Mommin' It Up!

April 27, 2018April 27, 2018

A Non-Comprehensive List of Things That Have Happened Since 2016

Sooo before last week, it had been a long-@ss time since Emily or I had blogged. I explained why in that post, SO GO READ IT. (Please.)

I’ll wait.

So anyhoo, here’s what you need to catch up on,

I went from part time to full time at my job, because I am an insane person and ignored the advice I gave Emily for years.
Joshua (mine) and Kate (Emily’s) both turned into TEENAGERS and they are both TALLER THAN I AM and it’s NOT OKAY. They’re both now 14. Also not ok.
Kate looks like a freaking model, SUPER NOT OKAY. Gah. At least have the decency to look like an awkward teenager.
Kate also loves makeup, hair, and mirrors, so she’s basically more like my kid than Emily’s and this THRILLS ME TO NO END (payback for all those eye rolls at me, cousin!!)
Joshua, at 14, no longer adores me like he did at 4. Very not okay.
Sammy (Emily’s) just turned 10. The only one remaining in single digits is Jonah (mine).
My left eyeball decided it wouldn’t tolerate contact lenses anymore so I got glasses. Which made Sophie (mine), who is now eleven, and I look alike, which is a development I AM on board with!
My nephew Drew won the world championships in Pyraminx again in PARIS freaking France, and broke the world record at the same time. It was pretty epic.
In other nephew news, my brother Andy & his wife did me a solid adopted a 2-year-old named Jayce, and I am in loooooove with him! #fanaunt
Jonah, despite my fervent prayers, continues to have some developmental issues, so we’ve had him at the Brain Balance Center since December 3 hours a week. He is doing SO AWESOME. He’ll be done in June. It’s the best money we’ve ever spent. I mean besides Christian school and speech therapy.
Also, Jonah is the MOST FUN KID EVER and I want to FREEZE TIME right now because he’s so fun!
I started selling MONAT hair care, because it’s amazeballs and you should totes buy some from me. I started using it because my freaking hairline was receding and that is MAJORLY NOT OK! Fortunately Monat fixed that and now it’s growing back in nicely! TO check it out you can join my FB group where I do lots of ridiculous hair and makeup product testing (anyone can join) or check out my MONAT website here. Or, comment and and ask me about it. I won’t get all salesy and weird on you.
I turned 40 and my friend and family brought me like 500 cans of Mountain Dew, which is totally cool, and Emily did NOT turn 40 which is SUPER LAME. She continues to fulfill her role as “whippersnapper” in my life.
Emily went to Europe without me, which is STUPID. In her defense she DID ask me to go with her, but she DIDN’T offer to pay for it, soooo…
Emily got promoted at her job to Vice President of Everything Awesome and she pretty much runs the place. Also, people are VERY afraid of her. And her office smells of mahogany and leather-bound books.
Also, Emily’s husband and I dressed the same accidentally on Halloween this year. It’s not weird!
(Please note: Emily looks like she actually LIKES ME in this photo because she had wine for trick-or-treat. True story.)
Some other not-super-fun stuff happened to but we’ll save that for a serious post or two.
Both of our husbands keep continually agreeing to staying married to us, which is kind of great (but really who would want to leave THIS?)

And now you’re all caught up! Stick with us, we’re bringing ~~sexy~~ funny back, I swear!

April 22, 2018

No, We Didn’t Fill a Baby Pool Full of Slime to Become Internet Famous

Hello old friends, and welcome NEW friends!

Allow me to introduce ourselves. We’re Emily and Jenny, two cousins who have been blogging at Mommin’ It Up since June 2007. We became moms within 8 weeks of each other in 2004, and by 2007 we just HAD to start writing about the ups and downs of motherhood.

Every year our kids (there are five between us, ages 14 to 7) go trick-or-treating together. This is a typical photo of us on Beggar’s Night, or any night, actually: Jenny is the weird one, Em is the normal one.

