• Mercy Urgent Care A
  • Viral Videos: A Normal Day
  • Giveaway: 4 tickets to The Addams Family Musical at SLT
  • Beauty: Smooth skin just in time for summer
  • Fitness: Mommy Knows Best

June 17: Bass Pro Shops Rock4Kids Polar Bear Run

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polar-bear-run-slider, 2017Looking for a healthy way your kiddos can burn off some energy this summer? We are too! And we love this one!

IMG_7520As part of the Rock4Kids Running Series, our sponsors at Bass Pro Shops Fitness Series are hosting a Polar Bear Run (or walk!) on June 17 at Hammons Field. Race starts at 5 p.m.

All participants will receive a fun t-shirt and medal to remember the event and will have the opportunity to select their own race distance. Race distances range from:

  • .5 mile
  • 1 mile
  • 1.5 mile

*Parents! You know your kiddos, so you will want to help them select the distance that will be the best fit for their age and fitness level.*

The race will start and end at Hammons Field and runners will run through the ice and heat and encounter lots of fun surprises along the way!polar bear collage

You may register by clicking here. Registration for this event will end on June 14 at 11:59 p.m.

Parking will be available for a fee in the cardinal’s parking area. Other downtown area parking will be available on a first-come first-serve basis.

Love hearing healthy lifestyle options from other local moms? Check out our fitness category, which is full of healthy tips for all women and is sponsored by Bass Pro Shops Fitness Series.  

Their mission is to celebrate health and wellness, outdoor adventures and wildlife conservation in the beauty of the Ozarks. Programs are designed to include activities for people of all ages, backgrounds, fitness levels and areas of interest. CLICK HERE for more information or give them a call at 417.873.5214.

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5 Minutes with a Local Mom: Leslie Jones, owner of Musical Bridges Musical Therapy

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mom3Kid’s names and ages: Juniper, 2

Where are you from and how long have you lived in Southwest Missouri? 

I was born and raised in Springfield. I moved to Kirksville to attend Truman State for a few years and lived in San Diego while completing coursework for school, but always wanted to come back home, so here I am!

What is your favorite family activity in SWMO? 

My family loves outdoors and though we don’t have much time for it these days, we use our time together to go hiking or on a long walk on the Springfield trails or the neighborhood.

mom1We understand you are the owner of Musical Bridges Music Therapy. Tell us about it!  What inspired you to start your own business? 

In Springfield there are very few music therapy positions available. When I decided to move back to Springfield from California I knew that I wasn’t going to have many options on where to work and came to the conclusion that I would create my dream job. This included working at the hospital, teaching at the university, working with individual clients, providing workshops and classes as well as having my own private lesson studio. I knew I would never find a job to provide all of those things at once, so creating it on my own was the only option. Over the years I placed my focus where I wanted to work and began my private practice Musical Bridges Music Therapy in 2011. I am now to the point of looking into the hiring process and expanding further so I am so thrilled to have made my dream a reality.

How do you balance being a business owner and a mom? 

Being a business owner and a mom is definitely not an easy task, but I am very fortunate that I can incorporate my work into playtime with my daughter which definitely helps out. I push her in the laundry basket filled with instruments back and forth across the house while I’m packing and she thinks it is the best thing ever! I’m big on multi-tasking :) I can also practice new songs I have written with her to get the Toddler approval before I use it with clients. The biggest help is my amazing family who constantly watches her when both my husband and I are working which has been the biggest blessing.

momWhat is your biggest challenge being a working mom? 

The biggest challenge about being a working mom is not being able to spend as much time with my family as I would like to. With the growth of the business, I feel I may be able to bring on more help to lighten my load, but to give it your best you really have to work hard. Time and Balance are definitely hard to maintain.

Describe your typical day. 

I’m not sure if I have a “typical” day. Each day of the week I do different things at different places. Once a week I spend most of my day at Drury University teaching the music therapy students, but you can also find me in music therapy sessions ranging from childhood to eldercare, early childhood development classes, with oncology patients at Mercy or downtown at the RareBreed. I definitely play the guitar, sing and work on the computer every day. Those are always constant. I never stop moving and I love the variety in my daily routine. It’s one of the reasons I love my job so much!

How do you relax at the end of the day? 

When I’m not working up until bedtime…You can find me doing yoga in the front room or watching Netflix most likely. I need to end a stressful day with moments of peace with yoga, but other nights I just want to be lazy! I guess it just depends what kind of day it was! Though usually there’s no time to relax until sleep!

