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A Paris Themed Birthday Party

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April is a month of Birthdays at the Practicingnormal headquarters.  Both Bubbles and Little Mouse has birthdays which makes it a hectic month for me.

When there are five kids in a family a birthday is a very special day.  It is the one time when all the attention is on you.  When everything can turn into a competition for attention it is nice to have a special day just for yourself.

As the mom I always make sure that your birthday is a special day where we celebrate the wonderful person that you are.   This means that I might go over the top sometimes, but the children enjoy it and it is always done with love.  I only do children’s themed birthday parties till your 10th birthday, which means for Bubbles this was the last birthday with an elaborate themed party.   Next year she will be allowed to take two friends to the movies for her birthday and will have a family dinner.    This year she decided on a Paris Themed Birthday Party.

We decided while the weather was nice to have a ‘Tea in Paris’ party in the garden. Read more

tiger siberian tiger tiger baby young animal family boy young
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Tiger Mom

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The wisdom of kids sometimes take your breath away.  The happens to me a lot, especially with my little old soul:  Mouse.   If you think you know everything about being a Tiger Mom, I think Little Mouse have a much better definition.

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10 Things you didn't know about me
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Blog Award: Ten things you didn’t know about me

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Since I started blogging, I have been nominated for a Liebster award four times  (Thank you for the last one, Jessie Singer).   I love the idea of the Liebster as it helps new bloggers make wonderful connections and start friendships that last.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry, in the beginning I had to Google the Liebster as well.   The easiest way to explain it is to think about the basic principles of a chain letter.  You receive an ‘award’ where you don’t have to dress up and give a speech, but rather answer a bunch of questions about yourself or blogging and then you get to nominate other bloggers to do the same.    This is a nice way of introducing your readership to new bloggers, which they might not have known about without these awards.   If you need more information or want to read my previous answers to the Liebster you can find them here.

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Celebrating Stepmoms at Practicingnormal.com
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Always Love your Stepmom

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Blood is not the only thing that makes you a family.  Family is who you love and if you are lucky, who loves you back.   Being a mother is a difficult job, being a stepmom is even harder.   You are mostly judged and very rarely celebrated.

Instead of judging let’s choose to celebrate the extra people in your children’s lives who love them.  There is a beautiful quote from Valerie J. Lewis in Blended Families An Anthology.  “Stepparenting is like working at a late-night convenience store – all of the responsibility and none of the authority.”

Please share these with all the blended families and send them to all the stepmoms you know.  Mostly they just need someone to see them, to acknowledge that it is a difficult job to do and to say thank you.

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Sir Terry Pratchett, Reading oder and quotes about the Discworld books. Until the ripples die away by Practicingnormal.com
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Sir Terry Pratchett: Until the ripples die away

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Terry Pratchett sold more than 70 million books during his career.   He was one of my favourite authors and my literary hero. I still see the Discworld characters as some of the best friends I will ever have.   The Watch and DEATH helped me through a really tough time in my life and if you ask me who had a huge influence in my life Terry Pratchett will always be in my top ten.

It was a sad day for me when I heard the news that he died on March, 12, 2015.   In typical Terry Pratchett style he said farewell to the world in a way that true fans can appreciate by announcing his own death on social media with a tweet from DEATH.

 

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Source:  Terry Pratchett/Twitter

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