To Mommy,

I love you.  You are nice.  I am glad that you are my mommy.  You are the most funnest mom ever.  I’m glad that you are in our house.  I don’t know how to say it but I love you so much.  It’s hard to explain such a happy feeling.  I really love you.  I love you as big as the earth.  You are really sweet and you are a fun mommy.  You are good at teaching me things like learning and math.  It’s so hard to say how much I love you.  I love you really a whole bunch.  How much do you love me?

Love,

BigZabba

BigZabba was thrilled with her Christmas gift.  She has wanted a pet for, well forever.  It is going to be a fun, and exciting few weeks around here as we try to adjust to life as a family of 5.  Let the house training begin!

Merry Christmas!

Most of you already know that 99% of our business has come from word-of-mouth…and we have nothing to complain about since our business has pretty much doubled each year for the last three years.  However, from time to time we have dabbled with small newspapers, some print and even google adwords with basically no success.

That is until we found HARO.  If you’ve never heard of it, help-a-reporter-out is the recent creation of Peter Shankman.  It’s a simple email list that connects reporters to potential sources for articles, for free.  We’ve been subscribed since there were only a couple of thousand readers, and now Peter’s got more than 35,000 readers and a ton of high profile reporters and bloggers use it to find sources.  We’ve benefited by getting some quality press through connections we’ve made on HARO.

Peter offers one short text sponsorship at the top of each of his emails.  We figured we’d give it a try since the price was reasonable and we’ve never had a chance to put AllyZabba in more than 35,000 people’s inbox.  It turns out, it was the best advertising choice we’ve ever made.

Let’s get specific.  We were having a decent month of December–especially considering the general state of the economy.  Here’s an excerpt from the ad that Peter ran for us on December 16th:

I love HARO sponsors because they send me the coolest (warmest, and softest, technically,) things. This HARO is thanks to AllyZabba, the worlds softest blankie…order today for guaranteed Christmas delivery for only 1 cent!. http://www.AllyZabba.com/

And you can see the response from this graph showing our site visitors:

And here is what happened to our sales that day. This graph shows the approximate gross income:

Even with our niche product of high-end, handmade baby blankets, the results were terrific.  It’s a little hard to tell from these charts how good the rest of our month actually was.  We always have a couple hundred visitors in our store and at least a few orders each day.  But, by comparison to “HARO day” the rest of the month looks like nothing.  The graphs also don’t tell the whole story because a lot of the discussions we have been exchanging with people all over are from the HARO connection. We anticipate good things from these new relationships.

In short, advertising that works. You should subscribe to the HARO list and see what you think. What a great way to end the AllyZabba year.

Baby D

Born: December 19, 2008, 1:29am

8 lbs. 3 oz., 21 3/4 inches long

Merry Christmas Lola!

Today LittleZabba turned 3 years old.  We had a small birthday party for her yesterday.  The day started out with dreary clouds and rain, but by the time the first guests arrived the sky was blue and the ground was mostly dry.  The kids, and even some adults, had fun in the boucer…even though it was a little damp inside.  We feasted on carne asada tacos prepared by DaddyZabba himself!  We ate, we played, we opened gifts and we sang.  It was a really fun day.

We wanted to make today special for her, since today is her actual birthday.  LittleZabba is a huge fan of balloons, so last night while she was sleeping we filled 45 helium balloons and filled her room.  This morning she woke up and came in our room and said,

Daddy, my woom is full ov bawoons.

The fun activity tonight before going to bed?  Popping all the bawoons.

Happy Birthday Sweet LittleZabba.  Your smile can light up any room, brighten my gloomy days and bring joy to my heart.  You are a gem.  I love you!  Happy 3rd Birthday!

This is our second year of using our Advent Calendar.  The girls have really enjoyed participating in the activity of the day, whether it is reading a part of the Christmas story from the Bible, singing a song, or reading a book.  In thinking about advent today,  I had a funny memory.

