Oh Happy Day!

Remember the theme when I shared this little tidbit? Or when I posted this photo at Mother May I? Well, it seems I'm not the only one talking about JOY and the incredibly lovely lady behind it. These jerseys are creating a stir and now, today ...drumroll please...the website is up and officially open for business--just in time for holiday gift giving. What could be more perfect than spreading the message of JOY (or humility, courage or compassion) this season?

Can you guess who the lucky photographer was for the site shots? And does anyone happen to recognize the adorable little girl who is so very courageous? Hee hee hee.

The site is as delightful as the jerseys themselves so pop over and mill about. And be sure to pick up a shirt for your little messenger of JOY and help spread the word.

More Babblings about JOY here!

An Interview Without Internet

OK, I officially have no internet which is totally debilitating for me (I know you all know how that can be). I'm at my favorite photo lab in the whole wide world...they took pity on me and let me use their wifi for awhile today. Bless them. I just wanted to put up a little something because I am excited to mention that Maile of Daily Relish interviewed me for her other blog. I am delighted to hold the title of "rockstar". Who knew?

I'm blushing. Thanks Maile!

The Season of Giving

In true Design Mom fashion, Gabrielle is hosting an incredible week long giveaway of the coolest stuff around. Oh, yes, my books are there!

Head over and pepper you comments all around to win some awesome stuff!

Thanks Gabrielle, you're the best.

Village People

I know many of you blog mamas out there probably can relate when I say that when it comes to a mother community, the internet has got it in spades.

I was recently asked to post about Mom Blogs at my publisher's blog site (which in and of itself made me giddy). As I took a little time to articulate what it is I love about many of the blogs I read I got all melancholy. Your blogs mean so much to me, I can't begin to tell you. That you put yourself out there everyday and share with the rest of us your lives, through stories and glorious pictures is so inspiring!

I cherish this incredible mom village we belong to so much and I just wanted you to know. Sniff, sniff.

Now, get your sweet mom booties over to the post today and show Chronicle Books that the Mamas are where it's at! Let's just love bomb them with comments, shall we? And as an added bonus you'll entered into a random drawing for a Chronicle Book because they're cool like that.

Photographic Memory

Have you ever wondered the story behind how people stumble upon their passion? Like photography for instance? How is it that YOU came across your first camera and when did you discover that photography was something you loved??

Susan Getgood thought it would be cool to interview a bunch of the moms out there who love taking photos. If you'd like to read stories from some of your favorite mom photographers just go visit the Photographic Memory page at HPs photo blog. Some of the fine women featured are regular contributors here at Picture This...how fun is that?

In honor of the interview launch and the cool HP Photo Books that they are highlighting (I really have made a few and they really are quite nifty), I declare this weeks Thursday's Theme MEMORY.

And now, I leave you to your reading. Check back over the next few weeks over there as more interviews will be posted. Great job Susan. Thanks for bringing these Photographic Memories to life.

I encourage YOU to explore your own photographic memory! Write a post about it on your own blog and comment here with a link to it. I'll be sure to write a post and add your links so that everyone can read one another's stories!

A Theme a Mama Would Love

This week's Thursday Theme has been inspire by a new photo contest (another contest-hooray!). Sheri and Amy at Mamazine are hosting a contest for Mamas called Mama Focus. This one is a little different than most mama contests as the call is for photos that have YOU, the Mama, as the main subject of the image.

Being queen of the self-portrait, I found the idea irresistible and therefore wanted a piece of the contest pie so I will be a co-host and a judge for the contest along with Sheri and Amy. I knew you all would be totally into rising to the contest challenge so I wanted to give you a heads up.

Here are all the details-

The Mama Focus contest is sponsored by mamazine.com, Picture This , and The Little Zygote That Could. The contest starts Thursday, November 1, 2007, and ends Friday, November 30, 2007. Winners will be announced Friday, December 7, 2007.

How to Enter

• Upload the highest possible quality image of your picture to the photo pool for the Mama Focus Contest Flickr group. You will have to join the group, and then follow Flickr's instructions for posting a picture to a photo pool.

