Last Teaser from Meg

Things have been soooo quiet here.  After we do something with Lentils tonight we will be done.  Maybe a few french knots, too.  Our package will go out tomorrow.  We spent a grand total of 4 dollars.  For the rest we used supplies we had here or we donated some of our craft supplies as the swap gift.  We had a few extra books we would have sent, our partners read a lot like we do though so we went a different direction.  We think it turned out well.  Before we go to the post off ice we will run up to the local hotel to grab a postcard.  I hope everyone else's swaps are going well.  Please tell us about how it went making a package.  And if you have already swapped please post pictures.  I am planning on posting pics of what we are sending tomorrow or the next day on my personal blog.  So no peeking Christy, Paige or Ella!

Get Ready to go to the Post Office

Packages have to be sent no later than post office hours on Tuesday.  Just a friendly reminder.  Some of you have already received your packages.  We would love to see and hear how that went.  Please post here and share!  Thank you for being such a great group and all keeping up your ends of the swap.  :)

Almost ready...

We are getting closer to completing our package projects. My oldest daughter has pretty much been in charge of choosing the items to include, so we don't have as much of a "theme" going as I would if it were just me choosing. She also wants one of everything we are sending...for the projects that works out fine. We are doing the project together and then choosing the materials to send after we're done. She is having a blast and wants to know when the next swap will be...and this is before she even gets a package! Hope everyone else is enjoying the process. By the way....did anyone else wake up to the utterly unwelcome sight of snow on this joyous Easter morning?!

Happy Easter and Happy Spring!

Happy Easter for those of you celebrating today.  And Happy Spring to all.  It is refreshing to know winter is over!  I hope all of you begin to feel the warmth of the season!  Meg and Mag

Hint, Hint!

We actually have two partners since there was an odd number of families that signed up, so I feel pretty safe that I am not giving too much away. I could have plenty of fun creating the packages all by myself, but I am trying to involve my son in the process as much as possible. I really like the idea of choosing themes, so I had him pick which ones we would use. I also took him shopping with me to the craft store and second- hand book store, but he didn't enjoy that part too much, and of course wanted one of everything we bought for himself too. He did have fun doing a test run of one of the projects that we are going to send one of our partners the materials to create. I would like to hear how other swappers are involving their children and also hear some of the ideas you have, without giving too much away!

Little People Swap

My son is SO excited about the swap. HE has started working on his stuff. I really think this is a great idea.

Greetings from Cincinnati!

Hi fellow Mommies! I'm new to this whole blogging community. Well actually, I think I started one shortly after my daughter was born, but you know life gets hectic and then you forget passwords....and it all goes down hill from there. But I'm climbing back up the hill! My name is Melanie and I'm a mother of one for now. My daughter Sophie is 2&1/2 years old and a laugh riot by the minute. We live in the suburbs of Cincinnati along with Dave, a wonderful husband & father, and our two cats: Calvin and Collete. Two is such a fun age because instead of trying to eat playdough and crayons, Sophie's actually making sculptures ! (albeit it's little torn balls) and drawings! Some might call it chicken scratch, but I choose to say that she's in her abstract expressionist phase. I studied fine arts in college but have struggled with creating art since graduating. I'm excited about this swap because I'm going to use it as a jumpstart to get back into using my creative and artistic abilities. I've been browsing through some of the posted blogger sites and I've been inspired by your artistic creations whether it's painting, knitting, sewing or gardening projects. Creativity is so important, especially now with having a little one. Looking forward to getting to know some or all of you more and sharing thoughts and ideas!

Sneak Peek

This is great because I get to hide behind our co cordinator alias.  But, here is a sneak peek of what we are doing.  We had a lot of fun yesterday playing with beads.  We plan to do a little something each day for the next few days.  Hope partnerships are working out well.  We have heard from a few of you how well matched you are.  We are so glad.  It is nice when it works out that way.  Happy Package Making!

A note from Meg....

