Tiny Treasures Kids Sale, LLC - Augusta, NJ - Business Services in Augusta, New Jersey

Tiny Treasures Kids Sale, LLC - Augusta, NJ - Business Services in Augusta, New Jersey

Augusta's Tiny Treasures Kids Consignment Sale - Jersey Happenings

Augusta's Tiny Treasures Kids Consignment Sale - Jersey Happenings

Dance, Dance, Dance...with My Budding Ballerina

My four year old daughter just finished her first year of dance school at the most delightful dance studio in downtown Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Jeannie Cardinal’s School of Dance!

 

The studio is so family-friendly and really caters to the student and family who wants a wonderful dance experience without the pressure of competition. The studio is located just off the main drag in an old factory warehouse. It boasts wonderful hardwood floors that make dancing so much softer on the body, and make the studio more charming than the industrial one-square-foot dirty whitish tiles found in many studios. The school has two large rooms that still manage to have a quaint air about them – the pink room, and the blue room! The blue room, where my daughter danced, has the most darling ballerina border going around the perimeter of the mirrored room and natural light flows in from the windows on two walls. It exudes charm.

 

The predominantly female student base (with a few preschool age males thrown in for good measure), is given ample opportunity throughout the year to strut their stuff and show their families all that they are learning. The studio hosts a bring-a-friend day and an observation day for parents, grandparents, and any family members who are interested in observing, once each fall and again in the spring. My daughter also got to partake in a Halloween party where she wore her costume to dance class, a Christmas show where each class performed a holiday-themed number and got a visit and goodie bag from Santa, and theme weeks benefiting the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life for each week during May. The girls absolutely loved dress-up day, purple day, crazy socks day, crazy hat day, and favorite sports team day. It was great fun! The kids were so cute.

 

In addition to that, the students got to dance at Easton’s Relay for Life at Metzgar Field off of Sullivan Trail in Forks Township, and at Spring Fest at the Lower Nazareth Elementary School. Not to mention their big end-of-year recital, which was the culmination of a year’s hard work, and according to my husband who sat through the whole show while I was absolutely LOVING being a stage mom, it was “absolutely fantastic.” My mom, a seasoned dance studio mom, and former dance teacher said it was “very good; much better than she expected.” Because the studio is much smaller than the huge studio that I grew up in, my mom wasn’t expecting such a well-put together and entertaining show. I was thrilled that our family all enjoyed the recital so much, because my sweet little ballerina will have many more years to come at Jeannie Cardinal’s School of Dance.

 

I’m no stranger to dance studios either, having spent my entire childhood from age three through age 16 dancing and performing both tap and jazz, and gymnastics on stage. I tried one year of ballet and it wasn’t for me. I’m much more the gymnastics type. My daughter loves ballet…it is her greatest passion, however, in a surprising turn of events, she has announced a newfound love for gymnastics as well. She is not a fan of tap. That was always my least favorite, too, I must say. I never told her that though so I think it’s cute that she feels the same way as I do. The shame of it all with regard to gymnastics is that she broke her arm jumping on her bed the day of dress rehearsal and will be forced to break (no pun intended) from gymnastics for the majority of the summer as she is now in a cute little pink cast. Poor baby…but that’s a post for another day.

 

In addition to my own long history of dance studio attendance and performances, I taught in a dance studio for four years just prior to having children, as well as choreographed recital dances. I’ve got to be honest…this wonderful studio and the family who runs it has captured my heart…and my daughter’s. It will be her lifelong dance home. I cannot imagine a more perfect place for my little girl, or our family. I give them the highest recommendation and hope that some of you will consider checking them out for the upcoming season starting in September 2012. In the meantime, we’ll be at their summer dance camp program…can’t wait!

 

If you are interested in learning more, about the fabulous Jeannie Cardinal’s School of Dance, please visit their web site: www.JeannieCardinalsSchoolofDance.com or give them a call: 610-746-9176. The dance studio is located at: 181 S. Whitfield St. Nazareth PA 18064

Peanut Butter Tree

What is a peanut butter tree you ask? Read on to find out…

 

On Thursday my four-year old daughter had dress rehearsal for her very first dance recital. It was an amazing day, and thankfully was permitted to be so by the fact that my husband graciously stayed home from work that day to watch our son. Our son is five, and bringing him to this five-hour-long dance marathon would have been an absolute nightmare. He would have been beside himself with boredom, yanking on my legs, beckoning me with “mama, mama, mama” every three-point-two seconds, and trying with all of the power contained within his teeny tiny 43″ frame, to steal my attention away from my little ballerina.

