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Live with Regis and Kelly Want Your Opinions

March 10, 2010 by Jennifer 2 Comments

Everyone is hearing all about the Education Funding issues all across America. Now is the time to speak up and give your opinion about all the funding issues. Don’t just sit back and not say a word, speak your mind by leaving a comment below and Anderson may very well read your comment on TV this Friday March 12, 2010.

LIVE! with Regis and Kelly are expecting Anderson Cooper to stop by (filling in for Regis) this Friday morning. Anderson is covering the current flux in education funding and wants us to help him get advice, secrets and tips on budget crunching to families that need it most!! In anticipation of his arrival we need all you thrifty Mom’s, Dad’s Grandmas and Grandpas to put your heads together for Elementary School children across America! What are some of the ways you maintain your budget and still send your little ones fully equipped for school!? What are some training strategies, and lessons you’ve instilled about respect, honesty and safety?

Disney Social Media Moms Celebration Day 2

March 9, 2010 by Jennifer 1 Comment

This is a conference that I truly walked away feeling so uplifted and inspired. Day 2 definitely helped in that inspiration.

We started out the day at Epcot at the Volunteer Celebration.

Disney brought in families from all over to congratulate them and express their many thanks for all the volunteer hours they were able to put in for our country. You see Disney put on an awesome event called Give A Day Get A Disney Day.

From Disney’s site “The overwhelming support we received for the “Give a Day. Get a Disney Day.” program has helped us reach our goal of inspiring one million people to volunteer a day of service to their communities.”

For Disney to take the time to so appreciation to all these families is just so inspirational and just what our great Country needs. I was so happy to be involved. Our own families were able to volunteer right there on Disney Properties during this Day 2. Seeing all the families working together just big a big huge smile on my face.

During the event, a special guest arrived to showcase the biggest Can Food Drive. I have two videos to display this event.

After the volunteer events, we headed into the Epcot world showcase. This was neat as the girls had not been to Epcot since they were 2 years old and 8 months. We enjoyed walking through all the countries and seeing all the culture changes that each country would have. We stopped and danced, visited characters, dined on different foods and L’s favorite spotted out all the animals that we could.

Fast forward to the evening, and we were invited to an all exclusive dance party that included one of the Jonas Brothers. M was so excited and stayed right there at the stage watching every minute while Mommy and L dined on all the different foods that were served to us.

I do have a funny story… A cameraman came right up to us and I didn’t realize he wanted to video us and I was looking all around me trying to figure out who he was going to video… then DUH it was us. L gave him one of her infamous looks that said get that camera out of my face while mommy is over here acting clueless that he wanted to actually video us. I laughed so hard after the cameraman left…just another clueless moment for Jen right? :).

Disney really put on a spectacular show/concert for us and we were all over the moon heading back to the Polynesian that night.

Up next Day 3 of the wonderful conference with some superb guest speakers. Stay tuned for the post coming up 🙂

Disney Social Media Moms Conference Day 1

March 3, 2010 by Jennifer 5 Comments

For a week in February, we decided to leave all the snow behind and head for Sunny Florida. Over the next few days, I am going to do a daily recap of our time at the conference. Let me just say that Disney went way out of their way to make this such a grand time for everyone and including all our families in on the fun.

Day 1:

We checked into the super fabulous Polynesian Resort where we were greeted with such superb Customer Service. As soon as we dropped off all our luggage, we wasted no time in heading straight to the parks. I do have to say this was our first time staying on-site and it was nice to just park your car and take the Monorail or the Bus to all the parks.

Our first park we headed to was the Animal Kingdom. I will go ahead and tell you my youngest daughter L is not a fan of all the Disney characters. She is very afraid of people dressed up and wants no part in seeing them, so we made the decision to let her go see the Animals first!

As soon as we walked in, we were immediately greeted with the animals. L was loving this Disney park. She is a huge animal lover and we just had to stop and see all the animals.

Unfortunately, since we had never been to Animal Kingdom, we didn’t realize Safari was the place to see many more animals, so we made a trip back to Animal Kingdom on our last day. (More to come about the Safari on the last day recap)

As I was hanging out with L, hubby would make sure to make all the stops for the Greet and Meet Characters with M. Just a note of advice… Make sure to let your little one have an autograph book with them in the parks (you can even just purchase a small notebook for them) so they can have all the Characters autograph. M was loving all the autographs with each of the characters.

