A few weeks ago I told my mother that she had inspired me to stay connected with my kids through music. When I was a teen, my siblings and I called her “MTV Mom” because she watched and knew what was in, out, and when to be rightfully appalled. My friends thought she was cool, and she was… in a church-going-mom kind of way. After teasing her about her MTV Mom era, she laughed and asked, “Do you know who I like now? That Bruno Mars. He wears a belt at his waist and wow can he dance.” Love it.
And dance Bruno Mars did. Our entire family enjoyed his channeling of James Brown and his ability to mix and mingle different styles into 13 minutes. The last time our entire family agreed on and enjoyed a Super Bowl halftime was six years ago. It was a rainy vacation in San Diego and we were celebrating my son Ian’s 9th birthday. Huddled in our hotel room, we watched Tom Petty perform effortlessly and flawlessly. This gave my husband, Dave, and I a chance to share Petty with our kids in the present, instead of him being a relic of our past. This lead to Dave taking our oldest three to see him perform live. I Won’t Back Down has become a sort of family anthem when times are tough.
One of the biggest challenges a family faces is finding common ground. Men and women, girls and boys, adults and children, extroverts and introverts, athletes and artists, and so on, tend to find themselves engaged in different rooms or playing on different fields. To enjoy the same thing at the same time is exponentially wonderful and music has provided this for our family throughout generations.
Which activities and interests provide your family with common ground? Thanks always for visiting ❤
Hoping my kids don’t start calling me YouTube Mom 🙂 ~~~~~~~~ Angie Mc
Family Love Does More 
A good movie in the cinema ( just returned from “The wolf of Wall Street”)and holidays by the sea.
Besides the film above is a must see and Leonardo Di Caprio is beyond words, Superb!
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Movies! Thanks for the recommendation and I can’t argue with your take on Mr. Di Caprio 🙂 Holidays by the sea…lovely. We leave the Arizona desert regularly to go to San Diego and Coronado. You’re right, it doesn’t get much better than that. Hope your week is off to a great start, evelen ❤
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I have nominated you for the “shine on” award!
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Bruno Mars. Sigh..Legend!! xxx
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Whole package!!! Have a great week…with Bruno Mars songs dancing in our heads 🙂
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How far under a rock am I? I never even heard of Bruno Mars until the Super Bowl. Eep!
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Oh Dane, if it wasn’t for my teenagers I’m not sure I would be as aware. When my kids were little, I have several “dark years” of not knowing about popular music or much of anything going on outside of baby care and toddler tantrums! I enjoyed those times and now I’m enjoying these 🙂 Listen to “Locked Out of Heaven” and it will dance in your head all day! Hope you and yours have a great week! Thanks for stopping by.
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Don’t even get me started talking about Bruno Mars and his Super Bowl show….OMG! I went out of my mind. I thought the red Hot Chili Peppers combo was awkward! at first, but once Bruno went to the background! it was much better. /: honestly, it will go down as one of the best Super Bowl shows I’ve ever seen. Cora thinks I have a crush on him…..(;
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Crush….um…..seems like a reasonable reaction 🙂
While I was never a fan of Red Hot Chili Peppers, I’ll give it to them. I can’t imagine jumping around on stage like that at their ages. Heck, I could never have jumped around on a stage like that, LOL!
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I was so excited about Bruno Mars, I forgot about the rest of your post! Maybe Cora is right! (: anyway, Tom Petty…awesome! The other thing our family bonds over are movies. We have so many one-liners from movies we enjoy together! “No capes!” “It’s lost! The precious is lost!” My kids latest fave from DM2, “I just did a boom-boom.” I tried to stop that one, but it is funny.
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“No capes” is one of our family lines, too, LOL! And how about “Six inches” from Elf and “I’m aaaaaall right, I’m aaaaaall right” from It’s A Wonderful Life! Movies and movie lines – perfect.
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Bummer – I missed the Bruno Mars one. It’s been taken down. I’d never heard the name either until the SuperBowl.
I had to laugh when I saw, “No capes!” in the comments. That’s one of our family lines, too. 😀
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Ugh about the Bruno Mars video. I hope that either he or whoever has the rights to it will post it! I’ll check in a few weeks and reload if that happens.
How funny about “No capes!” I like this topic of movies lines so much, I’m going to give it it’s own post after I’ve collected a few more 🙂
Happy weekend, Ness!
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He is an amazing singer , partucularly when he performs alive.
Such a great dancer too. I
loved his show in the Superbowl, with the splits and that huge hair of him.
Thanks for bringing him to spot, Angie.
Have gorgeous day, Aquileana 🙂
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Happy Valentine’s Day Aquileana ❤
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Same to you sweetie !!!
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Did you see Tom Petty perform “I won’t back down” right after 9/11 on the tribute/money raising show? I still get a chill thinking about it.
Movies are a definite bonding thing in this house!
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I did! And I’m going to start blogging about movies we watch too. While I’m not a big movie fan, everyone else in my family is. So while I don’t watch as many, the ones I do watch, I really appreciate 🙂
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Historical factoid: More than one person told me that I look like Tom Petty (minus the beard, of course!) back in the day. And yes, my kids think that’s hilarious!
Youtube is a great source of quotes at our house.
We have had trouble finding movies to watch as a family, though. The age range, 17-10, is just too great. One of the last ones we saw as a family was “Brave” and my youngest was terrified when the mother turned into a fierce bear. . . way too intense, especially at movie theater volume! My husband had to take her out of the theatre, I think. So even movies that are supposed to be for younger children sometimes hold unpleasant surprises.
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Oh my gosh, Faith! I’m really trying not to laugh but you as Tom Petty is just to funny!! For the record, you do not look like Petty to me ❤
As for movies, I agree, it’s rough to find something that everyone agrees on. Night at the Museum, Narnia, old school movies come to mind. I worry that my youngest, who is very thick skinned, see too much, but each of my kids has their own path for sure. Hmmm, maybe I’ll turn this topic into a blog post!
Have a great weekend, Faith 🙂
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Crazy late seeing this, but this was BY FAR THE BEST HALF TIME EVER!
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