Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted a little girl of my own. I even chose her name when I was 12. It took me a little longer than I’d hoped, but I got her. I love this shot, taken last weekend at the zoo’s merry-go-round. We had a great day together.

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I’ve posted my very first giveaway and it is for a stunning and amazingly cool Shutterfly product. Due to the rules of my advertisers who keep Heligirl.com paid for (so far this is a non-profit blog without the tax shelter of a 501(c)3), my reviews and giveaways are posted under the “Reviews/Favorite Things” tab.

Here’s a link to the Shutterfly giveaway. Enter now, enter often. There can be three winners!

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Can life be more crazy?

I used to want to describe life these days as a juggling act where I’m trying to keep a bunch of balls in the air, but the fact of the matter is that might be too simple of an analogy. It actually feels more like one of those circus acts where I’m keeping 100 plates spinning on rods. In the dark. On one leg.

Like many moms (and dads) my time is split in three major directions, and branches off from there. For income there’s my part-time job, several different freelance projects, and this here “hobby” that I hope one day will tow its own weight at the very least.

Then there’s the family share – cooking, cleaning, playing with the kids, shopping, playdates, childcare, planning activities, outings, doctor appointments, preschool, and quality time with my hubby.

Finally, when all is said and done, there’s me time – bathing, haircuts, time with friends, e-mail, surfing the net, reading, TV, staring into space as I dream of all the stuff I’d do if I had energy, and sleep. You know, uninterrupted time to do what you want to do.

Hubby and I have been very good about keeping up with work and family obligations, minus one – quality time together. Sadly, that sometimes gets sacrificed for our individual “me” time. I just can’t count the two of us sitting on the couch staring at the TV because we’re just too tired to hold a conversation as quality time together.

I come from a broken home. My parents divorced when I was 9. And the two of them together in a room is the eighth sign of the Apocalypse (unless they have a grandchild being born, then its ok.)

My Hubby’s parents divorced when he was even younger. We both know to different extents what that does to kids, and families on a whole. We want to break that cycle and we know, deep down, we have to make time for each other in order to do that.

With that, we’ve vowed to spend a weekend away together at least once a year, and it will grow to more as the kids get older and easier for the grandparents to have for extended periods in their own homes.

Where we'll be. Photo courtesy of Enchantment Resort.

Tomorrow, this year’s getaway begins and I can hardly contain myself.

We’re off to Sedona, Arizona, one of my very favorite places in the whole wide world. Last Christmas my amazing VP worked out a deal with several great resorts for gift certificates, swapping our services in trade. Not knowing why, we were all told to draw a number out of a hat at our department Christmas party. We were then handed envelops with the corresponding number. My envelop contained a certificate for two nights at the Enchantment Resort, a very exclusive and ultra hoity toity resort nestled among the red rocks of Sedona.

I cried. Literally. I think my boss was very uncomfortable. I couldn’t control myself. Of all the great places they’d given to us all, that was the very best in my mind and I just cried. The resort charges more than $500 a night. I’ve never received a gift that valuable.

So early tomorrow morning, thanks to my family and nanny who will be rotating through the house doing the child and dog care relay for the weekend, we’re off to Arizona.

What will we do? I have no plans other than to just be with my wonderful husband. Maybe we’ll take a hike. Maybe we’ll sight see. I feel pretty certain we’ll lay by the pool, enjoy the afternoon thunderstorm shows and catch up on sleep. We’ll eat and talk uninterrupted. And we’ll definitely be acting like a couple of honeymooners, if you catch my drift.

And I hope the beauty, energy and time away will together bring us closer and ready to take on football season, new preschools, the holidays and the daily crazy coming with the onset of Fall.

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Ok, I’m not a big meme follower, but when my new pal Julie from Angry Julie Monday invited me to link up, I figured what the heck.

When I was three, my mom took a picture of me in this outfit on the porch of our house. I was wearing socks and brown sandals. We recently found a few of my little outfits my mom saved. This fit Sweetness so I put her on the porch and shot a similar shot. I hope I can find the original of me. I had the same blond, curly fly-away hair. If I find the one of me, I’ll repost side by side.

