One year of Kids in the Capital!

Kids in the Capital is one year old! We are so happy and amazed by how Kids in the Capital has grown in the last year. Four hundred and one posts in three hundred and sixty-five days. Posts from over two dozen Ottawa area mom and dads. Hundreds of shared ideas for great family fun in and around Ottawa!

We'd like to say thanks to all our readers. Thanks for stopping by and coming along with us on our adventures. Thanks for telling your friends and family about Kids in the Capital and making us a valuable resource for Ottawa-area family.

We'd like to say thanks to all our contributors. Thanks to everyone who has written about their favorite fun family activities and ideas. Whether you've written one or thirty posts, we appreciate you sharing with us and our readers. We are always looking for guest bloggers and contributors. If you'd like to share some of your favorite family fun with other Ottawa parents, email us at kidsinthecapital(at)gmail(dot)com to start blogging with us!

We'd like to say thanks to all our sponsors over the past year. Sponsorship makes it possible for us to spend the time running, growing and improving Kids in the Capital.

In the last year Kids in the Capital has become a community for us. We have met many fabulous contributors and readers through posts, comments and meetups. We loved the family playdates last summer and the regular mom nights out we have had. We hope to have more of them in the coming months and we hope that, if you haven't yet, you'll come out and join us at one of the meetups!

To celebrate one year of Kids in the Capital we are hosting a morning party at St.Luke's Park in downtown Ottawa on May 1st! There will be games, snack and lots of fun! Watch for more more details in the next few weeks and we hope to see you there!

Here's to another great year!

Brie and Lara

Parents in the Capital: Meet Yumi

Ottawa has some wonderful bloggers and we are lucky that many of them are Kids in the Capital contributors and readers! We want to share some of our favorite Ottawa parent bloggers on a more regular basis so we are introducing a series of posts called Parents in the Capital. Our first Ottawa blogger profiled in Yumi. Hello Yumi!

Tell us about yourself and your family. I live very happily with my husband of 10 years and our little boy "Moe" who was born in February 2010. My mom lives next door, and my mother-in-law lives a block over. It isn't anything like Everybody Loves Raymond - it's great. I work for the National Capital Commission (and love it!) and my husband is a bookstore manager. Our goal is to raise a patriotic reader. ;)

What is your favourite activity to do with your kid(s) in Ottawa? We are both museum junkies and are trying to foster a love of museums in our son.

What is your favourite at home activity to do with your kid(s)? I love watching Moe discover music. We sing, dance and make music together. It's one of the best parts of my day. (Plus, my kid totally has rhythm.)

What was the biggest surprise that parenthood has brought into your life? We are both constantly hit with waves of emotion over how incredibly lucky we are. We knew this would be fun, but we didn't imagine it could ever be THIS much fun. Moe brings new joy into our lives every day.

What parenting tips/advice do you wish you'd known when you first became a parent? People told me this, and I tried really, really hard to do it. I think I succeeded. Here it is: savour every freaking moment of that first year.

Tell us about your blog and how you discovered blogging. My parenting blog is at http://kidsquared.livejournal.com, and I started it in May 2005 with the intention of using it to blog my efforts to conceive, my pregnancy and eventually my journey as a parent. Things didn't go as planned. We became one of the one in six couples who struggle with infertility. My blog became a record of that journey, including a diagnosis of premature ovarian failure at the age of 29, a year of mourning, a very special offer from a friend, and a round of IVF via egg donor. Our story has a happy ending, but I don't ever forget what it took to get here. Now, the blog is a parenting record, including monthly letters to my son. I also keep a photo log at http://www.flickr.com/photos/yumikid.

What do you love best about being a parent in Ottawa? I grew up in Ottawa and so did my husband. We love raising our son here because we can share all the things we love about living in the capital with him - things we enjoyed as kids and new things we discover as a family. All three of us were just so lucky to be born and live in the best city in the world.

Thanks Yumi!