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Theta Mom®

Redefining Motherhood

Show Some Spooky Love

Many of you know I am the Brand Ambassador for Say Please, Inc., the founders of the original Lunchbox Love®. This is a perfect example of how Lunchbox Love® goes far beyond the lunchbox…

Introducing Seasonal Lunchbox Love®

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You can use it as part of making special Halloween treats for friends, neighbors or that class party:

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Decorate cupcakes with Lunchbox Love® to make these treats festive:

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Of course you can add some Halloween Spooky Love to any lunch to make it spooky and fun:

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And my kids plan on using the cards this year when they Trick-or-Treat!!

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You can order the Halloween set along with other seasonal products in the holiday line here. And follow me on Instagram for all updates related to #LBLholiday and #LBLmoms.

Tiny Prints Holiday Photo Card Giveaway

Tiny Prints is probably best known for their gorgeous line of birth announcements and baby shower invitations. However, this company quickly branded itself to offer full card collections and has grown from a small, self-funded start-up to one of the biggest online retailers of savvy and stylish prints anywhere. Year after year, more and more people count on Tiny Prints as their go-to place for the infamous holiday card.

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It’s already that time of year when you must begin to think about ordering those holiday cards! There are so many gorgeous designs to choose from including Tiny Prints Photo Gifts and there are many new card design styles for 2013! They include: Contemporary, Classic, Vintage, Full Bleed, All That Glitters, Bold Expressions, Simply Chic, Woodland Wonder and The New Tradition. For this post, I reviewed cards from their Holiday Photo Cards. Here are some of my favorites…

Ornament Photo Cards such as Very Merry Days:

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Folded Holiday Photo Cards such as Dusted Pinecones:

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Many cards have different color options and formats available which truly creates a total customized experience to fit your needs. For example, if you adore the layout of a specific card but want to change some of the text, you have the capability to do that. You even have the ability to change the font style and font color.

Folded Holiday Photo Cards such as Sophisticated Wish:

TinyPrints_SophisticatedWishTri-Fold Holiday Photo Cards such as Sparkle and Arrows:

TinyPrints_SparkleandArrowsI also love the new trim options for 2013. You can select square, rounded, bracket, ticket and scallop trim options. Many card selections also come with additional layout options on the back of the card where you can add photos and text. You can also order matching address labels and beautiful envelope liners for a complete custom look!

Flat Holiday Photo Cards such as Nostalgic Night:

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Ordering through Tiny Prints is an absolute snap. They make the process easy by allowing users to change the font, text and upload photos seamlessly. The cards always make a statement with its heavyweight cardstock, too. It remains to be one of the best print companies on the market today and I can’t wait to mail out my Tiny Prints this holiday season!

For exclusive savings, related discounts and product information, follow Tiny Prints on Twitter , Facebook and Pinterest.

***This contest is now closed. Congratulations Katherine! An email has been sent.

The Giveaway:

Tiny Prints is offering one lucky Theta Mom® reader a $50 off code (plus free shipping) to shop – just in time for the holidays! How awesome is that?

To Enter: Simply follow my blog publicly, visit Tiny Prints and leave a comment telling me the name of your favorite holiday card design. Easy peasy!

Want an extra entry? Pin your favorite holiday card and use the hashtag #TinyPrintsCheer and leave a comment with the direct URL of the Pinterest link.

*This giveaway is open to ALL since Tiny Prints ships internationally! The contest will end on October 23rd. One winner will be selected at random and contacted via email. If the winner does not claim the prize within 48 hours, another winner will be randomly chosen and notified.

Theta Mom® abides by word of mouth marketing standards and believes in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. Tiny Prints is a proud sponsor of Theta Mom and I was provided custom made cards to facilitate this review. However, all opinions expressed are purely my own and the content of this post was not influenced in any way.

It’s a Pin Party with Lunchbox Love

I am thrilled to announce Lunchbox Love® is having their very first Pin Party with the #LBLmoms Team! Who doesn’t love getting great ideas from Pinterest? I can’t wait to share some spooky Halloween ideas and how to dress up your Thanksgiving table with Lunchbox Love! Thursday is your chance to spread some holiday love and enter to win some fantastic prizes, too!

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Prize Information:  Lunchbox Love® will be awarding winners with the Lunchbox Love® Holiday product line! *To be eligible for prizes, participants must follow the Pin Party with Lunchbox Love® Contest Rules.

*Pin Party with Lunchbox Love® Contest Rules:

1. Follow Lunchbox Love on Pinterest.

2. Create a Pinterest board called Lunchbox Love Holiday. 

3. Repin at least 8 pins directly from Lunchbox Love’s Pinterest board Lunchbox Love Holiday  onto your own Lunchbox Love Holiday Board and use the hashtag #LBLholiday on every repin.

4. Enter the link to your Lunchbox Love Holiday Pinterest board using Rafflecopter which will be available on the Say Please blog by Thursday.

See you there and happy pinning!

