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Our Editorial Team: Vanessa Druckman and Akemi Bourgeois

Our OH-SO-FABULOUS Graphic Designer (banner and buttons): Kris Loew

Our URL: http://www.canadamomsblog.com

Canada Moms Blog is a member of the Silicon Valley Moms Group. Other blogs in the group include Silicon Valley Moms Blog, DC Metro Moms Blog , New York City Moms Blog, Chicago Moms Blog, Los Angeles Moms Blog, 50-Something Moms Blog, Ohio Moms Blog, New Jersey Moms Blog, Deep South Moms Blog, Canada Moms Blog, Philadelphia Moms Blog and Rocky Mountain Moms Blog.

Instigators Of Canada Moms Blog and Mistresses Of The Leaf:

Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic who traded the lecture hall for the playroom and discovered that university students and preschoolers have much the same attention span. She still dips her toes into academic waters by writing the occasional scholarly article about the place of motherhood in Western philosophy, but mostly now she changes diapers and wipes noses and indulges in long reflections on whether Yo Gabba Gabba is a harbinger of the decline of western civilization. Oh, and she blogs: she’s the author of Her Bad Mother, the moderator of Her Bad Mother’s Basement, the founder and co-editor of Better Than A Playdate and BlogHers Act Canada, the co-founder and co-editor of WeCovet, a contributing writer/editor at MamaPop and BlogHer, and most recently (deep breath) instigator of Canada Moms Blog. And in her spare time… oh, wait. She doesn’t have spare time. But she’s okay with that.

Katie was a developer/quality assurance person with one of those big IT companies before rebelling and joining the gang called parenthood. During the early days of marathon breast-feeding sessions, she discovered the bottomless world of blogs and quickly became addicted. Via the internet, she found reassurance that she wasn't going insane alone and of course, she had to start her own blog. So began a new phase in her IT career. Katie blogs at her personal website motherbumper, gossips about celebs at Binkywood, is the Toronto editor at Savvy Source, and co-editor of Better Then A Playdate. She figures she'll sleep when she's dead.

Come Meet The Canada Moms Blog Contributors!

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Angella Dykstra is a Chartered Accountant who left the exciting field of tax preparation in exchange for parenthood. She now works in educating future accountants and dabbles with a side gig in photography. She squeezes this in between chasing her three small children around and keeping her marriage alive and well. The little blog that started out nearly four years ago as a means for her Mom to see her kids has turned into another part-time career in the land of the Internet.

Angella's personal site is Dutch Blitz and her photography site is found here. She is an editor over at Blog Nosh and a contributor to Photo Bliss. She is also part of the team at both Work It! Mom and The Daily Grommet. Now that she has written that all down she could probably use a nap.

In her alternate life, EarnestGirl is a mother and writer living in Vancouver, BC.

EarnestGirl has been writing since grade school when she first chronicled the trials and tribulations of family life as self-appointed Publisher and Editor In Chief of the family newspaper. Seduced by theater studies in university, her stunning career in journalism was sidetracked by feminist theater production (she co-founded the feminist comedy troupe Random Acts) and the glittering world of writing and performing on stage, film and in underarm deodorant commercials.

Eventually realizing that the amassing of a vast fortune would be swifter in film and TV production, EarnestGirl found herself in Vancouver, and then several years later, heavy with child. She flung herself wholeheartedly into child-rearing, bon-bon eating and soap opera watching, all the while ensuring that her husband’s shirts were impeccably pressed and his pipe and slippers firmly in place at the end of each day. Her child always wears a pleasant facial expression and perfectly tied shoes.

Her writing can also be found at: Yummy Mummy Club. You can also follow her on Twitter.

Jess Howard is an ex-city girl living in a small town on Vancouver Island. She left the city with her four children in tow seeking a simpler life. A place where her kids could "be" kids. Her children are ages 5-11.

Jess has been living vicariously through the internet since she became pregnant with her first child in September 1996. Six years and four children later she began writing her blog Drowning in Kids. What began as an outlet for all the frustrations and joys of parenting evolved to a place where she has shared struggles with living rurally, depression, anxiety, separating from her husband and the next frontier: raising teenagers.

