www.ranchobernardo.jwtumbles.com A great place for Kids Birthday Parties. Come celebrate your Child’s Birthday Party with us. Kids love the Giant Parachute, Snowball Fight, Obstacle Course, Zip Line, Dancing, Games, and Red Carpet walk.

PLEASE vote to help us win Let’s Move ‘Apps for Healthy Kids’ Contest! ~ visit: www.chefsolus.com 4 of our games are finalists. We really appreciate your vote to support our FREE online games and tools for nutrition education! Winning the contest would go a long way to creating new games and reaching more parents, teacher and children with our fun learning platform! More game and voting info on our blog: bit.ly All healthy eating games and nutrition tools are available in English chefsolus.com or Spanish http Founded in California by a Hispanic Registered Nurse who is devoted to helping children to have a healthier future, the website and games are free and available in English chefsolus.com or Spanish http Visit us for fun online games for kids and easy healthy wellness tools and nutrition tips for parents! Kids play animated games and learn about healthy nutrition, healthy eating and physical activity. Family Wellness and Childhood Obesity Prevention Tools in an engaging learning platform. Finalist in contest is our game- Chef Solus Food Pyramid Adventure Games- The fun way for the whole family to learn about nutrition and making healthier choices. Discover our online learning platform for interactive nutrition education; tools for parents and educational games to teach your child through animation, exploration, and puzzles about the importance of nutrition and exercise. Tools for parents: interactive wellness tools, healthy eating tips and family nutrition information …
Video Rating: 4 / 5

As your baby grows up, you’ll no doubt accumulate a ton of baby gear that your child will outgrow. In this episode of Gear Daddy, Daddy Troy visits Once Upon a Child, a resale shop that specializes in selling gently used children’s clothing, kids furniture, toys and other baby items. From strollers to baby shoes, a resale store is a great place to take your baby apparel and earn some cash in the process. DadLabs ep 472 brought to you by BabyBjorn. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Say Yes.. (to 2010)


Image by d u .r. M a c i e l
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
-Tony Blair

??? Listen. This is the mood I was for this shot, although the shot has nothing to do with it.

For this shot, basically the same the other. Ana and I had only 3 minutes (while my parents stayed with our kids in the playground behind us)… I just placed the sb600 in the right and took 2 shots. This is the one I like more.

Strobist: SB600 left (on the ground) using CLS.

°•.•°•.•°•.•°°•.•°
Note:
I REALLY, really love your comments, but please do not post awards. I am just learning and for that reason I prefer your impressions/suggestions instead of awards and stamps. You comments help and motivate my mind.

Thanks.
- Stay Beautiful!

Ninos Hotel steps, Cusco, Peru


Image by Ian Hsu (iandoh)
All profits from the Ninos Hotel are spent on providing meals, education, and medical care for Peruvian street kids. A wonderful place to stay, it echos with the sound of children’s laughter during the day. Read more about this inspiring place and the Dutch couple behind it at www.ninoshotel.com/.

And if you’re ever in Cusco, drop by for a visit or a stay…

Ninos Hotel, Cusco, Peru


Image by Ian Hsu (iandoh)
All profits from the Ninos Hotel are spent on providing meals, education, and medical care for Peruvian street kids. A wonderful place to stay, it echos with the sound of children’s laughter during the day. Read more about this inspiring place and the Dutch couple behind it at www.ninoshotel.com/.

And if you’re ever in Cusco, drop by for a visit or a stay…

Amazing Places to Take Your Kids: Hundreds of North American Adventures features hundreds of family vacation destinations that are educational, exhilarating, unforgettable, and just plain fun.
Each adventure in this beautiful hardcover book is designed to create lasting family memories and appeal to children of all ages. Parents can flip through the pages for ideas on where to find the most interesting children s museums, the wildest dune buggy rides, and the most exciting parades and they ca

Rating: (out of 10 reviews)

List Price: $ 16.98

Price: $ 12.50

Book Talk: Pat Benatar says she is a fan of Lady Gaga
Pat Benatar is a fan of Lady Gaga.
Read more on Reuters via Yahoo! News

Touching Rays Outside


Image by A Child’s Place

going to Thailand on Vimeo


Image by manda walker
I love my job as a nanny here in Los Angeles, and this summer I’m going to Thailand to help the children there. But I need some help to make it happen.

I’ll be volunteering (for 4 weeks this July) at a Temple in Surin, Thailand. I’ll be working in a daycare, run by the Monks there. The daycare was created to help impoverished families, so parents have a safe place to leave their children so that they can go and work. Volunteering abroad is something I have always wanted to do. i will do whatever I can to help those who need it. I want to make a difference, no matter how small.

Knowing that I’ll be helping kids really speaks to my heart. I’ve been a nanny for 16 years and children are such an important part of my life. Everyday I feel incredibly blessed to live where I do and to earn a living doing something I LOVE. The children I take care of are all so wonderful that it’s made me realize that I want to pursue it as a career. I’ve recently gone back to school to get a degree in child development and early education. I’m faithful that the knowledge I gain from this volunteer experience will be invaluable.