Hi, just wanted to check in.  Also wanted to start a discussion on here.  I am on spring break as of yesterday afternoon and so you will maybe see a little more of me.  Melissa has been a great coordinator because I fall completely off the radar when I have an exam hit, 3 in the past 2 weeks.

If you haven't checked out the blogs in the sidebar please do.  They are all great.  There are eco friendly focii, craft focii, parenting focii, and such.  It is always fun (from the author's view) to see what people think in response to their posts.  And so feel free to leave a comment saying hi and responding to what they have written.  Usually you can do this at the end of the post.  There will be a little word that says comments and has a number.  Click on that and then the various servers will lead you through leaving a comment.  Some bloggers email back to the people who comment and some will leave a comment response.  And others just enjoy the love.  The only real blogging etiquette here to respect that this is their space.  But, it is public and so you should feel free to comment, support, and if they have asked for discussion or opinions then leave that, too.

Some of you are thinking about starting a blog.  I have blogged off and on for 3 and a half years.  I use a service called typepad.  Typepad, wordpress, and some others charge.  They have a few more features and some extra options for customization.  A great place to start is here on blogger.  If you have been leaving a comment or have posted here then you already have an account.  There a lot of women in this swap who use blogger and can give you a run down of how to set it up and any tips they have.  I have used blogger and it has great features without being overwhelming.  A blog is a fun way to join an online community and share pieces of yourself that you may not get to on a regular basis.  

The best way to increase your readership on your blog is to comment on other people's blogs, email other bloggers, and to post regularly.  Also by hosting a swap you will see more traffic.  A lot of bloggers have what they call a blogroll (we have one on this site.)  A blogroll is where you list and link to other blogs that you read or blogs of people you are friends with.  

As you start to find blogs that you enjoy it is convenient to subscribe to them.  You can create accounts with bloglines and google reader.  There you will set up subscriptions to your favorite blogs.  When you visit you page on these sites you will see all the new posts that have been put on the blogs you subscribe to.  It is sort of like getting a newspaper with all the new stories, instead of visiting each individual site.  I know that a lot of you may have questions, and more of you have great suggestions.  So throw these up here.  And go ahead and blog here related to the swap whether you have blogged for a decade or have never blogged at all!  Have a great weekend.

Everything OK?

We hope everyone is getting to know their partners.  I just want to say how smoothly this has all gone, not one problem.  We think that says so much about the families that signed up for this swap.  So thank you.  One of the biggest worries when organizing a swap is that people won't end up fulfilling their part of the commitment.  With this group we both feel that is not going to be the case.  Which is so great.   There is even one mom who has had a hard family week and was able to let her partner know that she would get back to her when her Dad recovered from surgery.  Thank you for all being committed and for signing up.  Now we worry you guys aren't letting us know if you need anything!  :)  So please feel free to email us with problems, post here to brag about your partner or your kids experience or anything else!  We are SO HAPPY to have each and every one of you.  And so far this has gone better than we imagined.   Now we enter the really fun stuff!!!  Meg and Mag

Partners!!!

We paired everyone up with their swap partner today. Everyone should have received an e-mail with their partner's name and e-mail address, a questionaire, and a few reminders. Please contact your partner by Monday, March 17th. If for some reason your partner does not make contact with you, please send us an e-mail so we can try and help out. Also, check your spam folders to make sure e-mails from your partner aren't ending up there, and add your partner to your address book to prevent this from happening. We are both excited to get started and so are our little ones. Happy swapping everyone!

Hello from the beautiful state of Montana aka Big Sky Country!!! I live in Bozeman with my wonderful husband and our beautiful 2 1/2 year old daughter. Sorry it has taken me so long to introduce ourselves, my daughter and I have both been down and out with colds... 