L was over the moon happy with just having her Lil Tinkerbell Baby to carry in her arms throughout the park.

After spending all day at Animal Kingdom, we headed back for a night of fun at ESPN Worldwide of Sports.

This venue was huge and so awesome to be able to take in the sights while no one was there :).

As the moms were attending a Press Conference, all the families were out on the field having a great time partaking in all the sports events.

Back in the Press Conference, the Social Media Moms, were getting a look into all the awesome upcomings Disney is bringing forth for everyone. One of the new adventures is the Disney Dream Cruise that is coming in 2011. I knew I wanted to take a Disney Cruise before, but now I really WANT to make it happen for my family after seeing all they are going to offer for families.

Also, one of the key features of the Disney Cruise is the AquaDuck water coaster. Just watch and see how cool this new water coaster is:

And yet another great feature coming back is the Disney Electrical Parade in Magic Kingdom this Summer. We were able to experience the Electrical Parade when we were at Disney this past Christmas. It was so neat and the girls were just in awe during the whole parade seeing all the floats lit up and the people in the parade all lit up. Definitely a must see when you are at the parks. Here are some photos from our time at Christmas.

After the Press Conference, we all headed to another venue at the ESPN Worldwide of Sports to have dinner and let the kids enjoy a dance party with all the beloved Characters. L was just fine sitting with her mommy the whole time, but M really got up on stage and had the time of her life dancing her little heart out. They even were entertained by the High School Musical Cast.

It really was an awesome way to end the evening. Big KUDOS to ESPN Worldwide of Sports for hosting us and show what true family entertainment is all about!

PS: Keeping it real here at One Moms World. I was apart of the Disney Social Media Moms Conference in which we did get reduced hotel and was given tickets as well some dinners provided. They in no way had us post about our time during the Conference. I wanted to from my own mind and heart and will be expressing my opinions about Disney over the course of this week :).

Childhood Favorite Toy is Coming Back Giveaway

March 1, 2010 by Jennifer 3 Comments

Growing up, I had special toys in my life that I will always have such fond memories. One of those toys was the Rainbow Brite doll. She went everywhere with me, would eat dinner with us, ride on my bicycle and sleep with me each night. I was so thrilled to hear that Rainbow Brite was coming back. I for sure will be getting my girls their own doll so they will be able to make special memories.

With her cheerful look and personality, Rainbow Brite has blasted back onto the doll scene with a vibrant makeover, continuing to delight children with her empowering and imaginative adventures as she spreads her positive messages of courage, kindness, and hope.

Rainbow Brite even has their own website where your little girl can watch videos, play games, do downloads, and even print out coloring books. There is so many things online now that I am not fond of at all letting the girls see or play, so it has been wonderful to have a site the girls can go to that can be trusted. I love playing with the girls on the site and their CD as it just brings back so many wonderful great memories for me. I now get to create special memories with my girls.

I have 5 Rainbow Brite Adventure Pack CD’s to share with my readers. The CD includes Rainbow Brite animations, games, puzzles, songs, and so much more. Your little girl will enjoy the whole CD so much. Just please leave a comment below on what your favorite childhood toy was and I will pick 5 random comments to send them one of the CD’s.

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Keeping it real: I was provided these Rainbow Brite CDs to giveaway and was able to keep one of the CDs for my own girls after the review. This review is from my own thoughts and words!

Tribute To My Grandma Nellie Houck

February 22, 2010 by Jennifer 18 Comments

I have spent day and night of the last week with my wonderful Grandma. I am going to miss her so much. It has been so hard to see her struggle each and everyday but I am so thankful I had each and every day with her. Her last words to me was “I Love You Jennifer” and I will treasure that always. Her last night here on Earth was just her and I in the room. She was so peaceful and I am so happy we had that one on one time. I am speaking at her funeral today and wanted to share with you what I will be reading. It’s going to be hard the days to come but I am just praying for God’s strength to get me through these days! Thank you all so much for the kind words, prayers, messages and phone calls. It really has helped me so much.

Nellie Houck
July 30, 1913 – February 20, 2010

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” from Deuteronomy 6:5 NIV.

