October 27th Meeting - WCPSS Kindergarten Registration

Our speaker this week was Tamani Anderson Powell, director of Marketing and Communications for Wake County Public Schools! She spoke on WCPSS' magnet programs and kindergarten registration. 

• Rising kindergarten parents need to go to your base school to register starting in January.

• Go here to find out your base: http://www.wcpss.net/parents/student-assignment/

• All registration forms for kindergarten can be found here: http://www.wcpss.net/parents/kindergarten/

Those of us with children under 3 spent our time with mentor mom Karen Cole, who answered questions about early education and how to entertain our young children at home.

 April helped us create these cute fall magnets to decorate our homes for the season! 

Also, don't forget about our Yankee Candle Fundraiser! Prizes will be awarded to the top individual seller and top small group! You can get all needed information HERE

Our finance coordinator Jamie Branham shared with us how she has begun the journey of defeating breast cancer. You can follow her journey and know about how to pray for her specifically at  http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/branhamjamie 

(Anyone can view but you do need to create an account.)

This morning she shared 2 things you can do for her: 

1. pray, pray, pray!
2. Do your own breast self-checks every month.

Here are some other ways you can also help her family specifically:

• Your Caring Donations for Cleaning Service and other expenses: https://www.youcaring.com/jamie-b-450193

• Meal & Grocery Sign Up (It is full now but more dates for January and on will be added in a month or so):http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0c4fada72aaa8-meals3

• Rodan & Fields "Go Naked Day": November 6th post a photo of yourself without makeup. R&F Consultant & Former MOPS Mom Lauren Grossman will be donating $4 for every photo she is tagged in to the Branham family. More information will be coming soon about this.

Hannah and Jackie's group will be responsible for bringing brunch. Please sign up HERE to specify what items you will be bringing!

Susan Ely will be speaking at our next meeting, and her topic is "HOLIDAZED! How To Slow Down, Spend Less, & Restore Sanity to the Holidays." It's an inspirational, humorous, time and money-saving talk about how to get back to the true reason for the season - perfect for young moms struggling with juggling it all.  The material presented is based on a Kindle book she wrote by the same name that is $2.99 in the app store. You can check it out here: http://holidazedbook.com/when-the-holiday-madness-starts-too-soon-2/

Yankee Candle Fundraiser 2015-2016

At our last meeting we started our Yankee Candle sale to help cover our scholarships and childcare expenses.  

We have a larger group this year which means increased childcare expenses.  This is a great opportunity for us to raise some extra funds and stay on budget as Crossroads MOPS will make 40% profit!  

There are over 150 items to choose from priced from $6.00 to $28.00.

Our goal is for every mom to sell 2 items. 

Our deadline is November 10th. 
Late orders will not be able to be accepted as we are cutting it very close for the Christmas deadline.

All money is collected NOW.  Make checks to Crossroads MOPS.

Items ordered from the catalog will be here at our December 8th meeting.  

If you are not going to be here on that day to receive your order, please let Kara know at CrossroadsRaleighMOPS@gmail.com so we can make arrangements.  On your order form, fill in the form number, your name, phone number, organization, and chairperson's name.

 You do not need to include sales tax as we are a tax exempt group.

 Yankee Candle has a new Mobile App!  

The App makes contacting family and friends even easier by sending messages through your contacts and social media posts!  It lets you load all your contacts from your phone, select who gets notified about supporting our group, and sends out one common message to all of them with instructions for how to order online.  

You can also send these messages online through their website.  You can provide e-mail addresses to our own Yankee Candle group fundraising page.

The profits are applied to your selling total and our group's grand total.

The only difference than ordering on the order form is online ordering is direct shipping; it will not come to the church with our order form deliveries.  There is a shipping charge.

To set this up for your friends and family, go to

https://www.yankeecandlefundraising.com

Click on seller login.

 

 Complete "Sign Up To Be A Seller."
Our group number is 990056842.

 

Online ordering (through website/app) is available until January 13, 2016. 

 We will have a prize for the top seller as well as a prize pack from Kings Bowling for the top small group (average per mom)!

If you were not at our meeting on October 13th, packets will be available at our next meeting.

You can go ahead and set up online ordering using the information above.    

If you have any questions feel free to comment!

October 13th Meeting - Raising Children in a Spiritual Household

We started off our Tuesday morning meeting with a great brunch and an announcement to all mom's from the Kid President! 

Wendy Schulz gave us some great tips on how to raise our children in a spiritual household. First, get all of YOUR questions about God answered. Kids have a "phony meter" and will know if you're teaching them something you don't believe yourself! She also gave us a challenge of spending some alone time with God each day and reading the scriptures with our children. This may look different for everyone, either waking up early, reading at dinner time, or corralling the kids in the bathtub and reading them a bible story where they can't escape! Wendy recommended the Jesus Storybook Bible as a great resource to teach the bible to little ones!

