Things I love Thursday...Once Upon A Family

I am a big believer of traditions in families...for example, we do Friday night movie nights, Pizza every Sunday night, St. Patricks Day is actually a day that we celebrate how lucky we are to have each other, etc.  I wonder when kids leave home...what is it about their life that they take with them?  The traditions.  That's what.

What I am excited to write about today is one of my very favorite companies called...Once Upon A Family.  The woman who started this company is a mom of twins and really did a ton of research...about two years...researching "good, healthy, strong families".  What she found was that there was a common demonator in all of the good families...they all had traditions.  You see when they are older and out of the house...they don't care how many thousands of dollars that you spent on their Princess Birthday party...what they truly take with them are the traditions that you did together as a family.

Once Upon A Family is a company that is all about family traditions.  There are so many awesome ideas...for example, one of my favorite is on your daughters birthday every year...take a picture of her in your wedding dress and as the years go on, you watch her grow into your dress.  Or there is another one that is my favorite...every year on your childrens birthdays...write them a letter highlighting the year that just passed.  Store them in a box and 21 days before they turn 21, you start sending them to them...one a day until the last day when they turn 21.  These are just a couple...there are SO MANY MORE!

This is a company that offers parties in your house and then you can learn about all of their products that they offer.  The best part about the parties is that you don't actually have to buy "their stuff"...just getting the idea, you can start that tradition in your own house with your own stuff. 

I am not a consultant or associated with Once Upon A Family in any way other than a lover of their products and ideas...which is why I am sharing it with you today for Things I Love Thursdays.

This post has been linked to
"Things I love Thursdays" hosted by Diaper Diaries

Random Tuesday Thoughts...

Oh, once again it’s Tuesday which means that according to Keely, I’m allowed to babble on about anything and everything that pops into my head!

This is my first time with "Random Tuesday Thoughts" and I am a little concerned at how excited I am that I can just go on and on about the random stuff that I worry about in a day...where to begin.

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My girls are 6 year old identical twins and I have been having trouble with them listening lately.  Especially after they come home from school.  I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.  Nothing is seeming to work aside from beating them...and I am not a spanker so that's not an option.  So I come up with a "Job Chart" that seems to be working for the past two days...but in the next two you know it's not going to work anymore cuz they just won't care whether or not they get a star on the "listening to mom and dad" box for the day...then what?

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How the heck do people actually look at a new house and know where the colored wall should go?  I know that the walls need something...I can figure that much out and then I'm done.

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What do you do when your sisters best friend from years and years is showing signs of skitzophrenia?  When she thinks there are three different people logging into her Facebook having the same name as her...it's time to be concerned.  But how do you intervene?  She has kids and those kids are having to think that there is someone after them because their mom does.  The other side of the family is perfectly heathly and not getting those kids out of the situation...am I the only person that can think logically about this????

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To home school or not to home school...that is the question?  But do your kids suffer from that?  With the way the world is going...I would be just fine to home school my kids until they graduated high school and then send them to a really expensive college where they would be safe...perhaps thats a little over the top, but this is coming from a mom who totally understands the mom in the movie "The Boy in a Bubble"!

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Not eating carbs...I have decided actually three days in a row that I am going to quit eating carbs...to which each day I have failed miserably.  Why is it that there are some out there that can actually lose weight by eating and I gain weight just looking at it?  Where is the justice?  And I don't even like meat...the no carb thing is quite a challenge for me.  But here I go again today...started my day with a small bowl of cottage cheese...yum!

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Lastly...at least for the day...how in the world is one supposed to organize their stuff in a new house without any organizing tools?  I have plenty of room but not a place to put everything.  This could actually be a whole blog in itself.

Don't forget to go to The Un Mom for more Random Tuesday Thoughts! 

Have a great day!

Digital Scrapbooking...YAY!!

