January 2011

I am a Great Mother!

by oh amanda on January 26, 2011

Before I had children, I was a great mother.

I knew the parenting style I wanted and I was ready to go! I knew how my kids would act and how I’d react. I knew the best way to raise my kids and I was ready for the challenge of working it out!

Then I had children.

And everything I knew was thrown out the window. And to make matters worse, great parenting ideas seem to ebb and flow. Some days my approach works perfectly. Other days it seems to be the catalyst for more bad behavior!

{read the rest of my post at Motherhood…Your Way}

photo by shoothead

{ 2 comments }

Best Plugins for Mommy Blogs: Top Ten {Tuesday}

by oh amanda on January 24, 2011

in blogging,top ten tuesday

I leave for Blissdom tomorrow! And since I’m in the blogging mode, I thought I’d take a page from Jo-Lynne’s fantabulous two-parter and bring you some helpful plugins for your blog. (If you don’t have a blog…well, just skip to the bottom and link up!) Here they are…

MY FAVORITE PLUG-INS FOR THE MOMMY BLOGGER

1. Editorial Calendar

BEST. PLUGIN. EVER. I want you to know that I had this idea MONTHS before I ever found this plugin. What I had been envisioning was a normal block calendar like you hang on your wall. But on the days you could see your post titles. Then, if you wanted to move them around like to another day or time, you could just drag them. And that’s just what this plugin does!

This is awesome for those of us you that schedule posts or do lots of sponsored/review posts. Then you’ll never forget about something. Just go ahead and type in the title on the day you need the post and you won’t forget to write it.

2. Broken Link Checker

I just downloaded (uploaded?) this one yesterday. It sent me an email of all 356 broken links in my blog! So, I’ve been unlinking or editing each one. Most of the broken links are to my previous blog address. But I was surprised that so many of them were to blogs that don’t exist anymore. Made me kinda sad.

{The most broken links besides my own URL? Jo-Lynne’s Musings of a Housewife. See, I’m not just copying her–I love her!)

3. And the Winner Is…

If you even do ONE contest on your blog, this is worth it. You just click a little box while writing your contest post. Then when it’s time to pick a winner, you click PICK WINNER and it will randomly bring one up. THEN! When you click on their name, it will bring up your email with a great subject line and you’re ready to go! It even has a CONFIRM WINNER tab in case the winner never responds–you can pick another winner. Love it.

4. Article Templates

This is a new one to me. I have a love/hate relationship with it. It’s basic function is to set up templates that will help you on similar posts. For example, I have Top Ten {Tuesday} template set up that has the Top Ten {Tuesday} button, the instructions and the little :: :: :: on the bottom. Then I don’t have to write that every week. It *does* get kinda old. So, I love the time it saves me there.

The only problem with this plug-in is that you have to click the correct template from a drop-down menu. And it’s like half a screen below my post. So, most of the time I forget to click the box. And you can’t click it mid-writing. So, I have to cut the entire thing, click the button and then paste it back. And sometimes the formatting doesn’t stay. So. That’s kind of annoying. Has anyone found a better Template Plugin than this one?

5. ReplyMe

This is the comment-threader-emailer-keep-me-in-touch-with-my-readers plug in that I love! When you leave a comment, I can reply back to you either directly in the comments or on my dashboard. Then it sends you an email (which I have personalized to be purplicious and slightly witty) with my reply. You can reply back to me and it sends me an email and goes round and round.

I have decided that replying to comments within comments is the best because #1) it makes you look like you have a bazillion comments and #2) it keeps your inbox clean(er).

6. RSS Footer

This is a new one that I’ve been using since I opened my blog up to private ads. It makes a little footer on the bottom of each of my posts in a feed-reader. So for those of you subscribed to my blog you’ll see a little blurb about my partners. Cool, huh?

7. Simple Facebook Like Widget

I have gone through several social media share-this-post plugins. I had the one that had every single social media icon in the world but no one ever touched them. Nobody does Digg or those other techy social sites, so it was a waste of (confused) space. So, I went with a Facebook LIKE widget and have had SO much traffic and interaction with it.

There are many different Facebook Like plugins but I like this one best because it shows pictures under the LIKE and it brings up an optional field for you to add a comment to the LIKE. Which adds personality and pizazz!

8. Twitter Tools

I usually HATE automated tweets. They are lame and completeley defeat the purpose of twitter. {In my own humble opinion.} But I reinstalled this one recently because I spend too much time online. Plain and simple. So, what I do now is use this plugin to let twitter automatically tweet when I have a new post. That’s usually about 8 in the morning. Then I set up another auto-tweet on Hoot Suite or Tweetdeck to send later in the day. That gives me one lame auto tweet and one personal-but-secretive auto-tweet. And it makes sure a new crowd sees my post!

What I really want is a plugin that gives me the space to do a custom twitter update while I’m writing my actual post. Like right there below the categories and tags? That would be perfect. Any plug-in techies wanna figure that out for me?

9. WWSGD?

I have had this plug-in forever and love it. It basically puts a little box before or after every post that says, “Hey! You’re new here! Why don’t you subscribe to my blog?”. And it only comes up if you’ve been to my site 5 or fewer times. Isn’t that genius?!