I think I was about 7 years old, maybe 8, and my Mom and I were at the home of one of my classmates, who happened to by my first “crush”.  Our Moms were friends, so they were chatting about something so Kent and I played in his room.  Hanging on his door was an advent calendar.  There was a little pocket for each day and in each pocket was one of those candies wrapped in the red and green paper to make it look like a strawberry…I can’t remember what those are called.  Well I wanted a candy so I asked Kent if I could take one.  I guess without thinking he said yes.  So I grabbed it and popped it in my mouth.  At that moment he realized that I had taken a candy from the calendar and he panicked.  He really started to freak out and I thought I was going to get in trouble.  I told him that we always had candy in the car so I would go get him one to replace the candy that I ate.  I went down to our Buick and started searching frantically for a butterscotch candy.  We seemed to have those in the car for some reason.  I couldn’t find one.  I remember he was crying now and he ran to tell his Mom.  I really thought I was going to get in a lot of trouble.  His Mom quickly calmed him down and showed him that she had more and she gave him one to replace the one that I ate.  I so vividly remember the panic I felt that she was going to be mad that I ate the Advent candy.  Everytime I see those strawberry candies I think of Kent and the advent calendar incident.

Looking for some fun stuffers?  Here are my top picks for girls:

Francie Pants

Let them kick, twirl, cartwheel, play without worry about showing their panties!  They come in super cute prints.  My girls love love love their francies!  They love them so much they often hike up their dresses just to show them off!

Libby Dibby Spinny Skirt

Now that they have the francies, they can twirl all they like in Libby’s super spinny skirt.  LittleZabba refuses to wear a skirt or dress unless it twirls.  She is getting this one from Santa this year…shhh…don’t tell!

Mi Bazaar Latino

These hairpins are just too cute!  What little girl wouldn’t look darling in them.

Happy Shopping!  Enjoy!

Here we go….

What’s a favorite restaurant?

I don’t have a favorite.  I have recently realized that I really love Chinese food.  Put me in a Chinese restaurant and I am happy.  I also really love California rolls…that is as sushi as I get.

What were the other name options you had for the girls (both girl/boy names.)

Emily was my top choice, but DZ wouldn’t go for it.  We also considered Michelle as a middle name for BZ.  For a few weeks (before she was born) we had named LZ, Madelyn. For boys I liked William, Caleb and Reid.

What are your favorite and least favorite things about parenting?

I love the hugs and kisses, the spontaneous gestures of love.  I love it when they run to me and hug me like they haven’t seen me in years.  I love the snuggles before bed, the funny things they say.  I love the conversations that BZ and I have about God.  I love seeing them develop their own relationships outside of me.  I love seeing them work together on a project, I love seeing them love each other.  I love seeing the light click on when they understand.  I really don’t like the whining and the complaining.  I don’t like having to teach the same things over and over again. (it really isn’t smart to run crazy in the parking lot…you should probably pay attention)  I don’t like the discipline part.  I don’t like having to explain the hard things in life…why some people say mean things, why some friends do mean things, some things aren’t fair.

what are you gifting this year? and how much do you miss me????

Erin, if I told you that it would ruin the surprise for those getting the gifts.  =)  and I miss you all the stars in the sky and all the sand in the sea, all the bones in my body, all the hairs on my head, all the grass in all the yards between CA and IN…need I go on?

Name an author you enjoy reading.

I have enjoyed Francine Rivers, but it has been a long time since she wrote a new book.  It has also been a while since I read a book just for fun.  Any suggestions?

What’s something you enjoy about Allyzabba?

I have really enjoyed getting to know other women with businesses.  It is a crazy learning process.  It is fun to see their businesses grow and change.  An added bonus is a whole new set of stores that I love to shop in!

Thanks for playing along.  I really didn’t think anyone would have anything they wanted to know.  I will work on the post about the difference in BZ and LZ’s personalities.  I have to put some thought into that one.  Good night!

I know it has been a while since I posted.  I am in a blog funk.  I don’t know what to write about.  I could write about the mundane details of each day, but I sure you don’t really want to read about who ate what, where we went, and what chores need done.

Anyone have any thoughts?  Any questions for me?  Like who was my first kiss?  (it was Hi-Lut when I was maybe 6)  My favorite article of clothing?  (new socks, in case you wondered)  I have read lots of blogs lately that have an “ask me anything” post.  I guess this is mine.  Anyone want to play along?