Today I have a amazing surprise opportunity for all of you that the moms among us are sure to LOVE! Pay close attention though, at the end of this post is a very fun giveaway offer that will end in only 5 days!!!!!   Act quickly, tell others NOW, don’t wait!

Most moms have heard of Dr. Laura Schlessinger and maybe some have even read her book, but there’s no doubt about the fact that she is very big on mothering and supporting the mothers in life.

This May in celebration of Mother’s Day, Dr. Laura Schlessinger invites moms and their families to join her in a special tribute to the women who often receive little recognition for their devotion to motherhood.

Dr. Laura is known for her no-nonsense advice on her popular internationally-syndicated radio program.  During this great event, she will recount her own life as a career woman turned stay-at-home mom showing her journey from mis-conception to conception and from birth to the joys and struggles of parenting during this live stage show.

Please consider joining us LIVE at theaters around the country on May 5th.  If you can’t make it on the 5th, there will be a taped encore playing on May 6th.  This is the perfect opportunity for a Girls Night Out! To get all the details about this event…including locations and how to buy tickets…be sure to visit this link!

Now for the fun part! One of you will win a signed copy of Dr. Laura’s new book In Praise of Stay-At-Home Moms AND 2 tickets to go see this Live event in a city near you!!! To enter, please just check the Theater Location page to make sure there’s a location near you, then feel free to leave a comment telling me who you would like to take with you to this event!

Like I mentioned at the beginning of the post though, we have a super quick turn around on this one! You are more than welcome to take advantage of the many extra entry options I offer, but I encourage you to tweet and blog about it soon so that everyone can join in!

This giveaway will end this coming Wednesday, April 22nd (see, hurry!) and is void where prohibited. Oh, and you just never know….I’m planning on attending an event near me (well, sort of near me anyway – courtesy of the event promotion team) so I just might bump into YOU!

As we neared the halfway point in our drive to church yesterday, an ambulance casually merged onto the freeway ahead of us.

Suddenly, from the back seat Monkey squealed “look Mommy, it’s a clown truck!”

He was obviously very excited!

The “clown truck” even proceeded to exit when we did causing further excitement.

Monkey: “Look, it’s white and blue.” (it actually was red and yellow as his biggest brother soon informed him)

Monkey (not at all deterred from his previous color bungling): “We need to follow the clown truck to the circus!”

Then when we reached the last turn toward church, it became apparent that the ambulance/clown truck was going straight where we were turning right and Monkey experienced a moment of panic that turned into a conversation just for the twins:

Monkey (gasping in shock): “Where’s the clown truck going?”

Bug: “To hims house.”

Because to Bug, it really is that simple, and to Monkey it really is that dramatic…sums up their personalities pretty well actually .

No amount of explanation that this was not in fact a ‘clown truck’ was going to change his mind.  I know there’s a lesson to be learned in all that, seeing through the eyes of a child and all, but for now, it’s simply a fun story…..

Most Americans have absolutely no idea what it’s like to go hungry…for even part of a day. We have no idea of the extreme areas of need and poverty in our own country let alone around the world.

Worse yet, this crisis has been overshadowed lately by government and economic news. Although many of us will never truly understand the depth and severity of this need, there is a way for all of us to help!!!

Compassion International has created a Global Food Initiative and is partnering with … well, pretty much anyone willing to help and spread the word about Global Food Crisis Day which takes place March 11th. I’m posting this one day early in the hope that many of you will follow the links in this post and join me in spreading the word on your own blog tomorrow!!

By supporting and donating to the Global Food Crisis Fund, you’ll be helping them to:

• Provide food vouchers to children and families needing immediate relief.
• Provide seeds and agricultural tools so that families can grow their own food as well as earn extra income.
• Provide supplemental nutrition services at Compassion-assisted centers around the world.

You may be wondering what is contributing to this crisis that the UN World Food Programme calls ‘a silent tsunami’…

The cost of food staples have roughly doubled in many countries where Compassion serves. Some of the original factors that turned this trend into a world calamity recently include unstable oil prices, increased meat consumption in countries like India and China, droughts in major crop-producing countries, and increased production of biofuels.

Please help support this great cause! Visit the site and even grab a widget for your blog!

Salesman walked into the room yesterday with his typical distracted look on his face holding a crumpled dollar bill as he ambled along.

Next thing I know…from behind the couch I hear a long sniffing noise, then:

Salesman: “Ahhhh, nothing like the smell of a one dollar bill!”

Me: “Um, Oook.  So you can somehow distinguish the smell of a $1 bill?”

Salesman: “Yup!”

