Our Last Meeting for Spring 2011

Today was our last meeting for our spring sememster!  Mothers exchanged "Unbirthday" gifts and ate yummy birthday cake!  We also had a picture slideshow that documented all that our group has done over the last year.  We were delighted to have Heather Riggleman from Kearney Teen MOPS come to share her story, as well as speak to us about Teen MOPS.  She shared that although some of the struggles that teen moms go through differ from older moms, we are all the same; we need support and share the desire be the best moms we can be! You can visit Heather's blog by clicking here.

MOPS March 4th Meeting Cancelled

We will not be having our MOPS meeting this week as school has been closed on Friday March 4th due to the Minden girls' basketball team qualifying for the state tournament. We will see you on March 25th for our next meeting!

Going "Unplugged"

At the last MOPS meeting the topic and discussion was centered around going "unplugged" in your household.  A challenge was presented to limit (or eliminate!) the time your children spend in front of the TV or computer.  In this month's MomSense magazine there is an article written by Carla Foote called TV-Free Fun where she says her children "survived and even thrived without the TV".  National TV Turnoff week is April 18-24, so why not limit the time now and see how it goes?  In April when it's nice and kids can go outside-give it a try-go TV free!  See if they (and you!) can go without it for a whole week!  Jim Trelease, author or The Read-Aloud Handbook also has a great brochure on his website called The Connection Between TV and School Scores that gives even more reasons for you to shut off the set. There is another great article on www.familyfun.com called The Great Unplugged Challenge which shares sucess stories from families.  This is also a great site for finding fun activities to do with your kids as well.  Another great site with ideas is www.familieswithpurpose.com, as well as www.toddlertoddler.com.  There are so many others out there!  Leave a comment and share some of your favorite links that help you make the most of the time you spend with your children. :)

Books!

At our last meeting we created fun bookmarks and had fun with our white elephant book exchange.  Our wonderful mentor mom Gail shared the importance of reading God's word and discussed different translations of the Bible.  She also discussed reading the Bible to your children and shared a great version by Elsie Egermeier called Egermeier's Bible Story Book.  She also talked about different ways to study the Bible such as listening to the Bible being read aloud. She mentioned the site Daily Audio Bible.  You can click on Listen Now on the right hand side and then select the red icon.  The audio readings are broken up daily so it may be a great thing to start in the upcoming year! 

Mom's Night Out

Tomorrow night is Mom's Night Out!  To see a list of showtimes you can visit Kearney Cinema's website.  Don't forget to bring your own bowl for free popcorn!  If you would like to carpool, please be at the church at 6:20 pm so we can leave around 6:30 as the first show begins at 7 pm.

MOPS Meeting Today

We were very blessed to have Judy Wortley speak to us today about Building Self Esteem in Children.  Judy's passion has been working in Children's Ministry and she was very knowledgeable on this topic.  We were so fortunate to have her share with us!  If you missed today's meeting you can check out some resources she mentioned on ways to show unconditional love and teaching your children positive character traits by visiting the links below.
Excerpt from How to Really Love Your Child by Dr Ross Campbell
Operational Definitions of Character Qualities (as found in the Character Bookshelf Series game, Character Clues)
Why Character Qualities are Important (Adapted from "Character Clues" game created by Institute of Basic Youth Conflicts)
For more in depth information on teaching your children some of these character qualities you can also visit: The Character Journal.
See you at our next meeting on November 19th for Bookmark crafts!  Don't forget to bring one of your favorite books that you would be happy "exchanging" for someone else's favorite during our Book Exchange!

Resource for Moms

Just wanted to share a new site that Barnes and Noble has launched.  They have teamed up with a group of Early Childhood Experts and have created a great website for parents and will continue to post new articles monthly.  And since it's Barnes and Noble-of course they will give you helpful suggestions for the choosing the right toy or book for your child!  Kid's Expert Circle
If you have school age kiddos you may also want to check out the wonder of the day at Wonderopolis which was created by the National Center for Family Literacy.