Lately I have seen a lot of anti-bullying campaign ads and blog posts circling the internet.  There is more than one movie out right now on the same subject.  The message is great, without a doubt.  I agree that it is extremely important to teach our children not to bully whether it’s being done at school, on the playground or taking part in cyber-bullying.  There should be a zero tolerance for it.

The same goes for adults.

In March we took part in the Make-a-Wish Foundation 5K where my niece came out in support of Gabby along with her good friend and her daughter.  I’ve already shared a blog post about what a fantastic day we had.  We walked, jogged, laughed and went out to lunch afterward where the conversation and giggles continued.  My niece’s male friend was very nice and patient with Gabby which isn’t always the easiest thing when she has been over stimulated from a crowded event.  The mixture of her ADHD and Mood Disorder can play into full swing by lunch time.

This past weekend my niece was over for Easter and was telling me how the father of her daughter was giving her a hard time about having the ‘weirdo with no eyebrows‘ around his daughter.  He didn’t understand why my niece felt the need to hang out with such ‘weirdos‘.  That ‘weirdo‘ he was referring to was the same man that joined us for Gabby’s walk.  My niece then explains to me that he suffers from Alopecia Totalis.  He wasn’t going without eyebrows, head hair or eyelashes for a fashion statement.  He truly didn’t have a choice in the matter, he can not grow hair on his head.  My first response was ‘I had no idea, I just assumed he shaved his head, why does her father even care?‘.  Because honestly I didn’t see one thing wrong with it.  He was a nice guy.  He was polite, he stood behind a good cause and if he wanted to sport a shaven head for his own sense of style it wasn’t my business.

Thankfully my great-niece is too young to understand the judgements passed towards her mom’s friend.  Times like these I wonder, where are the adult campaigns for anti-bullying?  Do parents not realize actions speak louder than words and if we want to teach our children to love and not judge, not take part in stereotypes and not bully then shouldn’t we take a vow not to do it ourselves?

I am not saying every child that is a bully has a parent they stand behind and learn from.  By all means I know parents are not always at fault.  But I will say, parenting plays a large role in how a child acts.  Whether the child is mimicking actions they witness from their parents or an outside influence their parent allows to be around, they learn it from somewhere.  Sometimes it’s as simple as the parent not stopping it when it happens because they don’t want to be ‘the bad guy’ and discipline their child.

Let me introduce you to my niece – Coel.  As you can see around Christmas time last year she had beautiful long locks of hair.  One day in December she had it cut into a mohawk.  There is probably a new term for the hair style nowadays but we’ll just go with it.  When the family asked her why she did it, her response was ‘I’m only in my twenties once, it’s fun, it’s only hair and why not?!‘

A lot of people see her for her appearance and judge her for that.

I personally would never gauge my ears or have a septum piercing.  I wouldn’t purposely shave my hair into a mohawk either.  Aside from the pain of the piercings it’s not my style.  However, I don’t judge Coel for her choices and I would never bully someone into not hanging out with a person of this choice in style.

When I look at Coel, this is what I see.  A gorgeous girl, loving mother and a fabulous niece.

Stop and think the next time you start to judge or comment negatively about another person.  A child could be listening.  Stop bullying.

I have recently fallen in love with Polyvore. I even introduced T to it and she has created several sets. She has a collection of outfits she is putting together for our future trip to Paris, France.  When searching on Polyvore I only look at items listed for $50 or less.  It’s nice ‘window shopping’ for dream fashion but I wanted to keep my sets realistic and I normally wouldn’t spend more than $50 on one article of clothing or any accessory.

Below is the very first set I created and I actually own just about every piece here, maybe not exactly but pretty close.  I have been wearing a lot of black and gray lately and I just love that hat.

Last Fall I discovered my love of baking cakepops. For Halloween the kids helped me with the sprinkles and decorating.  Then for T’s Breaking Dawn party I baked red velvet with cream cheese icing cakepops for our candy bar, which turned out delicious.  The kids enjoy helping me with the baking, although I know they are just in the kitchen waiting for their favorite part, to eat them…

For my niece’s Sweet 16 she asked me to bake her cakepops.  The only thing she told me was that her favorite colors were metallic blue and black.  In the past I wrapped each cakepop individually when handing them out but this time I wanted to display them on a stand in resemblance of a cake.  All the cakepop stands I found at stores only held a few or weren’t very fancy.  My good friend found an idea on Pinterest of using Styrofoam as a base and building your own.  So, that’s what I did…

How to Make a Cakepop Stand:

1. Gather supplies.  I decided to go with a four tier stand for my cakepops therefore I had to purchase four slightly different sizes of Styrofoam.  You’ll also need a hot glue gun and glue sticks, spray paint of your choice and trim for around the Styrofoam to make it decorative.

