Would You Help TMN?

Would you like to help TMN get a $1M grant or $100k donation?

Visit the following Facebook app and vote for the Mommies Network to win a share of the $5 million that Chase will be donating to non-profit organizations! Voting began November 15 and will run through December 11. Please vote and post on your profile so all of your friends can vote too! You do not have to be a TMN member to vote! Search for Mommies Network in Charlotte, NC.

http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/

Thank you!!

Are you looking for a new job opportunity?

Do you have great organizational and people skills? Are you looking for a part-time or full-time job that is flexible and fun that helps moms in your community? If so, The Mommies Network wants to hire someone just like you!

TMN Sponsorship Account Executive
This is a TMN position. There are no membership pre-requisites required to apply.
The Mommies Network is growing and as part of that growth, we need some good people in your market to help with sponsorships.

The Sponsorship Account Executive should be organized, have great time management skills, feel comfortable contacting local business and building relationships to find sponsors for the local site. This can be accomplished through phone calls, emails, and face to face appointments.

SAEs will be compensated with bonuses based upon successful sponsorship contracts and there are tremendous growth opportunities as the network continues to grow. If you are interested please send your resume to Rachelle Watkins: rachelle (at) themommiesnetwork (dot) org.

Phoenix Children's Hospital - Grand Opening

PHOENIX CHILDREN’S CELEBRATES GRAND OPENING

OF NORTHWEST VALLEY CENTER WITH FAMILY FESTIVAL

Families, Kids Welcome to Specialty and Urgent Care Center for Fun Activities




By Debra Stevens


Phoenix Children’s Specialty & Urgent Care– Northwest Valley Center

Phoenix Children’s Hospital



Phoenix Children’s Hospital is bringing care closer to home for Northwest Valley families with the opening of a new Phoenix Children’s Specialty and Urgent Care - Northwest Valley Center. Although the center is already open for patient visits, the community is invited to the official grand opening celebration of this new 6,000-square-foot Center on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009 from 9 a.m. to noon.



The open house event will feature fun, educational and interactive stations for kids, tours of the center, and mini-clinics on child health and safety for parents. The most popular activity allows kids to get a cast put on their finger. All activities are free.



The center is located at 20325 North 51st Avenue in Phoenix, just north of Loop 101.



The $3 million center will serve as a complement to pediatric practices in the neighborhood by providing convenient pediatric specialty care by appointment during the week. Parents will love the convenience of after hours, walk-in urgent care. For a child with a high fever, ear infection, sprain, or suspected pneumonia, the center provides exceptional care in a convenience, family-friendly setting.



Specific hours of operation and times are as follows: The Center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. for appointments with specialists in endocrinology, gastroenterology, nephrology, neurology, orthopedics, pulmonology and lab services. Pediatric urgent care services are available Monday through Friday from 5 p.m. until 11 p.m. Weekend hours are noon to 11 p.m. For questions, please call (623) 972-KIDS (5437) or visit our web site at Here.

Keeping Your Family Safe

I have sat at my desk a lot lately reading the many stories of children who have drowned, been ran over by a loved one, kidnapped, and all those horrific, every mothers worst nightmare types of stories. I know many of us think when we read these stories what we could , or what the other “family” should have done to try and keep their little ones safe from harm. From accidents in the home, outside of the home, and unfortunate things we just cannot predict there are still many ways for us to practice “safety” in general with our families. Below you will find some great tips and websites that help cater to keeping our families safe not matter what the emergency event.


In the home
Our little ones can be awesome escape artists if we're not careful. If you have experienced one of these precious little busy bundles of joy you will know exactly what I mean. However just because we might not have an actively wanting to escape little one, doesn't mean it will never happen. Plus taking the following steps can help keep out things we don't want harming our family as well.

Make a nightly checklist
Lock all doors, and windows. Think back did you open anything today?
Are all keys put away to all vehicles and how easy are they to access.
Did your child see you put away anything hazardous or open anything that is possibly dangerous for them to access? Are pool gates shut, locked? Alarms on? Alarms on vehicles? What medications are currently in your household, do they have child proof containers?

Also consider having a special shelf or cupboard that has snacks and drinks for your child/children. This can help avoid any accidents by climbing cupboards to reach foods and drinks while parents are asleep. Try a house-hold rule to not leave the bedrooms unless to the bathroom before a certain time. We try this to a 7am time in our house with our children while when they were younger we had to go with the “when the sun is up” rule” it might not exactly be the idealistic thing to do even on a weekend, getting up early it can still mean your child is being supervised and therefore less likely to get in harms way.

While this seems like a tiresome routine its all common sense and can all lead to some sort of disaster. While we cannot keep our children in a “bubble” we can at least do what we can within our means to keep them as safe as possible.

When you left the house, did you have any of the children following you, are you positive you saw them go back into the home, or are in plain view away from the vehicle?

Has your child been caught trying to leave the home without your knowledge? Is your toddler becoming a little too brave when it comes to being outside? Many home improvement stores like Lowes, and Home Depot carry small alarms that can be attached to any door or window, when the door, or window opens the alarm then goes off therefore alerting you. Another great alarm of course to mention is to keep up top date on your smoke alarms, and carbon monoxide alarms.

Do you take the same way to school every day? Predators can use this to their advantage, if you have the possibility, try using a different route to school, home, and various locations you often visit. Teach your children even at an early age what stranger danger is, the earlier they learn can be crucial as we can never predict these situations . Even if you go to the grocery store every Thursday can be used to a predators advantage!

