Learn more from the following release:

Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Friends Forever

on DVD March 5, 2013

Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Friends Forever:

When the very formal Berry Bitty Buggy Derby is revived, the girls are unfamiliar with the traditional behavior for the event. Blueberry starts off as the resident expert, but eventually gets so obsessed with manners she does more harm than good. In the end, the girls work together and learn the true meaning of being BFF’s or Berry Friends Forever.

Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Friends Forever DVD Special Features

  – “Never Say Never” Music Video

  – Printable Coloring Pages

Strawberry Shortcake’s Berry Best Manners for Kids Guide

The following will highlight some of the “berry” best manners that Strawberry and Blueberry would approve of! Your kids will learn how to be on their “berry” best behavior everyday with this fun guide!

Keep Your Elbows Off the Table

While the origin of this table manner is still up for debate, it’s “berry” polite to keep your elbows off the table while eating! Resting your elbows on the table while you eat makes you prone to accidental spills and other mishaps, while remembering to keep your elbows off the table ensures that food, utensils, and drinks remain on the table and out of your lap!

Always Use Your “Inside Voice”

It’s easy to get excited when talking about something you love and are excited about, or when having fun with your berry best friends, but it’s important to always use your “inside voice.” If you’re invited to a formal event like the Berry Bitty Buggy Derby like Strawberry and her pals are, you’d have to do your best to not yell to show your excitement!

Always Use “Please” and “Thank you”

Always remember to say, “please” before asking for something, and “thank you” when someone does something to help you. Using “please” and “thank you” isn’t just a way to be polite when asking for something, but it’s also a nice way to decline someone’s offer. Let’s say a friend offers you a snack at their house, but you’re allergic to the food – what do you say? “No, thank you!”

Knock Before Entering

If someone has the door to their bedroom, the bathroom, etc. closed, you should always knock and ask for permission to come in before entering. In general, people shut doors when they don’t want company, so if you want to be on your “berry” best behavior, you should always knock!

Chew With Your Mouth Closed

No matter how yummy your food is, always remember that those you’re eating with don’t want to see your chewed food hanging out of your mouth! Even though everyone enjoys tasty food, it’s important to chew food with your mouth closed so that you don’t accidentally gross out your dining companions. Chewing with your mouth closed also helps you keep from dropping chewed food on your clothes and the table. Another “berry” good tip: don’t talk with your mouth full of food either – it’s considered polite to finish chewing and then speak!

(I received a copy of the above video from Twentieth Century Fox Home entertainment for an honest review.)

Our world is colorful and we need to embrace the colors, learn from the past,improve our future.  How boring would a color-blind world be?  I feel that Celebrating Black History Month does not belittle, undermine or replace other cultures or heritages.  It simple lets us learn and in turn see our world as amazing.

Scholastic has once again provided me with some great books for Black History Month!   I will review them for you, share with the girls’ classrooms and keep at least one of them for my home library.  While I believe you can never have to  many books, my bookshelves are bursting a bit :)

My favorite is a beautiful hard-back by Henry Cole, UNSPOKEN: A Story From the Underground Railroad.  The illustrations are amazingly simple sketchings that make a huge impact.  My favorite thing about this book though is that there are no words!  It is wonderful to let kids come up with their own words from the pictures. This book is staying in my family library! The story is one of a young girl finding a hidden runaway slave in her barn, showing her kindness and then have kindness returned to her. Perfect for younger kids learning that what they do matters and that kindness begets kindness.

I Am Martin Luther King, Jr illustrated by Elisabeth Alba and I Am Harriet Tubman illustrated by Ute Simon were both written by Grace Norwich are amazing new biographies aimed for third and fourth graders.  I know that there are other biographies on these people, but I really like this new format. The pictures/illustrations have a current feel to them, there is a pictorial index of the different people the reader will meet in the story and at the end a feature called “10 More Things That Are Pretty Cool To Know”.  My fifth grader grabbed these immediately to see if they are AR for school and thankfully the Martin Luther King Jr one is worth 2.0 points, I couldn’t find Harriet Tubman’s but I found several more in the series so my guess is that it is so new it is not on the list yet.  These will be donated to the class room, once I get through them.