My cutie patootie and the poochies.

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If you missed our free webinar by Positive Parenting Solutions last week titled Getting Kids to Listen without Nagging, Reminding or Yelling, you’re in luck. We had technical difficulties and rescheduled the webinar for not one, but two different times to meet everyone’s needs.

Here is the latest information:

• Tuesday, Aug. 24 from 1-2 p.m. Pacific (4-5 p.m. Eastern)
• Wednesday, Aug. 25 from 6-7 p.m. Pacific (9-10 p.m. Eastern).

You can register directly right here and get the printable note taking sheet to prepare.

So I’m not repeating myself here, you can learn about all the great tools you’ll be able to put to work right away after just 60 minutes of an incredible, free, interactive webinar by visiting my last post about this webinar. It really is valuable. I myself worked with my daughter to determine a reasonable logical consequence and put it to work that next day with delightful results.

You can take the seminar on one of the days, or even both if you like as it’s a little different each time given Amy McCready (our speaker) tailors the webinar for the folks who are online. You can type in your questions to her directly and she’ll respond right there for you as she’s presenting.

Please consider joining us Tuesday, Aug. 24 from 1-2 p.m. Pacific (4-5 p.m. Eastern) or Wednesday, Aug. 25 from 6-7 p.m. Pacific (9-10 p.m. Eastern).

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Bloggy Boot Camp in San Francisco, hosted by the SITS Girls, was an amazing crash course as well as next steps preparation for both the beginner and experienced blogger. A day-long conference designed for less than 100 participants, Boot Camp was packed with valuable tidbits we could all use. Here’s a peek:

1. When vlogging, keep it short. Comedienne Jessica Bern, author of Bern This, told us the golden rule of vlogging (video blogging) is to be short, short, short. Under 3 minutes for sure. And an added extra tip was to put the time in the title of your post. For instance, “How to argue effectively with your cat – in 76 seconds.” Did I mention she was seriously funny?”

2. Use a blog tracking program, such as Google Analytics, StatCounter or Sitemeter. Better yet, use all three. These programs not only help you track your visits, but also look at who’s visiting to get an idea of your audience. Added bonus, they give you information on IP addresses of your visitors, which you can track at www.ip-details.com. Did someone leave a nasty comment or do you have a troll? IP tracking can pinpoint the exact street address of where the person commented. Julie at Angry Julie Monday sat down and showed me how to do this, tracking one of her own visitors to the point where a pin showed up on a Google map of a Texas town’s neighborhood.

3. You get what you give. This seemed to be the theme throughout with all the speakers, but Jennifer James of Mom Bloggers Club went into depth in her presentation on using social media for maximum exposure. Engaging others on Twitter and Facebook and always responding to someone who mentions you are biggies. When you’re recognizing others, they recognize you. Pass it on. Here’s a link to her presentation.

4. You can monetize your blog and still be genuine and avoid being viewed as a sellout. Just be authentic, Ciaran Blumenfeld from momfluential.com told us. We’re all consumers. We all tell our friends about our favorite products. Doing so can attract a brand that may offer to pay you to talk about them even more. Simply choose brands you’re passionate about and tell your story with them. Bonus tip, make yourself familiar with FTC rules regarding solicited reviews.

5. Increase the chances brands notice you by getting and staying active on Twitter. When you mention a brand, hashtag and ask your Tweeps to RT. Do the same for your Tweeps.

6. Do not autotweet your blog posts. It may save time, but someone visiting your Twitter stream who sees this, especially a brand, will not be impressed. Instead, write your own unique tweet each time you post. Twitter is a conversation, not one sided – you posting link after link. Bonus, doing it yourself lets you put hashtags in too!

7. If you want folks to retweet you, your original tweet needs to leave 12-15 extra characters.

8. If you decide to register and trademark your name, blog title, etc. it’s your job to police it. Not doing so can lead to you losing the trademark, warned attorney Linsey Krolik. The citizen media law project is a good source for legal information regarding your blog and copyrights.