Since this is a volunteer situation I will not be paid for the work I’ll be doing. In fact, I will have to pay them. The organization I am volunteering with charges a fee, I’m also responsible for buying my own plane tickets, all of my own food, and my vaccinations. And of course since I won’t be receiving any income, I will somehow need pay my rent when I return on the 1st of August. But I’ve always believed if there is a will, there is a way. If anyone watching this is touched or sees what a wonderful program this is for these poor Thai families, any donations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for watching!

For more info, or to make a donation, please go here: helpmehelpothers.tumblr.com

This is a frame from a video. You can watch it on Vimeo.

Jessica Sundheim


Image by speakingoffaith
Repossessing Virtue: Humility Is the Basis of My New Faith (December 14, 2008)
(this essay originally appeared on SOF Observed as part of the Speaking of Faith series, "Repossessing Virtue" at speakingofaith.org/first-person/repossessing-virtue/)

Editor’s note: We asked our listeners and readers to tell us their stories about the moral and spiritual aspects of the economic downturn. In the coming months, we’ll be featuring some of these on SOF Observed an as part of our First Person project, "Repossessing Virtue."

Jessica Sundheim reminds us that personal transformation and understanding happens at any age. She kicks off this first person exploration, and continues our series of interviews with wise voices, including Martin Marty, Prabhu Guptara, Esther Sternberg, Rachel Naomi Remen, and others to come.

Since I was very young, like just about everyone I know, I had a strong mechanism deep within that could smell injustice, layer upon layer of it. I knew at age three that going to daycare sucked, and I knew that my peers were favored because we were cared for by their mother. However, the complexity of greater social injustices didn’t really begin to sink in until I turned 25. Before then I think of myself as a protestor/whiner. I saw the injustice at face value and whined about it. Growing up on poverty and years of watching PBS documentaries of war demonstrations, the liberation of concentration camps, civil rights marches, The Wonder Years, and listening to my parents old LP’s of The Beatles and Janice Joplin had left their mark.

The tragedy of 9/11 took place just weeks after my 23rd birthday. It was shaking, like someone had struck a chord that had resonated for years and then on 9/11 someone struck a new chord, a chord no one knew. I quit my job to stay home with my kids. I flew home to Tennessee with my toddler and eight-month-old baby to visit family. We bought a new car. We waited. I was ready to act, but no direction came. I also began to seek out spiritual renewal and joined a very fundamentalist Bible study. Soon, my car was tuned to a different station, one that focused on my family and my role in it instead of news and the world. My head was filled with directives to isolate, seclude my young, and become as perfect as possible. My goal was to be Jesus Christ and to get everyone else to be just like me.

The mechanism that smelled injustice began to be tweaked. "Could it really be injustice if the person isn’t a Christian? God works for the good of those who believe in him." Personal behavior and faith status became the stick with which I measured out those who suffered for no cause of their own and those who deserved it. No longer a sheep in the flock, I wasn’t even the shepherd; I was the butcher, me and about 5 million others. So when the war that I had been fated to protest for years came, I was blinded by a belief system that mandated an eye for an eye.

My belief system had little sympathy or compassion for people who could not control their sinful nature. I didn’t even believe in funding public schools, or that women should work outside the home. Our society was falling apart because of working women, sex, Godless public education, taxes, and fast food. I really, really believed in this.

Shortly after 9/11 my husband became the director of an environmental learning center. Two years later, when the funding was cut and the center folded my life changed. I started a cleaning business at seven months pregnant because no business would hire me, and I got a job as a coordinator for an after school program (in a public school). I also became vehemently opposed to any business that would have the audacity to discriminate against a pregnant woman.

My husband worked endlessly. He had three jobs. He went to tutor at the school at 3:00 p.m., from there he went to his overnight factory job at 6 p.m. He got home after working an 11-hour shift at 5 a.m. At 9 a.m., after four hours of sleep, he went on call as an EMT with the local ambulance service. He could still catch some sleep if he didn’t get a call. Without the paycheck that we had become accustomed to, public school began to look like a good deal, my dream of home schooling was fading. Something I had railed against for years (welfare) began to look like a social safety net. I’ll never forget the time I was at a Christian women’s meeting and the director of the food shelf leaned over and said, "You can go to the food shelf so many times per year. You should go." She squeezed the life out of my hand, as if to say if you don’t go I’ll hurt you. I went.

I’ll never forget that experience. I, a hard working, educated, sober, business woman was going to a food shelf! The people were so nice. The form was one page, about five questions. I thought we’d get enough food for one meal, but I had to pull my car around so that I could unload box after box into my car. We were given so much, I couldn’t fit it all in my cupboards. We ate every last can of tuna, box of instant potatoes, and even SPAM with relish.

Humility is the basis of my new faith.

I do not look at the state of our country’s economy as a crisis in the same way as most. The state of affairs is an opportunity, in many ways. I still have a sense of justice, and so I think that someone should pay for the frivolous, machismo, arrogant politics and policies of the last 15 years. But, I know that for the most part the powerless, not the propagator, will suffer most in this mess.

