Month: June 2008

Summer Solsticing (and Traumatizing) at Granby Ranch

[photopress:Hadleyprofile.jpg,full,pp_image]A week ago, we attended Granby Ranch’s Summer Solstice. The resort went all out for this celebration that included fireworks, BBQs, chairlift rides, face painting, golf, crafts, a climbing wall, trampoline, massages, pony rides and mountain bike demos. To name a few. We reallllly wanted to go on this trip because: 1) It sounded fun. Duh. 2) The following weekend would be our dreaded camping trip with the children and we wanted them to have at least one positive experience with the great outdoors. Even if it meant enjoying it from the great indoors of our slope-side condo. If you’ve never been to Granby Ranch, you must not be a hip, nature-loving family with young children because that is 90 percent of their audience. The other 9 perce...

Three VTech Prize Packs Up For Grabs!

Congratulations to Julie Weathers, winner of our designer Baby Lulu outfit! [photopress:Vtech.jpg,full,pp_image]If you’ve had any complaints about boredom from your children, VTech is coming to the rescue! Their fantastic prize pack includes the following: V-Motion: This is one of the summer’s most educational toys on the market. This Wii-like educational game gets “active minds in motionâ€? when it goes head-to-head with today’s must-have technologies, providing a motion-activated gaming system appropriate for 3 to 7 year olds. $69.99 V-Motion Smartridges™: Children’s favorite characters come to life and encourage action-packed play on the V-Motion Smartridges. The prize pack includes a game from one of the summer’s hottest movies: Kung Fu Panda! $24.99 Movie The...

Contests, Sales and Freebies–Oh My!

This is your one-stop shopping spot for a whole lot of mom-worthy information. What do Hanes and Disney have in common? Where can you find fun activities at a luxury mountain resort for free? Where can you enjoy summer shopping, lemonade and sweet deals on the hottest Colorado-based mom and kid products around? Look no further! Hanes + Disney = Family Fun Hanes makes more than just great undies (I should know—their comfy shirts are a summertime staple at my house.) Hanes is also about making dreams come true! The company is partnering with Disney to give SEVEN families the chance to “Vacation in Comfort��? during The Year of A Million Dreams at Walt Disney World® Resort. The contest runs through August 30, 2008. Visit www.hanes.com/vacationincomfort to enter. Park Hyatt Beaver Creek + Frid...

No Safe “Secrets” with the F-Bomb

Guest blogger Heather lives outside of Denver with her husband and two young sons. When not blogging at A Mama’s Blog, Heather is an almost full-time stay-at-home mama, who also works part-time a few days a week. When she is not trying to keep up with her two active boys, Heather enjoys blogging about daily life with her sons, pregnancy and birth, and more natural living. On the rare occasions when she has spare time, she enjoys hanging out with her family, gardening, exercising and reading. My son Ryan is participating in a language development study. He was a participant about two years ago, before he was talking. The research team recently contacted me and said they wanted to have some of the original children participate in their latest round of research, and asked if we would consid...

Someday, Our Kids Will Blog About How Their Moms Blogged About Them

Scene: Typical state university dorm room of 2022—poster of Kermit the Frog, lava lamp, mini stainless steel fridge, UN flag round out the decor. A group of freshman students lounge on the beds and floor. They pass around an Xtreme Red Bull Brand Pomegranate and Ultraviolet Baby Leaf Tea Wine Cooler with DHA and ARA and a candy cigarette. We join the conversation in media res. Blayden: Steve or Joe? Emmayden: Joe! Mr. Noodle or Mr. Noodle’s brother, Mr. Noodle? Poppy: Totally Mr. Noodle. Did you hear Mr. Noodle died when his head exploded after eating too many pieces of popcorn chicken? It’s too bad they had to stop making them. Joel: Yeah. When I was like four-years-old that was all I ate. Cecilia: Me too! Joel: I think my mom probably wrote about it on her blog. Like ev...

Keep On Truckin’ (If You Must)

At the risk of sounding like Jerry Seinfeld, what’s the deal with trucks? I realize that I’m practically inviting hate mail by posting this here at Mile High Mamas, where I’d bet more than two-thirds of our audience owns a truck, but it’s been a while since I stirred the pot, so I figured it might be fun for all of us to scuffle over the merits – and demerits – of driving a truck. If your line of work requires you to haul stuff in the bed of your truck on a daily basis, that’s one thing. But if you drive a truck because you think it makes you look like a honky tonk bada**, then I can’t help but snicker at you. Trucks aren’t quite as off-putting to me as motorcycles with those decals of naked ladies in silhouette. You plaster those on yo...

