Blog Birthday Gala, Day 1

Welcome to our BLOG BIRTHDAY GALA!
We are so happy that you're here! Last year, we posted a special Birthday Post. But, we have had such a great time with the blog community during our second year of blogging, we thought we'd throw a party to celebrate the year!

We've grown so much since Melissa Wiley at Here in the Bonny Glen invented the name--Kidlitosphere--for us! When she invented in on June 5, 2006, there were no hits on Google. Today, when I googled the word, I got 15,500 hits!

2007 was a great year to be a blogger. In our second year of blogging, there were traditions that we looked forward to:
Carnivals, Mother Reader's 48 Hour Book Challenge, new issues of The Edge of the Forest, and contests like Lisa Yee's Book Title Contest.

We were also excited about new things that we did as a community of bloggers. Robert's Snow,
Cybils , our very first Kidlitosphere conference sponsored by Robin Brande, and Sunday Lists posted each week by HipWriterMama.
We've invited lots of our old friends and are happy to have new friends who have joined the blogging world in 2007...friends like Katie at Creative Literacy, Megan at Read, Read, Read and Sara Lewis Holmes at Read, Write Believe who entered the blog world on July 6. We hope you have the perfect party experience--reconnecting with old friends, meeting new friends, reminiscing about favorite moments in the blog community, and starting new conversations.

So, in celebration of another great year of blogging, let the party begin!

As your hosts, we'll let you know all of the fun things going on each day at our week-long party!

We are your hostesses, Mary Lee and Franki. We are two teachers who read. A lot. If you don't like to mingle, but would rather chat with us, we have lots of things we enjoy chatting with friends about--exercising, shopping for new books, graphic novels, how to throw a summer book party for children, Harry Potter, our goals, silly words, thoughts on our classrooms, or miscellaneous trivia about ourselves. But, if you like to mingle, you can dance or chat about the Newbery---Hmmm. Such a difficult decision, we know. Feel free to do both!

Dancing!!!
There is a great deal of dancing going on at the party. For those of you in the mood for a Happy Dance, you can join the crowd with Brotherhood 2.0. If you are not in the mood to dance, but want to see some interesting dance moves, this is the place to be. Or, for those of you who are still in the holiday spirit, feel free to join Mary Lee and Franki who are busy elf dancing. If you are tired of the music we're playing, pop over to Saints and Spinners and try dancing to one of your favorite Songs of the Week.

Newbery
Since we started our blog as a way to read and predict the Newbery Award, we thought we'd make sure that there was lots of Newbery talk going on at today's party. You can chat about the poem that Mary Lee wrote for the occasion or find Shannon and chat about her group's final list of this year's mock winners. Franki is wondering about Newbery winners with a teacher's eye. Or you can catch Monica from Educating Alice who is part of the Newbery Committee this year talk about final preparations, hopes and reflections.

And there seems to be a roomful of people thinking hard about the various reflections surrounding last year's winners and ways. You can join Adrienne, Roger,
or Mary Lee and Franki


We hope that you had a great time at Our Blog Birthday Gala today!
Come back tomorrow for more fun including snacks and teacher talk!
Don't miss the fun!
Thanks for coming!