Stansbury Mommies Toy Drive

Stansbury Mommies is partnering up withTooele Childrens Justice Center for a community toy drive.

Our mission is to collect new, unwrapped toys during November and December, and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community. If you would like to help make a child's Christmas more magical please drop your donation off at Tooele Orthopedics and Sports Medicine... 1929 N. Aaron Dr. If this is inconvenient please email us at stansburymommies@gmail.com, and we will provide you with an additional drop off location. Together we can help make a child's Christmas more magical!!

Attention Stansbury Mommies

To all Stansbury Mommies...we want this blog to open for anyone to post. So if you have a fun idea, website, book or just anything you want to let everyone know about feel free to login and post. We dont want to just list our username and password on this post because we dont want people who shouldn't be getting into our information getting into it. So if you want to have the access to possibly get on and do a post, please email us at Stanburymommies@gmail.com and we will email you the info.

Blogger etiquette: the only thing that we should bring up by having this open to so many people. Is that there can only be one post per day. This way it will at least be on their for 24 hours so people can view it. If we had 10 people post in one day we would never read all of them. So just keep that in mind!

ORNAMENT EXCHANGE for our FIRST Activity!

So we were thinking we should do an ornament exchange for our first activity. This would intell everyone bringing an ornament of their choice (unisex of course) and then we would do a game with Christmas songs and passing around the ornaments. Then your child will go home with a different fun ornament that they can hang on the tree!

We are in the works with the clubhouse to let us do our activities there so we will have enough room for everyone (we are hoping lots of mommies come)! We will have more information in the next couple of day on the date and time so check back in. Please give us your feedback on this if you think the kids will like this or if you have a better idea for a Christmas activity. We are up for any suggestions!

IN RESPONSE TO MIRIAM'S COMMENT: WE REALLY LIKE THOSE IDEAS AS WELL. THE ONLY THING THAT WE ARE DEALING WITH IS GETTING SOME FUNDING FOR THE ACTIVITIES. WE WILL ALSO TRY TO DO INEXPENSIVE ACTIVITIES. WE WANTED TO DO ORNAMENT DECORATING BUT THEN WE WOULD HAVE TO BUY THE STUFF FOR ALL THE KIDS TO DECORATE. SO THIS IS WHY WE HAVE THE VOLUNTARY FEE AND WE ARE GOING TO ASK SOME SMALL BUSINESS'S TO SPONSER US. WE WILL DO ANOTHER POST WITH THE ACTIVITY THAT WE WILL BE DOING, ECT. KEEP THE SUGGESTIONS COMING!

Joseph Had A Little Overcoat..plus a cute idea to go along with it!!

Anyone who has ever seen one of Simms Taback's books becomes an instant fan. He uses a combination of bold watercolors, Gouache, pencil, ink and collage to create his one-of-a-kind artwork. Joseph Had A Little Overcoat is chock full of wide-eyed animals and an abundance of Joseph's colorfully dressed relatives. They all follow him when he goes to the fair in the jacket that was once an old and worn little overcoat. When the jacket gets old and worn, he makes a vest out of it and wears it to a wedding. Next, a scarf is cut from the vest, followed by a handkerchief when the vest, too, becomes old and worn. As Joseph's garments continue to wear out, he continues recycling until he's left with nothing. Even then, Joseph manages to make something out of that............Art --Design your own vest- Using a brown paper bag cut it into the shape of a vest. Using marker, crayons, or other art supplies design the vest.
Collect things around the house, buttons, paper clips, etc., and make something from these things. Use your imagination! This is a really cute one!!

Weekly SPOTLIGHT

About the Barnes Bunch:
Steve, Alisa, Landon (14), Madalyn (aka Maddy, 11), Dylan (5)

http://steveandalisabarnes.blogspot.com/

Steve and I met and dated our senior year of high school. I had just moved to New Jersey from Minnesota the summer before our senior year of high school. I met Steve that following winter and was dazzled by his good looks and loved watching him play basketball for our high school team (they won the state championships that year!) We got engaged the summer after we graduated and got married right before Christmas that same year (yes, we were VERY fast movers. I will KILL my kids if they do the same thing). We moved to Utah the summer we were engaged and were married there as well. I was all set to go to BYU but decided to have a baby instead and didn't make it. I still plan on going someday.

