(I kept Mommy’s secret….)

(Mom no one is answering – can I please tell someone…)

(There is a giveaway at the end so be sure to read it all….)

This week we are going to celebrate so much…this post is 499 (so this week I will hit 500 posts), I have had over 98,000 hits on my blog since July of 2007 (in less than a month I will hit 100,000 hits if I continue with the same number of daily hits), I was asked to review a few products and host a giveaway for a gift certificate for those products (that post will be Tuesday) and thanks to every one who reads and encourages me – one dream is coming true TODAY! This is the announcement I have been talking about (to those crazy people who thought it might be another adoption – NO NO NO as my son would shake his head…I have my hands full now oh lord I cannot imagine adding another one at this point)….so the front story and then the incentive:

Ok so who remembers this post (where I ask if I could really make it as a writer) or this one (where I was at an ex-boyfriend’s wedding and met another adoptive mom) – well who would have guessed those two posts would have anything to do with each other. NOT ME…if I had known when I met Mark that it would lead to this I would have laughed (mostly at the me staying home with my kids but also at the fact that I would be at his wedding and it was not to me) but not at all at the fact that his parents would be the ones to introduce me to someone who would help me make my dreams come true! That woman, Marcie, has asked me to be a freelance blogger at her new website! You heard me right…I am going to write for Grown in My Heart. Does anyone know how excited I am about this? If you know me in real life – you know that I am VERY excited about this and had a VERY hard time keeping my mouth shut about it this long (over a month)!

Now here is where you all come in, this website is NEW and Marcie (as well as the rest of us who are contributing) are trying to make it that good, so PLEASE go over check it out, put it in your google reader and comment to your heart’s content! Just help me to make this successful – the contributors currently have adopted from Russia, Guatemala, Korea, China, and Domestically – yep five people and so many different ways to build a family! A few of us have special needs children. Each of us will write about the issues concerning our children and adoption from that place respectively – and any cultural issues that may or may not arise, as well as so many other things. We have so many fun things planned as well as some giveaways! There is also a forum where all types of things can be discussed. (The forum may not be 100% available until later this week, some kinks are still being worked out there.)

So go check it out and let me know what you think – I am going to try not to cross post so if you want to read some of my more well thought out, researched posts you HAVE to read over there – and I want you to read both places, even if you don’t comment on either! I cannot believe this is really happening – I wish that I could convey my excitement in words better, I am still working on that. Someone pinch me please, this feeling is better than when I was sworn in as an attorney (and I thought no career moment would top that at the time)…

Because there is no way to thank everyone for everything, in exchange for reading all the amazing stuff (or crap) I have written, continuing to return over and over and over again, being a huge part of one of my dreams coming true and helping support this new adventure in my life I will be giving away a $25 gift card to Target to be drawn on April 13, 2009 – yep so how can you win that gift card for each of the following you will get ONE entry (an entry is a comment so you can get up to five (5) comments on this post):

1. Subscribe to this blog (Faith, Hope & Love)
2. Subscribe to Grown In My Heart (you can do it via e-mail or google reader)
3. Join the Forum at Grown in My Heart (if it is available)
4. Start a valid discussion in the Forum (if the forum is available)
5. Find a post (any post by anyone) leave a comment there and then in your comment here tell me the title of that post where you left a comment

So continue to watch and read both blogs – I have a plan to in a few months have a Little Man/Little Princess trivia game where if you have not read both you cannot win a similar prize to this one!