9. Buy domains of your children’s names now. By the time they’re old enough to be looking for professional employment, everyone will have a website with their names to promote themselves. Grabbing their names now and making that small investment to keep them is a nice investment for their future. (I was so psyched that I was able to grab both my kids’ names as .coms!)

10. Be realistic. Our hosts, SITS Girl Tiffany, reminded us throughout the day and again at the end to not attempt to try to do everything we learned that day at once. There was a lot of information and advice shared all day, and maybe it isn’t all for each of us. The trick is to choose what we want to do and do it, one stop at a time. Trying to do it all will stress us out and completely defeat the purpose. Blogging should be fun, not stressful. Unless you’re raking it in. In that case, then by all means, stress about it like a real job. You’re getting paid for it.

The SITS Girls are having plenty more Boot Camps and have already set dates and locations for next year. I’ll definitely be attending the Seattle stop in 2011 and highly recommend this intimate and valuable event, both for the information and great new friends you’ll make.

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I saw this as I was fueling up in Shorline, Washington this week. They had one of these posted next to every pump. I have to give the 76 marketing folks come credit. This made me laugh so hard I had to pull out my camera and share. Enjoy!

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Four years ago today my dreams started to come true. I drempt of marrying a man who would love, cherish and keep me in thick and thin, keep me in check, share common interests, be my best friend and cheerleader and wanted a family as bad as I did.

Not long after that amazing day (4 1/2 months to be exact) we discovered that family was on its way.

Four years later, we’re a happy family of four. This man made my dreams come true. I love you sweetie!

Exchanging vows in our Oregon vineyard wedding.

The Mr. and Mrs.

Just after the wedding.

Ta-woo wuv!

And they lived happily ever after...

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I got a bit of an early birthday present this past week when I learned school doesn’t start for the kids when I thought. I guess I’m just programmed to start school the day or two after Labor Day. That’s the way it always was for me, it seems.

Sweetness and Mr. Man in Edmonds.

Well, preschool seems to march to a different drummer. Excellent! School doesn’t start until the week of Sept. 20. Oh the joy. Back in June I saw summer coming to a quick close and posted a list of must dos before the end of summer. Every Wednesday (except for last Wednesday, which I used to do doctor appointments and packing for the Oregon trip), I’ve been getting out with the kids for some honest to goodness connection time. Today was no exception.

This Wednesday we went up to Edmonds to visit Grandpop (my dad). It didn’t go entirely as planned, but in the end worked out better that I’d have planned.

Let me explain.

In a rush to get the kids out the door I managed to remember diapers, diaper bag, snacks, hats, jackets, water and my purse. I forgot the cell phone. The thing my dad would call to tell me which ferry he’d be on that would meet us in Edmonds. I realized this 30 minutes into our 50-minute drive. We’d discussed what ferry he planned to be on and where I’d meet him, so I hoped he’d not had a change of plans.

I was a little worried about work. I am technically on call 24/7 and all hell has been breaking lose in the worst way on an uncomfortably regular basis lately and at any moment press could be calling. Or my boss. I just had to hope for the best.

Mr. Man and Grandpop on the beach.

We got there as the ferry was docking. I had enough time to park, get Mr. Man in a stroller, load the stroller and wonder over before Dad showed up. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Dad hadn’t even tried to call me.

I had originally planned to have the kids play in the sand. It had been in the 90s most of the week. However, it was cloudy, windy and cold. We were all wearing jackets. But that didn’t seem to bother them. Sweetness loved watching the cars get on and off the ferry, Mr. Man crawled around in the sand regardless, playing with rocks and driftwood, and Dad and I enjoyed both talking with each other and the kids.

Sweetness with Grandpop doing "Downtown Coffee."

After the ferry left and the next one was about to dock, we wondered across the street and railroad tracks (this is important to the story) to a coffee shop for “Downtown Coffee,” a tradition with my dad that goes back further than I can remember. As we had our snacks, Sweetness kept looking for trains, another huge attraction for her. You see, the railroad crossing kept going off, but no train. Then we started to notice the cars lining up outside the window (they’d drive by typically as they headed onto the dock to board the ferry). They weren’t moving.