   

2. You’ll want to spray paint your Styrofoam outside so you don’t get paint on everything.  Make sure you hold the paint can away from the Styrofoam when spraying the paint because it doesn’t take too much and it’ll be extremely wet.  Spraying in small bursts works best.  I added a light finishing coat of glitter to add some sparkle to the blue paint.  That gave it the metallic look.  I went with Diamond Dust color.
3. After you have the Styrofoam painted and it dries, you’ll want to add the trim.  I suggest adding trim to each layer before hot gluing the tiers together.  This way it’s easier to maneuver in your hand.  Measure your trim or ribbon around each layer and then cut before attempting to hot glue around.  It’s much easier to work with the exact size of trim than trying to glue while it’s still attached to the spool. I used silver ribbon from the fabric section of Hobby Lobby for two layers and black tissue paper for the other layers.  The tissue paper actually worked surprisingly well to offset the sparkle.  I felt four layers of glittery ribbon was too much and gave it a disco look.  The black dull tissue paper helped tone it down.      
4. Once you get all the trim set in place, you can start hot gluing each tier on top.  Once all four tiers are glued together you can add finishing touches.  I went in and added some silver glitter glue on two layers.
5. Now your cakepop stand is ready to be filled.  I suggest counting out how many cakepops you want to fit on the stand before pressing the sticks into the Styrofoam.  Once you make a hole it’s not easy to hide.  Push each cakepop stick down at least an inch and a half into the Styrofoam to make sure they don’t fall over.  I suggest even further down if the tops are heavy.  You can use sticks to pre-press holes before putting your cakepops on the stand.  If you try pushing the actual cakepops into the stand without making holes in the Styrofoam first, you run the chance of knocking the cakepop off the stick.  So be very careful.

Last week I was given the chance to attend a press junket for the upcoming modern day Snow White, Mirror Mirror featuring Julia Roberts and Lily Collins.  I was blessed with the chance to interview Lily Collins.  Can’t wait to share more soon!

Mirror Mirror comes out in theaters March 30th.

I have seen the Broadway musical, Rock of Ages, twice now.  My most recent time to see the show was a few weeks ago and it was still great.  I love all the old rock songs, especially the ones by Journey.

T takes part in a meme on Mondays called Music Monday where she shares a song she loves, whether it’s her favorite song, a new band she has stumbled upon or a song that has lifted her mood for the week.  This week I thought I’d join in.  I’m sharing one of the most played songs from my iPod from the past few weeks.

Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey

Don’t forget to head over to They Call Me T and check out her Music Monday post where she shares her love for the song, Hallelujah by Lecrae.  Leave her some comment love too while you are there.

What song is playing on your iPod this week?

Someone recently asked me what my testimony was.  I was put on the spot at that moment and although I was able to give them an honest answer that truly came fairly easy to me, I later stopped to think more on the question.  I’ve always considered myself a Christian.  I have always believed in God, that was never a doubt for me.

When Gabby had brain surgery I was mad at God.  It seems so petty to me now, considering I witnessed a miracle with her surgery.  At that time I couldn’t rationalize it.  I was hurt, confused and just flat out angry that I was dealing with so much.  Sounds selfish now.  I was mad that my poor innocent child was going through pain and a life changing surgery.  I felt it wasn’t fair since she had already been through so much and at times even felt she had to suffer for my sins.  Like I was being punished and she was caught in the middle.  Our whole family hurt.

Gabby’s first brain surgery lasted 9 hours.  My family made me take a break from the waiting room at one point to stretch my legs so we ventured down to the main atrium of the children’s hospital where they had a fashion market setup.  I found a sterling silver ring with a cross cutout that fit perfect on my middle finger.  I bought the ring and have worn it daily since.  It holds a special place in my heart since Gabby survived that day and continues to live a healthy life.

The easy thing to say next would be how I became a dedicated Christian after experiencing that miracle with Gabby.  There were multiple churches praying for her through those months and so many friends and family members helping assist me in prayers that I should have seen clearly.  Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.  I felt Gabby had gone through hell for five years at that point and God was allowing her to suffer through even more when the surgery didn’t go as planned.  So I tucked all my faith nice and neatly into that silver ring I wore every day and put up a hard outer shell so I wouldn’t have to admit my anger.  I sucked it up and did what it took to raise my child, on my own, without God’s assistance.  So I believed…

A couple of years went by and I started feeling more of a tug on my heart from the Lord.  I started reading some of the bible but not much.  I would talk to God at times but didn’t believe I was praying.

