What do you look forward to the most when Thanksgiving rolls around? The parades? The football? The food? What about the family? Thanksgiving offers the perfect setting and days of free time to nurture your child’s relationship with her family members and her community. As the holidays draw near, take heed of this list of 10 ideas for outings with grandchildren and pass it on to your parents and in-laws. Allowing children to bond one-on-one with their grandparents is essential to forming close familial relationships that they’ll treasure later in life. If your parents are traveling, Nancy Parode, Senior Travel Guide, has some holiday travel tips that are great no matter the season. Keeping your child involved and engaged in the world around her is just as important. Jennifer Wolf, Guide to Single Parents, offers a few suggestions on ways to volunteer with kids that are perfect for this time of year. Not quite what you're looking for? The Guide to Kids’ Clubs, Heidi Coghlan, has several more ideas for you to consider, like pampering pets at a local shelter, sponsoring a family in need, and decorating your town for the season…with permission, of course!

As the weather turns colder, it’s time to turn up the heat in the kitchen. Why not bring the kids with you? Baking with children, whether they’re barely old enough to stir cookie dough or busy making cupcakes with only your supervision, is a surefire way to get them involved with family traditions. As you mix, measure, and stir, you can share memories of your own childhood and build treasure troves of good times for your kids to store away themselves. The kitchen is also a natural learning environment. Not only will you be teaching your kids a valuable skill, but you can also transform basic baking actions, like recipe reading, into educational activities. Cooking is a life skill they’ll need in the future; starting early will make them safe and comfortable in the kitchen as they grow older and begin to take care of themselves. As Beverly Hernandez, About.com’s Guide to Homeschooling, tells us, you can also use baking to teach kids mathematics principles. When you need to select a certain sized dish for baking a cake, teach your children about diameter and circumference. If you’re packing up treats for a holiday delivering, let them figure out how big the container needs to be. As you go through the baking process, you can also teach your kids about the science of baking. Let About.com’s Guide to Busy Cooks help you along with the hows and whys of baking. Plus: Read the Top 10 Reasons to Get Kids Cooking from Stephanie Gallagher, Guide to Cooking for Kids.

In the weeks before Halloween, it’s often the pumpkins that garner attention instead of the costumes. Before the kids pull out the newspaper, spoons, and knives, take a few minutes to brush up on the process of crafting a perfectly affordable and delightfully spooktacular jack-o-lantern. Watch a video that shows you how to carve a pumpkin from beginning to end. Then, instead of investing in a costly pumpkin-carving kit, check out the free patterns provided by About.com’s Guide to Crafts. Choose one or let your kids’ imaginations run wild as they design their own. You can even throw a pumpkin decorating party!

Schools are germ breeding grounds, so it’s only a matter of time before sniffles and sore throats are passed from one grubby hand to the next. It’s time for the age-old question: should you send your tot packing with tissues and a pat on the head, or is he too sick for school? To get ready for cold and flu season, learn when you should take your child to the doctor, build a flu season tool kit, and find a flu shot with the help of About.com’s Cold and Flu Guide.

When your kids get home from school, it may be second nature for them to drop their backpacks and hit the pantry. It’s easy to let them grab a box or a bag, but mindless munching on pre-packaged foods can take a major toll on their health. To satiate their mid-afternoon cravings, keep healthier options on hand, like grapes, already washed and ready to grab, in the fridge. Try cutting up strawberries and serving them with Reddi-wip to indulge a sweet tooth or slicing an apple and dishing up some caramel or peanut butter. Carrot sticks with ranch dressing provide crunchy satisfaction. When in doubt, look for pantry-friendly substitutes, like trail mix (homemade to cut the salt). Instead of chocolate chip cookies, try Teddy Grahams. Swap greasy potato chips for tortilla chips and a mild salsa. And always be sure to set out the proper portion sizes for your kids instead of letting them help themselves. Childhood obesity caused by overeating is a very real (and growing) threat.

It’s not uncommon for elementary school children to experience separation anxiety on the first day (or first few days) of school. New teachers, new settings, and new classmates can all come together to make your child uncomfortable when it comes to say goodbye. If your student expresses anxiety or sheds tears at your eminent departure from her side, About.com’s Parenting Channel Guides are here to help:

• From Working Moms: How to Ease Child Separation Anxiety

• From Childcare: Pre-School Prep Ideas to Keep Kids Happy

• From Pediatrics: How to Deal with School Refusal

Labor Day is right around the corner, and if your kids aren’t in school by then, it’s only a matter of days. Before they board the bus and get down to the nitty gritty of tests and homework, why not celebrate the last few days of freedom with a party? About.com’s Guide to Entertainment Donna Pilato has some great ideas for the perfect kick-off-the-school-year-right bash, complete with decorations (apples hanging from the ceiling), activities (back-to-school time capsule), and munchies (school bus-shaped sandwiches).

Who’s the first one your children run to with scraped knees and assorted bumps and bruises? Who does the camp director call when little Susie isn’t feeling well? You’ve got it—you.

Summer is the prime season for you as a stay-at-home parent (and first one on the list of emergency contacts) to need these handy tricks and quick fixes for all of yours kids minor complaints. Need to get your sunburned beach babies out of the heat for an afternoon (indoor voices included!)? Try these creative (and free/nearly free!) child activity ideas that will keep your kids learning and playing indoors for a few hours. Learn how to help your woodland wanderers resist the impulse to scratch at poison ivy rashes or mosquito bites.  If you’re worried about sending your active kids outside as the temperature escalates, Catherine Holecko, About.com’s Guide to Family Fitness, has a great blog post on preventing heat stroke in kids and adults alike.

And, for the inevitable skinned knee or elbow that results from your child running across a slick pool deck or hurtling from one end of the mulched playground to the other, brush up on your wound-dressing knowhow with a little help from Rod Brouhard, About.com’s Guide to First Aid.

Though the recession continues to plow onward, many entrepreneurial moms are getting a start on business ventures from the comfort—and flexibility—of their own homes.

Stay-at-home mom Julie Trade rakes in a six-figure salary while her two sons, ages 2 and 5, are asleep, CNNmoney.com reports. Trade works 40 hours a week, mostly between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m., plus evenings and weekends. During the day, however, she is a stay-at-home mom, much as she was before her husband was laid off in 2007. After a year of watching her husband struggle to find work, Trade, 40, struck out on her own out of a spare bedroom, intending to make a little extra cash with her marketing know-how. With clients like British Telecom and Argent Software, Trade estimates that she is now making twice what she made when she was working full-time before she became a mom.

While companies like the Atlanta-based Mom Corps are seeing a boom in the number of former stay-at-home moms seeking flexible options to return to work, others (like entrepreneurial effort-backer Tim Draper) say that recessions are the best times to start small businesses.

If your family’s finances need a little boost to make ends meet, or your ready to get back to (or redefine) your career without leaving home, becoming a work-at-home mom might be the right choice for you. About.com’s Guide for Work-At-Home Moms, Laureen Miles Brunelli, has a great list of possible careers for WAHMs to get your juices flowing.

Watch out for WAH scams and learn how to get started as a work-at-home mom.

A family camping trip can be an affordable and fun alternative to the more traditional family vacation this summer. Cooking while camping out can be a bit of a challenge though, so here are some easy recipes that my kids really enjoy when we go camping. They especially enjoy Homemade Ice Cream in a Coffee Can, a tasty dessert that the kids love to make and eat.

Tips for Camping With Your Family