Blog Awards

Boy have I ever taken my time posting about these? My apologies to Karyn and Renee for taking MONTHS to post about their thoughtful nominations.

Thank you Karyn. The award is called the Life is Grand Award. And for this award I must give five reasons why I think life is grand and then tag five more people. My reasons life is grand are:

1. I am married to my best friend who happens to be the most amazing man and father that I've ever known

2. I have 3 beautiful and amazing children that I adore
3. I have everything that I need and lots of extras to be grateful for

4. I have a new circle of strong, intelligent women friends through our Artist's Way journey together

5. It's summer time in the mid-west and life is darn good

Dear Reader, would you like this award? Consider yourself tagged.

Thank you Renee. “Premio Dardos means ‘prize darts’ in Italian." This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his or her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day.
Here are the rules for this award:

Step 1: Respond and rework -- answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.
Step 2: Tag - eight other bloggers to do the same.

1) What food are you unable to resist? mashed potatoes and gravy

2) What is your biggest fear? losing a child or my hubby
3) Do you nap a lot? When I can
4) Who is the last person you hugged? Helena
5) What websites do you visit when you go online? Too many to count
6) What was the last item you bought? gas
7) If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Ireland

8) If you could go to the Oscars, who would you want to sit next to? Johnny Depp

9) Has a celebrity's hair cut ever influenced your own hairstyle? yes, Meg Ryan and it was the worst and shortest haircut I've ever had
10) If your house was on fire, what one item would you grab? wedding album
11) What was the last movie you watched? There Will Be Blood (and there was, yuck)
12) What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you? survived a crash on the interstate, hit by a drunk driver

13) If you had a whole day to yourself with no work, commitments or interruptions what would you do? Sleep. Blog. Read. Drink wine.
14) Is there a major goal you have that you haven't yet achieved? just raising these babies

15) Where did you meet your spouse? we worked together at CoOp Records in college
17) What States and Countries have you visited as an adult? AR, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, KY, MN, NE, NV, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, VA, WV, WI, (Washington, DC), Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Denmark

18) What do you do to relieve stress? Cry. Sleep. Eat. Blog.

19) You must clean 1 of the following, baby poop or vomit. Which do you choose? poop

Dear Reader, would you like this award? Consider yourself tagged.

Golden Advocate

Introducing the GOLDEN ADVOCATE

The Golden Advocate Award is given to bloggers who have gone above and beyond to educate and advocate for people who have special needs. It was created in honor of my daughter Sophia who has Down syndrome, but it is not limited to the Ds community as all special needs count. The recipient may be a self advocate or a loved one, caregiver, therapist, teacher, community member, etc. to a person with special needs.

The recipient of this award has demonstrated courage, strength, and wisdom, and has used their blog to show the world how amazing people with special needs truly are. Recipients of this award do not shy away from speaking out against ignorance, cruelty, or injustices related to people with special needs. They can sometimes be found making phone calls to elected officials, signing petitions, attending rallies, and blogging about issues that are important to our community. On most days they educate by sharing their everyday experiences with us, allowing us to see how people with special needs are more alike than different. They wear their advocacy hat well and the world is a more beautiful, diverse, and inclusive place because they are in it.

To accept this award:
Simply accept it with the knowledge that your work is appreciated. Feel free to post it on your blog, or not. It's up to you with no strings attached.

To nominate a blogger for this award or to pass it on if you have received it:
Use the image, guidelines, and description listed here. Briefly summarize why the blogger deserves this award, post a link to their blog, and notify them that they have won. Link back to this post so that we can track how far it travels. Please limit your nominations to just 1 or 2 deserving bloggers.

The very 1st Golden Advocate goes to:
drum roll please
Sarah of Class of 2008. Sarah is a self advocate who has brought such joy into our lives with her blog. I tune in eagerly for every post as Sarah gives me hope, encouragement, and excitement for my daughter Sophia's future. This post in particular makes me so proud of her and the way she handles herself. Sarah, you are an inspiration and wonderful role model!

the Golden Advocate image was created with help here

Cool Awards

I've been a bad blogger. I received two very cool awards from 2 friends a million years ago, and I haven't mentioned them. The sweet Datri over at Opposite Kids awarded me the following award:

The name is right up my alley and cracks me up. I enjoy reading about your family. Thank you. I pass this award on to a new blogger that I'd love for you to visit. Samm, of Hailey's Comet Ride, began her journey as a special needs mom when the beautiful Hailey Bean came into her life not so long ago. Please check out her blog.

Cathy over at whatever to us gave me the following award:

Cathy and her beautiful family have become good friends of mine here in Shampoo-Banana (that's Champaign-Urbana to you non-locals). I love you guys!!! I pass this award onto another new blogger Sarah at Class of 2008. Sarah came on-line recently and has been a force. She has shared her experiences and favorite memories from her growing up years. I love, love, love reading about her adventures. If you haven't been to her blog, GO NOW!

These awards come with rules and are one of the reasons it has taken me forever to publish them. They require that you post the rules, link back to the creator, and pass them on to usually between 5-7 other blogs that you feel are deserving. I think that's a lot to ask. On one hand, I prefer a more discriminating taste, on the other hand, I don't bother to follow blogs that I don't enjoy. So, I'm breaking the rules and sending it to 1 cool blogger for each award.

I thank my dear friends for the awards. If you want them back, I'm available for lunch today so come on over and get em. Happy Thursday!

I (Heart) Your Blog Too

I received the nicest acknowledgement from fellow blogger at Lovely and Amazing. Emily Elizabeth awarded me with the I Love Your Blog award. I am honored and thank you so much. Please pop on over to her blog and see just how Lovely and Amazing this wonderbabe is. I Love Your Blog back at ya! So, whom shall I pass this on to? hmmm

Arte y pico Blog Award

I am so honored to have been tagged by RK for an award for my little blog. It has to do with "creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language." RK's just honestly one of the coolest women I've met in a very long time, even if she is moving 3 hours away from me! Since I'm brand spanking new to blogging, I'm not very familiar with this sort of thing, the terminology and I definitely don't have many blogger friends yet to pass this on to. In fact, most of the blogs that I do happen to follow all already have this award. That said, I appreciate this very much. Now that I have my very own laptop!!! (it arrived yesterday as a we-sold-the-house/tax return/Mother's Day/b-day/anniversary/Christmas present) I should have more time to get to know others in the community. In the meantime, go visit RK and her beautiful little girl's blog that she ghost writes.