$50 Gift Card from Pampers to Celebrate a Miracle- Giveaway

Pampers has a wonderful challenge going on called Pampers Little Miracle Mission. The challenge to come up with a way to pay-it forward by carrying out a random act of kindness to babies and their families in your community.

I was sent a $50 American Express gift card to perform my random act of kindness right here in Greenville, South Carolina. After much thinking and a little prayer, I decided to use the money to purchase items Bethany Christian Services could use to fill the gift baskets they give to birth moms while they are in the hospital.

Bethany Christian services had a list of a variety of things to pick from on their website. Armed with their list JDaniel and I headed to Dollar Tree and Hobby Lobby to seek and find some of the items on the list. We had a great time finding the items and bringing them to Bethany Christian Services.

What did we get? We bought tissue paper, travel size tissues, journals, scrapbooking items, and candy bars.

Pampers has given me the opportunity to let you pay it forward too. They will give one of you a $50 gift card to share a random act of kindness with moms and babies in your community.


Share your idea below. I will select one person who will get to carry out their idea using the $50 American Express Gift Cardon May 23rd.



By the way everyone can easily participate in a small way by logging on to Pampers Facebook page (Facebook.com/Pampers) by hitting ‘like’ and then going to the Miracle Missions tab and committing to Mission 1 by clicking “I Want To Pledge.”

Once more than 2,500 people pledge, Pampers will respond by giving baby showers to expectant mothers nationwide just in time for Mother’s Day. As a side note, anyone who pledges is automatically entered to win a year’s supply worth of Pampers diapers and wipes (and that can definitely help someone in a big way!).

 

My College Graduation

When I graduated from college, I was surrounded by my favorite people in the whole world.

My Mom

Mom raised my sisters and me as a single parent. She balanced teaching school and taking care of us. It was a lot to manage. I know some days it was a struggle to keep all the balls in the air. Some days she could have used four or five extra hands to get all the balls from falling.

My Dad

Dad came on Sundays to take us to museums or to visit his mom (my Gigi) or to go on hikes. He loved books, art, the theater and exploring the great outdoors. He shared his joy of them with us and much of it rubbed off. A passion for modern art only rubbed off on my youngest sister.

My Sisters

Kate and Michelle have always been my closest friends and encouragers. We shared a room for many years when we lived in an apartment following my parent’s divorce. By the time we were in high school and we knew just want to do to get the others attention and on each other’s nerves. Going off to college had been a good time for us to grow up and grow back to each other.

My Maternal Grandmother

Gigi generously paid for two years of my college education. I probably would have had to get loans if she hadn’t provided the much need funds.

She was a serious and proper lady. When I visited her, she expected me to act like a proper lady. She never understood why my mom let me wear sneakers and play in the mud. In her world girls sat on couches and read books wearing dresses.

My Adopted Grandparents

The church I attended in college has a program called Adopt-A –Student that assigned students to older members of the church. I was blessed to be matched up with the Greene’s.

Mr. Greene had to watch his sugar levels but, Mrs. Greene would always make dessert if I was going over for Sunday dinner. I went to their house often for dinner.

They had dated as young adults, but didn’t end up getting married until much later. They taught me so much about what a joyful marriage should be. Mrs. Greene advised me to wait until I was ready to get married. I bet she would have never guessed it would take me so long to be read.



Under the hot sun of Virginia in May I crossed in front of them on a raised stage set up in front of one of the dorms.

I was so happy to have them all there to witness this wonderful event. I was so blessed to have each of them in my life.

 What do you remember about your graduation?   Tiny Prints provides stylish, modern and unique graduation stationery including graduation announcements, graduation invitations,and thank you cards for teens. When graduation season has come and gone Tiny Prints will still be here to fill all your stationery needs with their exclusive designs from the nation's top designers.  You'll find summer party invitations, personalized greeting cards, thank you cards, business cards, and even custom wedding invitations. Come try the easy card personalization, powerful preview engine and top-notch customer service and paper quality for yourself! With Tiny Prints by your side commemorating every holiday and momentous occasion is a cinch! 

 
Disclaimer: I am being compensated for this post. Some of the information included in this post was given to me to include in the post. 
  

NOVICA Winners!

Theresa and Domestic Diva have won the NOVICA gift codes. I have contacted both of them via e-mail.

  

Read.Explore.Learn.- Mom and Ice Cream

Welcome to Read. Explore. Learn! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

• Link your activity below.

• Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.
  
  
  

                                                        
  
  
  

  <center><a href="http://www.jdaniel4smom.com/"><img alt="Shibley Smiles" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-wYnCaxCjpQ/TIbl9KccMVI/AAAAAAAAB98/vjalStjjb-I/s1600/ReadExploreLearn.jpg" alt="jdaniel4smom" width="150" height="150" /></a></center>

• Please try to visit at  least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment and Stumble your post.

• If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.
• I would love a comment too.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week: 





While thinking about what kind of ice cream to select, a little boy named Teddy dreams of a land where he would be the king of ice cream. (It may have been the paper crown the waiter brought over to him that became the day dream.)


Teddy's kingdom has chocolate halls and mint chip ice cream walls. He is able to travel by rocket to an ice cream moon. Later he sails an ice cream sea and fishes for cherries and nuts. He relishes in the fact that everything in his land is his.


After exploring his ice cream kingdom, Teddy discovers that something is missing. He finds that he is all alone and that it would be better with somebody to share it.


When Teddy removes his crown, he find he is back in the ice cream shop and the waiter is still waiting to take his order.


What does he select? He asks for a banana split with two spoons. One spoon for mom and one for him.


What did we do?


Ice Cream Making

Actually we made ice milk by putting milk and chocolate syrup into an old cottage cheese container. We strapped down the lid of the container and then placed it into an old coffee container.  I added ice and salt around the cottage cheese container and then strapped down the coffe container lid.




We rolled it back and forth until JDaniel decided he was tired of rolling it. ( That was about 20 minutes.) We repeated the alphabet, practiced counting and reviewed nursery rhymes to get through the 20 minutes.


The container was then put into the freezer for a couple of hours.


Voila! We had homemade ice milk. JDaniel loves it.



Ice Cream Cone Balloon Game


I thought this wastebasket looked a little like an ice cream cone. We tried to get the balloon into the cone by tossing it, dropping it, and kicking it.



This post is linked to Feed Me Books Friday, Link and Learn, We Play and It's Play Time.


    Disclaimer: I was sent this book to review by Tiger Tales Books. The activities and opinions are my own.  

Communicating Clear Ideas About Mother’s Day

I was so excited when my first Mother’s Day arrived. I had only been a mom for three months and I was totally into being JDaniel’s mom. Although my husband helped out when he was home, I had decided  I needed to do as much a possible on my own. For all I was and was doing I thought Mother’s Day should be a celebration of me.

JDaniel slept very little at night. He seemed to want to nurse all night and sleep all day. So, I was up almost all night and tried to sleep when he sleep during the day.

Diapers were quickly filled and changed due to all the nursing.

He loved to be sung too. I sang him every church hymn, show tune, and children’s song I could think off.

He had gas a lot so; I patted his back for hours.

I was making tons of mistakes as a first time mom. During spare moments I read articles online with my husband at my side to try to weed through the good and bad advice.



Mother’s Day

My mom lived in the same town we did and I knew we were going to need to celebrate her motherhood along with my own. I made arrangements to go a Chinese restaurant, because she wanted Chinese food. I asked her about the best time to take her and she mentioned lunch time would be great.

It turned out to be a bad time for JDaniel. He wanted to be held the whole time we were at the restaurant by only his mama. He won’t let my husband or my mom hold him at all. After that was established as the way it was going to be, they went for multiple visits to the buffet and relished the great selection of foods they were eating.

What was I doing? Well, I sat in a vinyl booth holding the strong willed yet lovable baby that had allowed me to become a mama waiting for my husband to return with my lunch. Then I tried to eat while my son stared up at me with his bright blue eyes plotting when to cry next. The thought that was flying through my head was why wasn’t enjoying Mother’s Day as much as my husband and mom seemed to be.

During the car ride home, I felt frustrated and slightly bent of shape. Mother’s Day didn’t seemed be about me. In fact it seemed to be about every mom except me.


Far From the Perfect Gift

I did get a Mother’s Day gift from my husband and JDaniel that was supposed to show me that I was special. Instead of making me feel cherished it added to my frustration. My wonderful husband decided I needed an electric toothbrush for Mother’s Day. It would save me time and effort. He loved his and decided I would love one too.

It was a wonderful thought. It just didn't go over well.