I have been a big scrapbooker for many years.  Long before I had kids.  I love the creative aspect along with the organization of it all.  I was a Creative Memories consultant for about 8 years and the only reason that I left Creative Memories was because at that time, they just weren't keeping up with the competition.  Now they have since made up for it and then some.
I have never been a fan of digital cameras...yes, I have one, but only because it is so much easier than the "old school" ones.  I honestly believed that digital cameras were for people who didn't know how to take pictures.  They would have to delete all of their pictures to get one good one.  Myself, I worked for a newspaper for about 3 years prior to kids and learned so much about all aspects of a newspaper.  One of those was how to take pictures.  You see when I take pictures...I want copies of all of my pictures.  And to be honest with you, I don't like the quality of the digital pictures compared to my "old school" way.
Well yesterday I had a day with "just the girls"...we went and got our pedicures, went and helped one of my friends register for her baby shower at Babies R Us and then we all met for dinner and made our way over to Marie Calendars for pie...needless to say, there was a lot of talking that went on. 
My friend Erica was talking to me about digital scrapbooking and she said something to me that stuck...I had told her that I make two books of everything I do so that when my girls leave the house they don't have to decide who takes what.  They each have an album to take.  However this is very costly, considering that you need two of every piece of paper, sticker, embelishment, etc.  My friend Erica has 5 kids and she justs makes her album on the computer and then prints out several copies "yearbook style".  I just about died...what a great concept.  It was all coming clear for me.  You see having been a consultant for 8 years, when I had to make an order every 3 months, basically it went like this"  one for my product base, one for me, one for my product base, one for me.  I have THOUSANDS of dollars of scrapbooking stuff left.  And I have done a lot of shopping in scrapbooking stores where ever we go and have brought a lot of stuff home from there as well.  So I probably have an estimate of over TEN THOUSAND dollars just in stickers.  Now I wish I could tell you that I am ashamed of myself, however I am not.  I love it so much!  I love my stickers, paper, embellishments, albums...all of the equipment that I have collected over the years.  I absolutely love it.  Which is why I think the whole transistion into digital scrapbooking has been so hard for me. 
One thing that I did do though since my babies were little with every single roll of film that I had developed, I also had them put it on a CD.  So I do have all of my pictures for the last 7 years on CD aka digital.  Yay for me!
Well now I am about to become a Creative Memories consultant again but not to make money on it, just to pay for my own hobby.  Based on the past, I have a tendency to buy a lot of stuff when I do these sorts of things. :) 
So I am excited to blog about my experience in getting in to a whole new scrapbooking world for me.  I will continue to scrapbook the "old school" way for my girls' first album since I have already started and have all the stickers, paper, etc. for it...but from this point forward I would like to refer to myself as a "digital scrapbooker". 
Any suggestions you other digital scrapbookers out there have...I would love to hear them. 
Happy Sunday!

Aloha Friday...Parenting Advice

In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer below as a comment. Nothing that requires a lengthy response. Click above button to get more info.

Here is my question this week:

What was your favorite parenting advice?

I actually have a couple of things that I live by and try to give as my parenting advice when asked.

• Never EVER let your child think you are mad at them.  For example, don't ever use he term, "Mommy is so angry, mad, upset or disappointed at you."  You don't ever want your child to feel like you are mad at THEM.  It's fine to be angry, mad, upset and/or disappointed at what they DID, but not at them.  So you would let them know, "Mommy is upset at the choice that was made, not at you!"  It's important that they know you would NEVER be mad at them and that they should never be mad at themselves!

• Have them look in the mirror from a very young age...look right at themselve and tell themselves they love themself.  For example..."I love you Kandi." to myself.  It's hard for many adults to do this but the best gift we can give our kids...#1 is your relationship with your spouse #2 the gift for them to love themselves.
  

• Epressing emotion...there are so many times that we tell our kids to stop crying, stop pouting, stop any kind of behavior that we feel is unnecessary.  To express emotion is so healthy for them and they have to know that it's ok.  It's actually good to talk to them about what they're feeling.  Explain to them what that emotion is so they don't feel bad about themselves when they want to cry or be sad.  What I tell my girls when they are crying whether its for a good reason or not..."Crying is really healthy, but I don't want to hear it so if you would like to cry you are welcome to do that in your bedroom."  That way we are not trying to keep them from expressing emotions...just asking them to do it in their bedroom and when they are all done, they are welcome to join us again.
  

