St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has been a long time cause close to my heart.

For years during my teaching career I ran the Math-A-Thon in the participating schools.

The Math-A-Thon is a way for students to help out and raise money to help with research done at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It’s literally children helping out the lives of other children. How awesome! At first the students may be a little stressed to see other children their own age with cancer, without hair or taking medicines, etc. But, as they watch the videos and read about these children, they find out they are the same as them and just ordinary children. It’s not only about raising money, it’s about raising compassion for others. 

This year when I found out that Emily’s school would be participating in the St. Jude’s Math-A-Thon I could not have been any happier. The kids can choose to participate by completing Math problems on their grade level online or in a paper booklet. Emily completed all 120 problems in her booklet! She was quite proud of herself and I was proud, too!

and online at www.stjude.org/about

Disclosure: Personal Post by Diane Sullivan. All opinions are that of Diane Sullivan.

Contact me at ELGeorgia@aol.com or on twitter at .@3decades3kids.

Once of my favorite events of the year is the Mother/Son Dance at Adam’s school.

Last night was the first Mother/Son Dance at Adam’s high school. Honestly, I thought the tradition had been clipped last year. Adam’s school that he attended from PreK4 to 7th Grade closed its doors and he had to spend the 8th grade in a new school. That school did not host a Mother/Son Dance. It was pretty devastating to all of the moms who had become friends throughout the years and were waiting for the final 8th grade dance. 

As it turns out, Adam’s high school hosts a Mother/Son Dance. Last night was the first High School M/S Dance for us at his high school. It was held at Casino In the Park-NJ. What a wonderful night. I had a bit of a tug to my heart as we lined up for the photo. Every year I have purchased the photo and now I am SO glad I did! There are two missing pictures above(PreK4 and Kindergarten). In our last photo in 7th grade Adam was still shorter than me. Last night as I stood next to my son who is now taller than me by a mile, I could not help but beam with pride that we had been sharing this special cherished moment since he was FOUR years old! I also did have to hold back the tears as I looked over all of the pics from years gone by, it really does seem to just fly by in the blink of an eye. I never expected back at the first Mother/Son Dance when I was carrying my son around to dance the last dance(because he was too tired by 9pm) that I would be standing next to this young man all these years later. Just feeling blessed to have the memories.

Disclosure: Personal Post by Diane Sullivan.

Contact me at ElGeorgia@aol.com or on twitter at .@3decades3kids.

Having a blog is a learning experience. Bloggers constantly are looking for ways to make their site

better and different ways to keep their readers interested. For the past few years one of the most

sought after by invitation only conferences has been the Disney Social Media Moms Conference #DisneySMMoms. I must admit that for the past couple of years I have checked my inbox over and over to see if somehow the magical invitation was there and I missed it. No such luck.

This year when the initial invites were sent out I felt that pang of rejection once again. Even though I knew that there would only be a limited amount of invites, I still wanted one. Of course I was happy to see many of my friends announcing that they were going to California, once again, I was not one of the club.

A few weeks later I heard about trickling invites going out. Holla! 

 The pixie dust covered invite was in my inbox. How exciting! I must admit that our family is a total Disney family, so we were ALL thrilled about the invitation. So, with saying that, I am honored and just beside myself to be a part of Disney Social Media Moms Conference this year. We will be grabbing a flight to California this April and having the pleasure of staying at the Disneyland Hotel Resort. Honestly, I’m not sure what will happen during the conference, but I have heard from repeat guests that I will be disappointed. It’s already a win, since I have never been to Disneyland with my family. I’m on cloud nine! We all are. I will keep you posted on all of the details and of course some magical giveaways along the way. Step one of course is to gather up some clothes for the trip. 

Since we will be spending 5 days in the Disneyland Parks we headed to our local Disney Outlet and grabbed some matching Disneyland tees, dresses, jackets, etc. We are getting ready and could not be any happier!

You can follow along  before, during and after the trip on Twitter at .@3decades3kids #DisneySMMoms.

Disclosure: I was invited by Disney Parks to Disney Social Media Moms Conference. All fees were paid by Diane Sullivan. All opinions are my own. Contact me at ELGeorgia@aol.com or on twitter at . .@3decades3kids