I Survived The Battle of Gettysburg, 1863 by Laren Tarshis. This is one in a series of I survived, also featuring 9/11 and the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.  It is a level 4 reading book.Action packed the story tells of Thomas and his little sister running away from slavery and meeting up with Union troops to make it North.

The final book  I want to review is Jackie Robinson: American Hero by Sharon Robinson. I love the fact that it was written by  his daughter. This book is full of family photographs and goes in depth on Robinson’s story, while not getting to heavy for the age group it is focused at (2nd-4th graders).  While the story of oppression and bigotry is in the book, the successes of Jackie Robinson is in the forefront of the story.

Here are links to some of my other Black History Month posts: Black History Month , Book Review For Black History Month.  I also like to provide classrooms with multicultural markers/crayons.  What are some fun things you do to celebrate diversity and other cultures?

(Disclosure: I received the above books from Scholastic to review them on my blog, no other compensation was received and opinions are my own.  Links are not affiliate.)

February 8th is National Girl Scout Cookie Day celebrating what a cookie can do!  Girl Scout Cookies started out as a way for Girl Scouts to raise money for scouting activities.  Decades later, the cookies are still going strong, and I have to say that a Girl Scout Cookie is so much more than a cookie.

Cookie time is when our scouting girls are setting goals, learning about customer service, learning money handling skills and advertising. They are learning about manners and safety. They are also having fun and raising money for trips, uniforms, snacks and service projects.

Want to win 5 boxes of cookies?  Simply leave a comment telling me what your favorite kind of Girl Scout cookie is.  My girls are selling Thin Mints, Samoas, Do-Si-Dos, Thank U Berry Munch, Trefoils, Tagalongs and Lemon Chalets.  If you don’t win, you can always buy from us ;)

For an extra entry tweet @GirlScouts #onemorebox and come back here and let me know you tweeted.

Winner will be picked via Random.org on February 9th.  

Happy National Girl Scout Cookie Day February 8th!

Congrats to Comment #14 :)

(Disclosure: I was asked to blog about National Girl Scout Cookie Day and received no compensation for this. I just really support Girl Scouts and plan to break my gluten-free diet for just a few cookies this year!)

She’s eight…Let’s not get sexy please.

Elle went to the annual cheer-leading clinic tonight. They have had this for years as a High School fund raiser and the girls have gone off and on. I have never yearned for my girls to be cheerleaders, but I know that it is a fun activity for the kids and let them attend the clinic when they want to.

I understand that cheer-leading is a sport. I admire the agility and dancing skills.  I wish our local cheerleaders would cheer for the girls teams as well as for the boy teams. I feel that if they are to be respected as a sport more they need to be cheering all of the players, not just the boys.  I say all of this to let you know where I am coming from.

Tonight the girls performed the cheer they learned and that they will be preforming next Tuesday at the JV boys basketball game.  The cheer is pretty typical in that the girl are yelling,”Let’s go boys!  Let’s go!” In my head I’m thinking really, can’t we cheer for the girls just once?  I kept my mouth shut though, and watched my girl do her cheer.

Then they started their dance.

Song begins, I start filming…

Song hits the third word or so and the screen shot lowers to the floor. I look at the mom beside me and we both are like “Oh, no they didn’t”.

But they did.  They played this song for kids pre-school through fifth grade.  My little 8-year-old was dancing to

I’m feeling sexy and free…..

My kid has heard sexy before, she is far from in a bubble. However do not play music for her that celebrates being sexy.  If an inappropriate songs hit the airways, I turn it off. If an inappropriate show comes on we turn it off. Some things are not for kids.

If I pay $20 for a cheer-leading clinic I am assuming that my daughter will have fun, get a shirt, maybe learn a cheer. I also assumed she would have appropriate music.  I guess my assumptions were to much.

After the show, I found the adult in charge and told her that I did not appreciate the song choice.  She did apologize and say that it wasn’t the original song they had planed to use, but the first song was to fast and they picked this one.  I told her that my daughter would not be attending the performance if that was the song they would be dancing to. She assured me that it was not.  I was still infuriated though.

I hope that other moms also made it known they were not happy, but I seem to becoming comfortable in being the mom who speaks up.

Elle had fun. She knows I didn’t like the song choice, but she knows its not her fault and she didn’t nothing wrong.

Errr.