That bible verse reminds me of my Grandmother for sure! She just loved life and all the people that were involved in her life. Inspiring… Motivating… Hero! Those three words are just some of the adjectives that I would use to describe my wonderful Grandma.

It is no secret that my 96 year old grandmother was my best buddy. I am her youngest grandchild and so you know how that goes… the youngest is the baby ;). She spoiled me in so many ways with all the baby dolls she would buy me or all the clothes she would buy me. It didn’t matter if it was blue plaids with yellow stripes going down the sleeves, she wanted me to wear them and I would do so with a smile! If mom and dad would jump on me, all I had to do was call Grandma. She would say now Bill and Jean, Jennifer is too cute to do that! I had her wrapped around my finger and she knew she was the apple of my eye.

I spent my summers as a little girl at her house way up in the country with no stores very near. I didn’t care, because I was with my grandma. We had flowers to water, vegetables to pick, long walks to make across the old wooden bridge and cold watermelon to get out of the cold creek behind her old mountain house to have for a summer snack. I would raise my head in the mornings and always hit the ceiling because I was jumping out of bed so fast since the chocolate gravy aroma was filling the air. There is no doubt she knew how to make some mean chocolate gravy.

Grandma and Grandpa decided to trade the country roads for the big city roads of Lenoir, NC. Once they got settled in, most Friday nights you would see me having sleepovers with Grandma. She always said she loved me having the sleepovers but she didn’t love all my kicking her ;). Hey, I was just trying to let her know that I loved her with all my love taps! I would wake-up to the never-ending pancakes each Saturday morning. My cousin Shana can vouch for this one as she came up and had a sleepover with me at Grandma’s. She kept bringing out the pancakes and it was all Shana and I could do was to eat them. At this point, I was wishing there was a doggie in the house to help us eat them because as we all know there was no telling Grandma you did not want anything to eat. You could say no 20 times, but she was not taking no for an answer. So you just kept on eating right?  When I was in high school and would get a break for lunch before I headed to work, I would go to Grandma’s every day. She would have the biggest lunch for me prepared each time. Food and Grandma went hand in hand for sure. The thing is though, the food was going straight to my hips and Grandma was not shy letting me know that I was getting fat. Over the years she would say Jennifer you are getting way too big and at one time asked if I was pregnant because my belly was so big. That is what I loved about Grandma, she would tell you like it was. If she thought you were fat, she would tell you, if she hated how your hair was cut, she would tell you, if she thought your clothes didn’t look right on you, she would tell you. That was just Grandma. She was blunt, but she was still my best buddy.

With all her bluntness was still very much jokiness. She could make one laugh so much and there would be so many times the things she would say, that would just make you want to roll in the floor and laugh. She would call my work and she knew my extension but every time she would get the numbers transpired and end up calling the President of our company. At times to, she would end up back at the operator and just carry on conversations with both of them. Luckily I was really good friends with the operator and she knew every time that it was my Grandma, and would just go right along with the conversation and eventually Grandma would get to my extension. She would say Jennifer, I don’t know who I have been talking to but they were the nicest people. It didn’t matter who you were, she was going to do her some talking. For example, we would be in a grocery aisle and she would just walk up to some random person and ask them about the nutrition facts on the back of the can or ask them if they ever had tried that particular food. She never met a stranger that is for sure.

I have told these little stories to make you smile and remember Grandma, but there is one thing everyone knew for sure. Grandma, was a huge believer in the word of God. Growing up she would read me to me from the Bible and the Guideposts magazine. Just last month I started my own subscription to the Guideposts and going to pass that tradition on to my girls. She was a big believer in prayer too. I have definitely learned from her that prayer works and God has a plan for all of us. We need to make sure we follow his lead and stay on his path he has for our life. Grandma would not want it any other way.

I am going to leave you today with a little poem that I have written just for my Grandma Nellie Houck.

G is for the greatness you gave to me all through my life.
R is for all the rejoicing you would give me with every milestone that I would hit in life.
A is for amazing me so much.
N is for the noteworthy Grandma you were always to me.
D is for the determination you had each and every day.
M is for the magnificent legacy that you left behind and I will carry with me each day.
A is for the angel that I now have always looking after me!

I love you Grandma! You are my hero!

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