There are tons of Holiday Gift Guides out there right now, and going from blog to blog can be daunting at times. I decided that instead of giving you my gift guide, I’d round up all of MY favorite gift guides, creating the Ultimate Gift Guide Round Up.

I asked many of the bloggers behind the gift guides I love: If money was no object what is the ONE thing you want for the holidays? It has to be for you, not related to family or work or charity. I want to highlight that moms don’t put themselves first.

Kelby of Type A Parent has a great Gift Guide for Digital Moms and Dads.

Alli Worthington of Blissfully Domestic has a Gift Guide Round Up for links to food, craft, electronics, etc.

Leticia of Tech Savvy Mama has a whole page for various Holiday Gift Guide 2011.

Connie @ConnieFoggles of Brain Foggles created the Brain Foggles Holiday Gift Guide 2011, and said, “If money was no object, I’d love to get a makeover – from hair, to makeup to clothing. I feel out of fashion and old. This would brighten up the way I feel about myself, not because I base my worth on my looks, but because I know I can look better with the right tools”.

Dawn @DawnSandomeno of The Partybluprints Blog answered my question saying “a vacation somewhere warm, a spa day”. She has Simply The Best Holiday Gifts Ideas For 2011.

Annie @MamaDweeb of Mama Dweeb wants “a new van!” Check out her 2011 Holiday Gift Guide.

Kate @guavalicious of Guvalicious has a Gift Guide For Toddlers and a Gift Guide For Preschoolers.

Our very own Emily @ColoradoMom of Colorado Moms went nuts this year and put together 3 fantastic lists: Made in Colorado, Top 10 Toys For The Holidays and her Special Needs Toy Guide is on Time To Play @TimetoPlay.

Melanie @chilihead of Blogging Basics 101 suggested Four E-Books Your Blogging Friends Will Love: A Gift Guide for Bloggers, and yes I will be buying them all for ME! Her answer to the question was, ”if money were no object, I’d love to learn something new (e.g., art or pottery classes, guitar lessons, etc.).”

Jessica @FoundtheMarbles of Found The Marbles has a post about Great Holiday Gifts That Give Back.

Andrea (@Gr8Thoughts) of Great Thoughts has a Holiday Gift Guide Great Thoughts’ Style, and as a true bibliophile I can say that this one will be looked at VERY carefully.

Julie of Just Precious @justprecious has Preschooler Gift Guide (ages 2 and 3) and Six-To Ten- Year Old Boys Holiday Gift List. Here answer as to her one gift, ”I’d love to have our dining room furnished and decorated by a pro that shares my taste so I don’t have to do all the work (I love decorating but don’t have the time right now for another room), a new kitchen table to complete our kitchen, and, WTH, a new home on a big property with lots of privacy. Which, of course, would mean lots and lots and lots of new furnishings and decorating.”  Julie you are a woman after my own heart…just in from Julie has added another gift, which should be the most important, Christmas or Hanukkah gifts: Mom (and wife) Chic.

Rachel Ferrucci @rachelferrucci n=has a great Grandma’s Top 5 Holiday Toy Guide For Toddlers. Trust me you’ll want to check this out, because she’s one of the hippest Grandma’s I know. Well next to my mom of course.

I just posted a Hanukkah Gift Guide: Jewish Jewelry for those of you looking for beautiful jewelry for someone celebrating Hanukkah.

Kelly of The Centsible Life (@centsiblelife) has added Free Shipping Friday and Last Minute Gift Guide to her site, which is fantastic.

Stay tuned everyone. I’ll be adding more lists as I come across them…

So now my question to you: If money was no object what is the ONE thing you want for the holidays? It has to be for you, not related to family or work or charity. I want to highlight that moms don’t put themselves first.

I’m lucky enough to have my children go to a Charter school, however, the way it works is that most of the budget comes from generous donations that have to be stretched pretty far. With today’s financial situation hitting our school systems, every parent like myself wonders every day how the school systems will be able to stretch their budgets anymore than they already do.

Macy’s is giving away $25,000 to a school for a makeover. I think about all of the little things the school could get with $25,000. The thought of being able to offer the library 2,000 more books. How about getting enough boxes of crayons for every kid in the school? I would even try to find a way to get a computer lab, so that each child has a chance to learn to use a computer correctly and safely.

In truth winning this would be great just to be able to give the school that gives my children such an amazing education a chance to make things better for all of the students in the school. The possibilities are endless.

All you have to do to enter the giveaway is to go to the Macy’s Facebook page and enter the Macy’s Classroom Makeover Sweepstakes.

This sponsored post is in association with SheSpeaks who has teamed up with Macy’s to promote this fantastic giveaway.

