T-Minus 1 Day!!

Where my Mommy's at?!?

That's right! In just 1 day we will begin our course in Momology: The Art and Science of Mothering.

Your Professors have worked extra hard on the syllabus and are looking forward to learning right a long with you.

Class kicks off at 9:30 am sharp with breakfast. Our child development center (childcare) will be ready to receive your kids prior to class time.

This meeting will introduce you to our theme this year and also provide you with ample time to get to know us and the other members.

We are looking forward to seeing/meeting all of you and can't wait to get this year started!

Halfway mark!

Hello all you fabulous women!

We hope the summer is treating you nicely. How great is it that the weather finally decided to cooperate?

Well if you have older kids like me it may have dawned on you that we have hit the halfway mark. That time in summer when we realize that school wasn't so bad after all! The great news it's all downhill from here. The next month will be filled with school supplies and clothes shopping and before you know it that first day of school will be here.

The other great news is that it means we are that much closer to our MOPS season. And to celebrate we will once again be having our Kick-Off event, this year we're partying picnic style.

We'll provide the sandwiches and all we ask is for you to bring your own drinks and maybe a side/dessert to share (*no nuts).

WHEN: Friday Sept 17th @10:30am
WHERE: Joe Dancer Park

If you can let us know that you'll be coming that would be great. We want to make sure we have enough food for everyone.

You might also want to jot down our first meeting on your calendar, October 1st in Room 1:12 at the Church on the Hill.

We can't wait to see you all and hear about your summer! :)

Don't Forget!

I know it's April Fool's Day but I promise this isn't a joke. :)

Tomorrow is our monthly meeting!

As always it starts at 9:30am and will be filled with fun crafts and fellowship.

Hope you can join us!

A New Year.. a New Beginning

As we ring in the New Year many of us will vow to be more organized, to make more time for family or the dreaded "Lose Weight".

Whatever your resolution, goal, commitment is for the New Year we hope that you will spend the second Friday with us!

Our next meeting is January 8th. We will be focusing on the very aspects that many of us resolve to change in the New Year.

We'll hear from 3 fantastic speakers about taking care of our body, (brief yoga session, dress comfortably,) our health, and our Spirit.

Join us for a few hours of fellowship and learning!

November Meeting

It is that time of the month again!

No, not THAT time but time for our monthly meeting.

Join us this Friday, Nov. 6th as we explore "It's a Small World: Relationships with Family".
How did your relationships with your family change when you became a mother? Was it a struggle for you or a welcome transition?

If you've received your curriculum book "Life on Planet Mom" check out chapter 3 to get an idea about what we will be talking about.

We'll meet a panel of 5 moms; Mother-2 daughter and 2 sisters, and discover how their relationships have changed (for better or worse) and what techniques they have used to make their bond stronger.

Family is important to all of us. We raise our children based on the role models we had (or lack of) when we were growing up. We take the good, bad, so-so, and combine into our own parenting style that works for us.

This excerpt from "Life on Planet Mom" reiterates this:

"My friends and I have wrestled through issues regarding discipline, working/staying at home, faith, guilt, performance/perfectionism, co-dependency, and more. All together, it would give Dr. Phil enough fodder to fuel a year's worth of programs. But it's important to dissect what you were taught (or what you were not) and how much of that you want to pass along to your own children."

We hope that through these 5 ladies experiences you can gain the knowledge, strength, and confidence in your own relationships.

WHERE ARE YOU!?!?

I'm at the 1st MOPS Meeting of the Season!

Where are you?! You should be here--->

If you couldn't make it this month we hope you will choose to join us for our playdate on October 16th at 10am in the gym at the Church on the Hill.

The kids will build rocketships out of cardboard boxes while moms are able to visit and catalog shop from mom businesses.

SEE YOU SOON!

Quickly approaching!!

We had a great time at the BBQ!

We were blessed with beautiful weather and wonderful food.
If you were able to make it, thank you so much for joining us! If you weren't then we look forward to seeing you at our first meeting of the season on Friday Oct. 2nd!

Our first meeting is titled "The Hood in Motherhood" and will cover how we change and evolve when transitioning into motherhood.
If you have received your book, "Life on Planet Mom," you can read the 1st chapter. It's about 20 pages but reads really quickly.