After many coffee fueled conversations with Leah Peterson at BlogHer in 2007 they together founded RealMental. Jess is hoping to one day not have to work as a waitress.

Having discovered that children don’t give annual employee evaluations, Kerry Sauriol jumped at the chance to be a stay-at-home mom. She has found she can more than handle being called a ‘stupid head’ by her two children instead of being fired by her peers.

Kerry’s hold on sanity is her computer and the world of mommy bloggers. She can ignore the chaos created by two kids, three cats, a dog and a work-from-home husband and find the peace it takes to incubate a third child while coming up with her latest post at her personal site Crunchy Carpets. Apart from obsessive Tweeting and Facebooking, she can also be found haranguing people to post on her other site Wet Coast Women.

In 2006, Zoeyjane left life in a corporate cubicle five months after she got knocked up. Realizing that being a stay-at-home mom wasn't the solution to unhappiness under florescent lighting, she mixed marketing, copywriting, and accounting experience with generally unappreciated genius into a life of freelancing, while doing double-duty as a single parent.

Flash forward and Zoeyjane's a vegan, has some new piercings, tries to perfect gluten- and dairy-free recipes and is preparing for an unschooling life.

More granola than frosted corn flakes, but still completely hemp-free, Zoeyjane can be found at Mommy is Moody or on Twitter.

ALBERTA

Natasha Loewen is a Mormon mom of four kids aged three to nine years. Born and raised in Northern Ontario, she, her children, their stupid puppy, and her husband of ten years have settled with a resounding ahhhhh in Central Alberta. In a previous life she helped mom businesses with marketing, branding and punchy copywriting. Her articles have appeared in various Canadian publications and she once had one of her ideas published in Real Simple magazine in that readers' comments section thingie. That was meaningless and yet very cool. She currently blogs at BecomingSomething and can also be found on Twitter.

Natasha loves music, books and magazines; painting; and watching Lost, The Colbert Report and House. Life goals include becoming stunningly fit; growing her hair out; and learning to break-dance. If she had 300 years to live, she'd be a doctor/lawyer/mechanic/talk show host/sign language interpreter/scuba diver/chef/entrepreneur/spy/psychologist/hairstylist/mother of a small town, because presumably, one could birth an awful lot of kids in 300 years (and after the fourth kid, she'd be getting the epidurals and doing a lot of kegels).

SASKATCHEWAN

Kami lives in an area of Canada she not so affectionately refers to as the quasi Arctic. For the record, she is pretty sure the scientists who determined where the Arctic Circle lies have never personally experienced the no less than six months of winter Saskatchewan normally enjoys. She is also a Chartered Accountant who gave up her “real job” to be at home with her boys in 2005. She keeps busy by working in the field of educating future accountants, which can be done from home via her laptop. This allows her the opportunity to feed her blogging and Scrabble addictions. Kami also writes about being surrounded by testosterone, her new running pursuit and the weather, among other things, at her personal blog, Kami's Khlopchyk. In the winter, she can be found repeatedly giving Old Man Winter a wedgie in the hope that he will relocate to some other area of the world. In the summer she enjoys sipping fancy drinks (umbrella required) surrounded by good friends and family.

MANITOBA

Nenette has been a software design engineer, a hula & tahitian dance instructor, a waitress at a campus restaurant, a boutique model, and a bassist for a new wave rock band, but by far, being a stay-at-home-mom is her favourite role.

Born in the Philippines, Nenette emigrated to Canada at the age of 4 with her parents, desperate to leave behind the tropical warmth and beauty of their homeland for -40C windchill and the latest in parka fashions. Many years later, she met her scientist-guy husband, and gave birth to two beautiful, clever children. When she's not hanging out with her three favourite people, you can find her watching sci-fi, reading erotic novels, going out for sushi with her girl friends, stalking people on Twitter, and blogging at her online home, LifeCandy.

YUKON

Fawn has almost always lived in the northern parts of the country. Thunder Bay, Iqaluit,and Fort Liard have all been home (although there were those stints in Ottawa and in Germany, as well). Now she has set down roots in Whitehorse, Yukon, with her husband, two girls, a cat, a dog, and an enormous greenhouse.

