Sweet Nothings…

Below is a list of sweet little phrases and scenarios that I have come across. I thought I would share them with you so that they can warm your heart as much as they have warmed mine! Please leave a comment on this post and share some of your own. Everything needs a little “sweet nothing” in their day!

At Christmas time, this past year, my son (age 4) and I were walking up the basement stairs into the house after being out and about. My son was in front of me on the stairs. He stopped walking, turned around and said to me “Right here, now THIS feels like Christmas.” And he gave me a hug. It took my breath away – it was the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me! (…Come to find out, the saying is from Winnie The Pooh’s Super Sleuth Christmas)

Whenever my son and I are out and about doing things, I will often ask him to remind me of something or I will ask him if he remembers something. When he wants to remember something he tells me “Don’t worry, I told my little heart about it, so I won’t forget.”

Years ago, before I was married, I was driving my sisters son (age 3 or 4 at the time) somewhere. He was sitting in the back seat of my car and he said to me “Auntie Judy, I just love you so much!” – completely out of the blue! And he said it with such genuine feeling and compassion! It truely made my heart melt!

My son is always warm/comfortable. He never seems to get cold no matter how cold it is! We tease him that he has an “internal heater” – just like his daddy! So whenever I ask him about being cold he says “Mommy you forgot about the heater inside of belly!”

Connecting To Our Authentic Self

By Tracy Liebmann

Some of us are feeling very connected to our true selves and others might be wishing to have a deeper connection. My hope is that this article will help everyone go deeper. If you feel very well connected to your authentic self, maybe you can think of a place that still needs a little deepening. Maybe you tend to lose your authentic voice when talking with your parents or family of origin, or maybe your boss at work or when you are confronted. Just stay open and work through this and see what comes up.

When we are born we are whole and beautiful; sometimes through the years we start to loose ourselves piece by piece, to society, to our parents, to school and friends. We shape ourselves to be what they want us to be, instead of what we truly are.

So where do you find this authentic self? It’s not something that’s foreign to us, but something that was always there and got submerged under layers of protection and conditioning. We want to gradually strip away those layers and find the treasure that has always awaited us underneath.

Use these ideas and questions to get you started. Please do not think of this as something you have to do OR something you have to do RIGHT. Just get a notebook, paper or journal and write some things down.

~ What did you enjoy doing as a child? How did you envision your life as an adult?

~ What are your values? What really matters to you? Look at each item carefully. Where did it come from? If you learned it from your parents, is it still something that you would choose for yourself? If so, restate it in a way that makes it your own. If not, replace it with something that’s meaningful to you now.

~ What’s fun for you now? What would you like to do but avoid because you don’t think you’d be very good at it or you’re afraid of what people will say?

~ What topics are you drawn to? If you were going to subscribe to a bunch of magazines, which ones would you choose?

~ What do you do because you know it will please other people? How would you change that if you only had to please yourself? This may be a tough one because after many years of sacrificing your own desires for those of parents, spouses, friends, etc., your own desires may be a distant memory. If this is the case, be patient with yourself and keep looking. Growth has often been compared to peeling the layers of the onion. Keep peeling.

~ Be aware of your body. What messages is it giving you? Which activities allow your body to feel relaxed and open? Which ones make you tense or uncomfortable? How can you stop or change the stimulus that causes your stress?

~ As you come more in touch with what’s truly meaningful to you, start to make a place for it in your life. Take time to do things that are pleasurable. Rethink your priorities. Begin to eliminate things that you do solely because you think you should. Certainly you have responsibilities to yourself and your family, but a lot of our obligations tend to be self-imposed and you can negotiate some of the other ones with your loved ones.

~ Start to bring your new authenticity into your creativity. When you’re faced with a challenge at home or at work, instead of resorting to your usual options, try brainstorming some new ones. How would the person you are now (or the person you want to be) handle this? Include some options that seem outrageous, and let that outrageousness expand the boundaries of your usual thinking.

Reconnecting with your authentic self will be a long process that will happen in steps, so be patient with yourself. Enjoy the hunt and revel in each new insight.

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!

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town…

Wishing you a wonderful holiday from our family to yours!

Get Up And Move

The other day I was kind of sad because I went to my Weight Watchers meeting and realized that I have gained about 8 lbs since Halloween – and there are more holidays to come! So I was on Twitter, tweeting about my lack of motivation and a friend of my introduced me to the Get Up And Move Program. Needless to say I was thrilled! The best thing about this program – you don’t need to be a work-out fanatic to join! It is designed for people like me – that don’t like exercising and need some extra motivation to get them going.

