Life at Oak Grove

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

 

The faces a kid make when they don’t know you are shotting…. 

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

On his 7th birthday (this is today!) Dominic got picked to demonstrated the electric static when your hair are short…

I figure a series of pictures would be apprepriate for today…  I love the sport option on my camera!!!!!

 

 

Today is my 2nd son birthday – he is turning 7 years old.  Time flies I tell you.  

In honour of him, I have made this smilebox presentation.

Enjoy!

This free slideshow personalized with Smilebox

 

Have a wonderful day Dominic!   I love you.  mom xo

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

R2D2 Cake

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

 

It’s tricky to learn to cut…

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

 

Early geography lesson

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

 

Jasmine reading her Bible.

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

 

 

 

The other day I wanted to take a picture of my girl and she proudly showed me her book!   *Sigh*

For the past week, I have put many thoughts on personal branding.

Not only because of this specific course titled Introduction to Social Media but because of an email I received this past week from Mom Central.

Last Fall, Mom Central Canada has decided to put a Blogger Grant Program.   Bottom line is that they are awarding grants over the next year to Canadian bloggers in their network.    The first grant program was about a post that you would like to write.     In January 2011, I learned that I was one of the ten recipients of this first grant of 250$ from Mom Central Canada.  My application was the following:

The blog post I would like to write about would be RVing with young children‚.   In it I would give tips on how to choose an RV for a young family as well as tips and tricks on travelling long distance with young children.   We ourselves are rvers and we have 4 kids ages 3 to 9.     We learned a lot over the past three years about travelling with children and how to have fun as a family.    I would also suggest some fun activities to do together on the road or while visiting a new place.

Turns out that the post was a bit longer than I thought and I decided to split it in two different posts.   If you feel like reading them here they are:

Buying an RV. Are you ready?

RVing with young children

Where am I going?   Well I knew that the new grant will open up soon and I was starting to think of the next subject I would like to write.   Imagine my surprised when I received a Mom Central  email last week – about personal branding…

The Mom Blogosphere is brimming with talented, smart, passionate and ambitious women. We feel so grateful and want to do our part in helping take Moms' personal brands to the next level: be that a broader audience, getting media exposure, becoming a spokesperson, starting a small business, or better monetizing your platform. The possibilities are endless, and tie inextricably to the vision you have for yourself. So whether $2,000 could get you media training, graphic or technical help, a site redesign, shared office space, some intern hours, new business cards, let you self-publish a book, launch a new blog, or attend a key conference - we want to pitch in to provide the support it takes to get to the next level. So tell us what inspired you in the first place, your journey to take, and what you aspire to do next - because we care, and we want to help!

We know you do what you do for a reason, with a mission and vision behind it.

We love that.

We want to jumpstart more successes to come.

We want to support YOU!

And there would be five winners of 2000$ each.

So I started thinking seriously about the personal branding.

The questions linked to the application are all geared toward the personal branding theme.   What is the vision behind my personal brand, what do I aspire to do next, how will I use the grant to better my influence and personal platform, what I have done already to achieve my goals, what are the biggest challenges in achieving the goals for my blog and personal brand,   what are the top three things I learned along the way in building my brand and platform, and more.    In total I need to write a proposition of over 5000 words!

And to spice up the competition, the votes will be done on facebook of all places!
So I decided to embark on this new adventure.   I will try it again and see what will turn out of it.   I am fortunate to have my social networking course to help me discover aspects that I can explore with the personal branding and where I could expand my influence in the blogosphere.

On a bright note, I got offered to join the Woodall’s blogger team.  The past two weeks were all about thinking about the offer and filling paperwork.   The involvement will be for a period of six months with a post per week.    I had to submit some previous work I had done before.    Apparently I would be a great voice for the Woodall’s Family Camping Blog and they have been searching for a blogger to carry the torch for Canada.

Honestly I am not sure where all this is going but I am excited of the new opportunities opening up for me.    This afternoon I will have training with Woodall’s on how to use their platform.  Should be pretty straightforward…   Soon I will be able to post my blogs on their site. 
Do you have any suggestions that you would like to share with me on how I could make my application for the grant stand up above the other ones?   Please note that this application will be for my review blog – Canadianladybug Reviews!.

Let me know I am curious!

It’s family day today and this morning we were planning to go visit a museum while hubby had two meetings with clients.

But our little girl is still coughing a lot so we judge that it would be better to stay home.   Hubby re-schedule his appointments for this afternoons instead and we decided to play a game of RISK.

It was my 2nd time playing the game.   I had found a game for 4$ at Value Village a while back.   A card was chewed up a bit… we laminated it.    But apart from that, the game was complete.

So we set up ourselves to teach the two oldest (and the young ones as well) the game of RISK.

Can you see the evil mastermind that is doing everything he can to CONQUER the world? 

All the while Jérémy and Jasmine were playing with EXTRAS that were in the box…

I was the red ones…   At one point I owned pretty much all of Canada, US and Greenland.   I was confident in myself.   It was fun too!

Everyone had a good time… the little ones got bored at one point and watched a Passe-Partout and a Dora.

The game is a bit hard for Dominic but he enjoyed playing in team with his big brother Alexandre…  

And then the wind turned….   I was kicked out of my territory and decided to invade Europe…

In the end it was my lone character against the evil green machine….

Can I survive this?

Nope.    My husband has once again conquered the WHOLE world…

I think we need to find a version that is more complicated for him….  

RISK is available at any toy store and his made by Hasbro.

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

 

It’s Family Day in Ontario and we played RISK this morning…

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

 

Paper flower

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

 

Playing with the Portrait feature on the camera….    I missed on the angle though as you see the light in the hallway.   But I love his pose!

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

And Voilà!  The special puzzle is complete…

 

And it was based on this picture that was taken a few weeks ago!

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

 

A new puzzle I have received to review.   I promise to show you the result when we finish it…

For now here’s what it looks like so far!  There’s two sides on the pieces once you identify where the piece goes, you flipped it around to show the sequoia color.

As I was reading the lesson for the next few weeks in my social media course, it got me pondering on how the social network has been used in the past to promote something. I remembered stumbling on a book last year titled Historical Tweets (http://historicaltweets.com) . They even have a twitter account - http://twitter.com/historicaltweet.

Then suddenly I came onto the news that Barbie and Ken were back together… If you remember correctly back in 2004 it was all over the news that they broke up and such. Well imagine my reaction when I read that Mattel is using the social media world to promote their back together. There’s talk about engagement which means there’s might be a wedding in the horizon. Ah!

Not only the Ottawa Citizen caught the news but even the blog world… And believe it or not but they are using facebook and twitter as well as an online dating site to promote it.

I think Mattel is using the social media world in a wise and innovative way to make people talk about Barbie and Ken. My daughter is too young to understand all the buzz going around. She has been introduced to Barbie only recently. But having grown up with Barbie and Ken, I wonder where this marketing will be going and how little girls everywhere will react to this news.

For more details go to http://barbieandken.com/ - Yes they even have their own website....

I am participating in the 2011 Mommytography 365 Project! For this year long project I will be posting an image a day, to get me out shooting, using my camera and learning new things with it daily. Anyone interested in photography can join, no need to be a Mommytographer. We have teens to adults, male and female, as well as people from all over the world. Come join the fun!

Oups!  The previous day should have read 365 Project – Day 41….