"Love Our Children USA will be holding their Fifth Annual National Love Our Children Day on Saturday, April 5th in NYC.  Full of fun, entertainment, food and celebrities, the event is a celebration of children for kids of all ages."

Love Our Children USA will be giving 10 Mom in the City families admittance to the event at no charge. 

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This weekend was a blur…a wedding in Virginia, my son’s fourth birthday party and (oh yes) I can’t forget …my hair caught on fire!

On Friday night, I caught a Greyhound bus to Hampton, VA.  (I haven’t caught a bus home since college days!)  My dad was having a wedding celebration in VA on Saturday evening, so the bus schedule was the only thing that worked out.

I thought that I would take a (kid-free: I left the kids at home with my husband) nap once I arrived on Saturday morning.  I was (happily) wrong.  My sister and her kids met my mom and me at a great breakfast place.  Then, I spent the rest of the day with my mom doing girly things (salon/shopping, etc.) and catching up.  Afterwards, I went to my dad’s wedding reception.  It was a lot of fun.  Great food, great music and (best of all) my dad and his new bride seemed really happy.  After, the reception, my dad drove me to the bus station and waited with me until the bus came.  It was great having some one on one time with my dad.  Our relationship has grown so much over the years.  I’m so happy to be his daughter!

So my bus arrived back in NYC on Sunday morning.  Then, I needed to wait two hours for the subway to take me home.  I was so happy when I finally set foot in my home.  I was only gone one full day, but I really missed my husband and kids.  (Note to self: don’t ever take a job that requires a lot of travel!) 

Once I got home, I had 45 minutes to get ready to go to church.  We made it on time.  However, I missed most of the service, because I was running around looking for the perfect birthday cake to match my son’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” cake topper that I had ordered from Amazon/ The PartyWorks.com.  I ended up getting two cakes – one for the pirates and one for the princesses.

As soon as service was over, my husband and I jumped in our car to go set up for Michael’s “Pirate and Princess” party that started an hour later.  Overall, everything went really well.  (I have really, great helpful friends and family!)  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  The girls had fun with their princess activities, especially the face-painting.  The boys had fun with their pirate ones, especially “Pirate Sean” singing pirate songs while playing his guitar. One of my favorite parts was that one of the smallest girls at the party was the one who pulled the string that brought all of the candy/toys down from the Pirates of the Caribbean string piñata.  I was also happy that there was room for everyone to move around freely (1500 square feet).  For the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel claustrophobic at a big birthday party.  Most of all, I was happy that my son “loved” his party.

Oh yes, my hair catching on fire…  At the end of the party, we were getting ready to sing “Happy Birthday” to Michael.  I had already gotten over the fact that some unnamed person had placed a phone book on top of my cake topper ruining it.  Oh well, Michael still had two cakes – he would be okay.  So, three of the candles were lit, but my husband was having a hard time with the fourth candle.  I leaned over to help get the wick out.  All of a sudden, I see flames – coming from my hair – one of the candles had lit my hair on fire!  Thank God that I don’t use a lot of hair product or this story might not have had such a happy ending.  I was able to quickly put out the hair fire.  Then, we promptly finished lighting the candles, sang for my son, and served the cakes.  That’s what we moms do…keep on keeping on   Fortunately, I didn’t lose any hair in the incident.  Some of the guests and I were joking about my “Michael Jackson” moment.

After the party, we went to an (unexpected) early St. Patrick’s Day dinner (corned beef and cabbage) over my husband’s aunt’s house.  Suffice it to say, by the end of the week-end I was a zombie…albeit a happy one.  My dad was happy.  My son was happy.  Who could ask for anything more?

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VEE Corporation is giving away a four pack of ticket vouchers for MY LITTLE PONY LIVE!

"For the first time ever, MY LITTLE PONY will be brought to the live stage to the delight of moms and children everywhere. Teapots and rainbows, castles and unicorns, balloons and fancy dress-up clothes will fill the stage and the hearts of children and their families with the wholesome, loving and playful spirit of all of everybody’s favorite MY LITTLE PONY friends!  The ponies are planning their party at The WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden from Thursday, April 24 to Sunday, April 27.  Tickets available at the Garden Box Office, wamuatmsg.com, ticketmaster.com, call 212-307-7171, 631-888-9000, 201-507-8900, 845-454-3388 or visit any Ticketmaster outlet.

