My Parenting Resume

Meet our oldest, Monica. She has been happily married to a successful corporate salesman for 7 years and they have two of the most wonderful children you can possibly imagine (OK, I'm a bit prejudice about that!)

Monica began working when she was about 13 as a Summer babysitter three days a week for a neighbor. The children's grandmother told me often how much she appreciated the help Monica gave her daughter. All through high school she had a variety of jobs and every employer commented to me how hard she worked. And now, besides being a great mom, she's a self-employed photographer as well as a successful Pampered Chef consultant.

If that isn't enough, she has an associates degree in photography, plays bass in the church praise team, coordinates the Vacation Bible School Program and Golf Scramble at Sycamore Tree Church and grooms dogs a couple days a week.

I invite you to get to know her a bit better, perhaps even hire her to do a photo shoot. Just click here to see what she can do for you. And if you love Pampered Chef, contact me and I'll be sure she gets back to you as soon as possible.

She's the owner of Real Tall Tree, LLC, renting apartments in the Steubenville area, just created a photo booth you can rent for parties, receptions and fundraisers, and if that's not enough, she took up tap and hip hop!

Her most recent endeavor is a framing shop. She's already made her first few frames and is just waiting to create yours!

Yep, this girl does it all! Check below for links!

This is a Great Place to find Kids Gifts

Sylv graduated from Otterbein College in 2007 with honors and will have her Master's degree soon. Of course, that's after graduating 4th in her High School class. She has teaching licenses in two states, and after reaching her bachelors degree with a 3.9+ average, she is nearing the same GPA in her post-graduate studies. Additionally, she's married to our local computer guru, our most recent wedding.

While math is her passion, she also enjoys Language Arts, and shares her love of books and the English language with 7th graders in Northern WV. She started working between her Junior and Senior year in high school and hasn't really had much lapse since. She probably would have entered the job market earlier; however she kept pretty busy playing her trumpet in concert, marching and jazz band as well as other special music events at school. Plus, in her younger years Sylv took part in many Oddessy of the Mind Teams, even going with a team to state!

Let me share with you one of her creative teaching methods. In Spring 2009 for the last quarter of school, she donned her class a "no like" zone. Middle School kids using the word "like" instead of "um" or just as a sentence filler has become a real problem. To help the class see the severity of their poor grammer, she gives each student two tickets at the beginning of each class. Any time they use the word "like" inappropriately, they surrender a ticket. If they have any tickets left at the end of class, they put them in a bowl and at the end of the year she's going to have a drawing for some prize. The students are loving it, and after only a week, they've begun to realize how much they've been abusing the English Language.

In addition to teaching and getting her masters, Sylv sings and plays trumpet for our church praise team. The most recently married, she wrote a song for her dad and had the DJ surprise him with it. I loaded it here: A Song for Daddy

Julia may have been the last born, but she quickly made sure she wasn't the last noticed. Although she's grown out of it, she was our very own drama queen. I tell people all the time she's my "girly girl" and my "tomboy" all wrapped into one tiny package (yes, she's still tiny).

And although she's small, she's what everyone calls a hard worker. It doesn't matter whether it's at a desk or behind a shovel, she works. Right out of high school she worked a salaried job running the office of a small division in a national company while she finished her associates degree in business.

Our area's first Certified Turbo Kick instructor, Julia has a passion to help folks become healthy (not thin . . . healthy), she's a Beach Body Coach and is planning to get Pyo certified very soon. If that wasn't enough, she and her husband of 3 years built their own home and moved in more than a year ago. Not too shabby for someone who hasn't hit 25 yet!

And just last week she stopped in to clean my house for me . . . now that's a blessing!