The Ultimate Blog Party 2012

For the first year ever I am taking part in Janice and Susan’s Ultimate Blog Party 2012. If you haven’t heard of Janice and Susan, founders and publishers over at Five Minutes For Mom, well I will just assume that you are new to the blogging world. Five Minutes For Mom  is one of those on line destinations where all the cool Moms hang out.

This year the dynamic team has gathered over $21,000 in prizes to be given away on line this week. Say What? No, that is not a typo. I couldn’t believe it myself. Anyways, there are numerous events happening this week as part of the blog party. Last night there was a twitter party followed fast by a Spreecast. (Now this Spreecast stuff is new to me too, but if Janice and Susan are there, then I am heading over to try and learn all about it. Because they are clearly trendsetters in this industry.)

I love the idea of this whole thing, and as a blogger, I totally appreciate the extreme amount of work that everyone involved in organizing #UBP12 has put into this one week. So kudos and huge applause to Janice and Susan and the people behind the scenes too. This year there is even a special cocktail drink created by the one and only Cocktail Deeva.

Now a bit about me….
My blogs: well, I have two main blogs – thriftymommastips where I vlog and blog and chat about the brands I love for my family. I have a Thursday series on Cooking With Kids and I love to spend time in the kitchen with my girls. We travel and are exrtemely active doing martial arts, swimming, yoga and a variety of other sports together. I am a brand ambassador and a social media consultant. But more importantly I am also a mom of two wonderful little girls who joined our family by adoption. I have a child with special needs and I often write and speak about that experience. Our lives were changed radically ten years ago when we adopted our first child and we discovered shortly after that we had found a great caring community of like-minded individuals – all families by heart. (click on the link to read our adoption story.)
Ever since then, we have been working as a family to grow our on line and in person community of adoptive families. We advocate for permanency, a home for every child, and then supports for their families to make their adoptions work. I am passionate about making sure every child has a soft place to land. So I created a non profit called the Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families and I travel to help tell politicians what it is that is needed to help make every family successful. Adults can wait to become parents, but children in need should never have to wait for families.
My other blog: thriftymommasbrainfood is all about books and publishing. My kids and I host a vlog series called Tales From the Treehouse about children’s books. We review them together and love to read in our home and backyard.

So now for the rest. Click on the button above and link up over at Five Minutes For Mom for chances at prizes and opportunities to meet some new bloggers. Cheers!