Karen Alley, The Daily Post. As web editor, Karen blogs every day about news and events that are going on either in our area or on a national realm. Bringing together hot topics with local ties is what keeps her perspective on the news interesting.
Renee, Teen-dom Tales, provides a look into the life of a mom of a teen, a stage of life that brings with it a whole new realm of parenting challenges.
Stephanie, Mamma Said, writes witty and insightful posts chronicling the development of her two young boys, ages 3 and 1. As a Greensboro resident, they're out and about at locales around the Triad quite often, and she also brings in the working mom perspective at times, with her part time job.
Lisa, The Single Mom's Soliloquy, adds a different spin on parenting as she writes about the issues, challenges and joys of raising a daughter as a single mom. Her look at life in the new world order of blended families and split families is refreshing and sometimes controversial.
Heather Maggs, of The Time Out Corner, presents a humorous blog on the roller coaster life of a stay-at-home mom of a toddler.
Myra Wright, familiar to you as our editor, also blogs inPiedmont Ponderings. It's a great outlet for her creative sense of humor, and she brings some great perspective to life in King as the mother of three kids.
Our editor, Myra Wright, has a full life, from working full time keeping Piedmont Parent full of exciting information and the latest trends in parenting to managing her own family including three kids, Carson, 9; Morgan, 6; and Jackson, 1.
I just returned from the Parenting Publications of America's annual conference, which was held this year in Charlotte. It's an annual meeting where magazine publishers, editors, sales representatives and art directors get together for a few days and share ideas on how to do our jobs better. I met a lot of interesting people and came away with lots of great ideas for the magazine and our Web site.
On Saturday evening, we had an awards banquet, which is basically our version of the Oscars. I'm proud to say that Piedmont Parent won three awards.
1. We won a Gold Award for the stock photo we used on the cover of the November issue. Congratulations to our extremely talented art director Renee Canada!
2. We won a Silver Award for our Daytrippin' column.
3. We also won a Silver Award for Cristi's Driver's piece on Big Bang Boom! Cristi did an awesome job writing this story, and we're so proud of her!
I would also like to congratulate our two sister publications, Charlotte Parent on winning six awards and Carolina Parent on winning five awards, including Gold for overall General Excellence.
I hope everyone is enjoying the first hours of the new year. Surprisingly, my two oldest made it until midnight to watch the ball drop. We had a lot of fun playing Guitar Hero and singing karaoke all evening.
I'm spending today doing a little work for the magazine and also taking down Christmas decorations and cleaning. Not a fun way to spend New Year's Day, but will be nice to get a lot done today so I can enjoy the weekend.
We have very much enjoyed Christmas break, and it will be hard to wake up at 6 a.m. on Monday and get everyone ready for school. Ugh!
We have slept late, played hard and even taken a day trip to Hiddenite Center, which you can read about in the February issue. Yesterday, I took Carson and Morgan to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel." Carson says it was better than the first one. I thought it was cute, probably exactly what you would expect if you are considering taking the kids.
Over dinner last night, we talked about resolutions for 2010. Here they are:
Hubby: "Be healthy and eat less sugar."
Carson: "To do extra chores." (I like this one!)
Morgan: "Wash my hands more often." (Guess this one is influenced by the H1N1 scare.)
Jackson: Become less addicted to the paci? Stop hitting his brother and sister when they are in my lap? Stop pointing to his nose when someone says, "Where's Mommy?" Stop throwing food from the high chair? Eat more vegetables? Stop licking the front door? Lots of choices here.
So much to do today! Laundry, cooking, cleaning and last-minute wrapping.
We did manage some family time last night and went to the Pilot Mountain Christmas Extravaganza. This is a wonderful walk-through Christmas light display. What fun this was the for the kids! Best of it, it was FREE. They also serve FREE hot chocolate.
Carson's favorite part was the hot chocolate. Morgan said her favorite part was the fake snow that fell at the barn, but she was a little creeped out by the singing snowman. Jackson really liked the singing tree. I loved the fact that there's still real snow on the ground. It made all of the beautiful lights shine a bit brighter.
It was a great activity to put the family in the Christmas spirit. If you live close to Pilot Mountain, be sure to check it out. It's perfect for the kids.
Trying to get the 1-year-old dressed in the mornings for half-day preschool is like running a marathon. Jackson is by far the squirmiest child I've ever dressed. The ordeal always leaves me sweating and appreciative that the two oldest can dress themselves.
This past Monday, Jackson made getting dressed far more eventful than usual. In an effort to keep him as still as possible while putting his pants on him, I gave him the TV remote. My mistake.
I didn't even see it coming, but he whacked me as hard as he could right in the face.
I fell back.
I cried.
It hurt.
A lot.
My initial thought was "Jackson just broke a bone in my face" followed by "Great, that's going to leave a mark."
And it did! Now, all of our Thanksgiving pictures will include me looking like I was in a fight. Oh, well. It could have been worse. He could have broken my nose, and I'm thankful he didn't.
nada! 