• Never say Bad boy or Bad girl to them.  Maybe what they did was bad but you don't ever want to make them feel bad about themselves.
  
  
  
• Live in the  now...when they have done something that has upset you...don't say you ALWAYS do this or you can't EVER do anything right.  Talk about what happened that day... for example, "We had a rough morning today.  You were not listening...let's work harder on that tomorrow."  Or instead of, "You always talk horrible to me."  Deal in the now..."I don't appreciate the way you were talking to me today."  That way they don't feel like they are a lost cause...fixing one day is a lot easier than fixing something they ALWAYS do!
  
  
  
• Whenever your child is doing something that is DRIVING YOU CRAZY...look in the mirror.  They are mirror images of us.  Sometimes they are doing things that we, ourselves don't even realize we do.  There are many times that my girls do something that I wonder, where in the world did that come from?  Most people would just think of it as a phase...I look in the mirror and figure out what I'm doing that is causing that behavior.  They will duplicate what we do so don't expect to tell them not to do something that you do all the time.  You have to be the example you want to set for your kids!   An example of this...I have a friend whose daughter talks HORRIBLE to her.  She is always just appalled at the way her daughter addresses and treats her.  The problem is...she has never looked in the mirror to see how she talks to her daughter.  From an outside view...the daughter is a spitting image of her mom and talks to and treats her mom the same way her mom treats her.  If you want the behavior to change in your child...you have to first be willing to change it in yourself.
  
  
  
• And last but not least for today...this is a tough one that I struggle with every day...NO EMOTION!  If you can just practice no emotion when they come home and tell you something...just listen and don't offer your advice unless they are asking for it.  As hard as that is, right then is not the appropriate time to get them in to a huge lecture.  They'll never talk to you again.  Be thankful that they are talking to you and just listen.  If they want your advice...I promise they'll ask and then it will be welcome whatever you say.  Or No Emotion when they do something that makes you angry.  Again...hard to be but often times they are only doing it to get that rise out of you.  If you didn't react and just dealt with the problem, you would find those times getting less and less.
  
  
  

I hope that one of this little things helped you in your #1 job in life...parenting!  There is truly nothing more important that we could be good at than being good parents.  We are responsible for what this world is going to become!

Have a great Friday!

Things I love Thursdays...Verseit.com

This post is linked to Things I Love Thursday at The Diaper Diaries.

I have always been a party planner and have made all of my own invitations from my wedding invites (well I got the verse for it anyway), baby showers, to my girls' birthday party invites.  And I always do themed parties so the wording of the invitation is very important.  Where I go to find all of the perfect verses is called...http://www.verseit.com/  you can find a verse for any thing you need.  I actually will find one that I like and use the basis of it to make my own sayings. 
This works every year for birthday parties, holiday parties, baby showers, etc.  This website has saved me many times considering that in my opinion the invitation makes the whole event...if the invite is exciting and can draw them in, you will actually get more people to that event.
For example...this year I did a rockstar birthday party for my girls.  I really wanted concert ticket invitations so while I was looking online for the "perfect" idea that I could copy, I actually found a company that makes concert ticket invitations.  I had to come up with all the verbage and they would do the rest...they were adorable, pink and white and the seat and row numbers were all 6 because thats how old my girls were. 
Definitely use http://www.verseit.com/, you will feel really creative with a little help!

Just a Motivating Monday...

This is an opportunity to write about something that is motivating to you or you think will be motivating to others.  To read more Motivating Mondays go to garibaysoup.com.