Also, if you haven't registered yet please click on the registration links in the sidebar. Print out the forms, fill them out and bring them with you to our first meeting. You will need to fill out a separate MOPPETS form for each child that will be cared for during the meetings.

The dues for the 2009-10 season are as follows:

• International Dues: $23.95 - Because we are affiliated with MOPS International all members must pay these dues. Included with payment is the 2009 theme book "Life on Planet Mom," a year subscription to the bi-monthly MomSense magazine, and the Mom Email which is sent weekly.
• Local Dues: $24.00 - Local dues stay within our group. We use this money to cover the cost of childcare, crafts, and other meeting expenses. We do actively fund-raise throughout the year which is what keeps the dues as low as they are.

**Dues must be paid in full at the first meeting unless other arrangements have been made.**

Summer was fun, but we can't wait to get the new season underway! See you in October!!

Frugal Mommies

Phew!!

I don't know about you but I think our January meeting could have gone another hour at least!

There was such great information and I'm thankful that our group has been blessed with some really frugal mommies.

During and after the meeting there was A LOT of talk of having a recipe exchange. Well, we thought of one better. A resource just for our MOPS moms that has all of the great menu planning tools that Robyn shared and even the recipes. We are hoping that our mom's out there will share their recipes as well by email them to Tina to include on our recipe blog. You will see a button on the left sidebar here that links you to it.

We have tried to categorize each recipe so that when our database becomes better you can search by meal or main ingredient.

Also, I promised many of you I would put a link on here to the Muffin Tin Monday group that I found on Flickr. There are oodles and oodles of pictures showing what other moms have offered kids during this fun meal. I hope that you are able to incorporate this into you week, whether its for lunch or dinner!

See you on Friday February 6th!

MUFFIN TIN MONDAY

You gotta have friends..

Our meeting this month was all about relationships.

It takes us stepping out of our comfort zone to find the types of relationships that will enable us to grown as mothers. Relationships that deep down we crave but perhaps aren’t willing to admit that we want.

We need to recognize the excuses we use to avoid relationships; excuses such as time barriers (“who has the time with all the things I have to do at home”), don’t need a relationship because we have our kids (we are there for our kids not the other way around,) wanting to find friends like us (the best thing for us may be a friend that fills a void that we don’t have in our everyday life.)

If we can overcome these obstacles, which we place on ourselves, we may just wake up and realize that we have been missing a great thing!

Tracy Smith was a guest speaker this month.

Tracy and her family will be travelling to Peru in February to take part in a mission called Extreme Nazarene. The organization will be working to build 120 churches in 3 years. It’s a huge leap for the Smith family. They have been in the process of selling all their belongings in order to afford the 3 years in this volunteer position. It really shows the type of relationship they have with God and within their family.

Tracy spoke about how this experience has really shown her the true value of friendship. She has a core group of friends who have stepped up to be there for them even when they didn’t know that they needed it. Friends who are more than willing to offer to watch their son for them so they can get some things done around the house or perhaps just take over cleaning a closet.

If you interested more in the Smith's journey to Peru or would like to know how you can help them visit their Peru blog.

Friends are invaluable to moms. They give us a sounding board or just an escape on those days when we feel that we may lose it. We urge you all to step out and make a new friend, they could be sitting right next to you!

Good times..good times..

Ladies, it was so great seeing you all on Friday!

I hope you all had a great time and are already planning on going to our playday on the 24th! Or better yet Mom's Nite Out this Friday!

Here are some pictures of our truly fabulous day.

photo's courtesy of Tracy Smith

Fin

Our meeting is slowly coming to an end...

We just had a great game called "Speed Meeting" which is a spin off of speed dating. Everyone seemed to have a fun time playing and it was so fun that it lasted longer than expected!

It's so amazing to see the comraderie that is already developing. There are plans for playdates and coffee already in the mix.

THANKS LADIES FOR JOINING US!!!

And we're off!!

Here we are at our first meeting of the season!

All of our ladies are still arriving and it's so great to see so many old friends come together and just the spirit that is in this room is awesome!

More to come later!!!