Christmas In July Sale At Our Boutique

Learning To Wean Book - Five Winners Chosen

Thank you to everyone who entered the Learning To Wean Book Contest. It is wonderful to see so many toddlers nursing!! We have just chosen the five lucky winners and they are:

• Strawberry
• LaVonne
• Jennifer Hamitlon
• Danika
• Melodie

Congrats to all of the winners!! Many of our winners have blogs of their own, please click on their name above to visit their blogs. And they all shared their breastfeeding story with us too! To see the stories, please visit the original review and contest post. For those of you who weren’t lucky enough to win, you can purchase the book Learning To Wean at the authors website.

We Are Pleased To Sponsor TWO MOMS At BlogHer!

We have been given the extraordinary chance to sponsor two great mom bloggers and entrepreneurs on their trips to BlogHer. BlogHer is a conference designed to teach women business owners and bloggers how to best communicate with and add value to all of the millions of women who are out there in the virtual world of the internet and social networking. We are very happy to be able to help out these two mom-bloggers with their trips. We’d like to introduce to the women we are sponsoring:

Mommy Melee: This blog is run by a great mom, Maria! Maria blogs about all kinds of things from girl-talk to breastfeeding to just about any other topic that crosses her mind. Check out her blog! She also has a product review site called Your Mama Reviews, where she offers candid, informational reviews on a variety of products that every mom wants or needs. Her reviews are often accompanied by give-aways and she has even reviewed three different items from our boutique (here, here and here)! All around, we highly recommend checking out Mommy Melee and Your Mama Reviews! So what did we do? We saw Mommy Melee tweeting on twitter about how she was nervous about being away from her baby while she was at BlogHer and how she needed a good breastpump so that she could build up a supply for her baby while she was away and also so she could easily pump while at BlogHer. So, we carry the BEST BREASTPUMP that there is (the Ameda Purely Yours Ultra) - so we donated one to Mommy Melee for her trip! She was kind enough to send us a photo and will be blogging about her travels and adventures on the road with it! Be sure to follow her blog to see how it works out for her. You can see her first mini-review of the pump here.

Mom Made That: Amy who runs Mom Made That is a true entrepreneur! She runs several blogs & networking sites and is always looking for ways to help out other momtrepreneurs! Mom Made That is a site dedicated to showing moms how to support other moms by featuring business that are run by moms and featuring exclusive discounts and coupons for clients who visit Mom Made That and then purchase from one of its featured businesses. You can find our Boutique featured on Mom Made That here. Amy is very active on both twitter and facebook and has grown three great sites into great resources for moms: MomMadeThat.com, MomSpark.net and MomSparkNetwork.com. Through all of these sites, Amy helps moms to connect with other moms - whether it is for networking, socializing, sharing stories or supporting mom-owned businesses, Amy’s sites provide something for every mom! Amy is also attending BlogHer and when we found out, we sent her a GORGEOUS dress to wear so that she can look her best at some of the evening events at the conference. We also gave her a hand-full of gift certificates to our Boutique to hand out to other mommy bloggers who are either pregnant or breastfeeding. This way, Amy can look great, show moms how great nursing attire can be and help them to get their own items by sharing some gift certificates! So if you are going to BlogHer - be sure to connect with Amy and tell her you’d like to receive one of those gift certificates to our Boutique!

We are so proud and happy that we are able to do our part to help these great moms attend this wonderful conference. Please stop by and visit their blogs today!

Mommy Melee
Your Mama Reviews
Mom Made That
Mom Spark
Mom Spark Network

A Meditative Practice: Daily Life

By Tracy Liebmann

I have been considering the whole idea of meditation and how many times I have heard, “I can get about two minutes alone per day, if I’m lucky.” Meditation to a mom is like having a quiet moment in the bathroom. I know the feeling, it’s challenging trying to have a meditation practice that looks anything like what the books or spiritual gurus describe if you’re a busy parent. Many of us just give up on the idea of “achieving” that Zen like state.

Here is what I propose; daily life is our practice. We have all heard that the simple tasks of taking care of a family like laundry and dishes can be truly enjoyed and be labeled Zen like if we just center ourselves in the joy of these simple acts. I take it one step further, I choose a sound that I hear at regular intervals around my house. Once it was the toilet flushing, once it was every time I heard my name called. Then when that sound occurs I am reminded to pause, take 3 deep relaxing breaths and say a short mantra like “only good can come to me.” The toilet flushing is actually a pretty good one, because no one is actually needing me, it’s just a reminder to pause and breath. This practice can turn your home into your personal meditation center. At a “real” meditation retreat they may invite the gong to ring through out the day to remind the people visiting the center to stop, breath and be present and at home we can choose one of the everyday sounds that occur naturally around the house. Just imagine… it is possible to meditate everyday even in the middle of the hustle and bustle of family life!

Meditations does not have to be an illusive goal, it can be as simple as being aware of what is going on ~ in our bodies, in our feelings, in our minds, and in the world. Please do not think you must be serious in order to meditate. In fact, to meditate well you have to smile a lot! During your day from time to time, remind yourself to smile. At first you may find it difficult to smile on call, so I will offer this short mantra you can recite from time to time, while breathing and smiling.

Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Breathing in, this present moment.
Breathing out, I smile.

Do you meditate? Please share your experiences and tips with the rest of us!

Tracy Liebmann is an experienced educator, Certified Family Life Coach, and Author. She believes deeply that great communication is the key to better connection with your loved ones. She mothers her two teenaged children from the heart, knowing that is where the truth lies when it comes to parenting. Her coaching clients describe her using words like; compassionate, caring, understanding, patient, insightful and intuitive. She lives in Charleston, SC with her husband of 19 years, her 2 children and many interesting pets. She enjoys being with her family, cooking, anything outdoors and being with her horses! You can learn more about her and her coaching practice at www.transformingfamily.com or you can get parenting advice with heart at www.asktracy.wordpress.com Tracy is a regular contributor to this blog, so stay tuned for more great parenting articles from her!