Trader Joe's was our sponsor for this week's meeting and provided a great gift basket for our raffle! If you weren't at the meeting you missed out!

We also kicked off our Yankee Candle Fundraiser and everyone received a packet of information and order forms. If you didn't get one, please ask for one at the next meeting!  There are two ways to shop - catalog and online. The top small group and top individual seller by November 10th will win a great prize package, so get out there and make some money for MOPS! Remember 40% of all sales go directly to our organization!

Go Play Save coupon books are still for sale! If interested in purchasing online with credit card go HERE, but take note there is a convenience fee added for online sales.

At the next meeting, we will be having a representative from WCPSS speaking to moms with children over 3 about the entry process for Kindergarten!

Moms with children under 3 who aren't quite ready for Kindergarten will be listening to our mentor mom Karen Cole speaking on early education!

Danielle's group will be responsible for bringing brunch on the 27th. Please sign up HERE to specify what items you will be bringing! 

We hope you will join us in this gorgeous fall weather!

(and MOPS!)

Important MOPS Information

Our Next Meeting

We are looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday, October 13th.  Drop off begins at 9:15am!

 

We will hear from Wendy on Raising Big Faith in Little Hearts.  Her description:

How in our busy schedules of dishes, dance class, and laundry are we supposed to fit “religious education” for our children? God has laid out the perfect plan, and it doesn’t require you to sign up for yet another activity. In this session we will explore how to intentionally start growing a big faith in our children through the everyday moments of life.

Bethany's group is bringing brunch for everyone so come ready to eat and enjoy time together!

We will also be raffling off a bag full of Trader Joe's goodies!

We are feeding 70+ moms each morning at MOPS so here's a few things to keep in mind when your group has brunch!

• Please sign up to bring 2 or more items.  We want to provide an an excellent brunch for everyone.  We chose this year not to double up groups for brunch assignments so that moms wouldn't have to bring brunch as frequently; this does mean it will need a little extra love on your assigned day though.
• One egg/potato dish should be 9x13 size or equivalent.
• If you know you will not be able to provide food on your scheduled day, please contact another member of your small group to make arrangements for drop-off.
• If your child has a nut allergy, be cautious bringing (s)he in to the Great Room.  We strive to keep the kids' classrooms nut-free but can not guarantee that for brunch items brought in.
• Please label your food, especially if there are allergens.  We will have sticky notes at the cart and on the table to label your food.

We had to adjust the brunch schedule slightly. 

October 13th - Bethany

October 27th - Danielle

November 10th - Hannah & Jackie

November 24th - Sarah

The rest of the list can be found here:

http://crossroadsraleighmops.blogspot.com/p/brunch-schedule.html

Curbside drop-off will begin at approximately 9:10am and 9:25am.  A member of the Leadership Team will be there with a cart to collect items to make it easier for you to get in to the building with your kids!

Because of some mom's stricter diets, we have also added an "allergy free dish" to our sign-up.  The allergy free item should be free of nuts, nut milk, wheat (gluten), dairy, and soy; you can label your item has allergen free and list the ingredients.  You are not able to accommodate every allergy/intolerance, but these are the  most common.  

 

Feel free to sign up for brunch in advance!  Visit:  http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d48aaad2ca13-crossroads

 Fundraiser Update

Our goal is to sell at least 8 more GoPlaySave books!

  We will be selling books for $30 each.

You can pay 3 ways: cash, check made payable to Crossroads MOPS, or by credit card using this link: http://www.goplaysavetriangle.com/store/cmop2016

We will have your book waiting for you on Tuesday!

You will make your money back. Just with Kroger coupons (can be used at Harris Teeter) there's $20 savings right there!  Plus Ace Hardware coupons are good at Lowes and Home Depot.  Not to mention numerous BOGO coupons for restaurants, ice cream, Marbles, Monkey Joes, museums, golf, and more!

Let's get this done on Tuesday!

 

If you haven't done so already, please pay your MOPS International Dues ($24.95) and Fall Semester dues ($50) to cover child care, craft, hospitality, and other expenses.

You can pay with exact cash or check made out to Crossroads MOPS tomorrow.  You can also pay online from HOME with a card HERE.

If the link doesn't work, go to CROSSROADS.ORG/MOPS and click on “Register.”  Feel free to leave off all the initial information about your kids, etc; we already have that on your registration form!

We also will have at least one computer available during the meeting that you can pay online.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has paid their dues so far!  This helps us stay on budget!

If you aren't sure of your payment status, e-mail CrossroadsRaleighMOPS@gmail.com.