I just wanted to comment on the latest story on RealKidz in the Detroit Free Press today. Maybe it's just my entrepreneurial rose colored glasses but to me the article sounded much more dire than I am feeling about the state of my company right now.  Sure we had to make a tough decision!  And yes we have to fix our shopping cart so that people don't get dscouraged by our 5 step checkout process and leave in the middle of it.  But we have a very solid stratgey.  We have identified some amazing partners to help us implement this strategy and we are going to see results because of it.

I have already gotten an email this morning (which I greatly appreciate!!!) wishing me the best and hoping that my company succeeds because we weren't around when her daughter needed us.  Well my message to those of you that feel that way is do more than hope!  Join our Facebook Fanpage, sign up for our newsletter, tell your friends and family about this little crazy business that will make a difference in the lives of thousands of girls.  We'll be announcing the launch of our social network that provides healthy lifestyle support in another month or so and the launch of the upgraded website through all of these vehicles (our blog, our Facebook pages, our newsletter). 

Finally,  sure we're not bringing on new styles yet, but the clothing we have is still very much in style and current.   There are still millions of people who have never heard of us yet so our lines will be completely fresh and new to them and by next spring there will be new color and fabric choices and by next fall new styles.  So watch out here we come!! 

Thanks again to everyone who is following us and wishing us well!!

Remember as Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."  I don't just think we can.  I know we can!

It's that time of year again.  Last year we made it to 164 out of 200...which is awesome.  We were able to do this pretty much at the last minute.  But if we can really get this going, we can make it all the way to numero uno!!  Achieving the top 200 moms gives RealKidz an unparalleled opportunity for media coverage and attention on a national scale.  Since we're starting early this year I can keep everyone updated on all the exciting developments that you'll see at RealKidz over the summer INCLUDING the launch of the RealKidz Family Network!

“Our family is pretty active”.  I hear this comment frequently.  But what does “pretty active” really mean?  Obviously, different things to different people.  A more important question is, how does your family’s physical activity compare to the national recommendations for kids and adults?  Let’s find out.  Answer the following questions (yes or no) and discover how your family habits add up.

1.       My family watches television one hour or less per day.

2.      My family members spend one hour or less on the computer per day (at home).

3.      Everyone in my family owns a bicycle and uses it at least once a week (in warm weather months).

4.      My family walks or plays outside together at least 30 minutes, three times per week.

5.      We own and use sport equipment such as basket ball, soccer ball, baseball and bat, tennis racket and ball, badminton set, croquet set, lacrosse, etc.

6.      My kids play outside at least 5 days per week for a minimum of 30 – 60 minutes (not including school recess).

7.      My kids have learned or are learning to swim by age four.

8.      My kids walk to and from school.

9.      My kids are physically active at school at least 30 – 60 minutes per day (recess and/or physical education).

10.  The adults in my family participate in 30-60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity at least 5 days per week.

Now, add up the number of questions you can answer “yes” to.  How active is your family?

If your family scored 7 or more yesses, you can legitimately say you are “pretty active”.  You are modeling good habits needed for lifelong physical activity and health.

If your family scored 4-6 yesses, you have some good habits already in place.  Now, take the next step and add some new habits to boost your activity time and increase your family’s health.

If your family scored 3 or less yesses, you need to make some lifestyle adjustments.  Your family is in danger of a sedentary lifestyle that can put members at risk for overweight, diabetes, high blood pressure and future heart disease.  Start now and implement one new activity habit per month.  Soon your family will enjoy more activity time, fun, and memory-making moments together!

I'd like to introduce you to another amazing individual from Grand Rapids, MI!!  (I don't know what it is but it seems like I am destined to create some very significant links with Grand Rapids.  There is just a lot of good happening in that area of the state!!)  Doreen and I were introduced by her business partner Cynthia Kay who was referred to me by a mutual acquantaince.  I had just a wonderful time talking with both Cynthia and Doreen and am so impressed with Doreen's 30 years of experience helping children to realize their physical potential.  I know you'll enjoy her first guest post as much as I enjoyed it.