We all know that parenting will be challenging, but sometimes the challenges that materialize aren't what you thought you'd signed up for. For the past year, Fawn's family has been struggling with epilepsy, as her older daughter battles seizures that refuse to be controlled by drugs. They are slowly being tamed using a special diet, a topic that frequently comes up in her personal blog, Fawnahareo's Place. (Though you might also find her blogging about childbirth advocacy, music, or life in the Yukon. And her own inadequacies, of course.)

Outside of mommydom, Fawn works for government, sings (jazz, show tunes, and songs of her own creation) and plays piano.

ONTARIO

Ali Martell is only half Canadian and you can only sometimes tell from her accent. She's part Georgia Peach, part Wisconsin Cheesehead and all snark. She's lived in Toronto for the last 13 years and really can't wait for Canada to embrace Target and finally build one, preferably near her house in the T.O. suburbs.

She works for a big red publishing company by day and is a mom to three children and a dog by night. She has an unhealthy obsession with coffee and more often than not ends up with someone else's coffee at the Tim Horton's drive-thru. She is a total music snob and has no issue with publicly humiliating anyone who listens to Britney Spears. Ali is also an author who has published several children’s books. Ali loves all things pop culture and is lucky enough to write about it at Urban Moms, where she even does the occasional celebrity interview. You can also read her over at her personal blog, Cheaper Than Therapy, where she takes pride in irritating grammar snobs everywhere by writing in all lowercase.

Beck lives in Northern Ontario, where she and her husband raise their three young kids, shovel a lot of snow and are not too tempted to move any further south.

When she's not here, Beck posts at her personal blog, Frog and Toad Are Still Friends, and on Thursdays at 5 Minutes for Parenting.

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One warm September in 1994, Chantal Hubert set off to university ready to pursue a lucrative career in Canadian Law. What she didn't plan for was a random encounter with a handsome stranger on the streets of Ottawa. True to her style of never doing anything halfway, she later married that handsome stranger at a ridiculously young age. Since 1996 Chantal and her husband John have made it their business to show everyone they knew what they were doing; They are now raising four kids between the ages of six and twelve.

Chantal lives in Almonte, Ontario (a farming suburb outside of Ottawa) in a house with too many bathrooms and too many kids. Chantal is an avid runner, adventure racing addict and a ridiculously competitive soccer player. She volunteers too much, doesn't sleep enough and is always complaining that she's hungry. Chantal blogs with considerable inconsistency at Bread Crumbs In The Butter.

Like many modern moms, Haley Overland wears a lot of hats: mom/blogger/writer/editor/consultant/art dealer/yoga teacher/recovering Starbucks addict. Truth is, she didn't think her years of graduate studies in English literature and philosophy would lead to any of this. But she finds motherhood and blogging endlessly more fabulous than the university career she envisioned for herself pre-motherhood. When she’s not blogging at Cheatymonkey.com, editing/writing at Today's Parent, blogging at Today's Parent's Celebrity Candy, reviewing Toronto's sweet spots at Sweetspot.ca, selling art for kids at Kids Deserve Art, travel writing at Cottage Country, or procrastinating on twitter (@Cheaty), you’ll find her cuddling with her cats and dog (appropriately named "Betty White"), cooking vegetarian delicacies, practicing yoga, reading books, or, most likely, chasing after her two terrifically adorable young children. You'd think she'd be a good multitasker. But, she's not. (Just ask her mother.)

Janet decided that she wanted to be a writer during her final year of high school. Then she went off to university where she chose to major in Psychology. She often wonders what Freud would have to say about that decision. After graduating, Janet worked in advertising and high tech marketing until the pull of motherhood overpowered the allure of the corner office. She quit her job and started her own freelance marketing writing business, fervently believing that working from home would offer the perfect balance of career and family. She has since been diagnosed with an acute case of illogical optimism.

Janet believes that fair trade coffee tastes best, that chocolate is an everyday food, and that constantly running after kids should really offer more noticeable fitness results. When she’s not frantically trying to meet deadlines, or hanging out with her three divine children and incredibly patient husband, Janet blogs at Three and Holding.

One part earth-mama, one part big mouth, Karen G. has become pretty much everything she never thought she would be. A full-time copywriter, she spends her after-work hours messing up ambitious crafting projects, cooking, and most importantly, getting into all sorts of trouble with her two delicious girls, born in 2005 and 2007.

