Welcome to Week 7 of the #ItsOK Linky – this is the week it’s bound to go tits up, because I’M HOSTING!!
If you’re a regular #ItsOKer, then welcome back, thanks for joining us again. If you’re a newbie – well hello, it’s lovely to have you here! (I still feel like a total newbie myself, so don’t be nervous).
We had 21 awesome bloggers link up with us last week, and myself and lovely co-hosts Kate from The Mum Conundrum, Carly from Mom of Two Little Girls, and Nicole from Tales from Mamaville loved reading and commenting on them all.
So how has everyone’s week been? As I mentioned last week, I’ve been on a week’s holiday to Cornwall with my three year old and 17 month old twins. Obviously I’ve had a wonderful time, plenty of quality time spent with my husband, I’ve come back TOTALLY relaxed and I’m absolutely raring to go with all sorts of amazing parenting this week.
Oh hang on. No, that’s total bollocks. I was ill the whole week and was asleep by 7.30pm several nights (bang goes that ‘quality’ time), my three year old was a bit (a lot) of an arsehole, and I’ve come back wanting to lock myself in a darkened padded cell for a month if I’m totally honest. Anyone else know what I mean?
Holidays just aren’t the same once you’ve had kids are they, no matter what rose-tinted glasses you wear? I mean, seriously, for the last two nights we had all five of us in an extended hotel room. At what point did I think that would be fun? I know what to expect, we’ve done this before, why did I not remember – I even wrote a blogpost about it back in the summer (you can read it here if you fancy)
One thing I DEFINITELY am looking forward to this week is my three year old going to pre-school for two days. Harsh, I know. But totally true.
Anyway, enough waffle from me.
Onto the linky!
Carly from Mom of Two Little Girls hosted the linky last week and chose this post from Liberty on the Lighter Side as the Featured Blogger. Well done lovely, it was a great read. You can grab your fancy pants badge right here.
The #ItsOK Linky
Instructions: Select all code above, copy it and paste it inside your blog post as HTML
If you’re a first timer to the linky, find out all about it here. We’re basically saying it’s okay to not be okay sometimes – particularly when it comes to parenting.
It’s okay to cut some dinosaurs out of an ‘Andy’ magazine and consider that enough ‘crafting’ for the next six months, it’s okay for the best bit of your (my) holiday to be when they were in the kids’ club and you drank a HOT coffee overlooking the sea and promptly fell asleep in the chair.
And it’s okay (I think, but this one is debatable) to take a pic of your 17 month old with bird shit dripping down his face before wiping it off. I’d say don’t judge me on that last one, but we don’t do judging here at #ItsOK so I knew I was safe to admit it…
The rules
We’re all pretty laid back here at #ItsOk, but for the linky to work we have a few rules:
1.) You can add ONE of your posts to the link-up – any post you like, as long as it’s on a real life parenting theme and you haven’t posted it on the #ItsOK linky before.
2.) Before you add your post to the link-up, make sure you pop the linky badge, using the html below, on your post. It’s not as scary as it looks, honest. Even I managed to do it! Copy the code from this page, then open a new browser tab, go to your site and navigate to the post you want to share on your site. Go into ‘edit page’, change the view (in the top right hand corner of the writing area on WordPress) from ‘visual’ to ‘text’.
Scroll to the bottom of the text, and paste the code in there. If you change your view back to ‘visual’ again you’ll see the linky badge in all it’s glory at the bottom of your post. Ta-dah!!
The #ItsOK Linky
Instructions: Select all code above, copy it and paste it inside your blog post as HTML
3.) Make sure to comment on the host’s post, the post before yours, and one of your choice.
4.) The linky will run every Tuesday morning at 7am until Thursday evening at 11.55pm. I’m hosting this week so I’ll comment on your post, as well as one of the other hosts, and all four of us will retweet it and share with all our followers.
5.) Tweet us (@twinstantrums @TheMumConundrum @MamavilleTales @momof2lgs ) with the URL to your post. Make sure you include the hashtag #ItsOK so that we know you’re tweeting us your linky post, and not just telling us about your random day… Remember this step – if you don’t tweet us, it’s tricky for us to share.
6.) Then I get the exciting job of choosing my favourite post which will be featured next week, retweeted and shared on Facebook. If your post is featured as one of our favourites then you are very welcome to display our lovely ‘#ItsOK Featured Blogger’ badge on your sidebar.
7.) Come and join our lovely Facebook group, and we’ll share your posts on there, as well as on the #ItsOK Facebook page – pop over to like and follow us where we’ll share the best posts from each week’s linky too.
8.) Are you on Pinterest? Come on over and follow our #ItsOK board, we’ll share your posts and you can plunder all the super-useful/funny/interesting reads and finds we amass too.
The #ItsOK linky is all about celebrating real-life parenting. Please link up with posts on this theme ONLY. We’re not too keen on random sponsored posts. We’re all about Mum (and Dad) life, warts and all.
Even I can follow these rules, so it can’t be that difficult! Any problems, just give us a shout.
It’s a great way of finding other blogs to read, and realising somehow or other we’re all in the same boat – and #ItsOK!
Happy linking!