even encouraged them to say “please” and “thank you”, which instantly won her brownie points with me!

When it was time to go, Princess Genevieve floated out the door with hugs and stories about the ball that she had to prepare for. It was lovely and ethereal and magical.

And then the girls realized what just happened and went absolutely nuts talking to each other about what they’d just witnessed.

Savannah is now back to talking to anyone that will listen to her, or that is within ear-shot and HAS to listen to her about the fact that Princess Genevieve came to her birthday party. I’m not sure how long it will last, but I’m glad to know that I could give her such an amazing childhood memory. We get so few, when you think about it.

Princess Genevieve and her band of princesses are based out of Azuria, which, for commuting purposes is about the same distance as Warrenton. They will travel the region for a fee based on mileage. In addition to parties, Princess Genevieve is available for events and even Girl Scout badges! She will also do appearances for schools and libraries. With children my daughter’s age, we opted to do a 45 minute appearance. I think that the optimal age for children to really get into the appearance would be 5-7, based on the 5 year old boy we had kicking around (who loved the story telling), and the 5 year old girl (who was the first one to stop being completely spell-bound and participate). However, I think that our 3′s and 4′s did fantastic and had such a memorable time, I would definitely have done this again the same way!

Thanks to Princess Genevieve for making our little princess’ day completely enchanting!

Read more at Prince William County Moms: Review: Azuria Events.

She came across of pad of paper with an adorable grocery list in the cleanse. I love planning. I love organizing. I love lists! So I snatched this up right away. Then decided that after I use this cute pad up, I’ll start printing my own each week. Instead of buying a whole book for my life, I’ll be conserving by only printing when I need one.

If you’re like me, once I get into the grocery store (or any store for that matter), I completely lose sight of what I actually came for, and become overwhelmed with the possibility of dinners and desserts I could make, wine nights I could plan with Princess Brooke of Catlett, and don’t even try to pry me away from the organic section of bath products at Wegman’s or WholeFoods. Here’s our free printable Grocery list for the Queen Mum in your castle.There’s nothing I love more than being organized. I have recently fell in love with Pinterest, as you can easily tell by the amount of “Pins” and “Boards” I’ve posted, or by just a normal conversion with me. Its caused a whole new real of ideas and organizing to come into my life.

For years, I’ve ripped out magazine pages gluing them into collage books (must have about ten 3-subject notebooks filled with cut outs). Now, I can simply post a link to my Pinterest board with tips, tricks, recipes and decorating ideas. I’m thinking about taking snapshots of all my pages and including them in this online menagerie, so I can fill the space on my bookshelves with somethings else… like more craft supplies!

Happy organizing!