 

Upon arriving home from our wonderful girls’ day together, I walked in the house to find my son planted in front of the television staring trancefully and mindlessly at it. I am not a huge proponent of television so this alone is enough to ruffle my already sticky (because boy was it HOT outside) feathers. We broke the 100-degree F mark this day and my son was wearing black athletic pants and a dark brown tee shirt. I’ve been dressing him in tank tops and light shorts and he’s still been sweating like he’d just run a marathon. We do not have air conditioning and the ceiling fan was not on. A mistake when we built our house. Whatever you do, DO NOT skip the central air thinking you will add it later and save money on the builder’s mark-up. Huge miscalculation on our part because although we got an a/c-equipped furnace, we will likely never actually call an HVAC company to come in and upgrade us. There is always something more important…like a new swingset, a new transmission in one of our cars, a beach vacation, or a large vet bill…or quite frankly something more fun than a few ducts in the ceiling that are really only valuable two weeks out of the year max where we live.

 

Anyhow, I digress…sorry – tangents are one of my favorite pastimes while writing! So, my son, grossly overdressed and engaging in mindless activity while my husband is nowhere to be found. Awesome! Said hubby heard me come in and came downstairs to make a face-to-face appearance…err, to tell me how incredibly rough his day was, because after all, I have no idea what it’s like to care for kids all day. I’ve only been doing it 24/7 as my full time job for four years now.

 

I jumped headfirst into questioning what my boys did that day before I shared the details of our fabuloso day. “He was BAAAAADDDD!!!” says my husband sternly. Ahhh, welcome to my world, dear…welcome to my world! I was looking forward to hearing just what his definition of “bad” is because I was certain it couldn’t really be anything all that terrible. After all, it was just five short hours and he only had one child with him. As the conversation spun, I quickly learned that the lack of attention was the driving force behind this grave “misbehavior.”

 

Did you take him outside, I asked, ever curious because of the way he was dressed and the sweat pooling – nay, drenching, his poor blonde locks until they were dirt brown. I was then regaled with tales of how our son wanted to go outside…so they went out. So far so good. My husband then started watering all of the plants…since WHEN does he water my plants? Umm…this is a FIRST…clearly, he was not in the mood to entertain a wily kindergartener-to-be. Upon seeing the hose, our son asked him to fill up his pool. My husband complied, and while it was filling, took him inside, lathered him up in sunscreen, and put his bathing suit on. All responsible acts. I would have been pleased if not for the ridiculous act of peanut butter tree-ishness that came next.

 

Apparently my husband was frustrated because our son decided after going outside that he wasn’t really that interested in going in the pool. Hi…that’s how kids are; have you ever met one before?! Our little man then said he was going inside to pee (again…strange behavior as he always just whips his pants down to his ankles and urinates on a tree smack dab in the middle of our lawn. After quite a while, my husband went inside to see what was taking so long. A-HA…our candy caper was at it again…digging through the pantry for junk. And, apparently the little bugger thinks he’s clever as he recovered quickly after being caught and said, “do you know where the dog food is, Daddy?” Yeah, okay kid…like that’s what you were doing. You think you’re slick…just like your Daddy. No way…we’re on to you! Since when have you EVER fed the dog? Umm…make that a big fat NEVER! So the man of the house makes the man-in-training come back outside, at which time he returns to the chore of working on his outdoor projects…totally not paying attention to our son, who is now feeling slighted after not having gorged on handful upon handful of chocolate candy.

 

As the story goes, after a few minutes my husband walked back into the driveway where he noticed our son surrounded by bottles of motor oil and other chemical compounds he found in the garage and decided to bring into the driveway and empty out. #1 Rule: The Garage is Off Limits to the Kids. For this very reason. I seriously cannot believe he even told me this little ditty. I was LIVID, but…I was too darn tired to say anything more than, “are you insane not watching him? Men are the dumbest creatures on earth!!”

 

Our son was then sent inside, not told to wash his hands (that didn’t happen until God only knows how many hours later when I got home), and my husband plopped him in front of a movie to sedate him until mommy got home to take proper care of him! And he was eating nice red SALSA with cheese quesadillas over a GLASS plate on the family room carpet. More awesomeness! At least he was being fed though…and it was actually a lunch-appropriate meal, although non-chemicalized hands would have been a real treat.