When back-to-school season comes around I am on the hunt for a new backpack, or lunch bag, or both. Schoolbags For Kids is more than just a bag though, it’s a backpack with purpose. My love for a good/beautiful bag extends to the bags my children carry. No I’m not shallow, I just want them to have sturdy well organized bags for school.

Imagine my delight when I met the fantastic Schoolbags For Kids  (@schoolbags4kids) backpack ($54.99) in person. It’s not only organized and sturdy, but it looks fantastic and is quite unique. I opened it up and showed it to my oldest “J” who is going into 2nd grade. He loved all of the pockets, and began to plot what he would put in there next week. (We start school on Tuesday.)

It gets better because not only does this company make great backpacks, they are also giving back as much as they recieve. Schoolbags For Kids began on the premise that for every schoolbag sold, one bag with school supplies will be given to a child in need around the world. “J” thought it was pretty cool (that’s a direct quote), that they donate backpacks full of supplies. Then of course like all children he had to ask “mom what do they put in those backpacks?”

Without further ado, I hope these pictures do this bag justice. I already told “J” that if he doesn’t use it I will. I mean red is my favorite color after all.

In case you wanted to see a picture of a 7 year old pouting while wearing the backpack, I thought I’d make a collage of 2.

Side by Side with “J’s” current backpack from Lands End (Classmate Study Hall from 2 years ago).

Aren’t the pockets dreamy?

Putting the great supply of pockets to use. In the upper left corner picture you can see the pocket for a laptop. For now we’ll be using it as a folder or book pocket.

The contents of the backpack for above pictures***

I am Elizabeth.  I am founder of a Birthday party ideas site called Party Planning Professor and blog at Love Is Time. My life as a foster mom, birth mom and occasionally give you blogging tips. Every day isn’t a walk in the park for any of us.  I personally have been through some tough times with family, some historical (in my heart) break-ups with boyfriends and have had to say hello and goodbye to over 21 foster children.  I have had some heartbreak but I try so hard to take each moment and learn how to celebrate them in some way.  Here is 7 tips that help me have a little sunshine on a rainy day.

(via)

1. Get Crazy : Go be silly. Dance. Blast the music and soothe the soul. Buy a new download on iTunes or treat yourself to a CD.  Jump and blast the music.  (P.S. Don’t make the music too loud or the neighbors may start to wonder if you really have gone crazy). Really just enjoy the moment, enjoy every beat, and enjoy the music from ear to ear.

2.  Get Creative:  Get in the kitchen and bake something that you have never made before.  Dust off the sewing machine and sew something.  Anything! Decorate the house, rearrange the furniture.   Pick a new favorite color and create something in that shade.

3. Get Loud:  Call a friend.  Laugh out loud.  Talk about upbeat things.  Yap Away.  Learn something new about a friend.

4.  Get Outside:  Soak in the sunshine.  Breath in the air.  Many people think that your nose is meant for oxygen and your mouth was created for food consumption and communication.  Take deep breaths and concentrate on enjoying the space.

5. Get Moving: Go for a walk.  Take an exercise class!   Turn on your Wii and an exercise movement game.  Try racing your friend or kids to the car.  Go learn to play a game you have never played before.

6. Get Positive: It is time to knock off the negative and look at the positive. Read inspirational quotes or look for spiritual guidance.  Realize you are only in charge of you and others are responsible for themselves.  Acknowledge that life can hand you a rough deck of cards but nothing will compare to the way you decide to play them.  Reaction is in your hands make positive choices from here on out!

7.  Get Believing:  Some say 7 is an unlucky number.  That is exactly why I choose to stop at number 7.  I do not believe in luck be it good or bad.  I believe in opportunity meeting a situation and how it is handled.  You need to start believing.  You need to realize a way to be cheerful is believing you can no matter what the circumstances are.  You need to start believing in your right, in your choice and in your obligation to yourself to be cheerful and content.  It is your turn to be you, a more cheerful you!  :).

Enjoy your life!  Here is some music just to cheer you up step #1.  See…..look how far you have come!

Those of you who don’t know me let me tell you a very well known fact. I am obsessed with organizers, and all things that help organize. Spreadsheets are my friends. AboutOne has ended my search for organizational perfection because it truly organzied everything.

Life is busy when you’re a Mom!
 
Between doctor appointments, medical forms, school records, and adorable homemade cards that are way too cute to toss, the task of storing important paperwork and preserving and sharing family memories is no easy feat. Throw in thousands of photos and stuff piles up fast!
 
AboutOne’s digital filing cabinet takes care of all that paperwork. Think of it as your new Mother’s Helper!

