Our wish for you this 4th of July:

May you have stars in your eyes and the wind at your back.

Enjoy your holiday!

XOXOXO

The Mamas

As you enjoy your Memorial Day with family and friends….

Just take a moment to remember what it is all about.

I am not religious. And I’m not really interested in celebrating the Hallmark holidays, either. Add to this an aversion to candy and an inherent laziness when it comes to decorating/cooking/shopping/costume-making, and you end up with a person who doesn’t appear to do very much in the way of “celebrating.”

This would be a non-issue, except that I have four small children. These four small children attend schools and daycares. And these schools and daycares are CONSTANTLY reminding said children that they need to wear green, or buy Valentine’s Day cards, or bring their Easter baskets with the plastic grass to school on Friday. But it’s okay! Holidays are OKAY. They just tend to make me look like an abhorrent parent when… I’m actually pretty good.

So celebrating traditional, universal holidays isn’t where I SHINE as a mother. I’m generally not the mom that offers to make cupcakes for the Christmas party. I’m not the mom that volunteers to paint eggs. I have a really hard time coming up with cute ideas for a Halloween costume. And… (prepare to cringe) I might very well forget to call my mom on Mother’s Day if it weren’t for the fact that school teachers remind my kids to shower me with homemade cards and slobbery kisses on said day.

BUT. Read on …

You are one of only a few families invited to a friend’s Easter egg hunt where they stuffed about 1,000 eggs and hid them all over their huge backyard.

You know you have sunk to a new low when:

1) A certain father shadows his daughter around the yard. When her bucket is full, instead of quitting like she wants, you convince her to keep hunting and completely fill your jacket full of eggs.

2) You later find your outgoing daughter, stripped down to her panties, sitting on a bed reading a book while her friends play outside.

3) When you hear there are several eggs with $2 bills inside, a certain mother shoves little children aside to shake every single egg, listening for the money.

4) All of the above.

P.S. How was YOUR Easter?

Christmas is the most anticipated holiday, Halloween is the spookiest, but Easter is the most mysterious. Easter is shrouded in questions. Some of them have answers, some of them do not.

One of the greatest mysteries of Easter is the mystery of my favorite Easter candy, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg. Why does it taste better than the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup? They are both made by the same company. They are both made with peanut butter and chocolate, so why the difference?

Then, there is the mystery of how to boil the eggs. Why is it that I can never remember how long it takes to boil an egg? Every year we dye the eggs and I have to look up how to boil an egg on the Internet.

Not mysterious enough? Here’s another one. Why is it that they only put one metal egg dipper in the Easter egg coloring kit? Don’t they know that the average American family has 3.18 kids? Why not Read on …

Make sure to scroll down to enter to win a mama’s night out at the Colorado ballet! Also, today is the final day to enter to win our Least Likely 2 Breed balms, Living the Dream shirt, and tomorrow is our Shabby Apple dress giveaway deadline.

Our Memorable Valentine’s Day Cards

His:

To my wife, my true love.

I know a place
where wishes come true
and day-to-day worries
seem insignificant,
and where the pressures
of time and schedules
seem a million miles away….

[Insert] Read on …

Editor’s Note: Don’t forget to scroll down to enter our Valentine’s Day giveaway: the beautiful dress of your choice from Shabby Apple!

To say I was boy crazy growing up would be an understatement. Each page of my teenage diary had the name of a different guy. I didn’t like being boyfriend-less. I wouldn’t dump one without knowing there was another waiting in the wings. That pattern continued until I got married. In fact, when my future husband asked my dad for my hand in marriage, my dad later took me aside and asked, “Now, which guy is this?”

My husband, Secret Agent Man, and I have been “going together” for 12 years. I have to admit that I was a little concerned about my own ability to be faithful to one man, given my history as a serial dater. But, when Secret Agent Man came into my life, I gave up my wanton ways and never looked back. Read on …