Monthly or quarterly photos
Did you change your child's hairstyle? Did they get glasses or contacts? Change hair color? These things are all reasons to update your child's photo in case of an emergency. Write down any new scars or breaks that may have happened and so forth.

These are just a few in MANY things we as parents can do to keep our children safe in our home at any age! Visit these websites below that also may assist you and/or give you ideas on how to keep your family safe!.

www.americanfamilysafety.com
www.cyberpatrol.com/familysafety.asp

www.nettips.com/safe/

www.familywatchdog.us/

www.keepingmyfamilysafe.com

kidshealth.org/kid/watch/out/woods.html

www.lovetheoutdoors.com/camping/Safety.htm

www.statefarm.com/learning/be_safe/home/home.asp

www.iccsafe.org/safety/safety.html

www.pollyklaas.org/safe/familyabduction.html

www.kidsave.com/child_safety_information.html

childcare.about.com/od/childsafet1/qt/strangerdanger.htm

www.pueblo.gsa.gov/.../family/home-safety/home-safety.htm

www.yoursafechild.com/

amberalert.com/id-kit.php -

www.mcgruff-safe-kids.com/

www.registeredoffenderslist.org/child-identification-kits.htm

Celebrity Moms and thier Hairstyles!

Looking for a new hairstyle and would love some great ideas from the pros?

Check out these celebrity moms and the hairstyles they are sporting!

Gwyneth Paltrow with a shoulder length cut and style.

Angelina Jolie who is not afraid to spot the long locks wherever she goes! AND she has SIX kids!

Halle Berry recently decided to cut it short and sport this chic hairstyle!

Isla Fischer sporting a straight sleek hairstyle! One of the key elements to helping create such a sleek and sexy straight look is using a ceramic plated flat iron, which you can easily find at any Beauty Supply store, Wal Greens, Wal-Mart and even CVS, this is a must-have tool for anyone and a quick and easy way to create gorgeous straight sleek locks in just minutes! A plus for any mom!

As you can see even Katie Holmes has opted for a long bob hairstyle which is very easy to style and overall easy to manage!

Whatever hairstyle type you are looking for, short, long or medium length come check out Celeb Salon for hundreds of celebrity hairstyles and ideas at your fingertips!

Jody Pagliocco is a mother of 2 who resides in Scottsdale, Arizona. You can currently find her at Celeb Salon and Celebrity Photo Blog at SheKnows.com

Birthday Charity

With our 2nd Birthday party coming up in a few weeks, I thought I would give a little more information on our chosen Charity that we are working with for this event. We have lots of great raffle prizes and tickets are only $2 per ticket for each prize. All proceeds will be going to Arizonan's For Children.

PhoenixMommies is thrilled to support Arizonans for Children, Inc. with the proceeds of the raffle at our Second Birthday Party. Arizonans for Children works to alleviate hardships and improve the fragile lives of the abused, abandoned, and neglected children in foster care. In addition to priceless gifts of time, energy and love, AFC provides these children with three visitation centers (located in Phoenix, Mesa and Peoria) that provide safe and fun places for family visits; toys, clothing and other special needs items; admission tickets to sporting events, the ballet, museums, the zoo and other venues; new and used luggage; and special events such as monthly birthday parties, days of beauty, art days, swimming, bowling, ice skating, roller skating, train park parties and holiday parties. Arizonans for Children also provides a tutoring and mentoring program, a Boy Scout program, and a Life Book Program. A life book is a scrapbook of photos, phrases, artwork and memorabilia that tell a story and create a life record for children who are no longer living with their biological parents. Arizonans for Children served more than 115,000 people through their programs between January 2003 and March 2009. For more information about this wonderful organization, including ways you can become involved, visit their website at www.arizonansforchildren.org.

Routine's

Do routine's help in your house? They sure do in mine. It is always obvious that things are getting off track when my daughter starts having more fits and attitudes that we need to buckle down on the routine. You know how it is, you start off great, then life starts to get in the way and slowly you get off track with your whole routine. The house is not being cleaned when how and when it should, the kids bed time is getting pushed around...its a vicious cycle in my house.

We have gone through a really intense past year in our family. We had some family stuff happen (I won't bore you with the details) and we ended up moving in with my grandmother to help care for her and the house. A month after that, we ended up moving my MIL down here from Iowa to live with us. She was dying of cancer and there was no family around her to help take care of her where she lived. So we had a full house, and my routine went straight out the window. I was suddenly not only taking care of the house, my daughter and my husband...but now I also had my elderly gramma and my terminal mother in law to take care of. Talk about stress. I tried to keep everyone on a routine and for a couple of days it would work, and then Life would get in the way and I would get tired and well...it just would be forgotten. We were all just basically trying to survive it all. Within a few months, my mother in law had passed away and that took a load of daily stress off of us, but there was the grief and the dealing with her estate and a whole new set of stresses. Then my gramma took a turn for the worse and had to be committed to a geriatric psych ward for a month and now is moving into a group home for people with her same issues today. Finally though, we are back to just us - my husband, my daughter and myself. I am trying to get us all back into our routine and its a struggle, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

During this whole time though, the one constant, never changing thing was PhoenixMommies.com. My friends encouraged and supported me through some really tough times. They brought meals for 2 weeks, started before my MIL even passed. That was a huge thing to us. They let me gripe about the stress, they offered advice when they could but the biggest thing was just knowing that I had them, my girls, to turn to was huge and I will forever be grateful for that. That is what The Mommies Network is all about after all, moms supporting other moms. What a wonderful gift.