For pleasure and therapy, Karen authors the blog, The Kids Are Alright and is a weekly contributor to Better Than A Playdate where she waxes poetic about things like quinoa at Eat Me. Her other pastimes include ignoring piles of laundry, guessing how many family members will be in her bed by morning and beating her husband at Scrabble.

Karen Rani Bodkin is a web designer and freelance writer based in Southwestern Ontario. This mother of two little boys left a high-powered executive position to battle laundry and kiss bruised knees, and she wouldn't turn back for anything. In 2005, Karen started a web design company from home, which took off like a shot and she merged with Swank Web Style in January 2007 where she works to this day. You can find her portfolio here. Karen also doles out craftastic snark at Craftastrophe and has a personal blog she routinely ignores.

When Karen’s mouse isn’t fused to her hand, she likes to take off to share whiskey with her Papa and lose her nickels playing cards with Granny. With the love of her husband and her two young sons, her life pretty much kicks butt.

Growing up, Karla Cadeau always wanted to be a writer but somewhere along the way the Universe shifted her off course and she found herself working as a Web Developer at a downtown Toronto corporate high rise. She married her high school sweetheart, who, incidentally is more sarcastic than sweet, owns a giant yellow dog that is the master of finding all things that taste like sock, and is a mother to a spirited toddler who makes her proud each and every day to be on the heart-expanding journey of parenthood.

After trading in her heels to become a Stay-at-Home Mom and Perpetual Filler of Sippy Cups, Karla finally pursued her passion for the written word as a Freelance Writer and most recently, she started an On-location Photography business. Karla is the author of Untangling Knots, the photographer behind Karla Cadeau Photography and she also likes to Twitter.

A constant worrier and self-diagnosed hypochondriac, Loukia graduated from University in Communications, and spent several years working in television and radio, both in Canada and in the USA, including internships at CBS in Washington, D.C, and at Entertainment Tonight in Hollywood, CA. She traded working in the media world for the much more fast-paced world of motherhood - where everyday is an adventure unlike no other! Loukia loves to blog about her life as a mom to two amazing little boys at Loulou's Views. She knows that being a mom is by far the most exciting, rewarding, challenging, tiring and truly amazing job there is!

Mamatulip, in 115 words: Former journalist turned freelance writer, unpaid maid and crust-cutter-offer extraordinaire. Married for almost seven years with a cat, a dog and two kids underfoot, a fact that still astounds her every now and then. A lover of cinnamon buns, music and the written word; kind of nit-picky about how laundry is folded and the way her dishwasher is loaded. Mamatulip is a strong supporter of drinking coffee, getting a full night's sleep and trying to find the beauty in each day, even if that day brings vomit or tantrums - or both.

She writes her life at Where am I going...and why am I in this handbasket?, dishes up gossip at Binkywood and hopes to one day write a novel.

Mary G has been a teacher, politician, HR administrator, student and office drone and presently runs a semi-secret graphics and advertising business from her home. All the while she has been a wife (for 46 years now) and is the mother of two forty something, wonderful daughters. More recently she has become the delighted grama of almost six year old Little Stuff. She lives to read and does so obsessively, enjoys photography, her rural retirement home and, in spite of arthritic knees and relentlessly increasing embonpoint, she loves swimming, line dancing and snowshoeing.

Two years ago she discovered blogging (Them's My Sentiments), rediscovered herself as a writer and added another addiction to her embarrassing total. She also tries to give back to her community as a volunteer and is presently chair of a community board that governs several local community health centres and health related projects. As well, she works at a local community hall and gets sucked into local charity events. She is supposed to be retired but has found that you never retire from being a wife and mother.

Samantha works full-time in the construction industry and is a mom to two boys. With a husband in the construction industry as well so she finds herself very much at home with the mud, dirt, trucks and bugs. Despite her very manly lifestyle, she finds it of utmost importance that she indulge in very girlie aspects of being female. Manicures, pedicures, nice purses and getting her hair done regularly help remind her that she is not in fact, one of the boys - though, you'd never know it from that trucker mouth.

