"Isn't it kinda ironic that you're announcing this on your blog?" my nearly eight-year-old daughter asked me.

"You don't want me to tell people?"

"No, I do. I do!"

I started my blog when she was just three years old. She has witnessed me writing in the evenings and taking photos during the day. She has listened to my posts read out loud for years and always smiles when someone mentions her in the comments. I'm at that mommy blogging stage where I blog less and less about my children's personal lives because their stories are no longer always mine to tell. I can barely get one post published a week. Isn't it ironic that when I start to mute our lives, my daughter wants to announce her presence to the world from rooftops?

"Tell them, Mama! Tell your friends that I am now a blogger!!!"

It all started the day that I passed down my old Nikon to her.

"I'm already a good writer. I just need to improve my photo skills and I can be a blogger, like you."

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Geesh, Mama. We've been blogging in school since kindergarten. I know all the rules."

"There are rules to blogging?"

"Yes! Never say your real name or the place you live - that's what my teacher said is safe when being online." she started. Their blogging at school is answering questions to blog posts their teacher writes. Like "What is your favorite activity?" It's quite comical to check in. "Also, once you put something on the dot com it is there FOREVER, Mama. Forever! You have to make good decisions."

"That's great advice."

"So can I? Can I start a blog? Imagine how awesome it would be when I'm a teenager and I get to read all the things I wrote now."

My second grader knows more about blogging than I did when I started five years ago at the age of thirty. I'm honored to announce that today a blogger was born. Her "About Me" blurb took her twenty minutes to create only because she couldn't decide on what to write about herself. I am 7 years old. I am very talented. I love all animals. I absulotly love baking. I love to write and I just started taking pictures. Her first post took her about an hour to write. "Whoops. I'm glad I caught that spelling mistake." she laughed while constructing her sentences. "Whoops. That was a silly error!" she said and deleted an extra comma. I started to think that passing down my camera was a bad idea. If you have a moment, check out Lola's blog ohkiddos.blogspot.com. It took her seven minutes to come up with the title.

"Isn't it kinda ironic that you're announcing my blog, on your blog? Maybe I will do the same for you!"

Yes, a blogger was born today.

One of my resolutions for 2012 is to take control and get ahead.

I'm starting with organizing and unloading. We've lived in our house for five years and the amount of "stuff" we've accumulated is out right embarrassing.  The kiddos and I recently went through their toys and handed many down to a friend, who was more than happy to reuse them in her own home. I also boxed up many of their play clothes and sent them to an orphanage in Poland. Their nice clothes went to my best friend and a box saved for my sister's future kids.

So. I've been incredibly busy cleaning, tossing, giving and organizing all of our stuff from the ground up. Just last week this storage room in our basement was stuffed with items and not at all walkable. Look at it now:

Impressive, no? A lot of work went into it. We went from a room FILLED with kid's stuff to just a couple of plastic bins on shelves. Now the dog has room to explore a room that was, for years, not walkable.

Motivated by the basement results, I started to tackle my own closet this weekend. Again, it's out right embarrassing how much stuff I have in there but haven't touched in years. I stood in my closet and asked myself "What should I sell?"- a question sellers on eBay ask often enough that their data analyst team created a list of high-demand items sold successfully on eBay.

A peek of my first listing on eBay.

More to come later. I have an entire house full of "stuff" and this is the year that I'm going to take control of it all. Check me out on eBay here.

"I am an eBay Parent Panel Partner. This post is sponsored by eBay. Opinion and experience are my own."

One of the issues discussed at our intervention meeting last week was how bored my son was in math class.

Every so often third-grade students are given a placement test to evaluate their skills/weaknesses and placed together in groups based on results. In theory, this is an excellent way for students to work at their own pace with similar skill level. This quarter Jay was placed in a group who was beginning to develop their multiplication facts, something he mastered in kindergarten with Dziadek. "Mom, I'm drawing squares and counting them. I tried to work ahead but the teacher stopped me." I brought this up to the administration team (after determining that Jay is easily distracted during tests) and encouraged them to re-test him in a quiet room without any time restrictions.