However, poverty for me is no longer a judgment handed down to the lazy, uneducated, drunken, egocentric sloth. I no longer define poverty by neighborhood, class, education, or even bank account. Poverty is to lack the ability to help others as one would want to help oneself. Poverty is the inability to forgive — the blind, misinformed faith that isolates and secludes a person from joy, self-forgiveness, compassion, and love for one’s neighbor.

Our family has gone through a financial crisis much like what the country is facing now. We have learned a lot and I feel that we are better off. The leadership I am looking for at this time is a leadership that believes in everyday people. Leadership that doesn’t look at the person’s bank account or position of status to find value, but instead a leadership that understands the inherent value of every citizen of this country. A leadership that doesn’t seclude or isolate, but reaches out to all of us and in turn gives some useful direction, a map.

What am I doing differently? I am no longer a secluded housewife. My kids go to school. We moved to a new community. I am grateful for welfare, food stamps, and Medicare even though we no longer use them. The food shelf still rocks. Involved in my local political party, I fought hard for a candidate with real vision as a delegate to the DFL state convention. (I am the former chairperson for the Big Stone County Republican Party). For the last year I worked two jobs, helped plan a fundraiser, door knocked for Barack, had a house party, marched in a lawn chair brigade in many parades for my local candidate for Minnesota House Seat 10A. As the volunteer coordinator for A Center for the Arts, I naturally voted "yes" on the constitutional amendment.

I find wisdom at a unique church. The church is actually two churches, United Church of Christ and a Presbyterian church, which came together to worship in the same house when a tornado blew through town almost a hundred years ago. The six of us live in a two-bedroom house on the tracks in the "ghetto" of Fergus Falls, and I let the kids play with the neighbors. I could not be more different, or any further from my old idea of "perfection."

I find leadership in my elders, veterans, the people who grew up during the Great Depression, and my grandmother. I also look for ways to be of use. I find spiritual renewal in many forms of art, but my favorite is dance. I enjoy other’s points of view and I don’t always know mine. I like collaborating.

I once called into an MPR pledge drive during SOF to protest the show and withdraw my membership. I am sorry. Now, I want to tell you thank you. This [essay] is humongous, but it’s been a journey and I wouldn’t be the person I am now without having listened to the different ideas and perspectives (especially an interview with an Evangelical fundamentalist a few years back). Your show makes a difference, so I look forward to tuning in.

Jessica Sundheim was born during the Carter administration and lives in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

SWIC’s College for Kids encourages learning in a fun environment
From elementary school students to full-time employees, Southwestern Illinois College is offering classes for everyone this summer.
Read more on Belleville News-Democrat

Kids-East Bay Through July 4
ARDENWOOD HISTORIC FARM Ardenwood farm is a working farm that dates back to the time of the Patterson Ranch, a 19th-century estate with a mansion and Victorian Gardens. Today, the farm still practices farming techniques from the 1870s.
Read more on The Berkeley Daily Planet

Kids Being Kids (project)


Image by Moayad Hassan
This picture is part of Kids Being Kids project. To see the whole project click on this link:

www.moayad.com/photography/photo-kids

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www.moayad.com/photography/photo-kids

==========

When most people think about getting their kids photographed the first thing that come to their mind is "Lets take them to a professional studio, dress them in cute customs and take their pictures next to giant stuffed animals!"

I have nothing against photo studios, it’s just that it is very hard to find a really good ones, specially for children. And honestly, I’ve never taken my children to a studio to get their pictures taken, except for their passport pictures of course (their grandmother took Dana once behind our backs, but that doesn’t count :p).

The alternative, until you can find a good studio, is to take the pictures at home while the children are doing what they do best… being themselves, and this is what this project is all about.

The pictures may not be perfectly focused or have the greatest lighting, the children may not be dressed in the nicest dresses, have their hair specially done or -God forbids- have makeup on.. but the memories recorded in these pictures are truly genuine (unless your children dress-up and sit next to giant stuffed animals all the time).

Just stay low and be fast, you’ll be amazed by the results

Technical stuff:

Camera: Minolta Dynax 404si (Film SLR)
Lens: Minolta Normal 50mm f1.7
Film: Kodak T-max 400 and Kodak Tri-x 400 (both expired)
Scanned from negatives in lab
Edited with Apple Aperture
Gallery created with PostcardViewer

Again, don’t forget to checkout the project website.

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Kids Being Kids (project) (Bonus)


Image by Moayad Hassan
This picture is part of Kids Being Kids project. To see the whole project click on this link:

www.moayad.com/photography/photo-kids

??? ?????? ??? ?? ????? ?????? ??? ? ??????? ???? ??? ??????? ???? ?????? ??? ?????? ?????? :

www.moayad.com/photography/photo-kids

==========

Actually, it was not included in the gallery, but it is still part of the project.

=========

Technical stuff:

Camera: Minolta Dynax 404si (Film SLR)
Lens: Minolta Normal 50mm f1.7
Film: Kodak T-max 400 and Kodak Tri-x 400 (both expired)
Scanned from negatives in lab
Edited with Apple Aperture
Gallery created with PostcardViewer

Again, don’t forget to checkout the project website.

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