Annie Giveaway!

In 1982 I was 6 years old. The same age my daughter is now and when the movie Annie came onto the big screen it was the most wonderful and amazing thing I had ever seen in my whole young life.

The music, the attitude, the sweetness and those fabulous orange locks! Annie was my kind of girl and I learned every song word for word after listening to the soundtrack album on my record player. I knew she’d always hold a special place in my heart.

That’s why I couldn’t be more excited to be giving away FOUR TICKETS to see the live production of Annie being put on by Tri-Valley Reparatory Theater at the beautiful Bankhead in Downtown Livermore!

That’s right, my friends at TVRT are back and better than ever with their production of Annie! The show will be opening tomorrow night and running through February 5^th!  Performance dates are, January / February 2012
Jan. 21, 22, 27, 28, 29; Feb. 3, 4, 5. You can buy tickets here via the Bankhead Box Office.

Friday Round-Up

What a busy week! I was lucky enough to have my niece and brother come visit for a few days which led to some fun days in the sun and some very tired kiddos. But I managed to get some work done also and since I’m making a real effort to start posting regularly on my blog again, I’m going back to doing my Friday Round-up of places I was writing this week!

Over at Life360:

• Monday : I was chatting about watching my kids as they continue Learning to Be Smart
• Wednesday: It’s rare that I give in and openly talk about the fluff kids television I enjoy watching so enjoy this post, Disney Channel Confessions
• Friday: Is your child a late talker? Here’s why it’s no big deal. Late Talkers Are No Problems 

Over on SheHeroes:

• Tuesday: An interesting story about gender lessons at the circus in Sometimes It’s The Little Things.
• Friday: Exciting news from the U.K. about gender messages in the media! Britain Holds L’Oreal Accountable 

Have a great weekend!

Tips on Taking Time For Yourself Each Day, Even When There’s None to Spare

Thanks to Crystal Light for sponsoring this post. To learn more about how Crystal Light can flavor your day with 30 refreshing flavors, visit http://www.facebook.com/crystallight.

As a mom it’s not always easy to find time for yourself. And often when you do it somehow feels like it’s at the expense of someone else in the family. But as research and personal experience shows, taking a little time for you is VITAL to be a good parent, a healthy person and just plain happier.

Even with my kids in school (one only in school for a couple of hours at that) I still struggle to find time for myself that doesn’t involve cleaning or working. But lately I’ve been working hard at making it happen, and I’m starting to get better at it.

Here are a few things you can find a little time to yourself even when you don’t have any to spare.

• Garden – OK so gardening can be a bit of work in the beginning but once it’s going strong the actual “gardening’ part can be very therapeutic. Weeding, watering and harvesting have been soul-soothing activities for thousands of years. When the weather is right you can let the kids loose in the yard while you get some earthy time in the dirt.
• Read – Most schools ask that your kids read 15 to 20 minutes a day, each day. At our school we actually have to sign a sheet that the child did read for that period of time. Instead of nagging your child from the kitchen, sit down and read a book or magazine of your own. This will help encourage your child to work on their reading and give you 15 minutes of quiet reading time.
• Early to Bed Early to Rise – Make it a point to get up 15 to 30 minutes early than the rest of your house. Read, do some yoga or just enjoy a quiet cup of coffee before the chaos of the morning starts. And set a decent and early bedtime for your kdis and stick to it. Then use that time to unwind from the day, catch up on Facebook, go to sleep early or simply watch a little TV with your spouse.

These things may not seem like much but incorporating them into your daily routine can do wonders for your stress level, your health and even your ability to be a good mom.
Remember, visit http://www.facebook.com/crystallight to learn more about how Crystal Light can flavor your day with 30 refreshing flavors. I was selected and paid for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Talking Tucson With Your Kids

I am a pretty compassionate person and when I see injustice or tragedy strike anywhere I feel pain. Both of my children have made it apparent that they have a similar compassion for injustice. That’s why I was unsure what to say to either of them as I sat, stunned, watching the horrific events unfold in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday after Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was among 20 people injured in a shooting where six people, including a 9 year old girl, were killed.

Letting Our Freak Flag Fly at Shrek the Musical

“Let your freak flag fly” may seem like an odd piece of advice to offer my Kindergarten and Second Grader, but that was the lesson learned last week when we were lucky enough to catch “Shrek The Musical”  in San Francisco. And I have to say it’s a lesson I’m more than happy to support my kids getting.

Friday Round-Up

We braved a heatwave this week with scorching three digit temps that kept us pretty much held up indoors, which is OK because it’s Banned Book Week, so we had some rebellious book reading to do anyway.

In between surviving the heat and reading banned books I did manage to get some other stuff done though… check it out.

Wordless Wednesday – Fun With Fox News

The family and I had the rare odd and fun opportunity to be filmed for a story that aired on Fox News Tuesday. So I’m posting a few screen shots of the clip for Wordless Wednesday. OK, so there are a few words here but it’s my blog so I can add words to my Wordless Wednesday if I want.