 

NEXT TIME, looks like I’m just going to take the kid with me to the dress rehearsal, or whatever the next big event that he’d really be crawling along my nerves like a livewire happens to be. Not to mention that it will save my poor dog some headache too as her fur was plastered with stickers from our crazed little monster.

 

My daughter and I have this unspoken language…whenever my husband or son do something oddusual, we look at one another, roll our eyes, and then smirk, say “boys are weird,” and round it all off with a giggle. It’s our thing! Naturally the aforementioned incidents more than qualified for our boys are crazy with their oddusual behavior routine. Well, as I’m grooming the next great diva, she came up with the idea of the century! She does a diva mommy proud!

 

This moment of genius occurred two days later as I was curling her hair and primping her up for her first big dance recital. We heard the boys being nutty and did our aforementioned routine of total awesomeness, then she sighed and said “Boys are weird. We should call them something silly when they act like that.” What an idea! I jumped right on it, encouraging her to keep it top secret. We wouldn’t tell them what it means…it would just be for us to know, and we would call them that every time they were being crazy. “What do you want to call them, baby girl?” I asked with much delight in my voice at this conspiring. On her second try she said, “let’s call them peanut butter!” I assented and told her that was fabulous, but not crazy enough…”get a little crazier” I encouraged. “Peanut Butter Tree!” she exclaimed and we both cracked up laughing. Today is day three of Peanut Butter Tree, and it’s such a huge hit! Every time our boys doing something stupid, silly, or otherwise manly moronic – which happens repeatedly on a daily basis, we sigh and say, “Peanut Butter Tree!” then giggle to our heart’s content.

 

Laughter is the best pathway to a soul’s contention. Be silly and giggle a little! Life is short.

 

 

 

Please note: the chemical danger is no laughing matter and I have now moved everything and anything out of reach. Even when you think your children have passed the age of greatest danger, it is still there…lurking! While I’m certain, unlike a two-year old, our five-year old son would never drink the chemicals or motor oil, simply touching and inhaling these things while dumping them out is horribly dangerous. By no means do I find this funny, and I am completely and utterly unhappy about it. I keep saying it wouldn’t have happened on my watch, but you just never know, so PLEASE mommies and daddies, be careful and keep your chemicals up high out of reach or locked up away from your little ones.

The Domestic Diva & Her Two Tiny Treasures: The Midnight Creeper

The Domestic Diva & Her Two Tiny Treasures: The Midnight Creeper: Do you have a midnight creeper?   We do…and we’ve named him the “Candy Caper.” Our creeper comes out in the middle of the night when the ho...

The Midnight Creeper

Do you have a midnight creeper?

 

We do…and we’ve named him the “Candy Caper.” Our creeper comes out in the middle of the night when the house is pitch black and the rest of the zoo is quiet. The dog is nestled in our bed sleeping, the cats are sleeping, and the kids…err, ONE kid is sleeping. The other, of the male variety is busy lurking in his room. Waiting…

 

As soon as mommy and daddy are down for the count our little midnight creeper who we’ve nicknamed “The Candy Caper” comes out to strike. He sneaks downstairs and raids the pantry for cookies, candy, or anything junk-related. He’s been doing this for the better part of a year, at least. It drives me crazy. My ridiculous facade of control (over his dental hygiene and his well-managed diet) goes out the window each and every night. We no longer lock the gate at the top of the stairs because as much as we fear he’s going to take a tumble down them in the dark of night, our fear that he’s going to try to climb over it and miss and go over our balcony railing is even greater. He would land 18 feet down on the tile and suffice it to say, that is much scarier than a child with cavities. I’ve even played the grandparent card and had my mom talk to him. To no avail, I am afraid.

 

I am a very conservative mommy. I do not give my children foods with high fructose corn syrup in them; I avoid processed foods; I avoid saturated fats; I avoid sugary junk and caffeinated products. We are healthy eaters. My kids get rice cakes and fruit for snacks for the most part. When they get cookies they are generally homemade by me so I know just what’s in them. However, on Halloween they get candy. Even on Easter this year we only gave them each one small Gertrude Hawk chocolate and then filled their basket with non-teeth-rotting gifts. However, that blasted Halloween candy…it will last well more than a year in our home. I just threw it out the other day…eight months later, because I said enough is enough. The only person who eats it is my husband…and my little Candy Caper in the middle of the night. *sigh* So into the trash it went. My son STILL comes down scouring even though he knows the candy is gone. I threw it away right in front of him. Hoping upon hope that it would discourage him if he knew that temptation was now gone.