Get started, get going, and get organized in a flash! It’s fast and easy by taking a few seconds to enter small pieces of information as they enter your life, at home or on-the-go. Just email from your phone or scan directly into the system.

AboutOne uses the power of the cloud to make sure you have the information you need, wherever you are, to make informed decisions and respond quickly to an emergency. And like a good Mother’s Helper, AboutOne is the extra set of hands that helps you manage all the details.
 
AboutOne’s digital filing cabinet takes care of all that paperwork. Think of it as your new assistant!

Get started, get going, and get organized in a flash! It’s fast and easy by taking a few seconds to enter small pieces of information as they enter your life, at home or on-the-go. Just email from your phone or scan directly into the system.

AboutOne uses the power of the cloud to make sure you have the information you need, wherever you are, to make informed decisions and respond quickly to an emergency. And like any good assistant, AboutOne is the extra set of hands that helps you manage all the details.

Make informed decisions with a complete picture of each family member’s health:

* Keep track of your family’s health records especially information on conditions, medications, doctors, immunizations, appointments, insurance, emergency contacts, and more
* AboutOne automatically prepare health summaries for each family member for trips to the doctor, and caregiver information sheets to give the babysitter on date night!
* Get alerts and reminders about upcoming appointments and prescription expirations

Preserve your family memories:

* Snap a photo, shoot a video, or scan your child’s artwork and email it to AboutOne.
* AboutOne automatically creates multimedia family newsletters and beautiful hard copy photo memory books from the digital scrapbook.

Create a central location for your important school records:

* Document your family’s education records, awards, grades, class schedules, organized by grade level and school.
* Capture high school details including GPA, transcripts, standardized test scores, and volunteer hours, and they’re all neatly summarized for your college applications at the touch of a button.

 Our Address Book helps keep track of friends, family, household contractors, utility companies and other personal contacts:

* Don’t have time to buy a birthday card? Send paper cards and invitations that mail themselves right through our system
* Can’t remember what you bought Grandmom last year for her birthday? No problem, we have a gift log for recording gift ideas, gifts given and received, plus birthday and anniversary reminders

Store home and vehicle details to preserve the value of your possessions:

* Automatic maintenance reminders help keep your home in tip top shape
* Appliance purchase/repair dates, model number, owner’s manual and warranty information
* Record vehicle registration/maintenance and home improvement/maintenance, including what’s been done, by whom, and the cost.

AboutOne is giving away 5 great prizes to Fashionably Organized readers: Grand Prize of $25 Gift Card to Amazon, and 4 one year subscriptions to AboutOne.

Mandatory Entry to win 1 of these great prizes, sign up for a 1 month free trial on AboutOne. Once you’ve signed up for your free trial come back to Fashionably Organized and leave a comment that you have signed up for a free trial.

This giveaway is open to US residents only. All comments must be posted by July 18th 3 PM PST. The winners will have 48 hours to respond once they are notified via e-mail.

Optional Entries (please a comment below for each of the following you do):

* Like AboutOne on Facebook
* Follow AboutOne (@AboutOne) on Twitter
* Follow Fashionably Organized (@FashOrganized) on Twitter
* Tweet this giveaway, by hitting the retweet button at the top or bottom of this post (no more than 2 tweets per day)

1 more thing: AboutOne has given Fashionably Organized readers a 25% off discount off of a 1 year subscription, so that you can get started right away with this amazing system. Use code: FASHORG714, and hurry becaus it expires 8/31/2011.

Here’s a video to learn more about AboutOne’s great family organization system.

Now if only I could program AboutOne to clean my house…

It wasn’t until I started looking for the pictures of my children with their 1st teeth, that I realized it had been so long since I looked at baby pictures of my boys who are now almost 7 and 5.5. I cannot believe how much they have grown.

Although my youngest is just over 2, seeing her baby pictures made me realize how much she’s grown in 1 year. Her personality has evolved so much in that year.

Baby’s 1st tooth is something that brings parents back to the next round of sleepness nights, when the baby is waking up in teething pain. I suddenly have flash back to all of that drool. I had to change J’s bib 7 times a day [at least].

Now J will be 7 and E is 5.5. I wish I had known enough to freeze those moments because they go by in a flash. I keep thinking about how they are going to be in college in no time so savor the moments, and yet there’s nothing I can do about the time going by. Seeing these pictures 0f my children as baby’s with those cute little teeth reminds me of 1 of the first milestones of my children’s lives.

Don’t forget to share your child’s 1st tooth picture on BabyCenter (@BabyCenter) to win Tide for a year. Details below…

BabyCenter is giving away a year’s worth of  Tide’s Free & Gentle for the next 4 months. Simply go over to BabyCenter to upload a picture of your child’s milestones. Upload a photo of your baby’s 1st tooth, by June 6th to win this month’s prize. No purchase necessary. See all official rules for more information.

