I went to the most amazing conference last weekend.  It was called Brands & Bloggers Summit.  Now, you know that I’ve been to many conferences and events.  Instead of rehashing the events of this weekend (because there are a ton of posts already out with what we learned.  You can also see a lot of what happened on Twitter using the hashtag #bbsummit11.)  However, if you are wondering if you should come next year, I’ve got the list:

1.  The people.  Yes, it was mostly women, so we also know how to take care of one another.  One blogger tweeted that they wanted a Diet Coke.  If you can believe it, another blogger brought her one.  :)  Another blogger needed some aspirin and some was given to her.  Now, I can honestly say I’ve never been at a conference where I’ve seen such big hearts.  Oh yes, we also all took turns holding the babies (who have to say were seen and not heard.  And they were cute.)

2.  Affordable.  Since it was one day, a lot of people drove in Saturday.  Some women even drove home Saturday night.  It is much more affordable to get a room for one night.  (For me, it was a 30 minute drive, so I went home late Saturday night).  The conference itself was $100 (I think.  Somebody correct me if I’m wrong on that).  That include breakfast, lunch, and two snacks.  I could have easily spent $100 on food in downtown Chicago myself on a Saturday.  :)  It also helps that we have 2 airports for those flying in.

3. Wifi and power cords.  I can’t tell you how many conferences I’ve been to where the Wifi doesn’t work or there are 3 outlets in the entire room and hundreds of bloggers.  MJ (the awesome lady who put this on) is a blogger herself, so she knew we’d need this stuff!

4.  Breaks for networking.  I’ve never been to a conference where there was actual time scheduled into the day, so we could all network.  That’s what this is all about — making connections and learning new things.  In our networking time, I found out that one of the women at my table (who I’d never met before), actually lives 5 minutes from my house.  Now, how crazy is that?  If that network time wasn’t there, I may have missed ever talking to her. I also found that that another wonderful woman at our table had read my interview in the newspaper (it was a couple of years ago), and she’s read my site ever since.  I can’t tell you how warm and fuzzy that makes me feel.

5.  Organization.  We all had QR codes on our badges.  Also, the back of the badge was our agenda for the day.  (Again, I’ve never seen that done before).  At all times, you knew what was next and how long it would take.  Everything pretty much ran on time.

6.  It was great for brands also.  Our information was put in for a grand prize.  All we had to do was visit each booth and get a sticker.  I thought this was brilliant, so that we visited each booth (which I would have done regardless, but not everybody did).  The brands there also were a great fit with the moms there.  I found products that I would have never even seen before.

7.  Miss Lori.  Not only did we get to hear her perform for us, she also gave an awesome speech (which I’ll be blogging about this week).

8.  No egos.  The speakers hung with us during the conference and even after.  I’ve been to many of a conference where the speakers weren’t good enough to hang with the rest of us lowly bloggers nor would they talk to us either.  (I do have to add that the conferences I’ve been at with John Chow and Chris Brogan that they have never acted like that even with their A list status.)

9.  The after party rocked.  We got to go to the John Hancock Observatory.  I’ve never been there, so it was pretty awesome.  It was also great to network with the other bloggers I didn’t get a chance to during the conference itself.

10.  This was the best conference I’ve ever attended hands down.  I’ve been to BlogHer, and it was even better than that.  Many times, the complaint I have with conferences is that I’m not a beginning blogger.  I’ve been doing this longer than some of the speakers at other conferences.  I’ll be honest — nothing is more annoying that knowing more than speaker (and I’m not trying to be rude about that.  You know what you know.  However, I don’t like paying hundreds of dollars to learn what I already know.)  I learned something from each of the speakers at the Brands & Bloggers Summit!

I highly, highly, highly recommend heading out to the Brands & Bloggers Summit next year.  It is definitely worth and hope to see you there!

Disclosure:  I did receive a complimentary ticket to this years event.  However, all opinions are mine. 

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

If you’ve been reading my blog over the last three years, you will know that I had hormonal issues after the birth of both my children.  With Madison, I was put on birth control to stop what I like to call The Neverending Period (sing with me  to the tune of The Neverending Song — this is the period that never ends, it goes on and on my friends, some hormones started flowing it . . . . I’ll end it there LOL).  I thought I was in the clear.

Then I had Will.  That’s when Part II of The Neverending Period started.  I was back into 8 week periods or more!  The problem with this time around was that nothing and I mean nothing would stop it.  We tried I think a total of 9 different birth controls and none of them worked. We tried estrogen.  We tried no birth control.  Nothing would stop it.  I was crabby.  I was emotional.  And it sucked.  I ended up with a hysteroscopy and D&C.  It was painful.  The recovery was worse than when I miscarried.  What did they find?  Absolutely nothing.  No reason for why I was having the problems I was.

I’m writing this post to give you all an update, because I am getting hits on my old posts from women who have this same problem looking for answers.  What has happened in the last year?  Well, after the D&C, I had the lightest period I’ve ever had in my entire life.  Since that period last September, I’ve not had one since.  Can you believe it?  I’m still on Seasonque.  Every 3 months I take a pregnancy test to make sure I’m not pregnant, and I’m enjoying life.

If you are a woman dealing with this (or something like this), this is life at the end of the tunnel.  There really is!  Get your doctors involved right away and don’t give up!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

I am so bad. I have been so busy since I got back, I am finally now writing about this awesome event. I was contacted about this the day before my birthday (I know, what a great birthday present!!!). Sony wanted to talk to 15 mommy bloggers and give us some cameras (I didn’t know this last part till the day before I left for the trip!). All expenses paid trip, how could I say no?