A year ago I reached out to a dear friend of mine, Sarah.  I asked her for help with my Christianity.  I knew it was time to find my way back.  I’ll never forget the countless hours she spent with me on the phone.  Answering what I thought was the most stupid questions and never once making me feel dumb.  She was patient with me and truly cared.  She showed me the way right back to our Lord, which was exactly what I needed.  I’ll never forget the words she said to me when I told her about my anger and wondered if I was even a Christian at all for feeling that way.  She reminded me if I could be angry with God then I must believe in him and that being a Christian didn’t exempt me from pain and anger.  Those few words and the encouragement she gave me is all it took.  It might sound sappy to say that day changed my life but it’s true.

A few short months later I found a church I now call home.  This Spring I will have been attending for a solid year and love it.  My kids love it and T is very active in the youth group, which makes me smile.  I have become very close to several other members of our church and I feel blessed to have such an amazing community of believers in my life.

I haven’t blogged much about faith and religion in the past, however I felt this was a story I needed to share.  I hope one day I am able to touch someone’s heart and bless them the way Sarah has blessed me.

I cannot believe I have been blogging for nearly five years now.  Of course that’s if you don’t count the AOL days and the MySpace journal.  Otherwise I could date it back to the year 2000.  In the Spring of 2007 I created a family blog to share my journey of caring for Gabby.  It was my way to connect with other special needs mothers and to share updates with family and friends without being on the phone all day long.  My blog went from HubSpot to Sampa to Blogger and now has lived on WordPress for the past three years.  With each move came a new design, each design resembling more of my personality.

Last year a lot in my life changed.  That sentence sounds funny to me actually when I think about it.  My life has been changing over the course of several years and we haven’t had very many dull moments to say the least.  In 2011 it seems things finally started to settle.  I matured in even more ways, the main area being my faith.  I realized when I looked at my blog the design was nothing like I wanted.  It wasn’t my favorite colors, the tag line no longer truly fit me and even though I believe I am still climbing the ladder to success in life, one broken step at a time, it just wasn’t… enough.

That’s when I went to my good friend Erica, the only woman I trust with all my tech and design work.  I knew I wanted a blog that was fresh, clean and had to have the color green in it since that is obviously my favorite color and even the colors in my office.  I wanted for anyone to be able to open my blog and feel that it relates to me, personally.  I mean that is what a personal blog should do, right?

After brainstorming over what I wanted the blog to resemble; where I had been in life, where I felt I was at this point and where I’m headed; I came up with the tag line of being a control freak derailed.  Erica helped me decide on the perfect wording and design while my mother took some fun photos of me down at the local railroad tracks.  Once it was finished I can finally say I feel it is the first design that suits me perfect.

All of my life I have battled with some sort of control issue and a slight problem with perfectionism.  I’m sure some of my friends will read that sentence and probably laugh at the reality of it.  That’s okay I laugh about it too.  I’ve never been the one to try and control someone else, just my own life.  Becoming a teen mom I had to overcome a lot of negativity and always felt I was trying to prove I could succeed even with odds against me.  Succeed in parenting, school, work and life…  That’s a tough role to keep with such high expectations.  God has shown me over the years that I’m not the one in control, at all.  Even the days after I realized that was the case it’s funny how often I would battle myself over letting go of the things I couldn’t control.  Like that saying ‘we are our own worst enemy at times’ or is it ‘we are our own worst critic’?  Either way, that was me…

Changing your personality and outlook on life isn’t easy and is never a task that is fully complete.  I think it’s a true work in progress, a journey you continue on during the duration of your life.  At the beginning of last year I decided to finally let go of the control I truly never had, put my full faith in God, pray daily, get back involved in church and trust that the Lord will guide me on the path I’m supposed to be on.  I plan to make the best out of what I have, do the best with what God gives me and enjoy my blessings.  I can honestly say I’ve never been happier.  Thus creating the derailed control freak…

I’ve taken the past month to focus on my family.  Although in my head I have a ton of blog posts planned out and plenty of things to share, the break was much needed.  Our holidays were fabulous and the kids being out of school for two weeks was extremely nice.  We spent quality time together every spare moment I had outside of working.  We took a quick trip in December to Sea World, which was a blast as always.  We stayed right on the Riverwalk in San Antonio at the Hyatt Grand and I can’t wait to share more details about the fun we had.

