keers is Minti's 28th Featured Member! She's been a part of Minti since 2006, and has filled the community with her positive, friendly vibes. She always has a kind word to say and is always ready to help others.

So that we can shine the spotlight on her and get to know her better, she will answer the following questions:

1. Starting with name, location (dont be too specific), how many children (and ages).
2. How did you find Minti?
3. What's your favorite thing or feature at Minti?
4. What's your favorite thing about being a parent?
5. What has been your biggest parenting challenge?
6. What worries you most about parenting ? (education, health, mental development, physical development, teaching manners, etc )
7. What's the best parenting advice you've ever gotten from someone?
8. What were your babies first words?
9. What is your favorite song?
10. What is the funniest thing you or your child or significant other has done or said?
11. Using just one word sum up Minti.
12. What is the best piece of advice you have got from Minti?
13. How do you deal with your Minti addiction?
14. How does your family deal with your Minti addiction?

We can't wait to read your answers, allyp. Congrats!

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People who have already been a featured member:

1. Izzy
2. hrs2004
3. TheMentorMom
4. cheleinkal
5. wildrose
6. lindterbean
7. Tracey
8. pfallerj
9. mcm
10. MumKim
11. jenlemen
12. Kristen
13. Missed - unlucky no. 13!
14. breannababy
15. cookclan
16. Jessgore
17. Frontier
18. Hermy
19. lightbee
20. blackwidowkate
21. Marglr
22. llmunchkin
23. janicepovey
24. nell18-3
25. arna
26. cazza

The company hubby works for is in the process of laying off a little over 50% of it's employees in the next couple of months. Though hubby's job is safe for now, the company is not doing too well. After a reduction in the workforce, it is pretty much sink or swim within the next several months. It is worrisome especially now that we have 3 little ones, but we can't do anything about this right now. I have now decided to get rid of our junk in case we do have to move. And there are many junk! I am currenly starting with toys, though I don't know why. It's probably because they are more visible. I found a "waste not" program in our county where residents can leave their too-good-to-trash junk so that others may benefit from them.

I will probably then start in the kitchen (it's time to throw away those plastic cups and plastic containers that are really beyond their usefull life) and then off to the coat closet/hallway. Why we need so many coats and jackets, I'll never understand. Of course, the jackets and other things that are valuable, I'll have to donate to charity to get some tax benefits.

I'm tired just thinking of all the things I have to do.

There are numerous parenting dilemmas, but here one I am currently dealing with.

My twins take their first nap at 9:30 and the afternoon nap at 3. The girls are have lately not been sleeping well or taking very long to fall asleep on their afternoon nap. They usually take about 1 hour nap in the morning, so I decided to cut that to 45 minutes. By doing this, they fall asleep fairly easy on their second nap.

But here's the dilemma. I can go up to get them after 45 minutes of nap in the morning, but that's cutting my oh so rare quiet time short. So sometimes I end up letting them sleep for an hour or more or until they wake up, making it awfuly hard for them to fall asleep in the afternoon.

Problems, problems.

It is understandable that others may be confused on whether an article is really just an answer/response or whether it is trully an advice article. To reduce this confusion and reduce the number of articles being reported, here is what the Minti admins have agreed to:

An article is acceptable as advice as long as it is at least 2-3 sentences long and clearly contains an advice.

Though this is acceptable, we do urge the community to make comments on these short articles to give constructive criticisms and other tips and hints to improve the article for better rating and readership. Short/undeveloped advice articles do have a tendency to get burried under well written ones.

We spent an afternoon at the Pumpkin Carnival at the local farm last week and had a lot of fun. The boy scoured the field for the perfect pumpkin, which we later found out was a pumpkin he could carry. We rode the hay ride to get there and once we got off the truck, we were greeted by a clown. Thing 2 didn't mind the clown and even took a sticker from her, but Thing 1 was terrified. So when Daddy put her down here for the picture, she cried instantly thinking that the clown was still around. Thankfully the clown high-tailed out of there the minute Thing 1 started crying.

My apologies to all about not keeping up with picking a Minti featured member. I've throughly enjoyed it since the beginning and loved knowing more about an individual. I will try and get it going again by picking someone by this week.

Just a reminder to go easy on reporting articles. The only articles that should be reported are articles that breach the Terms of Service  (spam, having more than one account for example) and or the Code of Honor. Reporting an article for disagreeing with it is not proper use of the the report function.

Short/undeveloped articles are also not a reason to report articles, as was already explained by Matthew here. Articles are an attempt of newcomers to participate in our community. How many of us still have articles that are not up to par during our early days?

I've just cleaned up the reported section, some against the majority vote. Please keep the Codes of Honor and Terms of Service handy as a guide on whether to report an article. If they do not breech the CoH or ToS, then you may discuss your concerns in the Report It or Not Group

Yesterday morning, Big Bro asked if I could carry him down the stairs. I told him, "I can't, M. I told you Mommy's knees hurt."

He thought for a moment. "You carry only my sisters?"

Feeling like I've been caught in a lie, "They're babies and they are not very good at doing down the stairs yet. But you're a big boy and can do that by yourself."

He cocked his head to the side and crinkled the side of his face. He looked up at me and asked, "Your knees don't hurt when you carry my sisters?"

I conceded quietly and thought it better to change the subject at this point.

I bought a bear harness and a dog harness for my girls. I've been letting them walk instead of using the stroller when we drive M to school. And it's getting harder and harder because they go on 2 different directions! So today, I used the harness on them. The problem is, M wanted to wear his too (he has a monkey one when he was younger). I told him he could wear it but he didn't need to wear the tail, but he insisted the tail be on and that I MUST hold onto it. It wasn't easy holding on to 3 harness. But finally, we got inside the building and he took his off.

I finally got costumes for my girls. Of course I had to get them to try it on. They will be a strawberry fairy and a tulip fairy. Their big brother will be a Star Wars character.

The little man came down with a low grade fever yesterday by night time, he was coughing really bad. Then today, the hubby came home early because he was having chills and tonight, he's vomitted twice. The girls are now sick at the moment (crossing my fingers) and hopefully they won't. We are going to take the little man to meet Thomas the Tank Engine and Bob the Builder this weekend and he's been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks. Hopefully everything plays out for the best.