After snacks we headed out and saw not only a huge line of cars going up the hill, but a ferry still full of cars (the one that was docking when we went into the shop). The railroad crossing was still going off. There was no train in sight. But a lot of official looking people in orange vests as well as police officers.

We were told that they couldn’t tell us it was OK to cross the tracks, but they wouldn’t stop us either. Pedestrians wondered back and forth (you can see a couple of miles up the track both ways).

We hung out for another 30 minutes in the park next to the ferry terminal and watched the comedy of errors. I called my cell voicemail from Dad’s phone (all was quiet) and Dad had nowhere he had to be. We were forced to hang out and it was great. The kids had a blast in the sand and Sweetness about exploded with all the excitement of cars, trains and a ferry all around her.

Two trains came by, each time triggering the crossing to go up after they passed.

As a side note, both were Amtrak, both were going south, and they were about 15 minutes apart. Who schedules these things?

Anyway, not three minutes after the crossing hand stopped dinging, the arms went back down and it started up again with no train in site.

The ferry workers caught on quick. I’ve never seen people drive off a ferry so fast.

Finally I heard someone on the radio announce they’d received permission to guide people around the crossing arms over the tracks (they were prohibiting it earlier). As they were doing that the arms mysteriously went up, then came back down as a logging truck was going through. They just missed him.

After about 90 minutes of this circus, someone from the railroad finally showed up, went into the little metal building that houses the electronics and shut the thing off.

In the end we had a nice visit, were well entertained, and everyone eventually got where they were going.

I was so enjoying getting photos of the kids with Dad that it never occurred to me to shoot journalistic shots of the railroad fiasco. Oh well. It was my day off you know.

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Don’t look for the exit, because there isn’t one. At least not one I saw.

For years, well, just about three for Sweetness and 15 months for Mr. Man to be exact, traveling any distance in the car has been a veritable nightmare. We’re talking take the next exit, go straight to the bar, do not pass “go” kind of nightmare.

Well, just for the record, that’s still the case. Thursday afternoon we headed to Oregon to visit Hubby’s parents for the weekend. The kids were supposedly well worn out from a day of hard play. They’d just had lunch. Maybe they’d nap. I laugh at my pathetic innocence.

Mr. Man did decide to zonk out for a spell, but we ended up finding the only traffic in the tri-state area and took two hours to go 70 miles. Where was everyone going at 2 pm on a Thursday? Apparently where I wanted to go.

Mr. Man was awake before we were even a third of the way there. Then he decided he was not happy. And lately, when he’s not happy and starts to fuss, Sweetness has gotten it into her head that if she screams louder than him she can stop it. Then we’re all unhappy.

Completely out of my mind from the double scream fest about 100 miles into the trip I decided to make a few changes. Until Thursday, Mr. Man was a rear facing baby boy. Right there in the middle of the rest area I ripped the car seat out, turned it around, made all the necessary changes and strapped it back in. That worked. For 30 minutes.

Looking forward now.

At the next rest area I ripped both seats out and strapped them in with the seatbelts rather than the latch system so they could be a little further apart then I squeezed my aching body between the two seats, put the laptop on my lap and endured Disney movies in between handing snacks and toys to the kids for the last two hours.

This was not fun. I don’t do the back middle seat very well. I never have. I almost puked, which in retrospect might have entertained the little spawns. The lack of a horizon, the movie on my lap and the weird twisting I had to do (which by the way was very uncomfortable and required some Houdini moves because my shoulders were wedged between the seats) left me nauseous all evening. And the kids still fussed the last 15 minutes.

Then, two days later, when we drove home, I ended up back there even sooner, but the novelty wore off for the kids. In fact, Sweetness took to slapping me to see if she could get a reaction and Mr. Man just threw things at me. I tell you, if I was to become an abusive parent, doing that again will be the direct path. I actually slapped Sweetness’s hand after she wailed me in the nose. I felt so terrible for it, and apologized profusely as she cried. I was so angry and tired there was no reasoning with myself or even remembering what kind of positive discipline step I could try.

I think I’ll be staying in the front seat from now on.

And sorry, I realized too late that I didn’t get Hubby to get a shot of me wedged in between the car seats. Your imagination will have to prevail…

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