After having this conversation I returned home to read a touching piece on BlogHer written by my in-real-life friend @Firemom about post-partum depression.  While not immediately bonding with your child doesn’t mean you will have PPD, we as nurses, do look at delayed bonding as a sign of possible PPD.  I struggle with saying that last line as immediate bonding doesn’t happen for everyone, and that can be normal.  This is a phenomenon that we don’t seem to talk about.

Most of us just assume that once your child is born from your body that you will look at him or her and fall, madly in love, enchanted even.  While I don’t have actual numbers to share, I can tell you that as a nurse who has worked on the OB floor, that the delivery room is often not the place of falling in love. In fact, if I were a betting person, I don’t even think the hospital is the place where mama bear instincts and adoration kick in for most moms.

I do see it happen.  Baby comes out, dad is crying, mom cries and holds her newborn with an amazed look in her eyes.  I have to admit that with both my girls I was over the moon with them, immediately.  I am not sharing that to show off or be condescending  but because that when I noticed this did not happen for many moms, I realized that it was something that needed to be addressed, talked and written about to let moms know that it is okay, that it is normal.

I have had moms whisper to me things like, “I don’t think that child is mine.”  ”She doesn’t seem like she came from  me.”  They are embarrassed, but reaching out to know if this is normal, wondering what is wrong with them.  I’ve even had a few moms tell me that their first reaction of seeing their baby was  something along the lines of “yuck”! Not everyone can get passed the body fluids and that is okay to.

There is nothing shameful about wondering how that child in the bassinet beside you is actually yours. There is nothing shameful about feeling like you are taking care of the neighbors kid.    The key thing is to remember that by taking care of your child, you will bond and fall in love with him.  Keep on holding, loving, nursing, feeding your baby. It may take hours, days or even months for some, but he will feel like yours someday.

If this sounds like your experience, you are normal, don’t be ashamed.  Like most things in life, birth doesn’t happen like we think it will.  We do want to watch for PPD though, so if you feel the following symptoms or see them in someone you know, it doesn’t hurt to seek medical attention.  Mood swings, irritability, trouble sleeping, trouble caring for the baby, trouble completing everyday tasks, or thoughts of hurting yourself or your baby.

I have so much more to say, especially how I think the medical system impedes quicker bonding,  but I think I might turn it into another post. This one, I want to keep simple.

(Disclaimer:  This post is based on personal experience I have had working as a RN, IBCLC, not medical advice, please consult your doctor with questions or concerns.)

Win This DVD!!!

Madagascar has been one of those movies that sticks around with specials and sequels, and I don’t mind it at all. Many a movie I wish they would have stopped after the first, but Madagascar is quite funny!

The new Valentines Day short flick, Madly Madagascar is no exception. It will hit the store shelves January, 29th.  I loved it, the kids loved it and I get to give one away! YEAH!

To enter, simply leave a comment about your favorite African animal.  Earn an extra entry by liking my Facebook page and leaving a comment that you did so.  Contest is open to US and Canadians and winner will be contacted via email for a snail mail address. The DVD will be sent to you via the media company. Easy and fun I tell you!

Contest is open from January 22nd – 31st midnight, 2013.  Winner will be announced on January 31st or close to that date.  Good luck!

ThinkJam the PR company who gave me this giveaway opportunity has also shared the below Valentine’s Day gift guide!

Valentine’s Day Gift GuideInspired by MADLY MADAGASCAR, coming to DVD January 29  

Your favorite Madagascar pals are back in an all-new adventure! Alex’s favorite holiday, Valentine’s Day, brings hilarious surprises and excitement for the entire gang. Melman plans a big surprise for Gloria, Marty tries to impress a new friend and everyone wants to get their hands on King Julien’s love potion. You’ll fall in LOVE with MADLY MADAGASCAR!

Deciding what to give your friends and family for Valentine’s Day can be a tough job. However, this handy guide will make this Valentine’s Day a breeze! Here, we’ll provide helpful suggestions of fun and unique gift ideas that kids and grownups alike will enjoy this V-Day!

PERSONALIZED LOVE COOKIES

Looking for a nice way to send your love to your friends and family this Valentine’s Day? Consider baking them special love-themed cookies to send to them at work, school, etc. Kids will appreciate a fun, extra treat to share with their friends at lunchtime, and mom and dad will love the heartfelt sugary snack made from scratch. Simply look up easy sugar cookie ideas, use a heartshaped cookie cutter, and then frost in white, red or pink with personalized messages. You can even use Pinterest for more awesome decorating ideas!

