Birthday Dreams Service Project on February 18

On February 18, after our regular MOPS meeting, we will be doing a service project for an organization called Birthday Dreams. Birthday Dreams is a non-profit that provides birthday parties for children who are homeless or are in the foster care system. Our group will be putting together party bags filled with party favors and candy that will be given to Birthday Dreams and distributed at birthday parties.

Here's how you can help:

1. Bring party favors to our Feb. 4 and/or Feb. 18 MOPS meetings.  You don't have to spend much to make a big impact!  Great places to score party favors at great prices are Dollar Tree (which has a whole aisle of $1 party favor packs) and Target's dollar section or party aisle.

Other great items such as colorful pencils, stickers, temporary tattoos, bubbles, and sidewalk chalk may be found in places other than the party aisle for less.


2. Plan to stay after the MOPS meeting on February 18 and fill bags. This is a kid-friendly project, in fact we want our kids to be involved!  Pack your child a sack lunch and stick around after the meeting.  We'll be decorating bags and filling them with goodies.  This is an activity that will be fun for you to do with your children, and a great way to expose them to serving others.

Resources from Julie Church's Talk on Body Image: Mothering, Appearance, and the Brain

On Tuesday Julie Church of Opal: Food + Body spoke to us about body image. If you missed the talk, you can listen to it on the player to the right. Below are some links to some of the resources that Julie mentioned in her talk.

Brene Brown's TED talks on Listening to Shame and The Power of Vulnerability

BirthMarkings by Margaret Lazarus is a video which explores women's post-birth bodies and how their self image changes after giving birth.

Julie also lead us through an exercise where we wrote a letter to our body reflecting on what we liked about it. It is a powerful exercise, well worth your time to complete.

A Letter to Your Body

Take some time to reflect on these questions related to your body:

I love you because...

Thank you for...

I appreciate you when...

I want..

Visitor's Day on January 21

Tuesday, January 21, is our Visitor's Day.  We will have 9 women visiting our group.  Please keep your eyes out for new faces and join us in making them feel welcome!

Although Tuesday's Visitor's Day is full, if you know someone who'd like to join MOPS, please tell them to look for fall registration on our blog early summer.

See you Tuesday!