Thank you, Sylvia, for nominating me for a Blog of the Year Award. What a great chance to recognize other bloggers. Sylvia has nine, yes, NINE kids and she blogs about life in the chilly north. Her daughter Bethany is a major focus of the blog because at the age of two she was diagnosed with brain cancer, which she beat, but it left her with a lot of health issues including persistent seizures that kept her confined to the couch for many years, until she she just recently became seizure free.

I highly recommend checking out her blog, as well as my nominees for blogs I really enjoyed in 2012 (which I actually would nominate Sylvia, but do you nominate someone who nominate you? That seems weird. What does blog etiquette call for? 🙂 )

1. You Don’t Know Jack. This is a blog about another child with TSC. For him, TSC meant brain damage and autism, but there’s something to be said for finding such joy in the little things like straws (a marvelous Christmas tree decoration, I must say), and never knowing when one of his toys will apear at the bottom of your coffee cup.

2. Toemail. I once feared the feet of others. Now I follow a blog based  on feet. I love travel and I love that this blog is creating a worldwide community by posting pictures from around the world.

3. My Beijing Survival Diary. I really enjoy reading this woman’s account of living in Beijing combined with travel/living advice.

4. No Points for Style. When I came across this blog, I found myself captivated reading old posts. The world of her son and pediatric mental illness is an overwhelming one, but this blogger is a great source of information.

5. Heartbeat at Our Feet. Another TSC mom blogging about balancing family, TSC, and a massive seizure dog named Denali.

6.  Tiffani Goff at Home. Yep, another blog with TSC as a component. What can I say? I have a vested interest. But it’s another I enjoy following.

7. The Adoptionistas. Two women that adopted two babies from Africa. They read ALL the parenting books. I mean ALL of them. So I just get my parenting tips from them 🙂 .

Here are the rules for this award: 1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award

2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.

3 Please include a link back to this page Blog of the Year Award and include these ‘rules’ in your post (please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)

4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them

5 You can now also join our Facebook group – click ‘like’ on this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience

6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…