Today is Summer Fun Day at Mabel’s Labels! Everyone went outside to eat lunch, drink lemonade and enjoy the sunshine.

Tamara and Janet did a great job of making bubbles while Heather and Alex practiced for the Hula Hoop competition.

Once lunch was finished the games got started. Turns out, Mabel’s Labels staff are a competitive bunch when it comes to Hula Hoops and bubblegum.
Alex and Heather began the Hula Hoop competition with Heather winning the heat. Next up was Catherine verses Heather. They managed to hula for almost one minute until both hoops dropped at the same time. A re-match was ordered and Catherine emerged as Mabel’s Labels Hula Hoop Queen!

Unfazed by her loss, Heather moved on to the bubble blowing competition and put the rest of us to shame with the biggest and longest timed bubble.

Mary Ann and Ramona tied for best unique beach wear!

Mary Ann had the day off!

Ramona

The picture you see is of my beautiful nephew Emmett with his dog, Magnum. A picture of our family pet does not exist because we do not have, nor will we ever get a furry friend. My kiddos often complain about how difficult it is having a mean mama. I like to remind them that they may luck out in their next lives, but for now they are stuck with me.

Nagging for a pet is a hobby for my kids. Last summer I compromised and told them they could have fish, but not the pet store kind. You see, there are these nuisance fish called globbies that hang out in Lake Ontario and eat the eggs of native fish. When you pull a globbie out of the lake you are not supposed to put it back in, so they generally become lunch for the nuisance seagulls.

When fishing at the lake last summer, I let my kids put a few globbies in a bucket and bring them home. Generous, I know. We made a nice fish habitat in a big plastic container in the backyard. The excitement ended in disappointment the next morning when we discovered the local raccoons had a feeding frenzy on our pets – fish heads and guts scattered around the backyard. “Never mind” said I and back to the shores of Lake Ontario we went. We were determined to beat the raccoons at their own game. The next morning we were delighted to see that our pets survived the night. Things went pear-shaped later in the day when we went to check on our fish and they were all belly-up. Clearly, we are not a family well suited for pets.

The recent birth of Finian caused my sister to get a bit clucky. Her kids are now ten-years-old and six-years-old so she was not really thinking another baby at this point in the game. But, she was clucky enough that her kids were able to successfully talk her into a puppy. In comparing our baby and puppy stories, my sister and I have discovered is that we are going through remarkably similar experiences – except that her puppy is more work than my baby. Puppies don’t wear diapers and when they have ‘medical’ appointments, they are not covered by Medicare or any benefits plan.

Since playing with their cousins’ puppy, the nagging for a pet has started up again around here. I keep reminding them that we have wee baby Fin, to which they respond “but he’s a baby not a dog!!” Hmmm, can’t outsmart my clever kids.

I get that pets are good for kids – teaching them about responsibility, life cycles and all that good stuff. My feeling is that as long as I’m cleaning up human poop I’m steering clear of animal poop. Besides, spring is here so we can head back down to the lake for some more pets. Who knows – maybe we’ll be able to keep them alive for a full 24 hours this summer!

We know people love our products, but we’re tickled to report that People (as in the magazine) does too! Mabel’s Labels has been featured in people.com several times in the last little while. Our gift certificates were included in the luxe gift bags at the first birthday party for Tori Spelling’s and Dean McDermott’s daughter, Stella. Guests at that star-studded bash included Melissa Joan Hart, Lisa Rinna, Harry Hamlin, Scott Baio and Larry Birkhead.

Mabel’s Labels’ Bag Tags also swung stylishly from the loot bags at their son Liam’s car-themed earlier this year:

Finally (well, for now!), we were also so proud to be part of Scott and Renne Baio’s Celebrity Yard Sale for their Bailey Baio Foundation. Featuring items from celebrity friends, the sale raised over $16,000 in less than six hours!

I was recently sitting around with my business partners chatting about our Mabel journey. We realized that over the last few years, the Mabel lifestyle has at times been a bit crazy. We have certainly found ourselves in some pretty wacky situations. So entertaining was the discussion, it’s worth sharing a few moments.

The Early Days:

- We were working out of a tiny basement making labels until 3:00am then going home to start the day with our kiddos at 6:00am. Oh, and three of the four of us were pregnant. You can understand why whenever we heard our friends complaining about being tired we’d quietly roll our eyes. Doing that first trimester fatigue on three hours sleep…..well, not our best days.

- We did everything ourselves, including licking the envelopes. Ellis and Cynthia licked so many one night, they almost vomited. We had flashbacks to George Costanza’s fiancé’s untimely death on Seinfeld, the direct result of envelope licking. We quite easily could have been a sit com, but the star roles were very unglamourous!

- One terrible night a printer broke. We went into action and quickly problem solved the situation – my mom was called in immediately. You see, she is a retired primary school teacher with very nice handwriting. She hand wrote the address on every order that evening.

- We once folded 5000 brochures by hand because we couldn’t afford the $100 folding fee.

- We paid our first web designer with a foosball table in lieu of cash.

Other Crazy Stuff:

- While at a Baby Show, Mumby fixed Sarah’s (savvymom.ca) BlackBerry with a bunch of Sticky Labels samples. When I saw Sarah six months later, she proudly showed me her BlackBerry – still being held together by Mabel’s Labels. We’ve seen some good customer hacks in our time but this takes the cake.

- After doing a recent Pirate themed Baby Show (yes, weird, we know), for days Mumby’s facebook status updates only said things like “a-hoy”, “errrr” and “eye matey”.

- I once became a ‘camping expert’ in less than a day after getting a request for such an expert to appear on Breakfast Television. I’ve never googled so much about any one topic before in my life.

- Mumby has been known to chit-chat with the editors from Penthouse while trying desperately attempting to come up with a PR angle.

- Mumby has been seen walking around Chicago with Oprah labels, just in case she ran into Oprah.

- Cynthia and I once drove for six hours for a four minute TV spot, only to then turn around and drive home.

- We once sent a box of brochures off to a camp then found out that a camel arrived instead of our brochures. Yes, a camel. We still have no idea who intercepted the package, but this is the stuff Mabel legends are made of. The camp even forwarded us the picture of the camel, which arrived with a Mabel magnet attached to it! Full story here: http://www.mabel.ca/wordpress/?p=252.

And just when we thought we’d done it all and seen it all, last week Ellis and I somehow ended up modelling in a mama fashion show. Uh, you remember that I’m five weeks out of my sixth c-section, right? Well clearly I forgot that fact when I agreed to strut my mama stuff. Three words: pass the Spanx!

So from the dark and dreary corners of a basement to the catwalk, I can only imagine the weird and wonderful places Mabel will take us in the next few years!

Next time you’re at the grocery store, standing in a line-up, check out the July issue of Today’s Parent Magazine, p. 26, and you’ll find Mabel’s Labels’ “My 411 Wristbands” featured as one of the PTPA (Parent Tested Parent Approved) award winning products. PTPA media works with parents and professionals to evaluate a variety of parenting products. Go Mabel!

One step for Mabel, one giant leap for mankind…