Spreading the Bloggy Love

I'm an award hoarder. Sadly, it's true. I've been gratefully accepting awards for some time now and not spreading them to other fantastic bloggers like I should have.

My hoarding problem started a few months ago. I received a bloggy award but just couldn't pick 5 people to pass it along to. And then I received another, and another and yet another. And I started feeling a little guilty. But not that guilty. Recently, I found that I had received an award from someone whose site I wasn't even aware of (see, technorati does come in handy). I of course was super flattered, and vowed to follow proper blog etiquette (even if I just made this rule up) and share the love. So here I am. Trying to think of the the best way to go about "gifting" these awards. I'm in a pickle. A big one. If I don't pass on the linky love to you this time, don't worry. It just means... Oh, I don't know what it means? Just an illustration that this is excruciating and I visit far too many great blogs for my own good. But here goes. For the sake of blogging etiquette, I formally thank the following gracious "givers" and wash my hands of the guilt pass them along to the following:



This is my newest acquisition, and I love the image. She's just so cute. Mozi Esme passed it along to me, and I'm grateful. I'm most flattered that someone with such a good heart, living in Africa doing ministry work takes the time to think of me. This one comes with rules to pass on to only three!

Rachel at Little Bites of Heaven writes straight from the heart. Plus, she has triplets and threw the biggest circus extravaganza for their first birthday this side of the Mississippi. Or maybe it's that side.

Jessica at The Bressington Crew is BFF with one of my oldest and most loyal blogger friends. She has some miracle boys of her own, AND I can always count on her to comment on my blog.

You know how some people just seem like a good person? It's not one thing, but a combination? "Les Mason Curt" is one of them. You can catch her at Phillips101, or at her jewelry site, Kiki and Lele.

This one came from Latree at Dandelion.

Heather, author of Mindless Junque is one of the founders of SITS. As if that's not enough, her personal blog is excellent, AND she has a gay dog. And twins. It's true.

Tiffany with R Family Diaries and I have a ton in common literature wise. She is a fast reader like I am, and LOVES to devour books. She's coined a new phrase called "crackliture" that I'm going to start using. And before I forget, she's the other mastermind behind SITS.

Mannequin of Fractured Toy is a new favorite. She goes out of her way to attract sponsors so that she can pass along amazing give aways to her readers. Plus, she's just plain nice.

Kelly of Don Mills Diva writes screenplays. She's worked in Journalism her whole life and it shows. This girl can write. And she's honest about her views.

Casey with Quilao Triplets shares the joys of parenting triplets in the most hilarious way. You'd think by her outlook it's always been all fun and games, but her girls are 25 weekers. Survivors in every sense of the word.

I can always count on Melissa at Hope For the Hopeless to show me some love and send accolades my way. She has been a regular reader of my blog since she happened upon it over a year ago. She found it by clicking "next blog" and I feel lucky to have been that "next blog".

Where Are My Angels? has two daughters with Downs Syndrome, and I love how right up front she dispels the myth that all children with DS are perfect little angels.

Sassy Stephanie of Our Piece of Quiet is a potty training general getting thwarted at every turn. But she still has a lot to smile about.

Carissa at Good and Crazy People makes really great totes, plus she does excellent blog tutorials.

Motherhood for Dummies has a Family Moment Monday feature that I absolutely love.

Jaysi of In Bird's Nest is sister in law to "my Shannon". I think that if we lived close to one another we'd be great in person friends.

Crazy Daisy at Forever Daisy gave me this award. She does a weekly post called Menu Plan Monday that I always look forward to. Plus, she loves animals and is finishing up her Master's Degree.

The Secret is in the Sauce, aka SITS deserves this one for sure. Oh how I love thee. What's not to love about a blog that gives amazing gifts away and promotes individual bloggers through daily features?

Mama Kat at Mama's Losin' It has kept me entertained daily since she found my blog a few months ago. For a relatively new blogger, she has an amazing following, and I can understand why. She's funny. Really funny. She says things I wouldn't dream of, except in my head.

Stephanie, the Crock pot Lady makes a crock pot delight every single day at A Year of Crockpotting. I don't comment very often on her blog, but hers is one of the first I check daily for dinner ideas.

I am indebted to Rachel at Made With Love and Glue, Lot's and Lot's of Glue forever for my new blog makeover.