Doreen's BIO

Doreen Bolhuis is the founder and president of GYMCO Inc., a multi-sport facility for kids celebrating its 30^th year of operation in Grand Rapids, MI.  GYMCO serves over 1500 children weekly in classes and special activities.  Doreen is the creator and a managing partner of Gymtrix (www.gymtrix.net), an innovative DVD series to teach physical skills for babies through elementary students.  Doreen is also a co-founder and contributor to Motion Evolution (www.motionevolution.com), a national fitness and physical literacy program for kids. 

Doreen holds a B.S. in education with a major in Physical Education.  She has over 35 years experience teaching locally, nationally and internationally.  Doreen is an adjunct professor for Aquinas College in the department of Health and Physical Education and has appeared on local television and radio as a guest expert in Physical Literacy.  Doreen is also a former elite level gymnastics coach and Junior Olympic Committee member for USA Gymnastics.

Doreen is a life-long athlete, embracing the lifestyle promoted in her life’s work.  Her favorite sports include running, trick water skiing, snow skiing, biking, gymnastics and tennis.  Doreen also enjoys a life-long appreciation of music and the arts.  She plays the cello with the Kent Philharmonia Orchestra and the Ambiance Quartet and sings in a local choir.

Chickpeas? In a brownie?! Yes, this is not a typo.  Although this recipe calls for a bar of chocolate, agave nectar doesn’t spike blood sugar drastically, and chickpeas contain protein and actually have a great texture when ground.  You’ll feel better knowing what’s going into your family’s body and family will feel better with less processed, chemicalized foods inside of them!

1 bar 60% Ghirardelli chocolate baking bar

1 cup chickpeas (rinsed and drained)

¾ cup agave nectar

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

Set oven to 350.  Blend chickpeas and eggs in food processor.  Melt baking chocolate in microwave for 2 minutes.  Add agave, baking powder, and chocolate, process until smooth. Pour batter in a 9” or 8x8 nonstick pan.  Bake for 40 minutes.  These are delicious when kept in the freezer as they take on a fudge-like texture.  Upgrades to some favorite treats can be empowering and pretty darn tasty, too!

 
--
Laura K Burkett
Certified Holistic Health Counselor
www.laurakburkett.com

I am pleased and excited to introduce to my RealKidz readers another fabulous partner for our RealKidz Family Network!  Laura K Burkett is a Holistic Health and Nutrition Counselor who was introduced to me by my dear friend Laura Dillivan.  They met at a networking event in Grand Rapids, MI where both Laura's are located.

Laura is warm and caring and has such great empathy and understanding for the food issues that many of us deal with.  I feel blessed to have her contributing to the blog and look forward to hearing lots more from her in the future.

Laura received her education at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC and is certified through the American Association of Drugless Practitioners (AADP). After healing her own food-related issues, Laura is committed to helping others heal themselves.  Laura works with clients individually as well as in groups, workshops, and corporate programs.  She works with men and women to deconstruct chaotic eating patterns and emotional eating, learn what foods serve them best, and reconnect with what they want for their health and their life.

You can find Laura at www.laurakburkett.com 

It's time for a bit of an update on what's goin on both with me and here at RealKidz!!  Today was one of those days when having a flexible schedule can be a bit of a disadvantage for getting work done.  My son's school had no power for the second time this week but they decided to close school so before the day even really began life reared it's head.  I've been very productive on the home front though and found some time to sit down and complete a sorely needed blog entry. 

One of my board members just gave me this awesome book that I'm plowing through called The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes.  He starts out sharing his time management system.  It's fairly straightforward and involved prioritizing the 6 most important things you need to accomplish in a given day and them scheduling them in with some wiggle room for interuptions and things that, well, just happen.  He doesn't, however, have a plan for when your son's school gets cancelled and your husband is in Mexico. :)  Anyway, I think it will be really effective but I'm still working on the "pigheaded discipline and determination" to put it into daily practice.  I think it's kind of like losing weight, if you just keep at it eventually it takes.