Landon was born the following year, and we just plugged along with Steve going to the U full time and working 2 jobs. I worked at a daycare and brought Landon with me for a couple of years until Maddy was born. We bought our first house in West Valley and Steve graduated from the U with a bachelors in Political Science (the plan was for him to go to law school after that but kids and mortgages got in the way...). I started working for Wells Fargo Bank back in 1995 and am still there 13 years later. I work at the Wells Fargo Tower downtown as a Private Client Associate, and it is the BEST job for a working mom...no stress and LOTS of free time to work on tricking out my new blog (I've become a blogging addict thanks to my sister-in-law who had been trying to get me to do it for a year). Steve has been working for Fed Ex for about the same amount of time, and is now the terminal hub manager for the FedEx Lindon Home Delivery wherehouse. Yes, his hour commute each way totally bites.

Dylan was born summer of 2003, and with Landon quick approaching junior high we decided it was time to get out of West Valley and move to a safe, clean, beautiful neighborhood out of the city. We were THRILLED to discover Stansbury Park and moved here December of 2004. We plan on staying here forever, but do plan on making one more move to a smaller house on the lake after Maddy and Landon are out of the house.

Landon is currently attending Grantsville High School in the 9th grade (we are SO siked about the new High School opening next fall I can't even tell you...) Maddy is in the 6th grade at Rose Springs, and Dylan is also there in kindergarten. Dylan also goes to Kids Park when he's not in school. I have always felt terrible that he can not participate in neighborhood play groups and parties, but I'm hoping that what he doesn't know he's missing wont hurt him :)

In a nutshell -

Steve and I have been married for 15 years and have lived in Stansbury for 4.


Landon (14) loves to play basketball and skateboard
Maddy (11) loves to dance, dance, dance and is currently on a competition dance team. She's been dancing since she was 3. She also takes gymnastics. She also loves to babysit! (maybe we can advertise her on the mommy blog?)
Dylan (5) loves to color and draw, play with super-hero toys, and watch movies. He wants to play soccer in the spring.
All of Steve's family lives in Medford, NJ (parents and younger brother). All of my family lives here in Utah (parents and 3 younger brothers).


I love to read, hang out with my girlfriends, go to movies, and I LOVE all music and playing the piano. I also love to go to the gym everyday on my lunch hour (I know...you wouldn't know it by looking at me but I'm working on it :) ) I am a Scentsy consultant under Michelle Bishop and have a blast selling it!


Steve is very into politics (hence his Political Science degree), and also loves basketball. He also loves to read anything NON-fiction (he's a super nerd). He's also addicted to working out at the gym and counting calories.

Introducing the two mommies to start this group!

Lauren Douglas and Lindsay Philpot are trying to start a "Stansbury Mommies" group. We are so excited to do this and get to know our fellow mommies. Our idea came from going to a Tooele Mommies activity and it was kind of a pain to drive down there. Not that it is really that far but we thought Stansbury is such an awesome little community and really is separate from Tooele so lets start our own group that we can do activities and all sorts of fun stuff to get to know the other mommies and so the kids can make friends. We want this to be something that all the mommies have their input on and idea's. Even though we are trying to start it we want all of us to come together as a group and make it the best it can be!

A little bit about Lauren,

Lauren Douglas is a mommie of 4. She has 2 boys Joseph(6), Benjamin(4), and then a set of twins a boy, Joshua (3) and a girl, Brinnley (3)! She stays at home with these ambitious little beings, and volunteers for the school. They have lived in Stansbury for 5 years.

A little bit about Lindsay,

Lindsay Philpot is a mommie of 2. She has a stepson, Kelton, that is 7 and is with her part-time. She also has a little girl, Gracie, that is 20 months. She stays home but markets part-time for a title company. The Philpot's have lived in Stansbury for 3 years now and absolutely LOVE this community!

HELLO

Check back here for tons of fun info from all of our Stansbury mommies on everything from where to get the best haircuts to potty training to just fun stories about what our Stansbury kiddies are doing! We will also have a monthly activity for everyone to come enjoy and where we can all meet face to face and make new friends in our AWESOME little community!

Please leave comments with feedback on any idea's you have or interesting topics to talk about. Anything you would like to bring up would be awesome. You can either leave a comment or email us at stansburymommies@gmail.com.

We will also be spotlighting a Stansbury Family each week so we can get to know a little more about our neighbors! So check back to see who will be spotlighted next week :)