I'm cheating here and giving all of my momo mommy blogger friends this award because they were my first loyal readers. They've stuck with me, and I have a special bond with many of them as they supported me when I was pregnant with the twins. I'm grouping them together, so it's kind of like one, right?

Amy at Five Flower Mom gave me this one, and it comes with it's own set of rules.

Rules:
1) You must choose 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for creativity, design, interesting material, and contribution to the blogging community, regardless of language.
2) You must publish the name of each award-winning author as well as a link to his or her blog.
3) Each award-winner must post a picture of the award and link back to the blog that has given the award.
4) Both the giver and the recipient of the award must link to the “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) You must post these rules.

Emily at Little Momma and Company. This is a blog that I fell in love with the very first time I visited. I added her to my blog roll immediately, which is something I rarely do. Her creativity really shines through in each and every post. Her photos are never ordinary and she is a pro at manipulating text.

Rebecca at Meanwhile in Hershey is so clever and intelligent. By integrating images and text she spits out posts that say a lot, with minimal words.

Octamom has a section of her blog dedicated to telling the story of her family's struggle with hearing loss in one of her children. The things they learned are certainly worth telling, AND she has more kids than I do! I'll let you figure out how many she has based on her blog name.

Monoamniotic Stories also gets my vote for a blog that contributes to the community. My friend Laura and I started this blog for the sole purpose of sharing the stories of monoamniotic twins. Since having monoamniotic twins is rare we wanted to reach out to parents like us who had been through such a harrowing pregnancy.

Scribbit has a little bit of everything with a good dose of intelligence.

Becoming Me lives a very Christ centered life, and her blog reflects that. I was honored to receive this award from her.

Latree from Dandelion deserves this one. She lives in Indonesia and takes the time to translate her blog to English so that English speakers can read it too. I love reading International blogs because they have a different perspective than mine.

Which leads me to my next International blogger friends Mozi Esme (which by the way I believe means Esme's mom in whatever language they speak in Mozambique) and Robin at Around the Island. Robin lives in Isreal and is an excellent writer.

Lit and Laundry has a love of reading, and I love that.

I'm excited to finally be able to give Melissa at Hope for the Hopeless an award that I don't think she already has.

Sadly, I don't remember who gave me these ones. If it was you, please let me know so that I can link to you here. But in the spirit of sharing, I bestow them on the following:

All of the women I'm giving this award to are oh so talented and I have to admit, I wish I had even a small portion of their talent with things crafty.

Brittany at Charmed I'm Sure has amazing interior decorating sense.

Philigry is only like the best knitter I've ever "met".

Kimba at A Soft Place to Land refinishes furniture like no other.

My good friend Shannon at Shannon Leigh Designs sells some of the things she crafts like tutus and custom hats for girls. Plus she has really good fashion sense.

Debra, Crazy Coupon Mama is an amazing source for couponing.

Colleen of Non Smoker is a new favorite. She just wrote a post about blog etiquette that I LOVE.

The New Mommy, Just One More Minute writes posts that remind me to take the time to enjoy my children.

Tonya at A Day in My Life is brilliant because she Twitters. I still can't figure that one out.

Bonnie at The Zoo gets this award because she's just like me. She has 5 kids, her last 2 are twins. She stopped then. Just like me.

Bridget of Everyday Chaos has a blog that makes me feel calm when I visit. Guess who did hers?

Carrie at Live in the Bedlands has a whole slew of children, too and introduced me to many great blogs.

Sherri at Kaysville Mamma inspires me with her adoption stories.

Scary Mommy has a child prodigy. I always wanted one too.

Rhonda with Welcome to a Day in Rhonda's Life is my favorite Canadian blogger ever!

Kerith with Momdum Chronicles loves some of my favorite triplets, and for that I love her.

And to all my real life friends and family, I didn't give any awards to you because I want to keep you all to myself. If I link to you here someone might click on over, and well, I don't want to share you. I'm selfish that way.

Thanks go out to all of the great bloggers that I follow. This "gifting" has taken me longer and has had more accompanying heartache and worry than any other post I have EVER done. If I overlooked you, it was due to mental exhaustion.

As soon as I pick my brain up off the floor I'm going to go begging. I need the help of my good friend Jeremiah in placing my awards in my custom trophy display.