Moshi Monster Monday: Cards

At a recent staff meeting with my kids in the mommyvan, we brainstormed some Moshi Monster Monday ideas for the blog. Today we'll start you out simple with the cards. Other Mondays will find us talking about the figures, the other collectibles, the books, the online game, Moshi Monsters made out of food and/or Legos and more.

Rather than bore you to death with MY explanation of this fun new kid fad (like Pokemon only cuter and much faster to play), head to the Moshi Monsters Wikia for anything you ever wanted to know. It's an online game (we'll talk about that another time), but is also cards and more. Some of my faves are above: Groanas Brothers, Peppy, Honey, Liberty, Cali, Katsuma, Poppet and Hansel, but there are tons more. I also like Broccoli Spears and Dustbin Beaver (can you guess the celebrities?!). I like that Moshi Monsters make a play on all kinds of monster-ish words ... like how they have a Gross-ery Store in the game.

Summer Sizzle Giveaway Hop!!! (June 24-30)

This giveaway is over. Please check the left side of the blog for more!

Welcome to the Summer Sizzle Giveaway Hop hosted by Mom With a Dot Com! Over 65 bloggers have gotten together to give you a chance to win some amazing prizes to keep you entertained throughout your summer!

Summer Sizzle will begin on June 24 and end on June 30. As you are hopping around, I hope you will find some prizes that you love - maybe you will even win one! Each giveaway will have a prize valued at $25 or more!

Tip: I plan to enter 10 giveaways per day for 7 days, which will hit all 70 (minus one, which is my own!!!) Good luck! May the odds be ever in your favor!

I am giving away two books: "A House United: Changing Children's Hearts and Behaviors by Teaching Self-Government" by Nicholeen Peck and "Intimacy: A 100-Day Guide to Lasting Relationships" by Douglas Weiss, a total value of $33.94.

Please enter below and don't forget to check out my other bloggy peeps below that for some awesome giveaways from some awesome bloggers! Good luck! Oh, and please share this link with everyone you know as a favor to me, who became a mommy for the first time on this day in 2001!!!

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The Attachment Parenting Debate: Mom of Five Weighs In

This picture was taken 2 years ago, and since then I've gotten a lot of new blog readers who may not know exactly what I'm about. Well, I'm about THIS. I'm about attachment parenting. I fell into it accidentally because my husband and I are big babies who couldn't stand to hear our son cry it out in his crib and just wanted some dang sleep. (no judgments from me if you did things differently; you leave my parenting alone and I will leave yours alone)

Okay, so I just wanted some dang sleep. And nursing Joel in bed helped with that a lot (well, after the first month, anyway ... that first month was hell ... getting up every two hours to nurse for an hour while I tried not to fall asleep sitting up). So we kept it up and 5 kids later we are still going strong. Only two kids in the bed now, though, with one who sometimes even leaves!

I love this picture because there's a photo of me off to the left watching over them. Since they are all 3 in the queen bed (Joel and Callie must have already been awake), I can only assume Aron was out of town.

So if you are doing this and feel bad about it or people are giving you crap about it, it's okay! Time will prove that you did your parenting the way you saw fit and that it all worked out. The day my oldest son was born (tomorrow, 11 years ago!), I prayed fervently to God that He would make me the kind of mother HE wanted me to be. Not the kind someone else wanted me to be or the mom society thought I should be. The kind of mother that a Higher Power wanted me to be, knew I could be.

Other forms of parenting work for other people. This one has worked well for us. It's not a parenting competition, trust me. None of that crap matters. It's about the kind of parent you are supposed to be. We are all different people, extremely different sometimes. Why would we all parent the exact same way based on a book or a fad or a TV show or advice from whoever?

Update: I posted this longer version of our attachment-parenting lifestyle here on the blog many years later. It's now mid-2021, and the kids are 11, 13, 16, 18, and 20. Four teenagers who are an actual pleasure to parent, as well as an energetic 11-year-old. I credit attachment parenting!

Is It Okay to Leave Your Kid(s) In the Car???

