If You are Gonna Give

Give big. I am a true philanthropist. While I think people can be real fuckheads pains in the neck, at the root of all I believe a good portion of people are good and true as part of their nature. So my love of humankind is probably part of my cat nature as a Leo. I have every intention of making the world a better place one person and soul at a time, albeit I will probably die a failure, but I WILL do what I can in this life. I would hate for karma to come back and be a bit too pissed off and reincarnate me as a roll of toilet paper to wipe up other assholes shit.

Onto my story. I recently saw a posting on my twin mom club board that a mom in northern Arizona is in need. She has twins, not a part of any club or ours, and she is in need of formula because WIC only covers so much and the rest she has to attempt to purchase on her own. Now if you a mother who formula fed, you know pretty darn well how EXPENSIVE formula is for one baby....tack on an extra mouth. I tandem breastfed the twins for 10 glorious months before I thought I would lose my mind by never seeing the light of day and I made the decision to slowly wean them to formula for the last month and half before their one year birthday. During that time can I tell you how much formula I went through?

Every 3 days we opened a new Costco size can of Enfamil. COSTCO size folks. Biggie size. Super Size! And if I recall the price was close to $40 a can. One can, every three days times $40. Can you say I need a loan to feed those kids?

Now I can totally empathize with this mother, I feel for her. The sad thing, there are no programs other than ours right now that I have been able to find that can help her. As I said, she is on WIC. But WIC is only designed for one newborn, not TWO! So I am coming to you all. For help. Do you know of any other programs, opportunities, freebies, support to help a mother? I know she is not alone, we have received several requests and as my duty and position within in the club as donations coordinator I am gathering donations for these mothers as a "Milk Closet" per se that will include the expensive necessities to care for two infants. If you know of any programs, companies, opportunities to help these women in our communities who struggle to care and feed their children please let me know or hey if you want to make a donation let me know that too and I will provide you with our IRS and Federal 501(c)(3) non profit tax ID information

A Day Made Better, For a Phoenix Teacher

OfficeMax developed a program in 2007 that helps erase teacher funded classroom, that program is called "A Day Made Better," Office Max teamed with Adopt-A-Classroom to aid teachers for supplies for classrooms. This program is so much more than just donations for a teacher, this is to help enrich the lives of our children and is a tremendous movement. For more information go HERE.

I got involved with A Day Made Better and Office Max by participating in the Girls Night Out on Twitter with Jyl Pattee of MomItForward. I have to say that was a great party! But on top of the Twitter party, I had the opportunity to go party for a teacher with Kelly Loubet. Have you met Kelly? If not, you should! She is a heck of a woman with a big heart, a fellow Arizonan, Phoenician, and blogger..ya herd! She is helping her daughter's kindergarten teacher, who was nominated, to enjoy A Day Made Better!

On Saturday October 3rd Kelly held a soiree at Scrap Happy Sisters in Glendale so we could "scrap it up" in, what I have to say is the coolest scrapbooking store EVA eat some YUMMY Organic pizza from ZPizza, guzzle gallons of water and wine, and have a great time for a great cause! But don't let me ruin the good time for you! Be sure to go Tweet up Kelly and read her story over at Whrrl!

Thanks so much Kelly, I had a great time at the party (and our super cool after-party at Applebees) and I am glad I could help be a part of your Adopt-A-Classroom and A Day Made Better with OfficeMax!

BIG THANKS to Office Max and Adopt-A-Classroom to help erase teacher funded classrooms!

NECCO SweetHearts: Red, White, and YOU!

In honor of the Fourth of July and the American and Foreign Military Troops serving abroad, NECCO, New England Confectionery Company, parent company of our favorite Sweethearts candy (normally seen at Valentine's) has created a new line to celebrate our wonderful country and the military men and women who serve to protect our country!

For the first time in 140 years NECCO expanded the traditional Valentine candy line and Valentine sentiments to include patriotic sentiments in honor of our troops and military families for their service. These sentiments have great lines like "Proud of U", "Home Safe", "Miss You." Sweethearts, is also sending these great candies in packages for our troops which is in partnership with the United Service Organizations (USO).

I for one was not a fan of Sweethearts (traditional Valentine) candy because of the flavors, but I can tell you that these new Red, White, and YOU flavors are fantastic and epitomize American summers and stereotypes. I was eating them like they were going out of style. Seriously, and I am not a candy fan. I would eat hard candy like Jolly Ranchers every now and again. The flavors are so yummy! The blue tastes like a rich blueberry pie, the red like a sweet and sticky cherry pie, and I haven't quite nailed the white, but man are they good!

Not only are they tasty little snacks, but they make great craft and recipe ideas. My favorite was the Red, White, and You Flag Cake! So yummy and perfect for the 4th of July BBQ!

Is that cake not scrumptious looking or not!? I would say so! Click on her to get a closer look at the easy peasy directions and make one of your own.

Remember to stay safe this Fourth of July and try to remember the reason why we celebrate this holiday past all the BBQ's, fireworks, and fun. Be sure to thank our troops, veterans, soldiers for their service to protect our freedoms!

Happy Fourth of July!!