My name is Erika, I am a SAHM (ex-1st grade teacher) loving my job as homemaker, our little ones name is Zoe, she is a very active and VERY talkative 2 year old.  Zoe loves to dance and sing and do "school stuff" (color, paint, read books etc. :-)) We are trying to stay busy to ward off the winter blues... This is a great distraction!!! 

We are very excited to be a part of this swap and cannot wait to meet our partners.  Thanks!!!

Greetings from the Garden State...

If you ask which exit I will slap you. Hard.

:D

I live approximately 30 miles West of Atlantic City with my husband, our son and my (heaven help me!) Mother-In-Law and her three dogs (plus our one, and one cat. four-legged creatures outnumber the bi-peds - NOT good). My son is seven - he will turn eight in May. He is bright and funny, has earned a blue belt in Tang Soo Do and has a wonderful imagination. He is equally comfortable and friendly with boys and with girls and loves Jazz!

Thanks for having us - I think this will be a fun project!

Sign Ups are closed! The fun Begins!!

Sign ups closed last night. We ended up with 35 participants. And it looks this is going to be a very fun group. We have been able to confirm everyone's email and that our emails are going through. Thank you to those of you who responded yesterday. It helped put our minds at ease! :) We will be talking later tonight or tomorrow and pairing people off. Then hopefully by the end of the week you will all have received your partner's name, email address and some last minute reminders. As always if you have any questions please email us. Most announcements will go here on the blog so that we aren't bombarding your email accounts. We will try to create an announcement category. We are going to go in and clean up the labels and link some posts to labels so you will be able to find everything easily in the side bar. It is the top list on the right. That's the news from Meg and Mag.
(PS. you can put a label on your post in the bottom right hand corner of the post window. Try to stick with labels of Introduction, Progress, Creating, Thank you, Bragging, and Random. This will help all the readers access posts easily.)

Glad to meet all of you!

Wow, look at all the great families out there in blogland. I've been sick the past few days and wasn't feeling up to pulling out the old laptop check in. I'm glad to meet all of you and I can't wait for this to get started. I hope you all have a lot of fun, and I can't wait to meet my swap partner.

Last Day to Sign-up!

Sign-ups for the swap will close at midnight! If you still have any friends that you wanted to tell about the swap, do it today! Also if you did not respond to the welcome e-mail you received after signing up, please remember to do so. We mainly just want to know that our e-mails are not ending up in your spam folders because that could cause you to also miss out on finding out who your parnter is when we assign them. The really fun part is about to begin, so be looking for an e-mail towards the end of this week with your partner's info and a questionaire to get you started.

Hello from Fairborn, Ohio!

Well, I finally made it on here after some technical difficulty. Yippee! It's nice to meet everyone. I'm WebMommy, married to Noysboy, and we have two girls, DanceFairy (5) and GuineaGirl(3). We live in Fairborn, Ohio which is pretty close to Dayton. We just had a big blizzard here so we are all enjoying the snow and also the forced confinement at home for a few days. I'm almost sad for the week to start up again.

I'm a computer programmer from home, and I also work a bit at my girls' school just a few hours a week. I'm also a full time college student and somehow manage to keep the kiddos home with me as well. It's a busy life but worth it.

My girls are great little folks. DanceFairy is a voracious reader and would enjoy any type of chapter books such as the Boxcar Children (after #5 please), Invisible Stanley or The Tiara Club (we have 1-3 already). She's also seriously into chemistry and science experiments, loves dress up, and enjoys ballet.

GuineaGirl is my animal lover. She builds pillow and blanket cages for all of her stuffed beasties and loves to romp with our very real guinea pigs and one old dog. She's a great swimmer and loves to be in the water until she turns blue (no bath toys please, we have a MILLION!!!). She's also a pretty fantastic artist and enjoys drawing and painting.

They both love ice and roller skating and you can't keep them off their scooters in the spring. They are both also interested in Spanish so anything along those lines would be really cool.

If there are any homeschooling families out there, DanceFairy will be home next year for the first time (while GuineaGirl goes off to preschool - I know, weird, eh?) so I'd love to hear your experiences with that, favorite "must have" items and that sort of thing.