• In the description field, enter: 1) your name (and the photographer's name, if it's not you) and 2) one sentence about why you chose the picture. Whoops, I think I used 2 sentences on my example.

The Rules

All photos entered will be evaluated by three judges: Tracey Clark of Picture This, Sheri Reed of The Little Zygote That Could, today is pretty, and mamazine.com, and Amy Anderson, also of mamazine.com. Tracey is the professional photographer/mom behind Picture This; however, Sheri and Amy are not trained in photography or artistic presentation or composition. Overall, we aim to select the photos that strike us most for whatever reason.

• MAMA-FOCUSED ENTRIES ONLY! Please do not enter photos of your kids. Kids can be depicted in the photos; however, the mama should be the main focus of the photograph.

• Limit of TWO submissions per person.

• Each entrant is only eligible for a single award.

• The entrant does not need to have taken the photo, but the photographer's name must be given and he or she must be aware of the submission.

• NOTE: Photos thought to be outside of the above criteria may be removed from consideration without the entrant being notified.

The Grand Prize

The grand prize, graciously donated by SONY, is a SONY DSC-W55 Cybershot Digital Still Camera (black) (valued on Amazon.com at $182.95). The grand prize winner and the first, second, and third place runner ups will each have their photos displayed in the "mama likes" blog for one month and then eternally in its archives. I will also post them all on Picture This.

You heard right girls, there's a camera up for grabs! Yahoo!

So, this weeks theme is of course MAMA. Whether or not the photo you post on Thursday is the one you'll enter in the contest is up to you. I just thought it would be fun to get those creative juices flowing!

No More Sk*rting Around the Issue

I love Sk*rt. I love the site and I love the women behind it. But, until yesterday, I had never officially submitted a story. Until I saw this fab giveaway from 5 Minutes from Mom.

A Pink Casio digital point and shoot? How fun is that?

So, I Sk*rted that baby and now I'm hoping you will vote for the story. I figure bringing awareness to a giveaway that is honoring Breast Cancer awareness is a good thing.

The Happiest Walk on Earth

Last week my family and I had the opportunity to attend a Parent Blogger Reception at the happiest place on earth. Yep. And considering the yummy food, the sweets, the kid's crafts and the chance to experience Disney's Halloweentime, we were pretty happy.

For the family, the fun was just being there but for me, it was that I got to be there with a bunch of other mom bloggers like Kirsten, Mandy, Elaine and Y ! I love when that happens and I will tell you, it doesn't happen nearly enough. We had a ball hanging with Mickey and Minnie and dancing with Belle and Chip and Dale. Maria Bailey of Blue Suit Mom and newbaby.com fame (among like a gazillion other amazing achievements) hosted the event in conjunction with Disney. Thanks Maria for inviting us! It was great.

After we gorged ourselves we got to attend the Halloweentime extravaganza at California Adventure. We WALKED

and trick or treated

and WALKED some more. We danced...

and WALKED again. When is was all said and done we were all pretty tired. Happy but tired.

Where did you WALK this week?

A Worthy Walk

I recently caught wind that Moreena and her family are helping pull together the Bloomington Liver Wellness Walk and Fun Run for a fantastic cause. I have written a little about Annika before (dang that girl is something else!) but thought it'd be a good time to talk some more.

If you are interested in helping out a very worthy cause, in honor of this very special girl and her awesome family, please get behind Team Annika and lend some financial support.

And, in case you didn't guess, the theme to shoot for this week's Thursday's Theme is WALK. Mostly because I'd way rather WALK than run any day. And in cases like this, both walking and running are a worthy thing to do.

A Sunday Mention

On this fine Sunday, I just wanted to share with you a little something that you might find refreshing. I sure do.

Goodness, I forgot. This idea originated out of the BlogHer 07 panel called, "It's your passion, not your size that matters." Read the live blog version at Ninja Poodles. It was a delightful panel! Enjoy.