What’s something your friends might not know about you? 

My friends probably have no idea that I have a spot on Louis Armstrong impression. I’m not sure if I’ve ever done it outside of a session or not!

One word to sum me up 

Determined

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The Rockwood Files: “Mom, I looked everywhere!”

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By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3

If I had a business card for my job as a mother, the job description would read “Finder of Things.” Because that’s what I do. I find things.

I love my husband and kids but they’re terrible finders. And I wouldn’t mind it so much if they weren’t also excellent losers.

The most frustrating part of the problem is that I consider our house to be somewhat organized and generally tidy – certainly not “eat off the floor” tidy, but it’s what I’d call a “someone could stop by the house unannounced and I wouldn’t die of embarrassment” level of tidy. Chaos makes me anxious, so I organize things to make it easier for us to find and keep up with what we need. I’ve never met a storage bin I didn’t love. Clear countertops make me happy. And I own and use a label maker even though I’m fully aware of just how geeky that sounds.

Yet despite the strategies and the storage and the customized labels, we lose stuff. Regularly. I’d guess that something goes missing about every third day – a hairbrush, a belt, somebody’s gym shorts, that paper for school, her dance tights, his retainer, and a receipt that Tom swears he put right here on this counter. But then poof! The thing is gone. Vanished into the void.

find it graphicSometimes the thing is missing for only a few minutes and sometimes it’s gone for good. How long it stays gone is usually in direct proportion to the person who’s doing the looking. I won’t name names, but some people – and you know who you are – have woefully inadequate searching skills. What some people call “looking for it” is more of a cursory glance around the general area.

If I send one of our kids to the pantry to get a can of green beans, they might tell me we’re all out of green beans. Because if the green beans do not leap off the shelf into their hands, there are no green beans in the house. And if a giant, blinking, neon arrow doesn’t magically appear in the pantry and point directly to that can of green beans, then there are no green beans in the house.

When looking for something involves moving things out of the way to see it, there’s a 99% chance the thing is going to stay lost – until Mom starts looking. Kids use moms like most of us use a GPS: “In 200 feet, make a left turn at the living room. Extend your free hand and make a sweeping U-turn motion under the sofa cushion. You have now arrived at your remote control.”

To avoid being used and abused as the Official Family Finder, I’ve started putting a price tag on my finding services. Yesterday one of the kids swore to me that there were no more hot dogs in the fridge.

“No hot dogs? Are you sure? Did you really look?”

“I looked, Mom!”

“So you looked behind things and under things and on every shelf?”

“Yep. I looked everywhere.”

“So you’d be willing to bet a week’s worth of extra chores on this? If I go in there and find the hot dogs, you’re gonna be busy this week but not in a fun way. You feel that confident about the missing hot dogs, right?”

“Well… maybe I’ll go look one more time.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The moral of this story? A wife and mother is a person with stuff to do, not a homing device with ovaries. And sometimes terrible finders just need a little extra motivation. Pass the hot dogs.

gwen-headshot-2014Gwen Rockwood is a mom to three great kids, wife to one cool guy, a newspaper columnist and co-owner of nwaMotherlode.com. To read previously published installments of The Rockwood Files, click here. To check out Gwen’s book, “Reporting Live from the Laundry Pile: The Rockwood Files Collection,” click HERE.

Moms + Meals: Campfire Nachos

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Growing up, I loved helping my dad cook over a campfire. Next time you’re wanting to do something adventurous and different with the kids try building a little campfire in the back yard. I love frying potatoes in my cast iron skillet over the fire.

Just like you would nachos, pile all your favorite nachos topping over fried potatoes. It will not disappoint! This recipe is husband approved!

All you need is a campfire, an appetite and the following:

  • campfirefried potatoes (I like to cook mine over the campfire, but you don’t have to do it that way!)
  • hamburger, chicken, pulled pork, brisket the options are endless!
  • lettuce & tomatoes
  • avocados
  • black olives
  • sour cream
  • salsa
  • any other topping you can dream up!

couch-familyBecca and her husband Kenan live in Aurora with three adorable kids. She spends her days learning more than she ever imagined while homeschooling her kids. She loves to cook and try new recipes out! Kenan is the lucky guy that gets to test them out for her. They attend James River-West Campus Church and love spending time with friends and family.

When not homeschooling her kids, Becca has a catering business and would love help you out at your next event. For more information, check out her facebook page by clicking here.