So for the rest of you real friends who come to my blog all the time, you don’t have to see annoying little “FOLLOW ME, TWEET ME, FACEBOOK ME” all the time. You just see it as a newbie. {But for some unknown reason if you DON’T see that thing and you are NOT subscribed to my blog? Why dontcha do it now–either in a feedreader or email?}

10. WP125

This is another one I’ve installed since I opened up private ads on my blog. It basically keeps track of your ads, puts the ad up, lets you know when to take it down and even keeps track of clicks.

{By the way, in December my partners had over 2000 clicks. Did you know AT&T quoted my husband $200 for a guaranteed 60 clicks for his business? I’m thinkin’ ohAmanda is a steal!}

11. YARRP

This is the plug-in that brings up the list of related posts below. I know everyone likes the photo Linked In plug-in but I could never get it to work between my two blogs. I like the simplicity of this “Yet Another Related Post” plug-in. It generally always brings up related content and it’s not too ostentatious. I usually click on these on other people’s blogs, so I’m assuming people do on mine, too.

{ugh! see! I forgot to do that silly template button. Now I’m going to do it by hand. Ready? Here goes…}

:: :: ::

Wanna join in the Top Ten {Tuesday} fun? Just WRITE an amazing top ten list on your blog. Then LINK back to my blog so others can join the fun. Next, PASTE your url below. Finally start visiting, tweeting, stumbling, like-ing and commenting on the rest of the participants. Even just 2 or 3 or 8! It’s so fun to see a little bit of traffic and interaction when we link up! For more guidelines and a cute little button see my Top Ten {Tuesday} page.

{ 61 comments }

Rapunzel Party Decorations

by oh amanda on January 24, 2011

in party theme

There has been so much interest in my Tangled Party–the big Rapunzel’s Golden Hair Party (based on Disney’s Tangled movie) that I just had to share one or two more pieces of golden hair goodness with you! I didn’t tell you about the DECORATIONS because they were so big and huge I didn’t get a great picture of them!

However I found one picture that showcases all of the decor. Ready for this photographic masterpiece?

First we had a the little braid hanging down in the food table. I realize that’s a little icky to have a dismembered braid in the middle of your food. But it added to the ambiance. And honestly? If I had more time I would have done about 5 or 6 hanging down from the light fixture! (Now that little braid is hanging in our craft closet. What? It’s a lot of yarn to just throw away!)

Then, we had a swath of Rapunzel’s hair in the background–see it? The hugely long swag of yarn hanging right behind me? That is about 3/4 of a pound of yarn. I bought one of those “pounder” yarns you see at the craft stores. I thought it would be a cinch to unroll it and then braid it and (my original idea) hang it out the window. I mean, really. How cute would that be?

But once Lydia and I started unrolling and unwrapping that hair…I mean yarn. Well, let me just say we really began to understand what TANGLED means. There was really no good way to do it. So, after a few hours we grabbed as much as we could and hung a big Rapunzel-like pony tail from our stairs. It made a great entry way when guest arrived and a nice stopping point for people to sign Lydia’s Rapunzel book.

And of course, it was a very fun place for the kids to hang. Literally.

The final–and my most favorite decoration was the purple flags. If you remember from the movie, when Rapunzel and Flynn get to the village, it is decorated to celebrate the “lost princess”. There are purple flags hanging up with a golden sun emblazoned on it. I just love decorations that hang from the ceiling and knew we could recreate this.

I bought 10 sheets of purple felt. We cut them into quarters. Then I printed off the Sun template from Disney’s website. I used it to cut out a stencil from contact paper. (This is like my best idea ever!) We put the stencil onto our purple flags and sponge painted yellow paint!

Lydia and I did it together and I think she did at least 1/2 of them all by herself. It was so fun to have her in on the party prep. She worked just as hard as I did!

Once they were dry, we stapled them onto a piece of yarn and hung them up! I stapled because…well, I’m lazy and didn’t want to glue. I figured they’d be up high and no one would notice. I was right.

If you missed my first Tangled Party post—well, you don’t want to! Click to see the food and activities!

{ 22 comments }

My New Favorite

January 22, 2011 linky love

Picture :: :: :: Lydia and Asa setting up a hair salon Recipe To Try Out :: :: :: Mini Shepherd’s Pies at Mommy D’s Thought Provoking Post :: :: :: The Second Half of the Story by Jennifer V Davis Post I’m Tucking Away :: :: :: How To Write an Ebook: Choose a [...]

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Daddy in Five Minutes

January 21, 2011 family

It’s not so much how Daddy looks–although he looks different since he’s been through chemo and hepatitis C treatments. It’s more of how Daddy feels and how he makes others around him feel. We weren’t even up their front stairs and Daddy already had the door open. Asa and Lydia walk through the threshold eagerly [...]

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Things I Love Thursday…

January 20, 2011 me

…when my husband has to go to the doctor for an endoscopy …and I have to sit in the lobby for an hour with two kids …and they have a TV in the lobby that is showing a 59 minute story about a girl being kidnapped out of the hospital and being separated from her [...]

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Blissdom Tips: Top Ten {Tuesday}

January 18, 2011 blissdom

It’s that time again—Blissdom is right around the corner. For all you non-bloggy readers, that’s one of the big (and more centrally located) blogging conferences! This will be my 3rd year attending. And I promised myself I wouldn’t post a billion and a half times about Blissdom because for all you non-bloggers, I know it [...]

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