While she does have two small children and does work outside of the home full-time, Samantha - who typically goes by the handle "temptingmama" - can be found wreaking havoc on Teh Internetz on twitter, and regularly blogging at her personal site, Temporarily Me as well as Craftastrophe, which she co-founded with fellow blogger and BFF Karen Sugarpants.

Shannon is a transplanted Nova Scotian, now living in Ottawa, but who hasn't lost the ability to dismember a lobster with her bare hands. Over the course of her life Shannon's pursued a wide range of career options as well as life directions, including working in tourism in Nova Scotia, high-tech in Ottawa and the UK, online community building in Gatineau and the intersection of video and social media back in Ottawa. Right now the big news is the impending arrival of Child #1, who is currently making her presence known by wedging her massive cranium under Mom's left ribcage.

Shannon's passions include blogging and other writing, cooking and, by extension, eating, reading diverse blogs/magazines (both paper and online) and other publications, social and new media, and finding new and innovative ways to reincorporate the nap into everyday. Shannon also has a keen interest in environmental issues, and in particular greening up our everyday lives, which inspired her to create ecochick - the Canadian environmentally friendly shopping blog for green chicks. To see more of Shannon, you can also visit her personal blog at ThreeSeven as well as right here at the Canada Moms Blog. Shannon and her husband own a Beagle named Beagle, which belies their level of creativity.

QUEBEC

When not saving the planet from impending asteroids with her laser beam eyes, Dawn enjoys crafting various household items from the abundant snow found in Montreal. Between fielding frantic phone calls from noted Nobel Prize winners attempting to locate their belts or misplaced wallets, she is an American PhD candidate at McGill and a Mom to her 11-going-on-93 year old daughter, Emily.

She is often witty, occasionally acerbic and frequently tired. She does not exercise and warns that if you ever see her running down a street, then you should move fast too, as there is either a pack of rabid dogs or hungry zombies after her. Her head is filled with useless bits of trivia and song snippets from the 1990's. And never eat anything she has cooked. She isn't kidding about that.

You can find her writings at her personal blog, "I am Doing the Best that I can" and herding the cats at "True Wife Confessions".

Kiwi started her blog Les Pépins de Kiwi while she and her boyfriend were still struggling with infertility, trying to get (and stay) pregnant with their first child. A few pills, injections and pushes later, Kiwi is now a stay-at-home mother of two lovely boys. She is also working from home as a freelance graphic designer and she owns a baby-carrier business with her best friend. As if that wasn't enough to fill her days (and many nights too), she also volunteers in a breastfeeding support group and writes for Mères & cie. She lives in Montreal suburbia with her boyfriend (been waiting for the proposal for 12 years... and counting) and two sons.

When she's not sewing, writing or wiping someone's nose, Kiwi likes to read, play Sudoku and go out to eat sushi with her boyfriend. That is, if she had time to do any of that.

The last time she worked out of the home, Montreal blogger Sherry Osborne worked in a recording studio doing public relations and creative content editing. There she met her husband and lo, eventually birthed two daughters, born in 2002 and 2005. She now spends her work time in front of her laptop, writing merrily away as a freelance pro-blogger. When she's not working, pretending to clean, playing, reading, or getting way too emotionally invested in prime time television shows, she blogs at her own space, appropriately titled Chaos Theory. She is certainly not above unwinding with a beer or glass of wine and a bowl of chips. She misplaced her mind during the Great Sleep Deprivation of 2002-2003 but she's sure she'll find it again some day. Maybe.

NOVA SCOTIA

Jessica Van Dyne-Evans was leading a quiet life until someone introduced her to the internet. Now married and living in a new country, she has children to run after, several jobs, and a husband who is still trying to figure out what he's really gotten himself into.

Alternately bemused and bewildered at this new stage in her life, she can usually be found blogging, taking pictures, wrangling children or with her nose stuck in a good book.

Jessica blogs about her life at daysgoby, talks about Family Health at BlogHers Act Canada, and frequents Twitter and other places. Because giving in to exhaustion is so last year, isn't it?

Kate Inglis of sweet | salty is a writer, photographer and mother to three boys -- two of whom require grilled cheese sandwiches and one that exists as figment and spiritbaby. After starting her blog in 2004 prior to the birth of her first son, Kate's writing chugged along uneventfully until her second pregnancy, identical twins, ended with their catastrophic birth three months early. One son survived and one did not.