All the best,
WebMommy

Hi from Northern Michigan

I thought I'd jump in and introduce us as well...

I'm Liz, a 37 year-old math and science teacher and mom to Sean, age three, and Katie, who will be two in just a few weeks. We live in a really (and I mean really) small town in Northern Michigan. Right now we are iced in and the only way in or out of town is by snowmobile across the lake or by airplane. We have lots of pets: a dog (Bailey,) a cat (Sushie,) and a few thousand bees (my husband has a hive in the backyard.) Both Sean and Katie have been having lots of fun this winter walking in the woods, sledding, and going for snowmobile rides. Many days it is just too cold to have any fun outside so we try to stay warm and have fun playing indoors. The kids and I are so excited about being a part of this swap and we can't wait to find out who we are paired with!

Hi Ya'll From Alabama

We're from Alabama where it's sometimes hot, sometimes cold, all within the same week. The Robot is 8, The Dancer is 4, and The Mom is 30-something! We love being outside: bonfires, hiking, camping, exploring, wading, climbing, . . . you get the point. We also love sewing, cooking, crafting, and drawing. We have a cat and two dogs, and a treehouse out back. We homeschool together, travel together, explore together, and do pretty much everything together. Here's our blog if you're interested in more!

Looking forward to anything you send. We LOVE mail, and especially packages, so this is fabulous fun!

Almost there!

We are almost ready to make pairs. It is getting really exciting. We have really enjoyed visiting your blogs. It is exciting to see what a wide variety of families we have. We have people from all over the US and Canada. If you haven't visited the blogs in the sidebar it is worth it! Go check them out.

Also, we wanted to let you know that if you have literate children who want to post that is fine too. Or if they want to dictate and have you type.

We are really thankful to have every one of you. Things so far have gone really smoothly and it is because of how patient and helpful you all are. So Thanks :)

Partner Preferences

It is great to see everyone introduce themselves. I am noticing a lot of people are putting their preferences for swap items out there too. When we make pairs we are going to include a questionairre that you will answer and send to your partner. Also we sort of want to remind everyone to look at their packages through the eyes of a child. What makes a child happy when opening up a package. The function of this swap is really to celebrate childhood and have a fun thing to do this winter.

Hello Again from Florida

So I've already introduced myself and my family early in the process but I wanted to say Hi again to all the new families. It's been really fun reading about all the families and seeing where everyone is located.

Once Meg and Mag pair us all up I know Bryce and I are really excited to start the swap. I have a challenge for the family that swaps with us...let's try to make our personal swap eco-friendly. Some other families have already mentioned sharing gently used items which is a great way to reuse items. I'm already coming up with some fun projects that I might be able to send to you to make some cool crafts from trash! We all have trash why not let the kids have some fun with it.

Anyways...that's my 2 cents on fun ways to incorporate the environment into the swap. I'll share the rest of my ideas as the swap unfolds and I look forward to seeing what others come up with.

Greetings from Saskatoon!

Hi there! My name is Renee, and my son Preston is 2 & Isabella is 10 months. When I heard about this swap I was so excited to join! I heard about it here and my personal blog is here.

Since we live in winter all most all year long, we have to create ways to keep ourselves occupied! Preston loves making forts, playing with megablocks & coloring!

Thanks for creating this wonderful idea and I can't wait to see who we are paired up with!