I have been very inspired lately by just knowing what we as human beings are designed for.  We are designed for greatness.  God didn't manufacture junk, Success is our birth right.  And knowing that motivates me to seek out things that make me a better mom, wife, make our family more successful, etc.
What I am looking for when I am searching for ways to improve "life" in general is first a vehicle to help me get to my dreams.  You see there are so many people out there who don't dream any more.  They feel, "what's the use."  Remember that what you dream, you can achieve.  And I believe that every single day.  In looking for the "vehicle" to help me reach my dreams, I first had to realize that it wasn't a 9 to 5 job.  You see our whole lives we are taught to be average.  Go to school, go to college, go to work for someone else, work until you are too old to work, retire and then go get the "retirement job" because you can't afford to live on retirement.  Well I'm 33 years old, what's Social Security going to be like when I get old enough to need it?  What's it gonna be when my kids are old enough to need it?  God didn't create us to be average!  He created us to be GREAT!  And if it is to be, it's up to me!
Don't stop dreaming.  This weekend we are going to create our new vision boards.  This vision board will consist of all of the things we are dreaming about...short term and long term.  My girls are 6 years old and we do it with them as well.  Do you have any idea what we are teaching our kids with teaching them to dream? 
There will be many people along the path that frown on you for pursuing your dreams.  Why is that?  Because they don't dream!  It saddens me to think about all the people in life that just settle, settle for where they are going to work, settle for how much money they are going to have, settle for how they are living their lives.  I want the absolute best for my children...and I am not a money motivated person, I am a freedom motivated person.  I am on the path for time and money together...so when you go to Disneyland you don't have to choose if you are going to get a doll from the gift shop OR eat in one of the "downtown restaurants", you can do them both.  You can live life the way you were intended to live life. 
I thank God each and every day knowing that I am on the path that I was intended to be on .  The path that is going to help me reach my dreams, goals and achieve my greatness!  Through it all, I am teaching my children to do the same thing!  Through God all things are possible and I live my life each and every day seeking God's word.  Knowing that when I leave those doors to go to "work", that I am doing God's work!  And I will not be killing myself in a heavy labor job or stressing myself to the max in an environment where everyone hates each other as well as their jobs.  I love what I do and encourage each and every one of you to find what it is that you love to do.  Break out of the J- O- B mold (Just Over Broke) and shoot for the moon, you never know, you may end up with a star!
Don't stop dreaming!  Dream big and then map out how to get there!  Read inspirational books!  You should be working on yourself every single day!  Be positive...live a positive life (and that is a choice).  Good things happen to good people is a fact!  Be a good person! 
Love yourself!
I will tell you of a couple of books that I just recently bought that I encourage all of you to buy...they are not long reading, they are fairly short books... "The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle" and "The Seasons of Life" both written by Jim Rohn.
Pursue your greatness today...and have a blessed day!

Halloween 2009

Yesterday was a very busy and very fun day!  The girls and I carved pumpkins in the afternoon.  This was the first year I actually let them use the little "pumpkin knives" that you buy as kits in the store and cut their own pumpkin.  Usually they will draw on the pumpkin and Adam and I carve them out...but not this year.  And they did awesome! 
Then as it started to get closer to dark we decided it was time to get their outfits together.  They were so excited and so was I to find out how it was all going to come together. 
We put on their make up and it was the first Halloween costume that ever required face makeup like this.  Below is a picture of Em with her face made up and Erynn anxious for hers to be.

We got both girls all done and started with the blue eyebrows and blue eyeshadow makeup with blue eyelashes.  Then we did a pink nose with lipstick and pink lips...time to add the wig.  I was so excited about these wigs...they were perfect.  They were actually blue troll hair that I found on the internet.

This was one of my favorite costumes that we have done yet.  We put on their red long sleeve shirts and pink leggings to keep them warm under their outfit and then it was time to get dressed up.

And then the outfit...they looked SO cute!  It was so much fun!

The night was a blast...I was so surprised how many people just loved the girls' outfits.  Everyone that we passed commented on their outfits.  It was so much fun for them.  My mom and my mother-in-law came with us and we had a great time.  The girls got their share of candy and enough for many others as well.

One more Halloween down...one more year to go!

Hope you all had an awesome time and I look forward to seeing pictures of all of your kids' costumes.

Happy Sunday!