CUTE PLUSHIES

Kids will love waking up to a cuddling Valentine’s Day stuffed animal! V-Day plushies come in a huge range of different creatures, both real and mythical! Stuffed animals aren’t just for kids, either; adults can display them in their offices or cars as an extra way to show that someone was thinking about them on this special day.

COUPONS FOR A FAMILY NIGHT IN

Homemade coupons are always a hit with moms and dads, and this Valentine’s Day we suggest creating a coupon for a night in with your family! These cute coupons are simple to make – all you need is some colorful construction paper and markers. Parents can help kids write out a personalized coupon promising to spend a fun night in with their families. You can even list suggested activities for the night in such as playing board games, watching movies or cooking a family meal.

MADLY MADAGASCAR DVD

Kids will love the new MADLY MADAGASCAR DVD this V-day! They can spend the holiday watching their favorite, hilarious characters from the film enjoy all the splendor of this romantic holiday. Make this fun Valentine’s Day present into something more by hosting a mini viewing party for your kids and some of their friends – they can watch the film, make festive treats, and decorate their only Valentine’s Day cards.

EVERYTHING RED GIFT BAG

Make a unique gift bag for your family and friends this V-Day! All you need is a plain red bag, and then fun, red items to fill the bag with (e.g., lip gloss, candies, toys, jewelry  PJs, etc.). You can make each bag unique by finding something red for each member of your family or your friends – try to find things that are meaningful to them or fit their personality for an extra special touch!

Check out this card!

(Disclosure: I was given a free DVD of Madly Madagascar to review and host a giveaway. My opinions are my own. The gift guide is from written by ThinkJam, though I find the ideas cute myself!)

Our 2012 Christmas Season In Pictures

This is the obligatory New Year post that a blogger must do.  I’ll try and make it interesting.  Looking at last year’s New Year post I had a few goals. One was to work more and I accomplished that. Another one was to learn how to use my camera better…Didn’t happen. In fact I broke one of my lenses this year.  So what are my goals for 2013?  To learn how to use my camera better and to get moving again while I continue to become healthier (and gluten-free).

Things I learned in 2012

Hawaii is more amazing than I ever imagined and I would love to be LOST there!

Surgery really takes a toll on my body…but my B cups are worth it!

I’m allergic to paper tape?  Who would have thought!

Wheat does my body bad….and I feel so good without it!

Going back to college wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it would be!

My girls are growing up and I cannot do a thing to stop it!

Hopes for 2012

I hope to find a church I really like and attend regularly with the family.

I hope to continue going to Muskingum’s online RN-BSN program part-time and knock this degree out of the way.

I want to keep working on balance in my life.

I hope my Mom continues to respond well to her treatments and continues to improve.

I hope my Dad gets a work assignment closer to home.

I hope I yell less at the kids.

I hope the kids yell less at me.

I hope the dog stops peeing all over the place.

I hope I start running again.

I’m sure I hope for more, this is just what I have come up with.

My Favorite Posts From 2012

The first three where featured on Blogher.com!

The Good Old Days Are Getting Old

Helping My 13-Year-Old Get Ready For Social Media

Why You Should Have “The Talk”  With Your Tweens

Saying Goodbye To My Second-Home

President Snow Would Not Be Happy

Adoption Reading Challenge: Pictures of Hollis Woods

I’m High From Book Giving

Wordless Wednesday: Hawaii Bragging

More Than A Blow Dry

I wasn’t able to reach my reading goal of 75 books this year. School work go in the way and I amended it to 60 books.  Next year I think I’ll allow for school work and set my goal at 50 books. I did finish my Adoption Reading Challenge though and read six books about or containing an adoption theme!

With snow on the ground and the kids sledding outside everyday I look forward to 2013 and all the amazing things it will bring.  I’m sure there will be tough things that come up, but right now the future looks bright!

Plans tonight include church, a fire and an early bedtime for the kids so Santa has time to work his magic.

Have you heard that the Good Old Days were perfect?  Nothing bad ever happened back then. People respected others and all was peaceful.

