Listen To Your Mother Show or is my face actually made of marshmallow fluff? I think it might be.

It’s been six months since we took the stage at the Synetic theatre by storm.  15 women. 15 different stories of survival, triumph, and humor. There were stories of cancer, stories of finding beauty in the every day and of course, sleep deprivation.

The videos are up and running! Each week I am going to post one of the shows and DUH! I am starting with mine!

Mama didn’t raise no fool.

There are 14 videos in the play list so you don’t have to watch them all at one time…mine is the last and my piece isn’t that long, and then afterwards you can see me cry in front of almost 400 people as I tell them how lucky I was to know Susan Niebur and why we donated ticket sales to the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Center in her name.

Feel free to tease me. I don’t care. We donated almost a thousand dollars.

That rocked.

I really hope I am blessed with the opportunity to work on this show again.

You can see all the DC videos HERE. and all of the shows are available on the Listen To Your Mother channel.

Heaven.

One of my favorite places in DC is the National Cathedral. My family will find this as no surprise as when we were in Rome I dragged them into every.single.church. and when we visited New York guess what is on the itinerary? Oh St. Patrick’s. I swoon. And from there I force them to visit chapel after Cathedral reading about the Saints and lighting candles.

I adore Cathedrals. Catholic Cathedrals. Actually any big old fancy church.  I positively WEPT at the design travesty that is the Los Angeles Cathedral. Give me old school all the way. Midnight Mass at St. Charles Borromeo (not a Cathedral, just awesome) near our old home was a tradition Zach and I adored. I miss that. Midnight Mass when you have wee ones is a bit tricky, isn’t it? Also, I’m not actually Catholic, but it was my primary study subject in school and even as I creep closer towards a more mature age (while eschewing actual maturity) I still long to go back and study the heck outta those popes! I’d be Catholic in a heartbeat if it weren’t for that pesky inequality thing, and I don’t think it’s quite right to join up having a major problem with a church (although Andrew Sullivan would disagree).

Wow this post went a different way than I had thought.

We go to the National Cathedral every year for Mother’s Day. It’s heaven.

and my boys are heaven on earth.

P.S. I’m just waiting for JCrew CrewCuts kids to come for the Boss. Because, really.

 

 

The oh so incredible Kate wrote this re-cap of Listen To Your Mother. Take a second and give it a gander. It was magic. It was heaven.

More I wants…but this time I GET!

There was a time, back in the day, when I fancied myself a scrapbooker. That is to say I went crazy and bought all sorts of pretty paper and books and the stickers…Oh! The stickers. But, alas, no scrapbooker am I. Every time I passed that aisle at the craft store I could feel Martha Stewart’s disdain towards my hoarding of unused scrapbooking supplies. It was palpable, people. So I did the only thing I could possibly do,  I donated them. I mean, really who was I kidding? Then I had kids and the desire to create books that showcased the awesomeness of their awesomeness was strong, but the time (and certainly the skill) was lacking.

I count you people who scrapbook while parenting in the same category as those who parent while doing those crazy manicures on Pinterest. That category is called when do you sleep? I admire you all, I do but I just don’t have it in me. Then the whole professional printed picture book craze began and I thought oh yes! I want one of those! Forget scrapbooks and old school photo albums! Now THAT is more my style, but really? I don’t have the time to even learn how to do that, and I harbor a not so secret fear that the book I design will look¸ well, crappy. But those books? Especially the big ones, they are the wave of the future people, and I want in on that. Because all I know is I am desperate for my kids to go to bed, then they do, and then I look at pictures of them and miss them.

Because motherhood is wacky y’all.

Snapfish to the rescue! Snapfish gave me the opportunity to try out their Mother’s Day photo book templates  and I jumped at the chance because as I said, I love to look at pictures of my kids.  I want to be altruistic, I want to send this book to my mother or give it to my mother in law, but I am so.very.selfish. and therefore I confess I am keeping it for me. FOR ME I SAY!

Snapfish has some really cool layouts including new Mother’s day templates (I chose Letterpress for Mom) which are clean, easy to use, and all around pretty. There is a simple drag and drop design tool, and you can import your pictures straight from Facebook or Flickr which rocks in case you are like me and constantly find yourself going ‘now where did I store that dang thing?”  Plus the best thing ever – you can save and come back to the project later- which was awesome for me as I am frequently dropping whatever I am doing to rescue Huckleberry from a Boss headlock or racing someone to the potty. It’s a glamorous life, I tell ya! I spent most of the weekend scouring through all our old pictures and wishing I they gave out really good cameras at the hospital when you birth a baby because dude, some of these pictures of Baby Boss are shoddy, luckily I can easily make a collage page of all the super cute but unable to be blown up without looking all pac-man pixilated baby Boss pictures. Win!

I can’t wait to get my book. I am anxiously awaiting it’s arrival and I can guarantee you two things. 1. It looks awesome and 2. I will be ordering two more just like it for the grandmothers because it’s the perfect Mother’s Day present for them.

If you are looking for a great Mother’s Day present for your mom (or yourself!) or really just want a picture book check out Snapfish.com, so easy to use and the prices are great. I predict I will be starting a yearly book and working on it here and there…since you can save the project!  when it arrives)

p.s. Mom? I know you read the blog every day so…..HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

 

***This post is sponsored by Snapfish as part of their support of the LISTEN TO YOUR

MOTHER SHOW 2012 series of Mother’s Day performances. I am directing

the DC show on May 6^th (Get your tickets NOW! they are going fast! )