I’ve started counting down the days until I turn 30 in February.  Leading up to age 29 I was in a panic over the fact I’d soon be 30 and funny thing is now, I’m not so worried about it.  I’m sure my strengthened relationship with God over the past year has a lot to do with that.

I’m headed to San Jose, California for two days to meet with one of my clients.  It’s always nice when you finally are able to meet all the people in person from a company you’ve work with for so many months.  Plus California will be state number 20 on my list, which is one state closer to visiting all 50.

Until then….

The holidays have always been important to me.  I love Christmas and the magic that comes with it.  It’s the largest holiday of the year where all the family comes together to spend quality time in celebration.  To me it’s the most important holiday.  Every holiday we have together as a family I consider a blessing.

When I was growing up Christmas was filled with excitement of my childhood wishes.  After I had kids it became about seeing the excitement in my children’s eyes when they witnessed Christmas magic.

In 2007 the way I viewed things changed.  I think I started to cherish it more.  Gabby went in for her Hemispherectomy the first week of November 2007 and unfortunately we stayed in the hospital through all the major holidays and well into the new year.  Spending Christmas in a children’s hospital was not ideal for anyone.  Saying money was tight that year is an understatement.  Gabby was unexpectedly kept in the hospital for four months, meaning I was in the hospital for four months.  Not much work can be done when you are taking care of your child whose life was still in question.

There were times I wondered if we were going to have a Christmas.  Silly, isn’t it?  Christmas isn’t about the gift giving.  It’s about embracing life, family and truly being appreciative for what you have at that very moment, no matter how tough it is.  2007 is the year I witnessed a miracle.  Christmas time is when Gabby was able to move to the rehabilitation floor and learned to walk on her own again.  December of 2007 is the month we knew Gabby was going to live.

Spending Christmas in the hospital wasn’t so bad.  The girls were given the chance to take part in some fun holiday activities.  Gabby was healthy enough to take out of her room in a wheelchair or wagon to see the hospital Christmas tree and we were able to decorate her hospital room.  They even allowed her big sister, T, to spend Christmas Eve with us in the hospital so Santa could drop off their presents that night.

Those are the memories that are priceless.  Those memories are still fresh in my mind and capturing them to share with Gabby is worth everything to me.

YesVideo helps you preserve your memories by transferring your old home movies to DVD and digitizing your photos for you to share on a slideshow.  I love that you have the option of simply transferring your old media then editing online before ordering a DVD.  I have so many VHS tapes from when my oldest was little and several 8mm tapes from when I was younger that I wouldn’t know where to start ordering DVDs.  Being able to transfer the media first, then edit and arrange before ordering my DVDs is perfect.

YesVideo also offer the option to share your home movies with friends and relatives out of state through MemorySafe online storage.  This year I plan to capture as many home movies during the holidays on my HD video camera to transfer to BluRay.  While we are spending time together with my parents over the holidays we are going to gather all our old media to send in as a family and order copies of DVDs together.  My mom is excited about this.

Right now YesVideo is offering 15% off your entire order.  Use code: TRANSFER15 during checkout on their website to qualify.  YesVideo features various giveaways on their Facebook Page regularly so I suggest liking them to keep up to date.  You can follow YesVideo on Twitter where they also share photography tips and other specials.

What is your favorite holiday memory?  Do you have VHS tapes collecting dust on your shelves?  How often do you watch home movies with your children?

Full Disclosure: I was compensated for my time sharing the information about YesVideo with you.  The story and opinions are 100% mine.

~Cherish today, for you never know what tomorrow brings.

In exactly two days I’ll head to see Breaking Dawn at the midnight show in a local theater with a group of family members and friends.  Roughly six teenage girls and 5 adult women.  All Twilight Saga die hard fans.  To say we are counting down the days is an under statement.  My kitchen has been completely transformed for the party.  The walls do not even look the same and we are still preparing last minute party favors.

I love being a reporter for iVillage and what I love the most is being given the chance to report on such a fun and exciting topic with other like minded women.  Here what some other grown women Twihards had to say…

Featured Reporters include: Amanda Rodriguez from Parenting By Dummies, Brandi Jeter from Mama Knows It All and me!

Are you heading to see Breaking Dawn at the midnight show?  Will you attend a viewing party before hand and/or go with a group?

Join the Breaking Dawn conversation on my Facebook Page and tell me what team you are on!