Can you guess which one is me?

To catch up, I recently participated in a panel at Show Me The Blog Conference in St. Louis. It’s a new conference on the blog conference circuit, but I think it has great potential. Much like real life, SMTB (as it was known on Twitter) encountered a few bumps in the road, but all in all, I totally would have paid the $40 early bird ticket price for all that I learned. Heck, I probably would have spent the $60 regular (full) ticket price, I really learned that much. I’m just a cheapskate at heart and mom taught me how to get the best deal. It’s hard to break that kind of training.

Show Me The Blog Conference is hoping to grow to a semi-annual event and I’m making plans to make sure I’m there next spring. If you are new to blogging, anywhere close to St. Louis and interested in attending a blog conference, this would definitely be a good “training” conference to see how you like it. Much better than trial by fire at BlogHer like I did. I met a lot of local bloggers and learned a lot of great info from the speakers and panelists.

One major announcement that was announced at SMTB was that I have moved from the ‘job’ of ‘mommy blogger’ to an in-office, 9 to 5, desk job. I recently accepted a position as Social Media Coordinator for a local company that deal with a lot of mommy bloggers. I’d say more here, but let’s just say this company’s owners were on the cutting edge of social media and have used it well to their advantage. Thankfully I’m not building a social media presence, I’m just taking over the reins. Which means, they have a few thousand “fans” on Facebook and I really don’t want to make my work more difficult by connecting too many dots and making it easier for my stalkers to find me. (Is that cryptic enough for you?)

Unfortunately, right after the blog conference, I inadvertently committed the worst blog conference sin EVER, I didn’t post anything. No blogs, nothing. But it’s not my fault, really. My poor little MacBookPro tried to commit computer suicide. Thankfully for me, it was a known issue and Mac (with their excellent customer service, thanks to a class action lawsuit) took care of it. Now my little Mac is back home and ready to serve a few more years with me.

Anyway, all that to say. I’m still here, still blogging and have some plans for fun homemade holiday crafts to share with you. So my question for you is, are you crafting for the holidays? What are you working on? What do you hope to finish before Dec. 24th?

This past weekend we did not celebrate one child’s birthday, no we celebrated the twins’ birthdays. It most certainly did not catch me by surprise.

Our Saturday morning did not start with an invitation to a movie night with our girl cousins, and if it had, I certainly would NOT have asked my husband to “sell” the idea to the twins in lieu of a friend birthday party, simply for my own convenience. I certainly would not have forgotten to bake the requested carrot cake on Saturday morning for Sunday’s post-church family dinner and party. That’s just not my style.

I absolutely did not throw myself out of bed early Sunday morning to bake the cakes before my workout. I would NEVER dream of yelling at my husband in bursts of breath in the most excruciating part of the workout “Cupcakes. Out. OVEN.” We never yell at one another at our house.

Even if our morning had started that way, we would not have had ZERO presents wrapped to present to the twins at the family party. That would be wrong. We certainly would not attempt to make it up to them by taking them on a shopping trip to Toys R Us and buying them the toys they wanted, sale or no.

That’s just not how this organized mom of four does it. < rolls eyes >

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

We started our journey Friday morning. While I had grand ambitions to leave between 8 and 9 a.m., we pulled onto the Interstate at almost 11:30. Oh well. We had a few stops between our house and the highway. One of those definitely paid off.

We stopped at the local library. We quickly scanned the available CD audiobooks and found a couple that were just a half hour shy of our journey each way. We don’t own an in-car DVD player because we can’t find a way that all four children can view it well from their seats. And no one wants to buy extra complaining on any road trip. Audio books, on the other hand, are nice because the car has speakers near each seat.

The other benefit, for us, is that the older boys can continue to play video games (without sound) while listening to the story. This really helps Yoshi, who is a very active thinker, and gives him a place to focus his thoughts.

My other secret weapon for a drive with conscious children is a brown paper bag full of snacks. Pretzels with cheese, fruit snacks, Cheeze-Its, mini-cookies are all favorites. Depending on the child and packaging, I will re-package hard-to-open or easy-to-spill items into my favorite snack containers. I overfill the bag so to compensate for the bored hunger, “Mom, I dropped my food!” and “I don’t like this” whine. I do limit what drink they have, keeping it to a minimum number of ounces, so that when (not if) they chug, it will hopefully make it through those no-man’s lands without an exit or truck stop without an accident.

Speaking of truck stops, I discovered my best tip yet on the return trip. When traveling alone and outnumbered, I’ll be skipping the major, interstate exit stops and looking for a store on the main street in town instead. Quite by accident, I followed a sign for a Casey’s General Store. The first sign didn’t have mileage on it, and after committing to the exit, I discovered it was 1.25 miles down the road. Just great!

