The Motherhood

After working with a group of incredible bloggers for the past six months to spread the word about the Child Hunger Ends Here campaign, in partnership with ConAgra Foods and Feeding America, we are so pleased to announce that the campaign has met its goal of 3 million meals donated!

According to the team at Child Hunger Ends Here, our bloggers’ posts have generated more than half of the referral traffic for code entry to get these meals donated. Great job, ladies!

There is still work to be done in the fight against child hunger, and you can continue entering codes through August 31 to donate additional meals.

More than 1 in 5 children in the United States – nearly 17 million kids in our communities, neighborhoods and schools – suffer from food insecurity. You can find hunger statistics for your area on the Child Hunger Ends Here website – in Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, where The Motherhood’s headquarters is located, there are 166,880 food insecure people, and more than 40,000 of them are children.

For these kids and others across the country, every meal counts, and you can help! You can continue to visit the Child Hunger Ends Here website to enter codes found on participating ConAgra Foods product packaging through Saturday, August 31. Each code represents one meal for a child who needs it.

The back-to-school season marks the unofficial “New Year” for kids and parents. With new schedules, extracurricular activities and nightly homework assignments, it can all get a little chaotic fast. That’s why it’s helpful to make some “new-school-year resolutions” to do things like plan ahead, stay more organized, and create better homework habits. It’s also a great time to make financial resolutions.

The Motherhood is thrilled to be ringing in the new school year with Capital One during the “School Cents” Twitter party. We’re going to help each other prepare for the upcoming school year by sharing our best tips for back-to-school money management.

We’ll also be chatting with The Money Coach, personal finance expert Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, about back-to-school shopping tips and how to use back-to-school shopping as a perfect opportunity to teach kids about important spending and saving habits.

Join Twitter party hosts @theMotherhood, @theMotherhood25 (the Motherhood’s Twitter party account), @CooperMunroe, @EmilyMcKhann and @TheMoneyCoach and get started on your back-to-school resolutions. We can’t wait to exchange ideas, tips and advice for making the next school year the best one yet!

When: Wednesday, August 21 at Noon ET (the party will last one hour)

Where: We’ll be on Twitter – follow the #SchoolCents hashtag to track the conversation. You can see the details and RSVP for the party via this Twtvite.

Hashtag: #SchoolCents

Prizes: We’ll be giving away five $50 Visa gift cards, which will be awarded to randomly chosen participants who respond correctly to trivia questions.

We’ll also be joined by these fantastic co-hosts:

Amanda, The Dude Mom – @thedudemom
Crystal, Surviving a Teacher’s Salary – @TheTeachersWife
Gigi, Kludgy Mom – @KludgyMom
Hanan, Lilac City Momma – @LilacCityMomma
Heather, OurKidsMom – @ourkidsmom
Kristin, Our Ordinary Life – @OurOrdinaryLife
Meagan, Sunshine and Sippy Cups – @SunandSipCups
Mickey, A Helicopter Mom – @ahelicoptermom

We look forward to seeing you there!

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s hard to believe back to school season is already here. While we’ll be getting our kids ready to start a new school year over the next few weeks, teachers will also be busy preparing for the year ahead. From creating lesson plans to setting up the classroom, teachers do a lot of work before and during the school year to help our kids fill their minds with as much knowledge as possible. Having great tools, like a laminator, to use in their planning helps make teachers’ very important jobs a little bit easier.

The Motherhood teamed up with Fellowes Laminators to help parents and teachers kick off the back-to-school season with ideas for staying organized and making learning even more fun by preserving documents, like schedules, calendars, flash cards, charts, certificates, classroom decorations and more.

Fellowes gave 20 moms a Saturn2 95 laminator and asked them to share some their tips and ideas for the many great things laminators can do to help make this new school year fantastic in the classroom and at home.

Crystal from Simply Being Mommy laminated colorful notes to slip into her kids’ lunchboxes during the school year.

Michelle from Honesty and Truly created a checklist for her kids to fill out as they go through their morning routine before leaving for school.

Marisa from Pennywise Mama made preschool worksheets to help her little ones practice writing and counting.

The whole group seemed to love the Saturn2 95 laminator’s helpful features like the HeatGuard^TM Technology that keeps heat inside the laminator so it is comfortable to touch and safe for kids in the classroom and at home. The Advanced Temperature Control for hot and cold laminating, release lever to prevent jams and the wide opening for larger documents were also big hits among the moms and teachers.

While a Fellowes laminator is a fantastic back-to-school tool, teachers are the real superstars of the classroom. Through September 30, Fellowes is holding the “Celebration of Superstar Teachers” contest, and they want your help in recognizing a special teacher in your community who goes above and beyond for his or her students.

The top 25 teachers will receive a laminator education prize package from Fellowes, and five grand prize teachers will also win a classroom organization prize package. Nominating an exceptional teacher is easy. Just head over to the Fellowes Facebook page and fill out the entry form. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite teacher in the “View and Vote” section.

Do your kids have a favorite teacher whom they might want to nominate? Did you have a favorite teacher who made a lasting impression on you when you were in school? Tell us about it in the comments below.

This summer, The Motherhood partnered with the amazing willa natural skincare made just for girls and invited some of our bloggers to try willa’s products with their daughters by throwing at-home spa parties with friends. The Motherhood’s co-founders Emily and Cooper joined in the fun with their daughters, too! The results? Beautiful, healthy skin, smiling faces, and lots of fun!

willa is the first natural skincare line just for tween girls, with products developed by a dermatologist at one of the top emulsion labs in the United States. The skincare line offers 18 products, including face wash, moisturizing lotion, sunscreen and more – all made without chemicals, parabens, dyes, or sulfates.

Six years ago, Christy Prunier realized that there were no natural skincare products available for her 8-year-old daughter Willa. After dealing with skin cancer at age 29, Christy regretted not taking better care of her own skin and was determined to help her daughters care for theirs starting at an early age. She decided to take matters into her own hands and created willa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xlKvBAVboE

Check out what some of the participating bloggers had to share about willa and their willa skincare parties!

“The girls were SQUEALING with happiness when they saw the table! We put everyone’s hair up and out of their faces, then got down to business.”

-Melissa, All Things Chic

Cecile, who blogs at The Shopping Duck, said that her daughter’s spa party was a big hit:

“As the girls were trying all the products, they were sipping lemonade from their new insulated cups and dining on cookies and fruit. They loved the pampering and they were able to take home a travel kit with willa products to continue their healthy face routine.”

Jennifer from The Dirty t-Shirt had a funny story to share:

“My daughter went to her drawer, you know the one that houses tubes and bottles of past used products, and dumped it right into the trash can and exclaimed, ‘I have finally found products that work and that I like!’ – to which I promptly put the willa website on my favorite list for future orders. The girls all enjoyed their pampering day and I enjoyed seeing them happy and finally finding a product line that my daughter likes!”

And Elena of Live. Do. Grow. summed it up when she wrote, “I realized that just like I want to empower my daughter and other tweens to use their voices for good, empowering them to take control over their health and longevity is important.”

(At Cooper’s party even little brothers got involved!)

Talking about skincare through a fun setting like a party with friends is such an ideal way to help our tweens understand how important skincare is.

Thanks so much to willa for the opportunity!