On Friday he was re-tested.

On Monday he came home from school filled with new found pride. "This is THE best Monday of my life!" he smiled.

My little man scored so high that he was placed in the most challenging math group. He sat down at the kitchen table and described how he raised his hand all.the.time during the lesson, something he rarely does, and drew out math puzzles they were working on to prove the level of difficulty he so much enjoyed. He created a worksheet for me to complete and although I failed he led me through it until I understood. "See? It's so easy! These factors have the common sum of times 5 and minus 2." (Or something to that nature, math confuses me.) I couldn't help but shed a little tear. It's amazing to see what a little modification in his school day can really achieve.

After calling my entourage of support on the phone to share my son's good day, "Jay rocked his math placement test!" my daughter approached me with her hand on her hip. "I didn't hear you mention to anyone that I got straight A's on my report card." I quickly re-dialed everyone's phone number. "Hello, again. Are you sitting down? I have more good news to share. Did you know that I am the luckiest Mom in the world...." I started.

I don't want to see my cell phone bill.

WINNER. Here is your random number: 3  Timestamp: 2012-01-31 03:22:40 UTC Congrats to # Carrie Hawk 2012-01-22 22:05

This past weekend we were guests of Castaway Bay Resort & Waterpark (operated by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company in Sandusky, Ohio). The blogger event was centered around a family dinner and craft hour but as soon as Jay, future roller coaster engineer, saw two men in ties with Cedar Point name tags enter the room he pushed aside his cookie decorating project and leapt out of his seat. "Can I ask them questions?"

He stood before them asking every possible question he had ranging from top speeds to top heights and if they were planning any new coasters in the near future. The two gentleman were very inviting and chuckled at his enthusiasm. I know Jay was in heaven.

Jay was particularly interested in "Rendezvous Run" the 520 foot-long water roller coaster at Castaway Bay because he rode it no less then twenty times. The men explained that one particular roller coaster engineer, that they work with, spent his early days shaping wired coat hangers into coaster designs. I think I need to stop throwing away dry cleaning hangers.

Besides being a fantastic indoor waterpark (bigger then Great Wolf and smaller then Kalahari - perfect size for elementary school ages kids to roam around freely) the resort hosts some incredible family activities that I have yet to see at any other hotels we've been to, and we travel a lot all over the world. The daily family activities are printed out on paper upon your arrival and displayed throughout the resort. If someone hands me an itinerary of free events you can bet that I'm going to make sure we attend all of them. (The only activity we did that required money was T-shirt coloring)

Check out the family events compiled in our video. Stick around to see Lola's karaoke debut at the 0:34 mark where she rocked it out in front of a room full of teenagers. Girlfriend has confidence, no? Rock on.

Castaway Bay is close enough to Cleveland for a day trip (took us about 75 minutes). You can purchase waterpark passes for the day. There are clean showers, changing areas and lockers. I would recommend a day trip to anyone especially in this economy when not many can afford spending two nights in a hotel room. When we checked out on our last day at 11am we hit the waterpark again until 4pm, showered in the locker room, dressed, had dinner and returned for the night's family activities. We got the kiddos into their PJs, stuffed them into the car and were home by 10pm.

"Mama? I never ever want to leave!" Lola, age 7.

Daily passes are $29 per person. I have FOUR waterpark passes to giveaway to you (although my kiddos want to keep them for themselves). Comment for your chance to win by telling me what you enjoyed most about this post (to give me insight how to handle potential future "reviews"). That's it! Feel free to share it on Twitter/Facebook to make my day. One entry per email. Winner announced Friday 1-27-12.

Disclosure: our family attended a blogger event and while the accommodations/waterpark passes were paid for all opinions are my own.