My 1980’s Childhood

Another school year is off and running. The other night I was tucking my second grader into bed and he asked what my childhood school days were like. Suddenly, we were involved in a long conversation because he just couldn’t believe my responses and wanted to know more. This is totally going to show my age, but if you’re in your mid to late thirties, maybe you can relate…

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“Mom, your school playground was made over CEMENT?” That’s right kiddo, beneath our entire school playground area was a huge piece of hard, solid cement. If we fell off the monkey bars, swings, or the slide, we got completely scraped up and maybe even suffered a few concussions – but somehow we all survived.

“The desks in your classroom were in rows?” Yes sweetie. Using a black marker, the teacher would mark an “X” on the tile floor and the left leg of the desk HAD to be placed on that X. The teacher would walk up and down the rows daily to make sure our desks were on that X and if they weren’t, we would lose some recess time.

“Wait, you didn’t have computers in school?” Nope, we didn’t have computers, we had ONE computer. SmartBoards, Promethean boards, iPads and computer labs were non-existent. We had one computer that was the absolute Holy Grail in our classroom. It was extremely heavy and the size of a large tank, only capable of typing. I remember being so excited to touch those keys for the very first time.

“What’s a ditto?” Well sweets, that was the way I learned in school. There were no “hands-on activities” or fun ways to get kids to enjoy learning. Instead, we were forced to fill out tons and tons of dittos (aka boring worksheets). Our lesson plans consisted of reading textbooks and answering the questions at the end of each chapter. Whenever we weren’t reading, we were filling out 9 million dittos.

“When you broke a school rule, you had to what??” Any time we broke a rule, we would sit alone during recess and write on a piece of paper (the same sentence over and over) 25 times. I guess they thought if we were forced to write it out so much that we would never want to break a school rule again! As a second grader, I remember writing “I will not talk in the hallway” 25 times.  Yes, twenty-five times.

“You didn’t have Google?” Well, I can go on and on…my son was in awe.

Before our conversation came to a close, he made a comment that he’s so glad it’s 2013 and he was thankful for his iTouch. He made it clear that he wouldn’t want to grow up the way I did, he thinks I was totally deprived.

But sadly, as I tucked him in for the night, I could only wish that he had my 1980’s childhood – life was so much simpler back then.

Dittos and all.

What I Learned from My Summer Sabbatical

Tweeting. Pinning. Facebooking. Instagramming. Tumbling. Blogging. Stumbling. Googling. Linking. YouTubing.

Oy. It can be all so overwhelming if you don’t keep your social media life in check.

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I’ve been given plenty of time to reflect and in recent weeks, I’ve had several conversations with some of my close friends. In addition to their own online lives, they were each telling me the stress their teen kids feel throughout social media. But even as adults, we agreed that it’s all become a bit out of control lately; the over-sharing, over-updating, the over-everything.

My kids are too young to for all of this, but I know they’ll experience it soon enough. And honestly, it scares me to death. The reality is, since I am an adult I can rip through all of the online transparency pretty easily. I can differentiate who is sharing the truth and who is trying to create some sort of online personae, desperately trying to generate a life that truly doesn’t exist. But the sad part is, my kids will be growing up with social media and won’t have the ability to differentiate what’s “real” and what’s not because of their age and lack of life experience…

Maybe because I work in social media for a living I’ve become an “expert” at weeding through the useless updates and online jargon to get to the good stuff – the real stuff. Or maybe because I am surrounded by it all the time, I can easily separate myself from the social media madness; I know how and when to distance myself to live a full life offline.

Upon my recent Summer Sabbatical, it was the very first time in four years that I did not post to this blog or anywhere in social media for several weeks.

And the result?

It was the best thing I ever did.

Have you felt that your own personal social media feed is a bit out of control lately, or maybe you are catching yourself becoming a Facebook/Instagram junkie? Well, you don’t need to take drastic measures as I did with a sabbatical for a quick fix, but what you can do is start with a Facebook detox – you know, lose some of that extra baggage from your online social life.

Need a Facebook detox? Here’s my easy plan:

  • If your feed is filled with toxic and overly dramatic updates, you don’t need those extra additives and drama in your life. Remove all excess garbage.
  • If your feed constantly contains superficial updates, delete any and all processed junk.
  • Don’t become an addict by updating every second of your life trying to feed your soul but only for a second for a handful of immediate likes. Feed your soul by having genuine relationships with people who are in your life – offline.
  • Spend time on Facebook when you have a free moment, but do NOT let it consume your life. Workout other areas of your life and actually LIVE. Don’t live to post about it.
  • Just like opening a bag of chips, you can’t have just one. When you login to Facebook, it’s no different – you can’t just read one update. Strike a healthy balance, one that you can live with.
  • And just be real. Nobody ever wants to maintain a life filled with all of that processed crap.

And if you need an Instagram diet, all of the above can be applied to Instagram as well. So just read and repeat for a full Instagram detox.

Need a full digital detox?

Then take a social media sabbatical or simply unplug – and recharge your own batteries.

***Much more to come about my sabbatical. Stay tuned to follow my journey, I have SO much to share!!***