When I was a kid and too young to stay home alone, I would go along with my parents on errands. Sometimes I would stay in the car, either because it was just easier for my parents or because I preferred to sit in the car and read or listen to music. It never crossed my mind to attempt to drive away. It never crossed my mind that someone might get into the car, hotwire it and then drive us both away, resulting in a carjacking and a kidnapping all in one.

I'm an only child, so it's not like my parents were just too lazy to drag all their kids inside. I wasn't sick or sleeping. I just stayed in the car. It's how things were done, and it was not a big deal. And it wasn't so long ago, even though my kids think I ran with the dinosaurs.

I know so many parents who do this these days, including myself. They are not gone long, they usually park up close to where they are going inside, they didn't know until now that there was even a law about this. One mom went to jail over this in another state. I of course have to include this link about Jake's Law, which is partly why we are all so freaked out. 

Remember my opinions are ILL-FORMED, people, but you know those people who drive their kid to daycare? Oops, I mean, who were supposed to take their kid to daycare and instead drive to work and the kid sits in the car all day and dies? They are not in jail. And I wonder about the people they work with ... I mean, the cops come in seconds flat in a grocery store parking lot, but you often have hundreds of employees walking by a car or looking out their window, and nobody sees that there is a kid asleep in a car, dying or maybe even screaming and crying, over the course of a DAY? Are we paying attention to the wrong things?

Click HERE to go to my pal's blog post about what happened to her, called "Is Leaving Your Kids in the Car a Right?". Check out the part where the cops think it's fine (and there is no law) for kids to watch kids AT HOME for hours but not in a CAR for 5 minutes.


I think if a citizen is that concerned, they could have gone in the store and had a page done or waited by the car for the parent to come back and then let them know it wasn't cool or whatever. But we are all too busy to get to know an entire person or situation and jump to horrible conclusions about parents, especially. It's making me think twice about things I think are "wrong" ... I'm happy to call the cops but not talk to the person directly or handle it another way?


I'm not saying this is right or wrong or good or bad. I am saying I sure as hell won't be doing it anymore now that I know the deal. I still don't feel comfortable leaving them at home, which according to the law is okay since there is no age limit for THAT, so  I will carefully plan my errands and make sure all of my kids understand they will be going inside with me everywhere we go. Joel will be 11 on Sunday, so in the city where I live he can stay in the car by himself. However, we live and drive in a huge metropolitan area, and the laws are different in every single city. I'd better educate myself on those laws. You should, too.

Freaking Frugal Friday: Living Simply With Children: Clothing

We are in massive Garage Sale Mode. We came home from living 5 weeks on the bare minimum clothing-wise and entertainment-wise and found that there is so much we can do without. Just because we have a 1500-square-foot home does not mean we have to FILL IT UP!

I hate having garage sales, but if I have much to get rid of and can do it with a friend and really make some money to go toward, say, a truck payment and our dream of moving out of the city, then let's do it. Every penny ends up counting, I suppose.

Here's what I packed for myself for Wyoming and packed similar for the kids:
1 swimsuit
5 T-shirts
1 jacket
1 pair jeans
1 pair shorts
1 pair boxer shorts for sleeping
1 pair workout pants for sleeping
4 pair socks
4 pair underwear
1 beach towel
1 pair tennis shoes
1 pair flip flops

Obviously I didn't have to schlep a winter coat or boots or total winter garb for all. As far as other stuff, the kids took Pillow Pets and little stuffed animals, Legos, coloring books and crayons, craft supplies, a few books. Callie took her picture of my cousin Cayla and some other stuff in her messenger bag.

A friend of mine does something like has 3 of each clothing item for her kids (except for undies and socks) because she also has 5 kids and the clothes overrun the house. Even with one kid, why would you need 100 outfits for that kid?

Do you have too many clothes? I have fat clothes and skinny clothes and maternity clothes and everything in between but have slowly been weeding things out. Why do we hold on to so many clothes when they just go out of style anyway and are so easily and cheaply acquired at thrift stores and consignment stores and through friends giving us more and sales, etc.?