Britain and Isaiah

I just learned how to upload photos for the blog. ~Kristi

A little gray today

The weather may be a little too gray for my liking in Stockton, CA this evening, but I know things could be worse. Hello! I'm thrilled to be making new friends and reconnecting with others (hi Michelle and Linda). My son, Isaiah (9/13/2000) and daughter, Britain (7/6/2002) are also excited about participating in this Swap. Isaiah enjoys spending his time playing the piano, drums or any sport activity. Britain has lately been making masterpieces from various art media. Her favorite animals are our guinea pig, dog, cat and chickens (which we gave to my aunt and uncle since our homeowner's association do not allow chickens). They both love doing puzzles, playing board/card games, reading, gardening and taking nature walks. Scott and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary on Dec. 14th. Scott was raised in Canada and lives for hockey season . . . he'll be going to a hockey game within the hour. He also likes restoring cars and learning new things. His day job is Administrator of Research, Evaluation and Assessment for Stockton Unified School District but may be switching careers in June which may later take us to China, India and North Korea. Like my kids, I enjoy being outdoors. Right now I spend the majority of my time homeschooling and find myself thankful that both Scott and I have our teaching credentials (there has been such an uproar the last few days . . . homeschooling is supposedily illegal in CA if the parents are not credentialed teachers . . . I better not get started :)).
My children would be thrilled to receive anything in the mail, especially homemade letters or artwork. We really try to distinguish between needs and wants when purchasing items while keeping God and nature in mind. I guess I'm trying to say that fewer gifts can often be more meaningful. I hope this makes sense.
Our backyard trees now have pink and white blossoms and are beginning to grow new leaves. I'm looking forward to spring.
Love,
Kristi

Swap Map

This morning my husband suggested making a map showing where all the swap participants are from. I thought this would be a good project for my son, Sammy, to help with. He is starting to take an interest in maps and trying to wrap his mind around the difference between a state and a city. We put a sticker on the map for each family in the swap. We didn't try and put them on where the cities would be, I just helped Sammy find the state and then let him put the dot wherever he wanted. Don't worry if you see a cluster of dots in your state, Michelle and I plan to partner people with someone from outside their own state. I put a black star on each dot to help them show up better in the picture, hope eveyone can see them okay.

Hello from cloudy Vancouver

It is nice to see everyone introducing themselves, so I thought I would jump in to do the same. My name is Lesley and I am mother to three: two daughters, Molly and Finley (5 and 3) and one little boy, Lucas, who is 15 months. We live in Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. We also have a cottage just over the border in Washington where we spend most weekends once the weather gets nice (our swap partners can ship there, keeping it in the US). I am a writer and I am lucky enough to work from home. My husband is a firefighter. You can see more about us at www.lucasbutler.com

I hope everyone is staying cheerful in the middle of winter (although it is harder to feel for the people in the sunny places...I can barely see the computer screen through this thick curtain of rain here). We're excited!

Last Weekend for Sign ups

Hi, we are so glad to have you all.  We wanted to remind everyone that this is the last weekend for sign ups.  So if you know anyone who is thinking about signing up or if you are thinking of posting this swap on your blog....well...Go ahead!  We are ready for the masses.  I think we are up to 30 participants!  Woo Hoo!  And that is including 4 last night.  I am super excited about all of this.  Also if you haven't joined the blog come on in and say hello!  If you are having trouble with the blog let us know.  Also if you are having problems with receiving emails from us remember to add our email to your address book.  We don't want anyone to miss out!  Expectantly, with great anticipation, and excitement boiling over, Mag and Meg!!!  

If you are finding this site randomly and want to sign up for the swap then please join us!

Wishing for Warm

Hello from the alternately snowy/muddy Midwest! Me and my little ones, Ella-41/2 and Paige-2, are eagerly awaiting the swap. Ella has already had me add about 15 things to a list she is making of what should be included. We are spending our seemingly endless winter here in Illinois doing LOTS of art projects, putting on performances for the family and making frequent trips to the library. Any bit of mail is always appreciated when you're a child, so a care package would make their week! Of course we don't yet know who our swap partners will be, but we can't wait to get started!

Hello from Toronto, Canada!

Hi fellow LPCPS swappers!

I'm Village Mama, mama to jr cookie monster (3.5) and baby girl (1.5), so no, not really a baby anymore and foster parent to Rennet in Zambia.