 

He is so desperate. I had moved the candy bowl from Halloween, before throwing it out, up to the fourth shelf in the pantry. Too high for me comfortably to reach at my whopping 5’4″. My wee little five year old would pull over a stool, a chair, whatever he could find to reach up and get the goodies. Our little midnight creeper eats well enough. He always finishes his dinner and often has seconds or thirds, which delights me, because he used to be a horrible eater! We have repeatedly told him to come get mommy or daddy if he wants food in the middle of the night. He will not listen. I would be more than happy to go downstairs with him and get him some warm milk and an apple, or some water and a banana. I guess it takes the fun out of sneaking if he has to come ask us…and if he doesn’t get to choose what he eats.

 

We cannot fathom how we have never woken up when he goes downstairs…how the dog has never heard him and followed him down the steps. It’s just shear insanity.

 

Anyone else have a child who does this? What do you do about it? I worry; it’s dark and unsafe for him to sneak down a flight of stairs in the middle of the night, climb on stools, and then gorge on junk food. Not to mention the dental bills that are sure to come if he keeps this up!

Raising Our Children in the Faith; Getting Them to Actively Participate in Church

Our children have been going to church since they were one years old so it's old hat for them, but I find as they get older it's easier to keep them sitting still and quiet, but they are no longer loving attending the way they did when they were little. In their earlier years (they are now four and five) they used to get so excited and yell, "yay...church!!" when we were departing on these family outings. It saddens me to see this spark of excitement dissipate. I know before it was because it was a new experience, something stimulating and different that they got to do on a weekly basis -- with mommy AND daddy. That alone was enough for them. Our saving grace...our miracle "cure" for talking and crying children, from the time we joined this parish, was lollipops! Five to ten minutes in when the kids start getting antsy, out come the lollipops. Truly magic! Give it a try to quiet your talking child if you feel the need. We've gotten so many compliments on our perfectly behaved children, even when we thought they were being nutty. I do not take credit for this...all of the credit due goes to Dum Dums. Our church does not have a children's room, nor would I put them in there anyway. I believe it defeats the point of raising a child in the faith, and am not a fan of them. I think Jesus understands children better than any of us and wouldn't want them in a separate room. Just my opinion. Our parish is also very small and does not have Sunday school. Even if they did, I would not want to throw my kids in a nursery for Sunday school. I want them with us...growing as a family, in love and in faith.

 

We have always held our children in our arms in church so they would not jump around, fidget, or otherwise disturb the other parishioners. The greatest plus we found of doing this though was the bonding time we would have with them; one hour of undisturbed hugging, cradling, and cuddling. Priceless. We just recently started letting them stand on their own, at least for part of the mass. They do fidget, but not enough to be really disturbing to the community around us. The biggest problem is they are no longer interested in attending church. They visibly yawn throughout the entire mass, and will turn to me and say, "Mommy, did you see me just yawn? I keep yawning and I can't stop." Slightly embarrassed, I shhhsh them and again direct my attention toward the pulpit.

 

I try to engage my children in prayer in church. We're Catholic and they've got the sit, stand, kneel down pat, but they do not partake in the prayers, recitations, or anything else. I do. I pray aloud, I sing along with every hymn, etc. and I want them to have this same experience. Until I found the strength of faith on my own to do this - when we were graced with the amazing church we now attend - I was a passerby...I just stood passively and listened while the others prayed and sang. That's how I grew up. I wasn't encouraged to sing and pray. I want to encourage my children to sing and pray aloud with pride because I now know what a difference active participation rather than the passive indifference that constituted most of my life makes. I include them by holding their hands during the Our Father. The only part of the mass they participate in otherwise is Offering a Sign of Peace, putting the envelopes in the collection baskets, and walking up to Communion with me. Naturally they cannot sing along yet as they cannot read the hymnals, but I want them to grow up being active participants in a church community. I attended church for the first half of my childhood, I also went to CCD. What I did not do, ever, was to actually actively participate. I want that for my children so I need help! What do you do to get your children excited about church...to truly participate as a member of your congregation? I've taught my kids the Sign of the Cross and I can't even get them to do that while in a formal mass setting.

 

Advice, please...or am I expecting too much? Do any four or five year olds pray aloud and actively participate in church services? Have a blessed Sunday.