Me: “Does it smell different than…say…a $20 bill?  I mean can you smell the difference?”

Salesman: “Oh Yeah!”

Me (looking across the room with eyebrows raised at amused hubby): “Okey dokey then ……”

I mean really, what else can you say to that?  There’s a reason he’s called Salesman around here (and only recently moved from “Donald Trump” to Salesman LOL).

While you’re here, don’t forget to enter to win an entire year’s membership to SitterCity ($95 value)!!!

This photo was taken nearly a year ago, but gives you a pretty good idea of the general mayhem a certain duo of our kiddos are likely to be found at the helm of!  Indeed, they are definitely wearing exactly what you think they are on their little heads!

Well, the understatement of the century would be for me to say “this has been an interesting week” LOL!  Reality would probably place it in the chaotic and crazy realm.  

Saturday:  In the morning, I left pretty early to go grocery shopping and start getting ready for the Twinkies’ birthday party.  Not more than a quarter of the way through my shopping list, I got a call on my cell phone from my Hubby asking me when I thought I’d be home. 

Immediately I was a little concerned, because there was NOTHING on our schedule that day except getting things done at home, so I asked him what was going on and he told me that our oldest son (CJ) had sliced a few of his fingers and would need to go in. 

Can I just say ACK!  Seriously people, I get out for only a few minutes each week, usually to do the mundane chore of grocery shopping and then to be called with that … sigh!   So needless to say, even though my Hubby told me that he’d be fine for a few more minutes, I raced through that store like a crazy woman trying to complete my list … I forgot some of the most important things on my list, but I needed to get home. 

The walk-in clinic actually only ended up giving him “glue” stitches marking one of the first times we actually wished we had taken a child to the ER for an injury.  No, I absolutely do NOT like the pain involved in getting stitches, but if you have experienced glue on children, especially on children’s hands or anywhere on their head or face, then you understand my frustration with this chosen method. 

Well, that pretty much used up Saturday and left us with Sunday to get the house ready for our guests (did I not mention that the party was being held here)?  

Saturday Evening: As Tater and Lion are in brushing their teeth before bed, Monkey runs in there lickety split, throws something in the toilet, flushes it and runs back out … all in a flash of speed that no one could follow.  This resulted in disasterous toilet backup that is still as yet unresolved (sadly enough).  When you have only one toilet for 8 people … well, we just aren’t going to go there right now.

Sunday:  Thankfully we were able to get everything ready for the party in time!  Cake made, house clean, etc.  Which is quite a feat around here, especially in light of the extra guests and clogged toilet situation.  CJ was dealing with his fingers most of the day, since the glue had already split the night before it requires that he change the bandaids almost constantly.  

So Far this week:  Well, I woke up in the middle of the night heading toward Monday morning sick, sick, sick!  Yup, the creeping crud.  It wasn’t pretty.  Thankfully my hubby stuck around a little longer than usual to help me get the kiddos off to school.  I survived though and I’m feeling much better today!  

As I got dinner going tonight, I suddenly heard a crash and ran over to the door to the living room to see that our 5 year old had landed on the floor.  It took a minute to evaluate that he wasn’t completely broken, but he’d been climbing on the back of the couch and had fallen off resulting in a pretty nasty gash in his inner cheeck from some teeth going through.  He is doing a lot better now after some compresses and time, but he’s swollen and sore poor baby!  

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to an injury and illness free rest of the week … AMEN?!

On the computer front, my neighbor has taken over the care and restoration of the poor thing and hopes to have it up and running within a week.  In the meantime I hope you’ll bear with me as I hop along on my hubby’s computer when it is available to me.

Oh, and I’m also over at Faith Lifts today .

Food and kids are an interesting combination … they either don’t want to eat it, don’t want to eat it at meal time or want to eat too much of the wrong thing.  This episode entitled Mealtime Mania offers suggestions that help moms stay out of the kitchen a little more.

Well, the time has come and you are now all going to be subjected to my voice … I have decided to actually present this to you as a podcast.  To listen, just click on the button below .  There are many ways to listen … look below the button for more options (should be available through iTunes podcasts soon).

 

 Mealtime Mania - Kids and Food [9:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is such a fun reinvention of an old PBS favorite!  And by old, I mean 1970’s and kids from my generation grew up watching it.   Bringing it into a new milennium to meet the needs of elementary age children who overall are struggling with reading in school, this is a brand new take on a classic.

The Electric Company is very well done and both my 3rd and 4th grade boys truly enjoyed the preview of the new series.  You and your children can enjoy this series every Friday (began January 30th).  Even though this series is clearly educational, my kids didn’t think it was cheesy at all, in fact they loved it!