We live at the upper end of The Beach(es) and the edge of Little India with Village Papa.

This winter we have spent at least half the day molding play doh, blaring music, making forts out of pillows and blankets, baking or cooking from scratch (tonight's pizza night), picking up or dropping off books, videos and dvds to the library, and poking around snowbanks in our neighbourhood.

We strive to tread lightly, so 'ideally' the swap package we send/receive will be filled with not-new, second hand, thrifted, found books, art supplies, accessories, music, t-shirts (we love fun t-shirts) and new-to-us fun stuff.

We are mostly vegan, love rainbows, and we make lots of funny noises (bodily functions not included)!


Can't wait to meet our swap partners.

ps here's a picture of us and a dear friend, I'm the brunette on the right

Hey Everyone!

Hi, my name is Casey, I have two daughters, Samantha who's 3 and Elizabeth who's 1, they're exactly two years apart (give or take a day). I'm pregnant with baby #3, due in September. I live in Canada, where I stay at home with my girls every single day lol. no, it's fun though. We can't wait to get started on this swap, it's such a great and fun idea!

Hello from Stockton, CA

Thank you to Michelle for inviting me and my daughter, Maya. I have never blogged before and have never been involved in a care package swap, but I love the idea of meeting people from faraway places. About us: my daughter, Maya, will be four years old this May. She attends a preschool and is learning faster than I can keep up with. We live in a cozy little home in the nicest, old neighborhood in Stockton (Michelle used to be our neighbor of a couple streets down). I love to cook (I'm actually baking a cake right now for a fundraising event for the local library) and sing. Maya loves to cook with me but her real passions are for dancing, telling stories, and asking a million questions. We look forward to being connected with another family and hope to make lots of new friends.

Hello!

I'm Allison, and my daughter Miriam (who will be 3 in about a month) and I already started to think of things for the swap. I think it will be very fun - I've always wanted to do a swap - for some reason I think I'm more motivated to do it when my kid's excitement is involved. Can't wait to find out who our partners will be!

Hi Fellow Swappers!

Wow, this is an excellent idea. My daughter is going to love doing this once I tell her about it. A little about us: there's hubby, me, and Tay and we live in Beaverton, Oregon, then I have a 14 year old daughter who lives in Hawaii with her daddy.

Tay is 5 years old and goes to kindergarten 5 days a week for two and half hours. She absolutely loves school. Hubby is an electrician, and I work for a medical billing company for anesthesiologists.

I started my blog as a way to document my wedding planning but it evolved more into a family blog. I love to scrapbook but since i don't scrapbook as fast as I can type, I'm hoping that my blog will document our lives and make scrapbooking easier when the time comes.

I can be found at: www.simplychristel.blogspot.com. I look forward to this swap and meeting all the moms out there.

Great Idea!

I am SO excited to have found you! My kids are going to loooove this.

MamaBird at www.surelyyounest.blogspot.com

Mag aka Melissa

Hi, I am also an organizer of the swap. I live in Washington State and have two children. Sammy is 4 and Abby is 18-months-old. Sammy is full of questions and has a great imagination. Abby is a very happy girl and has shown an early love of music. We are involved in a great co-op preschool, which helps me feel like I am still involved in the education field since I used to be a teacher. Besides being a stay-at-home mom, I am also an aspiring children's writer and like to dabble in art. Like Michelle said, I married my high-school sweetheart, Jeff, and it has been almost nine years for us! As a family we like to go camping, ride bikes, take the kids to the park, and swim at the Y(we spend a lot of time at the Y in winter).

I am really looking forward to the swap--I have a lot of ideas and it will be hard to narrow it down! I am also excited to get to know all of you!