Since then, she has written her first novel, published in fall 2009, founded Glow in the Woods, a community and collaborative blog for babylost parents, and joined the crew of Shutter Sisters, a collective celebrating women photographers. Kate can show you where they used to hang pirates, and where you can step barefoot on dead jellyfish for cheap thrills.

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The Silicon Valley Moms Group Management Team:

PARTNER - SILICON VALLEY MOMS GROUP & CO-FOUNDER: Jill Asher is the co-founder of Silicon Valley Moms Group. The idea came to Jill over two years ago (March 2006) to start Silicon Valley Moms Blog, after she finished her one year "Presidency" of PAMP. After inviting friend after friend to join this "crazy idea" that moms would want to write about parenting experiences in their regional area, Jill has watched Silicon Valley Moms Group blossom into over nine collaborative blogging communities.

By far, her biggest challenge and greatest joy is motherhood. Jill and her husband are the proud parents of two elementary school aged daughters. Jill admits that she is NOT A PERFECT PARENT and fears her daughter's teenage years. Her girls can be heard running around the house screaming, "Mommy is blogging again!" and she needs to bribe from time to time them with treats. Is she allowed to admit that? On the bright side, Jill really digs living in Silicon Valley and tries her best to blend in, praying that no one will hear her "New Jersey accent". Unless, of course, she is royally upset.

Jill handles PR, Marketing, Business Development and outreach for this collaborative community.

Beth Blecherman (Chief Technology Mom) is a techie turned blogger mom who is in charge of blogging technology and development for the Silicon Valley Moms Group network. She also works on the outreach/development to obtain new bloggers and organizing events for the network. Beth started her career in application development, then system auditing and her last role was Senior Manager, Computer Process Integrity, for Deloitte. Beth's personal blog is on tips, tricks, and discussions about parents use of technology for their families (Techmamas). When not blogging, she can be found on Twitter, Facebook and tooling around other new online social networking sites...

MANAGING MEMBER, SILICON VALLEY MOMS GROUP: Tekla S. Nee, a cofounder of the Silicon Valley Moms Group, serves as editor-in-chief and CFO for the network of blogs. She has been writing about parenting for more than 25 years for magazines like Parenting, BabyTalk, Working Woman, Special Reports: Family, and Better Health and Living. She blogged for five years before there was such a word, writing a weekly column about about her life with three kids for the Palo Alto Daily News. She's published three books, The Mommy Rescue Guide First Year; The Mommy Zone: Tales from the Trenches of Parenthood; and The Everything Baby's First Year Book (also published in Russian and Chinese). And that's just in her spare time, during the day, she masquerades as a mild-mannered technology journalist working for a major metropolitan magazine.

PARTNER - SILICON VALLEY MOMS GROUP: Linsey Krolik joined the management team of Silicon Valley Moms Group as a Partner in October 2009, after serving as the company's lawyer, book club editor, and a contributing writer for Silicon Valley Moms Blog since July 2007. Linsey has been a technology, media, and business lawyer and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for the past ten years. Before operating her solo law practice, which she started shortly after the birth of her twins in 2004, Linsey was Corporate Counsel for ARM, Inc., a United Kingdom-based intellectual property company and worked for a variety of tech companies in the Silicon Valley, including Palm, Inc, OmniSky Corporation, and 3Com Corporation. Linsey holds a combination JD/MBA degree from Santa Clara University School of Law with a concentration in High Technology Law and in Marketing and has been a member of the California State Bar Association since 2002. She is the co-author of the book "Virtual Incorporation: A Lawyer's Guide to Forming Virtual Corporations," which was published by the American Bar Association in 2009. She is a speaker and teacher, having spoken at BlogHer'08 and taught at Solo Practice University and Outside the Cube. Linsey is very active in her community, sitting on the board of several local organizations as President and in other Board of Director roles. She is a twin mom (plus one more makes three kids aged 6 and under), a twin herself, and a cancer survivor. In addition to writing at Silicon Valley Moms Blog, she writes at her personal blog, Me Too You, and at her twins club's blog Mad About Multiples. Linsey handles business development, advertising and legal issues for SV Moms Group.