100th birthday

Today I'm paying tribute to a woman who celebrates life with each passing day. Alfie's aunt turned one hundred years old today.

Spread the peanut butter, spread the love -- for Mikey

Earlier this week, I found out that a fellow Yahoo! Motherboard member, Jennifer Perillo, lost her husband Mikey in a sudden and unexpected way. The blogging community responded immediately; Twitter was flooded with messages of condolence and love, and there's talk of a scholarship fund for her children.

Yesterday was Mikey's memorial service, and to commemorate his live and the love they shared, Jennifer asked that people bake Mikey's favorite peanut butter pie and share it with their loved ones. No flowers, no donations, just pie.

The Best of BlogHer 2011

Getting up at 6AM for an early morning flight after 3 days at BlogHer -- conferencing, networking, walking and partying -- is not something I recommend. However, early flights do have the consolation of light road traffic and short security lines, so I've been able to get to the airport early enough to sit and get my thoughts together about BlogHer 2011. I did the same thing last year, when I wrote a post about the Best and Worst of BlogHer 2010. This year I've decided to stick with The Best of BlogHer 2011 (with only 1 exception), mainly because I enjoyed myself so much that I can't really think of anything to complain about. So without further ado, here's what I loved best about BlogHer 2011:

Linky love: everything you simply must know before heading off to BlogHer

BlogHer starts tomorrow (okay, the conference actually starts on Friday, but all the fun starts tomorrow), and I am beyond excited. I've spent the better part of this morning writing out my Plan of Attack (with so many sessions, parties, special suites, and activities, you're going to need one, or risk running around like a headless chicken), figuring out what to pack, stocking the fridge with food, writing out instructions for Alfie (camp pickup/dropoff times, approved snacks, approved tv shows, playdate commitments, and other valuable information I keep in my head) and catching up on laundry so I don't have a mountain of it waiting for me on Sunday.

I can't sew. Sew what?

Throughout my childhood I was never far from a sewing machine. We had a sewing machine at home, one of those old-fashioned sewing machines: a sturdy, black iron thing, with a foot pedal to turn the wheel. Later on, my mom bought an electric pedal and attached it to the sewing machine so it whizzed rather than clickety-clacked, but I always preferred the slow, steady rhythm of the foot pedal. Until I was about nine or ten, most of my clothes (school uniforms, dresses, blouses) were sewn at home, either by my mother or a seamstress she hired.

Giveaways on Bonggamom Finds

Since I'm leaving for BlogHer in 2 days, I'm trying to do my bloggy housekeeping early in the week, and as I clean up old links and do other boring stuff, it occurred to me that it has been a while since I've plugged my giveaways. I've got quite a few good ones running, including giveaways for gift cards and DVDs, so I thought I'd give them a shout out:


* Uprinting.com poster -- ends August 2
* $10 iTunes gift card -- ends August 5.
* JetBlue travel activity kit -- ends August 7.
* Totally Together planner -- ends August 7.
* Chuggington DVD -- ends August 10.
* Hairmax product pack -- ends August 10.
* RIO DVD -- ends August 10.
* Dance Pocoyo Dance DVD -- ends August 15.
* $50 to Photo Card Creations -- ends August 15.
* THE HELP movie prize pack -- ends August 15.
* Box of CLIF Kid snacks (2 winners!) -- ends August 15.
* $25 Ross Dress for Less gift card -- ends August 19.


Entries are fairly low (less than a hundred entries each for most of these) so your chances of winning are great!

Words of Wisdom for BlogHer 2011

This week I'll be joining 3,000 other bloggers in San Diego for the BlogHer 2011 conference. It's going to be my 4th straight year attending BlogHer, and I'm just as excited about going as I was in my first year. Since I've done this all before, I want to share some of the things I've learned over the years. There are already lots of other veteran BlogHer attendees who are posting advice about what to bring and what to do, but every little bit helps. Here's my two cents:

Backyard Water Games

The Pea came home from summer camp today all bubbly and excited and full of stories about how much fun she had playing all sorts of water games with her friends. They were such great games that I decided to write them all down and share with everyone, because while really, all kids need to have some backyard fun with water is, well, water, these games are a great way to supplement the random splashing and spraying, especially during summer parties and playdates. The folks at Galileo Summer Quest have taken some popular games and cleverly modified them for water play. Just like those Kool-Aid mixes, all you have to do for instant kid-approval is to add some water!

Have you been to the park this summer?

Growing up in the sweltering heat of the tropics, I was raised to avoid going outdoors as much as possible -- but with this beautiful California weather I want to raise my own kids to appreciate the beauty of nature and reap the benefits of an active, outdoorsy lifestyle. We've having a "slow" summer this year -- no big trips, no fancy vacations, just two weeks of summer camp -- and we've been whiling away most of our time indoors, with trips to the library or museum, home crafts and more marathon tv sessions than I care to admit. Sometimes I need a big kick in the pants to remind me that we have a wealth of beautiful parks nearby just waiting to be enjoyed.

Growing Up

This is one of my favorite photos of the kids. It was taken on one of our visits to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, at the Wave Crash Gallery. I love the look of delight on their faces as 600 gallons of ocean crash into the rocky shore behind them.