I flew out on April 16th to San Diego. They got me an a flight through Midway (which I seriously needed since Midway is only 15 minutes away and Ohare is about an hour). Sitting in the airport always sucks, but I made due. My plane flight there sucked. A little girl screamed the whole way. This is why I don’t fly with my kids. I am terrified that is going to be me. The mom was by herself, and she walked up and down the aisle for the four and half hour flight. I felt so bad for her.

We then got to San Diego and I had a limo driver waiting for me. He had my name on a sign. It was super cool. I know I’ll never see that again. He took me to the La Valencia Hotel in La Jolla (it was about a half hour drive). The hotel was awesome (I’ll be writing about it on my travel blog, so I won’t go into too many details here). Sony had boxes set up in our room (to use to Fed Ex our cameras back). They also had left us headphones for our kids, a rose, and two chocolate candy bars. They obviously know the way to a woman’s heart. We were on our own for Wednesday night (though we did have a $50 certificate to use at the restaurant). I met up with Deanna and Anne Marie , and we went to dinner. I had filet mignon. It was super yummy. It was one of those steaks that you didn’t even have to chew it — it just melted in your mouth.

The next day we had to be at breakfast at 9:00. We had a buffet breakfast (which was awesome). This is the view we had from the room we were in. Beautiful, isn’t it? We spent the first two hours after that introducing ourselves. We then had lunch out in the beautiful sunshine. We were only out there for about an hour eating some of the best food ever and I got sunburned!!! Here’s a list of all the awesome ladies who were there (if you have more blogs that I haven’t listed, let me know and I’ll get them added):

• Ciaran from MommiesWithStyle.com, Celebrity-Babies.com, CarandCaboodle.com
• Jenny from Momminitup.com
• Stacy from MomCentral.com, MomCentralConsulting.com and Mother-Talk.com
• Deanna from DomesticChicky.com, Apronista.com and HappyHousewivesClub.com/hotmama.html
• Kim from InAShoe.com
• Tracey from Sweetney.com, MamaPop.com and RocknRompBaltimore.com
• Erika from PlainJaneMom.com and emomsathome.com
• Heather from TheDomesticDiva.org and idivalicious.com
• Anne-Marie from AMamasRant.com, MyReadableFeast.com, ThisMamacooks.com, The-Write-Spot.com
• Christina from GeekGirlfriends.com and Tynanwood.com
• Amy from Amalah.com, MamaPop.com and Advice Smackdown on AlphaMom.com
• Laura from PaulnLaura.com
• Janice from 5minutesformom.com

After lunch, we got to learn about Sony and the impact of women on their business (Let me tell you, we have a huge impact!!!). We then got to start playing with the cameras we got. Oh wait, I didn’t show you the cameras yet —-

Camera #1: Sony Cybershot

Camera #2: Sony DSLR-A300K

Camera #3 – Handycam HDR-SR10

Yes, Sony gave us all three cameras! They also set aside time for us to work with their trainers so we could learn how to use them!

We then got instruction from photography expert Me Ra Koh. She gave us shooting instruction and tips of how to get specific results. She was really nice and she’s a blogger too!

We then got to go out to the beach and play with the cameras!

We then got a little bit of time to run up to our room and get ready for dinner. I took these pictures from my room!

We then met up with Sony and went to dinner at the Azul Restaurant. I got back to the hotel between 10 – 11 and went to bed.

On Friday, (April 18th), we met again for breakfast. Me Ra took some of our photos and critiqued them for us. She told us how to make our photos better. We then had a presentation from Rocket XL (the advertising agency who helped pull this all together). Us mommy bloggers ended up taking over that session with our opinions and thoughts.

After this session, we were able to do whatever we wanted till we caught our plane. Sony also gave us certificates for the spa, so I went and had a deep tissue massage. I then ate lunch and then had to get on my plane.

And that was my trip to San Diego!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

My sister over at Karebear Central is walking in Walk America this weekend up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Since we are in the middle of a remodeling project, the kids and I aren’t going up there. However, I would love to surprise her and help her raise money for such a great cause!

I truly believe that without the research the March Of Dimes has done, my kids would not be here. I had preterm labor issues with both of my children. If they (the doctors) wouldn’t have been able to stop it, my kids would have been born too early and probably would not have survived. My cousins two children were born extremely premature. Her daughter was only 3 lbs when born.

If you ask around your friends and family, you will be amazed at how many people you know that have benefited from the March of Dimes and their research. With that in mind, please consider donating to March of Dimes March For Babies. All those who donate will be included get a link from both me on this blog and a link from my sister on her blog. For anyone who donates $20 or more, I will also write a review about your blog (or whatever you want) over on my Lisa Reviews blog. Leave me a comment if you donate. Thanks!!!!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

We just had this one of these baby beds delivered to the house. Here’s what it looks like:

This baby bed definitely has great potential to be awesome. When I first looked at it, I was excited to see that it is suppose to help infant colic, infant reflux, restless sleepers, and short nappers. Since my son fits 3 of the 4 of those things, I thought this would work perfect for us.  It is endorsed by both Dr. Sears and JPMA.  It took Bill about twenty minutes to put it together.  The directions were pictures, so they were super easy to follow.

I wish we had this 5 months ago when he was first born.  This would have worked great for our needs back them.  Will still suffers from GERD.  However, the only problem I have is that Will is too big for this.  Will has recently (within the last week) figured out how to sit up.  He also immediately tried to roll over in it and screamed when he got stuck.  It says that you can use this up until 12 months, but I don’t see how that is possible.  However, if this was the bed he started with, it may have made a difference.

Overall, I would get this for a new baby.  Its design and assembly are nice and easy.  It also keeps your baby on its back (which helps prevent SIDS) and helps with a variety of other issues.  Sleeping babies are always a good thing.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.