Smith Family Weblog

A few weeks ago, Doug pointed out that I was close to reaching 100,000 blog visitors on this WordPress site. I somehow managed to miss the actual rollover into six-figure territory, but I felt like I needed to mark the occasion by expressing my gratitude for your interest in our lives.

Bryan started blogging before Ava was even a thought—nearly a decade has passed since he launched his first site. Once we moved to Kansas, I continued it, with the goal of creating virtual baby books in place of the paper versions I neglected to start.

Four years ago, I moved the blog to WordPress, and since then, we’ve seen about 70 visitors each day, or about 25,000 each year. Those figures are both exhilarating and scary. I often joke that the moms must account for at least half of those visits, but in reality, I know they are far too busy to keep that close an eye on us. So, that means others are reading about the day to day happenings in the Smith household. Again . . . exhilarating and scary.

It would be disingenuous to claim that nearly 15 years in public relations hasn’t shaped my decisions of what to share (and how to share it), but I’d like to think that overall, we’re pretty open about the highs and lows of parenting and life in general.

Over the past four years, a few posts stand out as favorites, at least according to WordPress stats:

• Thanks to what was an inadvertently obvious title, the post about our visit to the Disneyland princess salon has proven quite popular, though I’m not sure those who wandered in via Google were as impressed with my newly-minted five year old as the regulars around here were. Still, those photos—and the accompanying memories—make my heart swell nearly two years later.
• A few recipe posts have also brought in serious traffic, like this particular martini recipe. As for the person searching for margarita cupcakes without alcohol, move along. Nothing to see here.
• Of course, everyone seems to love posts in which I am a little too honest… Seriously. You guys like those. A lot.
• The posts about parenting are also popular. I assume it’s just because I am, ahem, so very good at it…
• This post is easily one of my personal favorites. I suppose there’s a good chance I’m at least partially responsible for skewing the numbers here, but it’s something I refer back to when I’m missing the grandparents. Or Minnesota. Or both.
• A few posts are just classics—exactly the kind of things we should be documenting in this virtual book of babies, like this post about Ava’s run in with a pair of safety scissors and the genesis of Olivia’s ongoing love affair with tiaras.
• And, in the same vein, even some rather new posts are already appearing toward the top of the list. And, thanks to the new blog category that came along with that one, I suppose we won’t have a shortage of stories and photos to share in the next four years, either.

Living apart from our family and many of our friends remains challenging, but marking this milestone makes me realize we are far from alone. Thank you for being a part of our lives—both online and in person. We are grateful!