So with the holidays upon us, I thought I would share the program with all of you too – as a new mom it can especially difficult to get out and get moving. With the Get Up And Move Program – we can encourage each other. This program is actually a Twitter App designed by @jensmccabe. It is simple – yet ingenious. You just challenge someone to do some form of exercise in exchange for doing something yourself. Everything is communicated by direct message on Twitter, so it is private and you only share it with your friends if you want to.

The only downside is that you do need partners to challenge and to have send challenges to you. So – if you are looking to start moving more this holiday season, sign up for Twitter, read about the Get Up And Move Program and then Register. I’m @MommyNews on twitter – so feel free to challenge me to some exercise. I don’t run – but other than that – I am game for anything you send my way. If you’d like me to challenge you – just leave a comment with your twitter ID and I’d be happy to send some motivation your way too!

Here’s to keeping the weight gain down and the exercise up this holiday and beyond!! Challenge away!

Happy Halloween!

World Breastfeeding Week Celebration

Today is the first day of World Breastfeeding Week and we are SO EXCITED!! To celebrate we are having a week long party on our blog.

1) We are launching a great new line – Intertwined Love ~ Mother & Child by Kadin James Designs. The designs are spectacular and we are so excited to have them all! We love this collection so much that we even had a special design custom made exclusively for our boutique! The collection consists of five pendant designs (shown in the photo) and two rings! We’ll need your help naming our new piece – so stay tuned for more information on that (coming up on Monday). We’ll also be doing a giveaway of one of these great pieces AND some of the “samples” we had made when trying to come up with this design. Check back on Monday for complete details!!

2) We are having daily specials in our boutique. These will be items that are on sale for one-day only. Each special will be announced at the end of the blog post for that day – so stay tuned for some great deals!! Today’s special is on our favorite dress – the Vanna Tank Dress. The photo shown is me wearing this beautiful dress and dancing away! It is stunning and your friends will never know it is a nursing dress. Better yet – it is also a maternity dress – so you can wear it while pregnant and after the baby comes for discreet breastfeeding. Enter code VANNA and save 30% on this great dress!! This special is good today and tomorrow only (Aug 1-2), so shop early before it ends!!

3) We will have some great guest bloggers being featured this week too! So stay tuned for more info!

We are so excited to celebrate breastfeeding with you! To kick off the celebration – please leave a comment on this post letting us know how many kids you have and how long you breastfed each of them. Comments on this post will be entered into a drawing later in the week for a great super-secret prize – so be sure to leave one!

Our First TasteCasting Event in Pittsburgh

You might look at the title of this article and wonder how this relates to you….well, let me introduce you to TasteCasting. TasteCasting is a great new networking event that is popping up all over the country. People who are socially connected (bloggers, people active on twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc) get together and visit local restaurants. While they are there they get a selection of fantastic food and they tell the world about it. This benefits the person attending the event because they get to network with other local socially connected people, they get a fantasic meal and a night out and they get all kinds of traffic back to their blog via links and track-backs. It benefits the local restaurants because they get a bunch of well-connected people going out and telling the world how fantastic their restaurant is, hence bringing in more business.

How does this affect you? Are you a mom? This is a great way to network with other local moms! Do you have a blog? Do you tweet? Do you facebook?? If so, this is a great way for you to get a night out, meet other great folks and then tell all of your friends and followers about it. It is the perfect type of event for a mom to do since most of the events occur in the evenings when your significant other or the local highschool babysitters are available to watch the kids. And lots of moms run their own businesses or blogs – so it is a great way for you to network and promote your own interests while simultaneously helping out other local businesses in your area!

Well, a few nights ago, I attended the first ever TasteCasting Event in Pittsburgh! It was at a fantastic restaurant called the Melange BistroBar located in downtown Pittsburgh.

The atmostphere was spectacular. I can’t even imagine all of the work that goes into planning a restaurant. This particular restaurant opened just a few months ago – and the decor is wonderful! There are large time-life photos all over the walls which are back-lit in luxurious wooden frames. And the food….oh my the food! It was fantastic! Everything we ate (crab cakes, duck, chicken, lamb, shrimp, beet chips) was scrumptious! My personal favorite was the Duck! If you are ever looking for a great night out in Pittsburgh, the Melange Bistrobar would be on my list of recommendations! Be sure to stop by when you are in town!

Have you participated in any TasteCasting events in your hometown? Is there a group there yet? Be sure to check the TasteCasting website to find out. And if there isn’t one, you can be the one to start one up!!