I had a friend ask me the other day for places to donate gently used maternity and baby clothes in Orange County so I posted on my Tiny Oranges Facebook page to see if anyone had a suggestion.
Within one evening, I got 14 responses of great local OC charities. I love Facebook! I wanted to do a post listing these organizations in case you have items you no longer need and want to donate to local families who can use your help. Your donations make a difference.
I know it might seem early, but if you like to hire a professional photographer to take your holiday card photo, now is the time to book your session as they get booked up fast and the holidays will be here before we know it. One of my absolute favorite OC family photographers, Kristin Eldridge (who is taking our family photo on Sunday!) wrote us a guest post on something I always struggle with – WHAT DO WE WEAR?! Planning the family ensemble for a photo can be confusing. Here are tips Kristin wrote on how to dress your family for your holiday photo card so that most importantly, you all look like YOU!
Our family forged into unchartered territory this past week when our oldest started Kindergarten.
There she is on her first day. I saw this post on Angry Julie Monday and loved the idea of having a photograph with her holding a sign on her first day each year.
Then I thought maybe I will have her write the first day sign so we can also see how her writing changes year after year.
There is her handmade sign. I love that the date reads “P 6 11” instead of “9 6 11!”
So, we survived the first week and overall, she is doing great.
She has lined up and marched in with a smile each morning and for this I am incredibly grateful.
But the longer days and transition from preschool have been a little tough, I am not gonna lie! The first three days she would greet me with a smile at pick-up, then immediately break into tired tears and grumpy rants on the way to the car.
It has been a roller coaster of a week and there have been a few lessons I learned from this whole process of starting Kindergarten that I thought I might share for what it’s worth. If anyone else has tips or advice, please do share! As a mom, I can use all the help I can get.
In hindsight, I would have done a few things different, but being she is our first child I just have done my best. My friend calls first children the “first pancake” because as parents sometimes we don’t know what we are doing and have to test things out trial by error with our first.
Those of you who follow my blog already know that I hate to cook, but now that I have been practicing more, I am hating it less and less.
One of the things I always disliked about cooking was the fact that I used to find meal planning stressful. Those of you who cook are probably laughing at me, but a huge part of the stress for me was due to the fact that I was failing to plan ahead.
So when the company Relish! contacted me to tell me about their easy weekly meal planning site, I was intrigued and thought it was something I should probably try.
I signed up and now I am HOOKED! And if my husband met the Relish! founders I am sure he would want to give them a BIG hug!
Here’s why I love it:
On the 10th anniversary of 09/11/2001, I wanted to take a moment to stop and remember.
Just typing the word anniversary right now made me feel sick to my stomach, because to me, the word anniversary should mean happy things; celebrations of marriages, relationships, new beginnings.
And sadly 09/11/2001 was a new beginning, but in a terribly sad way as life as we knew it would never be the same. Where were you the day the world changed?
I remember it so vividly, every part of that day, that week, the months after.
On September 10th, 2001 I kissed my fiance good-bye and he left on a flight for a consulting job in Ohio for the week. I went to my parent’s house that evening to assemble my wedding invitations as our wedding date of November 10th was slowly approaching.