GottaLoveMom

Let me put all my biases on the table: I am a HUGE Hugh Jackman fan : every single "X-men" movies, "Boy from Oz"  ( I screamed "I love you, Hugh" at the end of the Broadway play) , got giddy watching him on "Kate & Leopold" and "Someone Like You". Les Miserables was the first Broadway play I saw. And then I watched it 3 more times with my parents and children.  (I even enjoyed watching the non-musical movie version with Liam Neeson and Uma Thurman ) I admire Russell Crowe's acting abilities. Aside from "Gladiator", which I've seen over and over, I truly love his  performances in "Cinderella Man" and "The Beautiful Mind". Anne Hathaway, ah yes, who doesn't want to be like Anne Hathaway? From "Princess Diaries", to "The Devil Wears Prada", from "Love and Other Drugs" to "Dark Knight Rises". She's an elegant actress -- full of emotions and ma...

"God has called them all home. For those of us who remain, let us find the strength to carry on and make our country worthy of their memory," ~  Pres. Barack Obama at Newton, Connecticut. I tried to make sense of what happened. I tried to write something, anything. But I don't know how. So for now, all I can do is pray, light candles and hope...

Every school day it is the same thing.  What am I going to pack for their lunch?  I created the picky eating monsters that I have, so I should just live with it, right?  Well it is very hard to accept what I've created. Child #1 did not eat any fruit, except for Mott's Healthy Harvest Country Berry applesauce (yes, I know!), until recently.  Now she will eat strawberries and blueberries (whew).  We call them nature's candy.  Child #2 will eat any fruit I give him. Child #2 will not eat peanut butter, chicken soup, or pasta with marinara sauce (or red sauce as my children call it).  These are all things that Child #1 will eat.  He usually takes a hot dog or jelly sandwich for lunch.  Anything else will come back uneaten.  They will both eat ham slices, but not as a sandwich. Add into this that Child #1 now has braces, so that complicates things a tad.  She cannot have anything too hard (i.e., carrots) unless they are cut into b...

For few years my 11 year old relentlessly hocked me to get him a cell phone. Like every other kid, the phrase "but every body else has one" was his selling argument. And mine was, "Your brothers and sisters didn't get their cell phones until they were in High School." We have the Verizon Wireless - Family and Friends plan. And we already maxed out the $9.99 per month additional plan. My youngest happens to be the 6th member of the family. And I'm not about to spend another $30 a month and re-do the data package so I can add my youngest child. I even joked that the only way I can add him to our plan is when his sister gets married. Last month, he managed to rally his grandparents and aunt to make me understand that he needs a cell phone. Since I have been doing a lot of volunteer work in New York , they convinced me that I need to be able to track my 11 year-old whenever I'm not home. So a compromise was made. We b...

Bali …more than I bargained for. (Sonia Lopez at a Yoga Retreat in Bali) by Sonia Lopez Simpson , CPC, ELI-MP (Mom, Wife & Certified Life Coach) Truth be told, Bali was never on my bucket list.  But the Universe always has bigger plans. I found a good deal for a Yoga retreat in Bali on Facebook (which I thought would be a great vacation) so instead of having a 40 th birthday party, I asked my husband for this trip as my gift.  There are no coincidences.