Meg aka Michelle

Hi, I am one of the organizers. We live outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. But, I am a Californian. We have lived here for about a year. We are Me, Lacy (4 years old), Oliver (2 on Monday) and a new baby due in July. Winter in Ohio is hard for a California family. So we are so happy for this swap. Lacy and Oliver are great. We do a lot of art and reading at our house. The kids unschool and we go outside when we can. As for me...I was working a homebirth practice in CA. In Ohio it is illegal to practice homebirth direct entry midwifery. You can be convicted as a felon. So I am now back in school (the first time I received a BS in Economics) doing pre requisites for a Bachelor in nursing program that I will start in the Fall or if I have a colicky baby then the next Fall. After that I will become a Nurse Midwife. I have 5 years of school ahead. But, really this is my calling in life so I will make it through. The only other interesting thing about me is that I secretly would love to be a writer and I will be 30 in September. I also love photography. We are a happy little family. The only picture I have of all 3 and 1/2 of us is a pretty funky self portrait. But, it shows all of us so that is the picture I am choosing to show. There also a Ryan in our family. My high school sweetheart (Mag married her high school sweetheart too!) but he isn't doing the swap. We have been married for 8 years, almost!

Hello Swappers!

This is such a great idea! I've been blogging privately for a few years now and finally ventured out in the blogosphere with my blog www.TheEcoChic.com late last year. Through my blogging experience I have found some wonderful bloggers out there that I can personally relate to. When I say this swap posted on Mommy Doodles I knew I had to be a part of it.

A little about us: My name is Calley and I'm married to Chris. We live in sunny Palm Harbor, FL with our soon to be (3/17/03) 5 year old little boy Bryce. He is the joy of my life and I love introducing him to the great big world out there. He's just learning to write and read so I thought this would be a fun way for him to make a new friend (or two).

I can't wait to get started! Thanks for the opportunity to share Meg and Mag!!

Little People Swap

I think this is a wonderful idea for the kids to do. Excellent idea.

Welcome!

Hi, we are so glad you are here. If you haven't signed up for the Little People Care Package Swap and would like to (and it is before March 11, 12:01 am) please go to mommiesthinktoo(dot)blogspot(dot)com or graggirl(dot)typepad(dot)com and follow the directions to sign up. We would love to have you.

To all of our swappers: You do not know how happy it makes us to have you. Feel free to introduce yourself on here and post about your progress on making and recieving packages. Or to brag about the new friend's you are making through this. You can upload pictures and link to this blog as much as you want. Please remeber though that the biggest gift we give other moms and dads is kindness and that no matter what happens this is not a place to air problems with the swap. You can email us and we will quickly take care of any problems you may be running into. Also, you are not committed to joining the blog. You can still participate and be anonymous here. Lastly if you have another blog we would like to put up a links bar on the sidebar to send people your way. So, give us the address and your permission and we will do that. Melissa and I (Michelle) are co coordinators for this swap.

We go by Meg and Mag, I think we have been doing this for about a year. Silly things happen like that between good friends and the passage of time. SO we will probably interchangably refer to each other and ourselves with both names. I want to tell you a little about us as friends and we will be on to introduce ourselves as individuals later. We met 4 and a handful of months ago in Stockton, CA. Melissa was bringing me dinner a few days after my first child was born. She brought good food, a set of sleep and play jumpers, a baby toy, and a huge smile, we had never really talked too much before that. Her first babe was 6 mos by this time. Since then we have been great friedns. Our husbands are great friends and our kids are great friends. It is one of those lucky happenstances that you don't see very often. For us life has changed and neither of us now live in CA but our friendship is stronger than ever, unless Melissa isn't telling me something. ;) From relocating and blogging we have both learned how the big the world is, and how many great people are out there. A wonderful swap went on simliar to this that we were too late to join. So after some sadness we thought: Why not organize one for ourselves and others who may want to join. Which is where you all of our new friends come in, that's you. So feel free to post a hello and get to know eachother. Partners will be made later next week and you can be involved as little (remember the 3 minimum requirements) or as much as you want. We are so pleased to have each and every one of you! I was looking for a picture to post of Melissa and I but have none. If she has one maybe she will post it!