Each episode features themes that are very kid friendly … there are heroes and villains, and words and phonics come to life in a very creative way!  What children don’t know is that the curricular goals of The Electric Company include: decoding, comprehension of connected text, vocabulary and motivation – all of which are very necessary for reading success.

The episodes have the main mission, with lots of mini segments mixed in to focus on sounds and word combinations to help children understand them in a new way. The characters will quickly become familiar to children from the troublemakers (“Pranksters”) to the main Electric Company characters who each possess a special literary skill!

Check your local PBS station’s program listings to see what time it comes on in your area and check it out with your kids! Also, be sure to check out their website for even more great information about the show and learning opportunities for your children.

Wow, with Baby Fest amidst all the usual craziness around here, it almost felt like my blog belonged to someone else. Not in a bad way, but as I’m sure you all noticed, it definitely WASN’T business as usual!

I thought I’d kick off being back to our regularly scheduled programming by updating all of you on an overview of what we did in January 2009 .  As usual, it will be pretty random and rambly.

Bugs (age 2 in January-age 3 now) had an infected ingrown tonail.  This may not sound like much, but we have never dealt with anything like it before with any of the boys so it was actually a first!  The biggest problem was that although he and Monkey run around barefoot all day/every day, I didn’t notice this thing until it looked awful.

Let’s just put it this way … I took one look at it and made a call to their pediatrician since at the time I had no idea what it was!  I simply explained that I had no idea what to do with it so I had made an executive decision that it was now HER problem .  It’s ok, she’s fine with that and thankfully, I don’t make many visits her way (which amazes her every time).

While we were there I mentioned a little problem he was having with his finger that had been burned a couple years ago and it was decided that back to the hand specialist we will go *sigh*.  Thankfully though I have been continuing to watch for the one concern that they had mentioned might come up (though they thought if it was going to happen it would happen sooner) so I knew what I was seeing.  It has to do with the skin that is scarred not being able to stretch with his growth spurts – so we’re hoping and praying for a simple solution!

Sir Lion (age 5) has been struggling with his behavior a bit.  Nothing entirely new, but he had been doing so well, we had almost forgotten the absolute strength of his type A personality and heardheadedness.  Right now his coping (or rather “getting out of” ) technique is fall-into-a-puddle-on-the-floor-and-make-eyes-produce-crocodile-tears-while-wailing.  It is a very pathetic and forlorn way to deal with anything that comes your way though, so we’re trying to help him understand that there are much better ways to handle your problems (or assumed problems as the case may be).

CJ (age 13) had his learning evaluation done by a specialist early in January.  We paid for it out of pocket and the results were informative and eye opening.  The gentleman who did the evaluation was very professional and did an amazing job with our teenage son!  While he was being evaluated I sat in the adjoining waiting room and since the door was open the whole time I heard everything.

The evaluation took 3 hours plus the time he spent with us afterward explaining everything.  So, now we are waiting to meet with the school to decide what we are going to do to get him on the right track … or even if they are able to do so (in which case we will continue with our own plan).  They still don’t seem to quite understand that what they decide has no bearing on what we end up deciding to do with our son.

If their plan doesn’t sound right or educate our son, then we have manyother options.  The funny thing is that they just don’t seem to get it … ultimately, it is my husband and I who are responsible for this child, and we will do whatever is necessary to ensure that his education is not failing.

Tater and Salesman are busy in basketball!  Get this … their daddy got roped into coaching.  Shocking, I know!  Thankfully, the season will be over the end of this month and we will be mainly sports free until July when football begins.  I have a sneaking suspicion that none of our boys will be playing basketball next year.  In the meantime though, hubby is doing his level best to coach these children (you should know that he didn’t play much basketball growing up, making this all the more ironic) and help them have fun playing the game.  It’s been a rocky season between weather related cancellations and confusion as well as serious schedule delays and changes.  Definitely making it a challenge on our end.

Well, that’s all the kiddos.  We are still praying for a resolution on the house stuff and what we are going to do.  Frankly I think we prefer to move at this point so it’s all about having someone come along and simply decide they want to buy this.  With the market being what it is, agent fees don’t work, so it would have to be God!

I hope you all had a wonderful January!  Do you post family updates on your blog?  Feel free to leave a comment with a link to your family’s latest update .

When I was little I used to think that stars were white apples. They are white and sort of shaped like apples so I thought that’s what they were.”

Keep in mind that this is coming from a 10 year old … not so very big in my opinion, but apparently very close to adulthood in his .