Ears, Fears and Not Enough Tears

I have a niece who for the longest time referred to pickles as “shupet.” Like filet or valet or CABERNET. In fact, for the first five years of her life Megan spoke the most adorable make-believe FRENCH I’ve ever heard. Megan is now 13 and there isn’t A TRACE of foreign in her day-to-day speech and text-messaging. But there was a time when her mother wondered if Megan’s lagging speech development had something to do with a hearing impairment seeing as how “shupet” has but one thing in common with the word pickle: It’s a cute name for a pet hamster. Luckily, it wasn’t her hearing. And, much to my dismay, she eventually started referring to pickles as… well… pickles. My three-year-old Kyra doesn’t speak quasi-French the w...

Family Affection (or an extreme lack thereof)

[photopress:HadBode1.jpg,full,pp_image]I love to cuddle up with my little family but when it comes to expressing physical affection, my children could not be more different. My spitfire Hadley has little interest in warm fuzzies; she is too busy conquering the world to waste her time with nonessentials such as touching her fellow humans. The only exception is when she is puking her guts out and clings to me like a koala. Call me crazy but snuggles should not include projectiles of any kind. Especially when that projectile is vomit. I used to have a difficult time accepting her lack of endearment towards me until I recognized that she just expresses herself in different ways. I.e. saying “I love you” repeatedly throughout the day or generously eating all the cookies in front of ...

Designer Baby Lulu Clothing Giveaway!

Congratulations to Ashley Marshall, winner of our Mod Mum baby sling! [photopress:babylulu_1.jpg,full,pp_image]My children’s daily swim lessons have catapulted me into beach mode. Well, minus the beach. We do live in Colorado, after all. But the California-based designer baby clothes by Baby Lulu resonates with me. I fell in love with their beautiful garden prints, inspired by Founder and Designer Erin Murphy’s childhood memories of her mother’s lush home gardens that are showcased in this collection within a pink, orange, blue and green color palette. Featured items include adorable cropped leggings–a popular trend in children’s wear–2-piece play sets and whimsical, tiered skirts with mesh overlays. Baby Lulu has broadened their offerings to include a line of...

This Mama’s Turn Around in Perspective

Guest writer Shannon lives in colorful Colorado Springs with her news anchor husband and two sons. When not fixin’ up their fixer-upper home, hiking, gardening, cooking, changing diapers or chasing children, this Colorado Native is sure to be found blogging at The Cole Mine. I have taken it upon myself to change my perspectives lately. I am a stay-at-home mom. My husband works evenings. For so long, this weighed heavily upon my soul. I was disappointed we didn’t have a “typicalâ€? family that could sit down to a family dinner every evening. I grew up with conversation galore and both parents sitting down to dinner with me every night. I mourned the loss of this usual and socially acceptable structure in my life. It is how I always thought life would be and we had it for a short while...

The Entertainment Conundrum

[photopress:george.gif,full,pp_image]We are those parents. We held back TV, especially violent TV, so our son Declan still mainly watches the Wiggles. OK, now he’s into our old school Schoolhouse Rock videos. But the TV ban has kind of backfired on us, because he cannot comprehend an actual storyline of a movie and he is so sensitive, he worries about everyone and everything going on in the movie. He’s never even made it past 10 minutes into Nemo, Monster’s Inc or A Bug’s Life. He cries during CURIOUS GEORGE, because he is worried that George won’t make it out of his hijinks. Pretty much anything with a character arc? He can’t handle. The only one he really has embraced is Cars, and we still have to skip the tractor tipping scene. But his friends, who, g...

Where This Mom Draws the Line: Part Deux

My last post was about where I draw the line when it comes to what I will and will not do for my kids. Here’s a quick look back: “When we become mothers we give and give up so much of ourselves for our children. We do it willingly. We do it with love. But, I think there is a point where you have to draw the line, a line in the sand, so to speak, where you, as a mother, decide, ‘I won’t give up this or I won’t do that for you, my darling child.’” “My ‘line in the sand’ is video games. I will not play video games with my kids. I pack the lunches, chaperone field trips, dig under the bed for dirty socks, feed the dog when they forget, I will not ‘kick their butts,’ as they like to say, at Mario Kart.â€? For Part Deux, I will let you know what I ...