The Baby Baby Blog CV

Name
Baby Baby

Reason for naming this blog Baby Baby
When I started blogging I had two babies. Presley was 20 months and Cash was 8 months old. Now they're 4 and 3 years old, but they'll always be my babies.

Date of Birth
14 May 2009

Reason for starting this blog
I was looking for a hobby and my Twitter friend @Caroljs had just started her first blog, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Reason for still blogging
Because it is fun. I love writing and I love the friends I've made. I now write about so much more than parenting and babies. I love having a creative outlet and a place to display my photographs. Oh yeah, I get invited to do fun stuff and get sent free stuff too. I don't particularly care for blogging about blogging, but I'd quite like a blogger calendar!

Most Popular Posts
The Little Girl and the Diet
My Old Man

The future?
Watch this space...

The Baby Baby Blog CV

The You're Welcome Meme

I was delighted to be tagged by Mum at The Mad House for the You're Welcome Meme started by Sally at Who's the Mummy?.

These are the rules:

Recommend three new blogs you've discovered and loved

Tag three other bloggers and ask them to do the same

I love finding new blogs to read. It's difficult finding room in my Google Reader, but there are some blogs that are 'must reads'.

The three blogs that are new (to me) are:

It's a Mummy's Life

This is a busy and entertaining blog. It's occasionally outspoken, but always a good read.

Cherished by Me

This is a wonderful blog written by Nova. She is a mother of five beautiful children. She has only just started blogging and I think she deserves more readers.

The Moiderer
This is a new blog written by an old blogger! Dawn writes from the heart, I love her emotional honesty.

So there are my three choices. That's the hard part over, I could have recommended another twenty new blogs.

Ooh, that reminds me. I accidentally lost my blog roll and I need to put it back. [Memo to me]!

I'm going to tag three fabulous bloggers who I hope will take up the challenge:

Fraught Mummy at Brits in Bosnia

Liz at VioletPosy

SnafflesMummy

***

Ages ago the wonderful Mum at The Mad House gave the the Circle of Friends Award. I was touched by this. Thank you Mum!

I have to list five things I like to do. So, off the top of my head, five random things:

Walk

Talk

Read

Write

Sing

It has taken me a while to accept this award because I was worried about passing it on. You see, I don't want to leave anyone out from my circle of friends. In the eight months that I've been blogging I have found a wide circle of blogging friends. I couldn't possibly narrow this down to just five people. I can't tag everyone, that would take all day and I'd still probably leave someone out. So, my circle of friends, this award is for you. I hope you know who you are x

The You're Welcome Meme

Blog Life Balance

My name is Sandy and I'm a blogoholic.

There I've said it.

I was inspired to write this post by a question the lovely Sian asked on British Mummy Bloggers. She was in Chicago for BlogHer09 and wanted to know: how do you as a Mum and a blogger find the right balance in your life? You can read the full discussion here. Sian also has a wonderful blog called Mummy-tips, although while she was away her son Dinoboy has taken it over!

I had started to comment, but soon realised I had enough thoughts for my own blog post.

I started reading and commenting on blogs in May this year. I soon started blogging myself and over the past two and a half months I have become totally addicted to blogging. If I'm not writing my own, I'm reading and commenting on other people's blogs. I've just had a look at the blogs I'm following.

I'm following 172 blogs.

The majority are mummy blogs, but I've come across so many other interesting writers. I don't want to remove any of the 172 and I'm finding new ones every day. So how do I keep up?

• I've got the boys to take their afternoon naps together.
• I've pretty much stopped watching TV.
• I don't spend very much time on my music any more.
• I stay up late.

That still doesn't give me enough time.

Something has got to give.

I don't want this 'something' to be my relationship with Andy. I'm lucky that he is very understanding. He knew that I was feeling quite isolated and is glad that I have found the friendship of the blogging community. Andy spends a lot of time on his music, so he's not sitting around waiting for me to step away from the laptop.

We still make time for each other. When we had children, we thought about the best way to still be Andy and Sandy (don't laugh, we could have called the kids Randy and Mandy!) as well as Daddy and Mummy. This is what we decided:

• We always eat together every evening, in the dining room. No TV, no PCs. We talk about our days.
• Every other night or so we'll watch a TV programme we've recorded, we may have a glass of wine too.
• We always go to bed together at the same time too.

I'm an all or nothing kind of person. I want to read blogs, read the comments and add my own comment too. I've got 83 posts unread in my Google Reader. It's hard, but I'm going to have to cut down on the commenting for a while. Just until I've caught up!