It was a blessing in disguise. Just busy enough to be safe, the locals were kind and courteous, better than hurried travelers near the interstate. The bathrooms were “one seaters” in a small hallway where I could monitor both genders discretely. After grabbing mommy some coffee and checking out with the very friendly cashier, Luigi made the best discovery of the trip – a PAY PHONE! The cashier and I had a good chuckle as the children marveled over this technological wonder that they’d only seen in Daddy’s favorite childhood movies. It was quite the experience for all of us.

We packed ourselves back in the car and a few miles down the road, all four were asleep. We finally arrived home around 11 p.m. at night. Not my favorite, but definitely easier than listening to “Are we there yet?” for hours.

While it wasn’t easy, and I don’t recommend it, there are ways to make traveling alone with children much easier. Relax, be open to change, and have a good attitude. It works for me!

Notice a theme here? My children have found my weakness.
They create heart-tugging crafts to make me forget they didn’t ask permission to use the supplies.

he was being crafty and sweet.

Here’s an old photo of my baby, when she still looked like a baby and acted like a kitten.

Being number four, we thought we had the whole parenting thing figured out. I thought I was content with only sons. We’d skip over hormone filled drama in the teen years. Be free to travel later in life instead of saving for a wedding. We thought we had it made. The day of the ultrasound when they said “It’s a girl” all I could do was laugh in my nervousness. Princess has challenged me to think and act differently. She points out my flaws without intending, like only a child can do, and inspires me to improve. I’m so thankful God knew better than I did four years ago when he brought this unique blessing into our lives. We needed her.

To celebrate, Princess (age four) and I (age thirtysomething) had our first manicures… together. I think it will grow into a tradition. Something to separate the girls from the boys in our family. She chose a vibrant magenta pink with glitter top to match and I chose center line yellow. Seriously, it looks like the double line in the middle of the road. So bright.

Princess is very girly. She loves dresses and demands I wear them on special occasions. I had intentions of buying a yellow sundress for her birthday party. But of course, when we arrived at the store, post manicure, the dress I passed up two days ago was no longer available in my size. So my yellow nails seem a bit out of place, but there are worse things in life. At least it’s a bold color to go with the bold memory of today. The day I started a new season in life. Diapers, nursing, disrupted sleep, all those things I thought would never end, now just a memory. A memory growing more faint every day.

Happy Birthday, Princess. Thanks for making me a better woman, and a better mom.

Day 1 Cast & Crew - I'm one of the gray shirts on the side.

Things have been a bit slow here on the blog because I’ve been recovering from an amazing JUMP 2010. If you are new to the blog, check out last year’s post. While JUMP only lasted 4 days for the kids, it consumed about 16 days of my life. This year I dove even deeper into JUMPmania by leading the props acquisition team. I’ve learned a bit about ancient farming tools, man cave decor, and how to find an oversized baby pacifier. Truly things everyone should learn. It was amazing as expected. The lessons learned, new friends made and amazing songs continue to knock around in my head while I try to catch up on all the lost sleep.

JUMP 2010 - Kids, Volunteers & Cast

We served 3,243 kids in 4 days.

To get an idea of what happened beyond the photo, here are the JUMP 2010 Fun Facts:

• 987 volunteers
• 158 watermelons
• 485 gallons of Gatorade
• 5,700 bags of cotton candy
• 260 pounds and 8,350 bags of popcorn
• 6,928 pounds of ice
• 167 gallons of syrup
• 18,200 sno-cones

This was the first year of JUMP for my husband, Mr. T. He was a snow cone man. The few times I saw him, he was always manning an ice machine, shaving ice for those thousands of sno-cones. He has the guns now to prove it too.

I can’t imagine how JUMP will change for next year as we adapt to allow more kids to join in the fun. If you are in the St. Louis area and want to get updates on next year’s event, check out the website or follow @jumpkids on Twitter.

She didn’t have bangs a few days ago.

The surgery was a week ago. Things are healing well and my vision is AMAZING! The only downside is that as my eyes have been healing, eye fatigue sets in more quickly than I expect. So since I choose to blog live most of the time, yep, you guessed what gets put on the back burner.

Don’t give up on me, I’ll get the MBP fixed and be back to posting soon!

On Mother’s Day, I can’t help but mention my mom. I truly owe ALL my craftiness to her – the good, bad and the ugly. She taught me to try new things, experiment, and never give up. Good lessons for crafting and for life. I wouldn’t be the woman or mother I am today without her. Thanks, Mom!