A Year as a Blogger

Raising Ella Grace has been up and running for officially a year on January 19th.  I must admit, when I first started the blog, I thought it would get like 5 reads a post...the grandparents/family and a few close friends.  But, that was what I intended it to be...an easy way to keep everyone in the loop.  Then things started kind of evolving... I enjoyed writing about Ella, prospectives on parenting, and everything in between.  I found myself delving back into my days on the RHS newspaper staff--loving to write.  I often times find myself wondering why I didn't pursue something in the field of writing??  I think it' my true love behind my beautiful family, of course.  Anyway, this blog has been an amazing experience.  I have documented the first year of Ella's life...the good, bad, and everything in-between.  It's honest and a snapshot into our day to day life.  For Christmas, Brent gave me the most awesome gift I could imagine.  He is turning the first year of the blog into a book.  There is a company on the web that will do this for you.  He's been working on it...it takes a ton of time and converting of files...but I am so excited that we will have a book to keep of Ella's first year.  Can't wait until it's finished.  I want to make one for every year the kids are growing up.  Just think, we can all read back through them when the kids are 40.  They will probably feel a combination of nostalgia and embarrassment...mom and dad will be tearing up thinking about our babies being SO small.  What a great way to preserve the passing of time!

THANK YOU to all of you who care about Ella and our life enough to read this blog!  Over the course of the year the blog has had 7,974 reads!  For privacy reasons, I have the blog blocked to search engines so you can't google it and have it pop-up...so those reads all came from you, FB friends!!  I'm not revealing this number to toot my own horn, I am just in shock that so many people keep care enough to take the time to read about our family.  Sometimes it's difficult to put everything out there, but when I see that people are reading it and connecting to it, it makes me even more motivated to keep it going.  So thanks for reading the blog--I look forward to continuing to document our lives...still debating on a new title for when Baby #2 joins us in July!  Here's to year number #2...wonder what new stories and new adventures it will bring??