MY LITTLE PONY is a trademark of Hasbro and is used with permission. (C) 2007 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved. Photographs courtesy of VEE Corporation"

Mom in the City members can enter to win the tickets simply by sending an email to contests@mominthecity.com with "Pony" in the Subject line.  The winner will be chosen on April 15th.

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Michael, my oldest son, is making me and my husband laugh with the planning of his fourth birthday party this month.  Once we finally settled on a theme (pirates and princesses) that all three of us could agree on, the fun began. 

Who should we invite?  My son: “Everybody”.  He’s been going around to his friend’s parents asking if they received their invitation.  (God forbid if I hadn’t invited all of his little friends!)  Well, we didn’t invite everyone.  However with about 30 kids along with their parents, we’re looking at 70+ people.  My husband: “Who does he think that he is - P. Diddy?  We wouldn’t even invite that many people if we were throwing a party for ourselves!”

Where should we have the party? My son: “At our house” That’s not happening.  I get too claustrophobic with a bunch of kids running around in a tight space.  So, we’re having the party at Chelsea Studios.  They have great spaces at reasonable prices (Unlike other studios in the city that charge you 3 to 4 times as much when they hear that it’s a party, Chelsea Studios charges the same rates as they do for rehearsals, auditions, etc.)

What should we give the kids that come?  We looked through various pirate and princess themed things and came up with bandanas, tattoos, eye patches and pirate bracelets for the boys along with swords that they would make as crafts at the party; tiaras, nail polish, lip gloss and princess bracelets for the girls along with the glitter wands that they would make as crafts.  That was reasonable.  Then, my son tried to start adding things for the girls. “We should get all of them glittery purses and necklaces and…” No.  Anyway, Birthday in a Box has great party decorating packages while Oriental Trading has really great party favors and craft supplies.

Michael also mentioned that he wanted a (real) ship at his party with water (to sail it on) and a parrot. (No.)  He also wanted all of the guests to have “tickets” to get in the party (like at the Children’s Museum).  What can I say?  At least he knows what he wants. 

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Anyone who reads this blog on a semi-regular basis knows how much I love books.  I primarily like non-fiction for myself.  However, I love all types of books for my sons.  My oldest son Michael loves books too.  His new favorite book is a customized one, "The First Adventures of Incredible You" by Custom Made For Kids.

When I asked his opinion, Michael said that he liked everything about the book.  He especially liked:

-the picture of the Earth (He has been learning the planets dues to his fascination with Planet Heroes.)

-the bright, colorful animal pictures ("Oh I have to use my imagination," he said after I wouldn’t tell him which image he was in the book.  For some reason, he made the little mouse be his little brother Sean throughout the entire book)

-the park (Overall, he most liked the areas in the book where Sean’s name is mentioned with his, the main character.)

and 

-the basketball game (I had customized it to his dad’s favorite team, the Knicks.  What can I say?  My husband is loyal.)

As a mom, I think that the writers (two Sarahs) and the illustrator did an amazing job.  The writing really makes kids feel wanted, special and ready to go on new "adventures".  They have more books coming soon which I’m looking forward to adding to the Coleman family library.

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My (Kimberly’s) family recently sat down to watch the recently released  DVD of this classic Disney movie.  It was great.  It kept my, my husband’s and my almost 4 year old son’s attention.  At almost 80 minutes, that’s no small feat as all of us have pretty short attention spans!  The picture and sound have been restored and enhanced which keeps it relevant to new audiences.  However, it hasn’t been tampered with so much that it loses its original appeal. 
 

The dogs are still as adorable as you remember.  It had been a while since we saw the original movie (we had forgotten the story line - after the dogs had 15 pups, we were like "How did it get to be 101 dalmatians?"). Of course, we had our answer as the plot unfolded.  Our son’s favorite character was Cruella De Vil (AKA "the bad lady").  My favorite was the little pup who kept saying, "I’m hungry mother".  He sounded so cute and reminded me of my little always-hungry boys.  In addition to the movie, there are games, additional songs, behind-the-scenes featurettes and more on the second disk of this two disk set. 

Sometimes oldies are the best.  That proves true in this Walt Disney original classic.  101 Dalmatians: Platinum Edition comes to DVD on March 4, 2008 for a limited time only.  I highly recommend that you get this dvd for your family’s dvd library. 

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