Today on Smartly So Cal is my story about how I discovered that Shoe Love Is Genetic, and how my daughter definitely has my gentic code. It’s a must read with a super cute picture of my daughter, but I’m not biased.

As parents our baby’s 1st birthday is one of the moments in your child’s life that you will never forget. I’m sure there are very few people who actually remember their 1st birthday, but there is no doubt in my mind that every parent remembers their children’s 1st birthday.

Just before J’s 1st birthday I told R that our birthday tradition should be to take a picture of J waking up on his birthday. We discussed it further, and thought it would be great to take a picture of all of our kids (when we had more), on their birthdays. We’ve never forgotten to take that first wake-up picture on their birthdays. They’re always sleepy pictures, but fantastic nonetheless. The boys are old enough now that they know it’s the tradition of the morning. However, they love to see their 1st birthday picture, so we share them often. We can’t wait for A to get to the age where she’ll want to see the picture of her 1st birthday.

Here are the 1st picture on all of my kids’ 1st birthdays. Yes, I am teary eyed, but what can I say they don’t stay babies forever. Don’t forget to share your child’s 1st birthday picture on BabyCenter (@BabyCenter) to win Tide for a year. Details below…

J’s 1st birthday June ’05

E’s 1st birthday December ’06

A’s 1st birthday February ’10

BabyCenter is giving away a year’s worth of  Tide’s Free & Gentle for the next 4 months. Simply go over to BabyCenter to upload a picture of your child’s milestones. Upload a photo of your baby’s 1st birthday, by April 25th to win. No purchase necessary. See all official rules for more information.

Welcome to the Fashionably Organized party! Not only is it a blog party but today (the 1st) is my birthday. It’s crazy to think that the ladies from 5 Minutes For Mom would throw me a party, but here we are. Last year I participated in the Ultimate Blog Party 2010 and I realized I wasn’t taking my blog to where I wanted to be. Joining the party was a real eye opener for me. For those of you who are new to the party I hope this is a defining moment as it was mine.

I’m a mom of 3 children – my 6.5 year old son, 5 year old son and 2 year old daughter. I work full time as a paralegal. I live in Los Angeles, and am one of the few natives here. I’ve been married for 8 years next week to my Chicago native husband. Then of course there are the Random 100 Things About Me, that will give you even more insight into what makes me, ME!

How to describe my blog: It is my passions and my voice all in one place. I love fashion, beauty, home DIY projects, home decorating, organization and hand embroidery.

Some of my fave posts:

My DIY Necklace Holder was a labor of love, and it is still one of my favorite projects.

As an avid fashion/shopping/etsy lover I had to put it all together in a Fashion Friday post called Gorgeous Etsy Clothing

My friends Kelly of The Centsible Life and Rachel Ferrucci of Rachel Ferrucci and I  started a Tuesday meme – Tuesday Tools, Tips and Tricks for everyone to share their home DIY projects and/or tips. Check out my post about Refinishing Wood Furniture. Do you have projects to share? Come on by next Tuesday and link up. We love to see everyone’s projects.

Need help finding the best affordable make-up then check out my Affordable Make-Up Report. Tons of great finds at great prices.

Want to know what I love to read. Check out my Must Read Blogs for more great blogs.

Thank you so much for stopping by and for saying hello. I can’t wait to get on my way to meeting wonderful bloggers such as yourself. Everyone is welcome, but please do not comment vomit.

Japan was hit hard by an earthquake the likes of which we have never seen. I watched live on TV as the Tsunami was dragging buses and cars like matchbox cars across the country. I was riveted and couldn’t even imagine what would be going through mind if I was there.

We all sit here wondering how we can help, what can we do? It seems a million miles away, but then it’s right here facing us in pictures and stories of loss. We can donate (or click on the ”Post With Purpose” logo above) to the Save The Children foundation to make a difference to the hundreds of thousands of children who are affected by this disaster.

The biggest losers in all of this are children. Save The Children has released facts about the Japanese disaster that are heartwrenching:

I live in SoCal where earthquake is a word you can’t forget. I was raised in Northridge, CA and was in high school when the 1994 earthquake hit. It hit hard. My own high school was closed for 2 weeks, as it was a red cross station for displaced families. Families were living in my high school gymnasium and continued to do so for months afterwards. Driving around seeing places I knew and loved in ruble is burned in mind forever. 15 years later I get teary eyed while I write this. It’s a disaster that can’t ever be forgotten. I feel the Japanese people trying to make heads or tails of the disaster that has hit them. I can only hope that this post will help them one reader at a time.