If you want to see the clip you can check out here. If you want to know more about Life360 visit their website here. Oh and if you’re … ahem … NOT a big Fox News fan visit my pals here...

Our Visit to Neverland

“So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!”

I believe in fairies. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. I mean I don’t go around telling people that, but between you and I, I do.

For a story about fairies, flying, magical places beyond the stars and little boys who won’t grow up, Peter Pan is one of the most relatable stories ever written. As children we shout that we believe in fairies, we dream about what it would be like to fly to Neverland and we keep an ever-watchful eye for pirates.

But then we grow up, and the magic is lost somehow. Until we have our own children. And then, just as Wendy says goodbye to Peter in the end, the magic returns and the story only begins again with our own child.

Yesterday my own two darling children and I hopped on the train to San Francisco, a magical place in itself, to see the live production of Peter Pan at the three sixty Theater. I knew it would be special, but I had no idea it would be the most amazing live theater experience I’d ever seen.

When we saw the real Wendy, John and Michael fly through the air above us along with Peter and Tinkerbell my heart began to race. I looked over at my kids and both of them were sitting there with smiles on their faces and pixie dust in their eyes.

They were mesmerized.

And later when we all shouted that we believed in fairies so that we could save Tink’s life, I felt myself start to cry.

Patrick with Nate Fallows (Peter Pan)

Sometimes as adults the stress of life can be overwhelming. And the magic of childhood is only a distant memory, if we remember it all. But in that moment as I watched Tink light back up I remembered. I remembered what it was like to believe in fairies, and I remembered that magic still exists.

And in the last moments of the show, as Peter Pan smiled at Wendy’s girl Jane, for a moment I looked up and thought maybe somewhere there really is Neverland. Just maybe…

But lucky for us the magic did not end there. Thanks to a very generous invitation from SHNSF we were able to meet up with some of my favorite local bloggers and meet the cast of the show. All of them were so unbelievably sweet to my kids, only reinforcing the magic of the day.

Patrick & Cheyanne with Abby Ford (Wendy Darling)

I love the theater. I love classic books. And I love taking my kids on magical journey’s to places like Neverland. And I love that my kids think Pixie Dust is real and that fairies are never far away. And I won’t ever be the one to tell them otherwise.

“And because Peter never grew up, when Jane had her own children, they flew away with Peter too, and so it will always be, as long as there are children.”

Thanks so much to cast and crew of Peter Pan in San Francisco for an amazing day. And to SHNSF for putting together this event and allowing my kids and I to be a part of it.

Though SHNSF provided tickets to the show I was under no obligation to write this post or in any other way compensated for it.

Wordless Wednesday

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7 Links For You to Read

I’m taking the SITS Girls challenge on Blog Frog, 31 Days to a Better Blog. Today’s challenge was to write a list post (something I love to do) so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and also take part in another challenge from ProBlogger, the 7-link challenge.

So here is a list to 7 links from past blog posts you may have missed as well as a post that I didn’t write but wish I had.

Enjoy this look back and I’d love to hear feedback on any of the posts!

1. My First Post – My first post was actually on my MySpace blog, but I did upload to Meg’s Idle Chatter when I first set it up. It was the first of many birthday posts I would go on to write. This one being about Patrick’s 4^th birthday. It’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging that long! Reflections on my Baby’s 4^th Birthday
2. The Post I Enjoyed Writing the Most – This post felt so good to write. It really felt like this was the kind of post that I was meant to be writing on this blog, Every Mom is a Working Mom
3. A Post That Had a Great Discussion – This post didn’t just cause a discussion on my blog (see comments) but on MomConnect.com, Facebook, Twitter and even with moms I knew personally at my son’s school. Your Parenting Style and How Your Doing it Wrong
4. A post on someone else’s blog that I wish I’d written – This was such a great post that I related to and shared on Facebook. This was another incident where I had moms at school thanking me for posting it on Facebook. The amazing Stephanie Himel-Nelson, better known as Lawyer Mama, wrote it. My Scarlet Letter H
5. My most helpful post – If any regular readers would like to disagree, feel free, but I think that this post related to getting kids to read was the most likely to be helpful considering how many moms I know (including myself) have found this to be a major challenge. Tips on Getting Your Kids to Read
6. A post with a title that I am proud of – Breastfeeding is always an important topic to me. And finding support for the difficulties that can sometimes be found when breastfeeding was one of my introductions in to the world of mommy blogging. So it was only fair that I eventually wrote a post on the topic and gave it a funny tongue in cheek play on words as a title. Breastfeeding Sucks
7. A post that I wish more people had read – This was one of the most emotional and personal posts that I think I ever wrote. I cried writing it and sometimes still do. This man may have been just a director to some, but he was a major influence on me and I found it surprising difficult to say goodbye. I wish more people had come across this post. My Life According to John Hughes

Do you have a favorite blog post from this blog or any blog to share in the comments?