The Best Of Us: MBB Mom Of the Week LaTonya Yvette Riley

You know how we do: MyBrownBaby is dead-set on giving credit where credit is due to parents who are raising and loving their beautiful brown babies. A round of applause for MBB Mom of the Week LaTonya Yvette Riley! She is the owner of the beautiful Che’ Demi’s Boutique, a store specializing in spectacular children's clothing, furniture, and decor, including the lunch box up for grabs in the latest MBB contest. To find out how you can win one of LaTonya Yvette's super cutie personalized lunch boxes in time for Christmas, click here. And then come back and find out more about MBB's incredible Mom of the Week!

My name is… LaTonya Yvette Riley.

I live in… Rochester, New York.

My brown babies are… Kiara, age 19, and Che’, age 13.

I make a living… as an administrative assistant, Avon representative/recruiter and the founder of Che’ Demi’s Boutique.

The last time my kids cracked me up… was when my daughter Che’, who is trying to lose weight, weighed herself and realized she’d actually gained weight. She picked up the scale, shook it, and then weighed herself again, as though the numbers would somehow change… too funny!

The last book I read with my kids was… A Piece of Cake, by Cupcake Brown.

My favorite place to take them when they were little was… The Strong Museum.

My proudest mom moment was… watching Kiara receive her high school diploma. Talk about tears of joy!

My most embarrassing mommy moment was the time when… Kiara’s Sunday School teacher told me my child wanted the class to sing “I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto,” by Tupac.

The thing I most want my children to know is… that I love them.

The one family tradition I hope my kids continue when they grow up is… disguising Christmas gifts so nosy kids can’t try to figure out which one is theirs. Each Christmas, I use character names on their gift tags instead of their names; they have no idea which gifts are theirs until Christmas day. I also hope they continue my tradtion of buying new pajamas to sleep in on Christmas Eve.

If I could invent one thing to make being a mom easier, it would be… a gadget that would allow me to go back in time and witness the special moments I missed while my girls were growing up.

The best invention for kids ever is… prayer.

The kid snack I’m most likely to get busted eating is… cupcakes.

The most important life lessons I want my kids to learn are… to be very selective when choosing friends; to always put their trust in God, not man; to Be themselves; to recognize that they don’t have to hold on to a relationship that is not working, and; that the only person who can hold you back is you.

The one thing no one knows about me is… that I wish I had a son.

The thing I lost as a mom that I wish I could get back is… time. I would have taken more pictures of my girls while they were growing up.

My “I’d Rather Be…” bumper sticker would say… "I’d rather be sipping a Bahama Mama on the beach!"