Gaining Perspective and Questions

By the end of the day I was sending frantic prayers to God. I desperately wanted to enjoy the final moments of Mother’s Day and not dwell on my perceived disappointments.

In the quiet hours before midnight holding JDaniel in my arms and trying get him to go to sleep I received an answer. It came in a series of questions to ask myself.

What did I expect from Mother’s Day?

Had a shared my expectations with my husband?

Beyond taking my mom to lunch had I shown her that she was cherished?

Did my husband have a gift ideas shared with him so that he would have an idea of what I would like?

Had I shown appreciation for the gift he had selected?

Didn’t having a perfect yet ornery baby in my forties make everyday Mother’s Day?

I went to sleep that night pondering these questions along with praying for JDaniel to sleep.


Second Year Better Than the First

The following Mother’s Day I did a much better job of communicating with my husband about Mother’s Day. Somehow knowing that I had shared what I wanted and hoped for made it a much better day.

How do you handle Mother's Day at your house?

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe Thursday!

   



Do You Buy Your Own Gift for Mother's Day? What is on Your Wish List?

I won an iPad a few months ago. I love, love, love it, but I haven't mastered the keyboard. I end up hunting and pecking like a crazed woodpecker and making tons of spelling errors.

I have mentioned to my husband that what I would really like for Mother's Day isn't a beautiful bouqet of roses, but an iPad keyboard.

He has so much going on at work that I think I am going to be making the purchase myself using Ebates . They will give me a 1% cash back when purchasing the keyboard through the Apple store.

Do you buy your own gifts or give your husband a list of what you want?

What do you want for Mother's Day?

Whatever you’re buying this Mother’s Day, start at Ebates and get up to 20% cash back! To celebrate moms everywhere, Ebates is giving away a $1,000 shopping spree from any of their 1,200 retail partners!

How to Enter: Visit Ebates.com and find something you or your favorite mom would love. Reply below with a description of what you found! A random winner will be announced Monday, May 10, 2011.(You must be registered with Ebates to win.)

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Ebates. The opinions and text are all mine. Contest goes from Monday, May 2nd to Monday, May 9th 2011.

Pause Life for a Moment- Southern Institute for Domestic Arts and Crafts

I have been reading the Southern Institute for Domestic Arts and Crafts for over a year. I have learned so much about home life from Jenny. She has a unique talent for choosing beautiful fabrics to create clothing, a wonderful taste for food creations, a joy for motherhood, a love of Christ and so much more.

After reading her Pause Life for a Moment post, please stop by and visit her wonderful blog.



photo credit

There are times in life when you are forced to pause from the everyday busyness that you are accustomed to.  When I think of times in my life when there were peaceful pauses, I think of the first few weeks after each of my children were born.  There's that time after you've returned home from the hospital, when your body is recovering and you are adjusting to life with a new little person, when life seems a bit suspended.  My favorite times were the middle of the night feedings.  It wasn't that I loved being up in the middle of the night, it was that I loved being up in the middle of the night with a newborn.  It was just us, the world outside quiet with sleep, the sound of the clock ticking, the gentle snores of other members of the family who are fast asleep.  These were precious moments, times of bonding that I will always cherish.  At those moments it feels like nothing else matters but making that newest blessing know that they are loved and cared for.  Just a mother feeding her child, like mothers have done since the beginning of time.  

Muffin Tin Monday- Planting Apple Seed Thoughts

 

I am hoping for Mother's Day presents that I can use the iPad I won from The Activity Mom. I decided to serve JDaniel several apple related foods in the hopes that when my husband asks him what they should get he will reply they should get something to do with apples. I know this a stretch, but the mind of three year old is a complicated thing. This actuall may work.

JDaniel was served chicken salad with apples, apple slices, crackers, applesauce, mixed veggies and cheese cubes. The mixed veggie and cheese are not apple related. The hope was that he would just eat them. The crackers were to have the chicken salad scooped on to them and eaten together.

Well, the veggies were not touched. The applesauce was swapped out for cottage cheese when JDaniel announced applesauce is no longer a favorite. The chicken salad wasn't placed on the crackers. It was scooped out by hand.

That leads me to a question. Do your children use forks and spoons when eating?

JDaniel used to and has recently stopped. I am encouraging him to use them, but it has been a challenge.

  Please stop by on Wednesday and leave a comment on my What Mother's Day Gift Are You Hoping for? post. I would love to know what you are hoping to get.