Relationships: Prioritizing, Sustaining, & Thriving
How you show up in the world is a direct reflection of your most important relationship – the one you have with yourself. Beyond massages, manicures, and meditation having a deeper understanding of what self-care looks like to you is crucial towards creating sustainable and thriving relationships with others.
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Genna loves singing in the car, dancing in the kitchen, and eating the curl off the top of everyone’s ice cream cones. She’s mom to a 4-year-old who comes running when you call for “batman” and an almost 7-year-old whose favorite color is glitter and thinks all dress codes should include heels and dresses.
Genna is constantly working to find a healthy balance between motherhood and building a career she’s passionate about. She has over a decade of experience in national and international event production and is always working to execute successful events and create a positive impact.
Practicing Positive Parenting
Our family was falling apart with every transition. Simple requests like, “Put on your shoes!” had turned into an all out battle of wills with my kids and it seemed like the tantrums would. Not. Stop. I was angry. I was tired. I was ready to give up and let YouTube raise my children. In total desperation, I clicked on a link about about Positive Parenting strong-willed children – and from that day on, everything changed. In my presentation, I will share a few of the cornerstone theories of Positive Parenting (including why it works) and some simple techniques you can start implementing TODAY to improve your relationships with your children!
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Kelly Bandas is a writer and pediatric speech language pathologist. Her blog OohBother.com is a popular Positive Parenting website, where she seeks to educate other parents about the benefits of Positive Parenting and share the details of her own family’s journey through parenthood and international adoption. Kelly and her family live in Nashville, TN where they recover from her husband’s career as a professional country musician by raising three chickens and feeding their sons a strict musical diet of Rock ‘n’ Roll. When she is not writing about Positive Parenting, you can find Kelly working on the manuscript for her first book or perhaps sprawled on the couch watching Real Housewives.
Cultivating Friendships In Motherhood
Find your village and love them hard is a common motherhood trope, but where do you find a village? One of our biggest challenges when becoming new moms was both the invisible pressure to find our tribe, and then “clicking” with our newfound tribe, outside of all things motherhood related. We learned that finding thriving mama friendships entailed much more than play dates and other children-themed activities and that the common denominator had to more than just being a mom…we needed connection in our relationships. We were desperate for some sort of intersection between the community we needed, and the creativity we craved; Something that would satiate both facets of our new, and pre-existing identities. The inception of MTHR Collective, a retreat for creative mothers was then born (pun halfway intended).
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I grew up in Roseville, a suburb out of Sacramento (thanks, Lady Bird!), and in a family full of creatives. After finishing my BA in Communications at SDSU in 2005, I was desperate for adventure and much-needed perspective, and I bought my first SLR camera and spontaneously booked a flight to Cambodia to join other aspiring photographers from across the world. While I had zero camera-operating skills initially (caught myself pushing multiple buttons at once, like it was a Nintendo controller), it was this trip where I learned how to “storytell” through images, and where I developed my thirst for photography and compulsion to document life. Close but not too close to home is how I landed in San Francisco in 2010, and I began working as a media buyer for a small marketing agency. It was the best SAFE job I’ve ever had, but my photography “hobby” was quickly becoming a passion, and that passion was turning into paid gigs, and the gigs eventually became weddings. I quickly learned that documenting someone’s most important day brought me an immeasurable amount of joy that I couldn’t experience at my desk job. I went full time with my wedding photography business in 2013, and it has been an exhilarating experience, ever since (with one million challenges along the way!). My posse consists of my husband, David, our two year old baby girl, Eisley, our massive Pitbull, Maddox, and baby #2 due in August!
I grew up in a little cowtown just outside Sacramento called Elk Grove. The oldest of five girls and raised by my strong, independent Mexican mother, I learned early on what it meant and looked like to hustle as a woman and never stop working towards my goals…which is probably why presently I’ve convinced myself I can run two businesses, work part-time, and be a full-time mother. Let’s face it though, if there isn’t at least a tiny bit of chaos am I even myself?! I currently live in downtown Sacramento as a single mama with my 2-year-old little meatball Walker Hudson working as a freelance graphic designer and building our dream life surrounded by the best family and friends.
Dating Your Partner
Squeezing romance between baseball games, bedtime books, bubble baths and wiping boogers isn’t easy. Children take up all your time – no matter how many. So finding time for your partner isn’t always easy and the top of your to-do list. Join us as we teach you ways to rediscovering emotional and physical intimacy with your partner to improve your relationship.
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Amberly has a B.S. in Family Studies and is a Provisionally Certified Family Life Educator. She wants to inspire other couples to put their marriage first and strive to continually build a better relationship with each other. Her goal is to provide couples with resources, tools and information that will help them make their marriage a priority, no matter what their current stage in life looks like. Amberly lives in Utah with her husband and two kids. She loves date night, family adventures, purple, chocolate, summer thunderstorms, Gilmore Girls and showtunes. Amberly currently works part time as a nutrition educator for the Food $ense (SNAP-ed) program and loves the opportunities she’s had to teach in her community.
Finding Personal Fulfillment After Becoming A Mom
Chelsey Curtis has been a professional event planner for the past 7 years and is the queen of Women’s-Only Dance Parties. In her webinar, she will share her secrets on how to rediscover the passions and dreams you had before you had children to improve your relationship with yourself. Also, tips on how to become seen as an expert in your industry.
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Chelsey Curtis has been a professional event planner for the past 7 years and is the Queen of Women’s-Only Dance Parties.
In addition to coordinating and planning her own events to uplift and bring women together, she has worked with dozens of local and national brands like Coca-Cola, Target, The Home Depot, Blue Bunny Ice Cream, and Costco, creating party content online. She loves mentoring other aspiring event planners who want to learn how to get paid to share their talents for event planning (even without a college degree). She is passionate about teaching what she knows to help others create successful businesses using their talents and doing something they love! She’s a wife to her best friend Nick, and together they have two children.
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