Ultimate Blog Party, 2009

I had a great time at the Ultimate Blog Party and made lots of new bloggy friends. I had no idea there would be so many participants, but enjoyed seeing all the different types of blogs there are in cyberspace. I was looking for blogs much like my own, talking about family and daily life. But I wanted to add some international blogs so that I could get some insight into how families around the world live their lives. I also found a couple American families that live life very differently than I do, so I'm following them as well.

One of the first blogs I found was Brandy at http://american-mom-in-germany.blogspot.com/. Her husband got a job in Germany, so she and her two kids plus hubby all moved to Germany. Her party post was about recycling crayons. Click here to read the post. We did that project, and this is the result:

Notice the color variation in slightly different hues of the same color. And we just decided to mix red and white to see what would happen. My daughter and I had a lot of fun peeling off all those paper wrappers from the crayons, just one of those nice "spend time together just because" moments. We talked and laughed while we peeled and broke the crayons into pieces. Erin was very proud of her creations.

And coloring with "cupcake" crayons is way more fun than the stick shaped crayons, as evidenced in this picture.

Another wonderful blog I found was Mum-me athttp://ouraussiehalf-dozen.blogspot.com/. This family lives in Australia and I love reading all about her children's activities and their summer vacation to the beach (remember the seasons are reversed in Australia). Mum-me posted a great recipe for Carmel Slice that I had to try. Click here for the recipe. It turned out great as you can see from this picture.

I have also enjoyed reading The Norwegian Mom at http://myworld.mirielsverden.com/. Her toddler already knows how to ski!! Can you believe that?

Andrea from Mum's the Word at http://mumsandmore.blogspot.com/ is a lot of fun to read. She lives in Liverpool, England with her husband and kids. I can hear her British accent even through her blog, with words like "rubbish" and "binbags."

Of the American blogs that I found, my two favorites are Life on a Southern Farm and Our Simple Life. GAMamma from Life on a Southern Farm posts pictures of her farm animals and the hen houses they built, the chickens they are incubating, etc. It's some great insight into the farming lifestyle. Julia at Our Simple Life talks about and posts pictures of all the rural beauty in California, wild flowers, birds and bird houses, planting trees.

I met many other bloggers in cyberspace, some I liked, some not so much. The ones I chose to follow are on my sidebar. Feel free to visit them . They may become your bloggy friends, too.