We blogged super consistently here for about eight years until I (Jenny) had to go and get a full time job and ruin EVERYTHING. My full time job is as editor at ForEveryMom.com, a parenting site. And, since I write 5-10 articles A WEEK (you read that right) over there, my creativity was pretty much sucked dry. So we shelved Mommin’ It Up for awhile, always intending to come back to it when we could. We were also hoping blogging would go back to the way it was in our heyday 2008-2012 or so, when it was really about TELLING STORIES, not about starting YouTube channels and making viral videos. Neither Emily nor I are interested in being talking heads on a video screen. We ARE interested in telling stories through our writing about motherhood and married life with kids. USUALLY funny stories, but OFTEN hard ones. ALWAYS real ones.

We are NOT interested in making viral videos or fantasical Pinterest crafts in the interest of becoming Internet Famous. #sorrynotsorry

And sidenote: It’s harder now that our kids are older. Emily and I both have TEENAGERS now, teens who were THREE when we started this blog. We have to get permission to post ANYTHING about them, much less write an entire post. It’s hard.

BUT ANYHOO, let’s get to the reason for the title of this post.

About a year ago, we noticed that someone else was using the name Mommin’ It Up on twitter. There were TWO of them, just like us, but one since killed off the other and is now flying solo. People were mistaking Emily (@momminitup) for her, so Emily and I tweeted her something along the lines of, “Hey this name’s already taken, how ’bout you get your own?”

Oh wait, here is EXACTLY what Emily tweeted, and I re-tweeted.

She BLOCKED US BOTH on Twitter, and did NOT get her own ORIGINAL name. I mean, RUDE. All we did was ASK A QUESTION.

Though she can pry the Momminitup.com, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram URL’s from our cold, dead, hands, she’s worked around it and just made her own very similar handles. And also, she’s made some “viral” videos that are starting to get her a little internet famous. Twice at least, the Today Show has posted her stuff and people come and like OUR FB page in droves. It’s KINDA GREAT! The most recent one was her filling a kiddie pool with slime IN her house and letting her kids go to town. A kiddie pool filled with slime INDOORS. And then she films it and sends it to the TODAY show? Yeah, clearly she’s just doing that because she LOVES playing with her kids.

When the Today show posted it just a little while ago, they again tagged OUR page. Because, yeah, she has a page, but because she STOLE OUR NAME, it makes it really hard for people to GET IT RIGHT. Seriously, lady? DO you not see how you screwed yourself by failing to be original here?

Look, if you know us you know Emily and I are super-nice, low-drama people. That’s why we didn’t come out swinging after she blocked us a year ago. We don’t want to cause this woman any harm, but we DO want her to re-brand.

We planted our flag on the Mommin’ It Up planet in the Internet Galaxy ELEVEN FREAKING YEARS AGO. I love Jesus and He loves you, but Lady, you need to re-brand. You change your name and allllll your followers stay with you. It’s amazing how that works, but we’re not doing it, ’cause quite simply, we were here first.

And thanks to you, we’re also BACK.

Let us know if you need any help with name suggestions.

September 3, 2014September 3, 2014

Stunned.

I just wandered over to Mommin’ It Up to write a back to school post (or, more accurately, a post about the DISASTROUS morning we had for the first day of school), when something on our dashboard caught my attention.

I must see that every day, but it had never really registered before.

You guys. 55,204 comments.

That means that 55,204 times, one of you has given us advice, cheered us on, laughed at our antics, or – let’s be honest – entered a giveaway.

55,204 times, you gave of your time and you gave of yourselves.

Blogging is different than it was 2,384 posts ago. The internet is different; the world is different. There’s more chatter, but less conversation. People don’t leave comments on blog posts the way they used to. Hell, people don’t even read blog posts the way they used to.

Jenny and I are different too. We have a lot more kids, for starters. And we have jobs, and fewer stories to tell. Things are changing around these parts and I don’t think either of us are sure where it’ll go from here. (That sounds much more ominous than I intend it to – we have no plans to abandon ship.)

But there is one thing I know for certain – even if the internet exploded tomorrow, Jenny and I will forever be grateful for each and every one of those 55,204 comments, and to all of you who came along for the ride.