Newsflash!  The Good Old Days never happened.  I’ve had this discussion with many people who claimed they did and while I have respect for them and their experience, I protest.  It’s normal to only remember the pleasant things.   We must, however, not make the mistake of making only our good memories historical fact.

The other night we attended a wonderful Christmas Concert for the middle school.  We paused at the beginning with a moment of silence for the victims of  Friday’s shooting at Sandy Hook.  The principle, who is a nice guy and cares about the kids in his charge, said that this happened because we took God out of our schools.  Most of the crowd clapped for him.  I did not clap. I may have irreverently rolled my eyes actually.  Not out of disrespect for him, but at the fallacy that kids saying a generic prayer everyday at school was going to make sure that a shooter would not make it in the school building. The Good Old Days of school prayer were not perfect and I wish people would remember that.

I must disclose that I am a Christian. I pray. I teach my kids to pray. I have a prayer I say every day when my kids go off to school that includes a plea to bring them home safely to me. I am also happy that my kids can pray at school. Yes, they can pray at school. They can pray silently, they can pray out loud. They can hold a Bible study before and after school. They can say a prayer at an event or graduation.  Student-led prayer is allowed.  Government-led prayer is not allowed.

Back to the Good Old Days.  In 1962 schools stopped school-sanctioned prayer.  Let’s look at a few things that were going on during the years we had school prayer:

Up until 1954 it was legal schools to racially segregate schools.   Two of my  children would have had to go to different schools than my other two children, not because of age, but because of skin color.  Those same two children wouldn’t have been allowed to be adopted by us at that time because of race.  Those same two children would have had to use the back door and a different bathroom and water fountain in parts of this country.  This did not please God, I am sure of that.

What happened when high school girls became pregnant?  They were socially stigmatized (unlike the boys who fathered the babes in most circumstances), sent away to be coerced in surrendering their babies to closed adoption, urged to never think about their babies, or forced to marry the father even if it wasn’t the best situation for them.  This did not please God. I am sure of that.

Were there drug abusers in our schools back then? Yes.  Did kids participate in underage drinking back then? Yes. Was there inequality between the sexes back then? Yes.   Until the 60′s my girls would not have school sports to join.  Where there bullies back then?  Yes. Where there ineffective teachers back then? Yes.  Did all kids have the same opportunity to go to college back then? No.  Hmmmm. All of these things were happening with prayer in schools.  We just didn’t acknowledge it as a society or we had the old boys will be boys attitude that wasn’t so helpful if you were a girl.

There has always been psychologically imbalanced people who harm others. There has always been that evil in the world.  What has changed is not that prayer was taken out of schools but technology.  We now know of all the bad things that happen as soon as they happen, it is in our faces constantly on the TV, in our phones and on our computers.  We have a larger population which leads to more people who do horrific acts.   We glorify violence in our entertainment as humans always have, but now have hand held machines with amazing graphics to play out our pretend violence.  We have newer modes of acting out.  We have guns that we didn’t have 50 years ago because of advances in technology.  Technology, like all things, can be used in good and bad ways.  The gun that protects our country also can also kill our country’s children. The TV that tells us to prepare for a bad storm, can also spew propaganda and trashy tabloid news.

I will not go into the discussion of how we can prevent another Sandy Hook in this post.  I will not talk about mental health care or  first and second amendment issues.  I feel one brewing, but right now I just want to provoke people to think passed the  rhetoric of school prayer’s removal being the cause of all bad things that now happen in the United States.  Our nation is not perfect now, just as it wasn’t then.  We must push through this wave of whimsy of the Good Old Days and Prayer in Schools and come up with real solutions.

*Update: Blogher.com has featured this post!

Today is my parent’s 40th Wedding Anniversary.  Forty years of togetherness that wasn’t always bliss, I’m sure as real life isn’t always bliss, but today we celebrate the bliss.

In December 1972 a high school senior married her sweetheart who was just two years older than her. A couple of kids, really.     Twenty-two years later Hubby and I followed in their footsteps getting married while we were still in college.  Young love can last and I am so happy that it does.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. Thank you for your love and kindness. Thank you for being there and for being so understanding. Thank you for your long-lasting marriage and the commitment you have for each-other and for our family.  I cannot wait to celebrate your 50th…I’ll spring for a hall for that one ;)

December 16, 1972