By the way Blogger isn't letting me view followers' profiles at the moment. If you leave me a comment I should be able to find you that way! Thanks.

I would love to know how you manage blogging, relationships and parenting.

***

In other news, have you been to Cafebebe yet? The wonderful Karin has set up a great community for mummies. It includes blogs, reviews and forums. It is currently holding its first giveaway. What are you still doing here?!

Blog Life Balance

I'd like to thank...

Wow, I've been given three more awards! I'm overwhelmed and of course over the moon.

The rules are you say who gave you the award, give a bit of information about yourself and then pass it on. You then let the recipients know. Simple. Of course if you've ever tried to do this you'll realise it takes ages because you have to find the awards, put them on your blog and then decide who to pass them on to, calling up their blogs to get the links. Oh well, maybe it just takes me a long time. It is worth it though to spend a little time valuing the blogs that inspire you. So here goes:

This is the Lemonade award given to me by the amazing Rebel Mother at Another Day in the Madhouse. If you haven't already seen her blog please take a look. She has a lot on her plate but deals with it with humour.

For this award I need to list three things I'm grateful for:

1) My husband

We only met three and a bit years ago, but knew almost immediately that we were meant for each other. We are happy. He recently said to me, when I was apologising for putting on weight, that he loves me unconditionally. I feel the same way about him too.

2) My children

I have two beautiful boys aged 21 months and 9 months. Before I met my husband I worried that I would never have children and this saddened me, but here I am now with two amazing lads. Yes, we're fast workers! It is hard work having two so close together, but so rewarding. If you have children, you'll know.

3) Living in the UK

I know we complain about the government and the weather, but there are a lot worse places to live. We have democracy, the National Heath Service and very few natural disasters.

This is the Honest Scrap award given to me by the lovely Katherine at Supply and Demands? Please check out her fabulous blog.

For this award I need to list ten things about me. I'm tempted to copy Katherine and list ten embarrassing things about me as this is funnier. She misread the instructions! Let's see where we go with this:

1. I'm a qualified accountant.
2. In my last job I managed a department of thirty-six staff
3. I hated my last job
4. I love being a Stay At Home Mum
5. I make cards and made my wedding invitations myself
6. I sing and write songs (blatant self-promotion here)!
7. I had my gap year when I was 30
8. I've done a skydive, couldn't breathe for the minute of freefall, thought I was going to pass out! Once the parachute opened it was heaven.
9. I have a tattoo of the Chinese symbol for peace on my arm (I wish it was somewhere more discreet and covered it up for my wedding)
10. I love animals, in fact I'm quite soppy about giraffes and big cats

There, quite boring really, maybe I'll do a post at a later date about embarrassing incidents!

This is the One Lovely Blog Award given to me by the lovely Clareybabble at Clareybabbling. Her blog is refreshing and honest, please take a look.

For this award you list five pet hates:

1. Bad driving
2. Intolerance
3. Isms (sexism, racism etc.)
4. There only being 24 hours in a day
5. Did I say bad driving?!

Here are the blogs I am making awards to. Please take the time to pay them a visit.

Tim (aka The Dotterel) at Bringing Up Charlie. Tim was kind enough to write about little old me in his post New Kid on the Blog 2. He reviewed my post Food Glorious Food and expanded on the way we give attention to our children. I was moved by the trouble he went to.

Laura at Synchronization of Us. Laura wrote an honest and moving post recently about her baby son. She has a lovely family.

Ruth at Look Left of the Pleiades. I don't agree with everything she says, but I agree with a lot of it and her posts are certainly thought-provoking. Ruth is honest and down to earth. She also writes about her gorgeous son at All About Bertie.

The Wife of Bold is very funny. She has four girls under five (and I thought I had it tough with two under two)!

Brit in Bosnia does what it says on the tin. A fascinating read.

Ian at Single Parent Dad writes beautiful and moving posts about life with his gorgeous son.

All Grown Up... Still Feeling Like a Kid is a great blog by a mum of one, soon to be two.

Clareybabble at Clareybabbling wrote a wonderful honest post about how life really is when you're a new mum, even though she gave me an award I think she deserves one back.

Perfectly Happy Mum is one of my new favourite blogs, please take a look.

Leslieanne at Life With a Little Dude is a lovely new mum with a new blog about her beautiful baby boy.

For the recipients please choose one of the above awards that you would like on your blog. For everyone else I'd like to thank.... you for reading xx

I'd like to thank...