Along those lines, I've been struggling with my weight creeping up (again) and it's so frustrating!!!  I've decided I've got to either re-up with Weight Watchers or I'm thinking of looking at Medical Weight Loss.  The thing with me and weightloss is that every time I've taken off significant amounts of weight it's been with a new (to me) program.  I think there's some psychological component to that but since I'm not an expert, I'm only guessing.  Anyway, I absolutely refuse to let it get anywhere near where my top has been so the time for action (and freaking out) is now while I only need to lose 10-12 pounds.  The problem is that I've been here for 6-9 months and that is pretty discouraging.  Oh well, I've done it before and once it's done I'll be stable for several years at least so BUCK UP Merrill. :)

I've been working lately on getting quotes for what it will take to turn RealKidz' online presence into something that will really drive traffic and encourage sales.  I have been referred to some absolutely amazing companies and am excited to begin figuring out how to make all this happen.

I've also been noodling around an idea for an elementary school program and/or presentation for women's groups or other interested groups that features a fashion show for girls of all sizes and a message that shares how important what we wear is to both our self image and esteem and also how important it is in projecting the image that we want to project (in other words, what does it say about us if we're walking around in outfits that scream "I'm loose" "I am anti-establishment" "I am depressed")  Obviously I've just started into this but I'm really excited about the potential here!!

Well that's it for now!!  Now I'm going to post something you can really get excited about!!

If you haven’t paid much attention to what you and your family eats and drinks, you might be surprised to see how little water or how many sugary drinks we’re all consuming.  Starting to drink enough healthy liquids and reducing the amount of daily sugary drinks is a significant step toward better wellness. Our body needs the water to sustain itself; adding five to ten cups of liquids a day and preventing dehydration is a good starting point toward better wellness. By giving up pops - even the diet drinks that are loaded with chemicals - you reduce the amount of sugar, calories, and artificial chemicals that you bring into your system, all affect your health (not to mention your pockets!)  As a result of this one step, your body will feel better, find a new optimum balanced weight, and your wallet will enjoy extra savings as tap water is cheaper than pop.    

If you are already aware of what you are eating, adding plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables to the family’s diet, and making them your focal source of nutrition could be the step you want to try. For most Americans families a meal is putting the entire cow on the plate and decorating it with a cherry tomato. In the Mediterranean area, a meal means taking all kinds of fruits and vegetables, some legumes and nuts, and garnishing it with fish or meat. Selecting fresh products for your plate means adding natural sources of vitamins, mineral, phyto-elements, and fibers to your diet. Having a variety of fresh and, if available, local fruits and vegetables - means also many tastes, colors, and textures on your plate, and therefore adding FUN to your kitchen. Try to avoid the notion that “my kids will not eat it” and you will be pleased to learn that your kids love it. Give it a chance and be brave by trying fruits and vegetables that you have not tried before. Launch your kids on the adventure of discovering new tastes and ethnic foods.

Change does not happen overnight, but it is an evolutionary process. For that reason you should explore, pay attention, and learn what works for your family and gives you pleasure. Food is important and has a huge impact on your wellness. Therefore, start to be aware of nourishing, tasty food, and give it the respect, hence, the time it deserves. You might be surprised to discover that your family enjoys the process.

Spring Is Here!

This is the season when our daughters wonder if their summer clothes will still fit, and our boys recheck their shorts, while we as grownups do the same. After all, most of us haven’t accomplished our New Year resolutions and now it is time to make a new resolution, a radical plan that miraculously gets us in shape immediately, just before we reveal the body that, until now, was hidden under layers of winter clothes.

Let me offer you a new approach: instead of finding endless occasions to make decisions that you will never be able to fulfill, let’s make a resolution that we are ditching the “making resolutions” habit - a routine that is just frustrating. We do not accomplish better wellness with those resolutions and we disappoint ourselves, adding guilt to the feelings that we have to deal with. This scenario aggravates stress and detaches us even more from the wellness that we wanted to accomplish in the first place.  

Involvement in sports is one of the fundamentals of the American culture. I meet families that are so busy running between the kids’ football games to the mom’s yoga classes that they don’t have time to eat and they end up eating junk food just to fit in their sports. None of the sports will be useful to maintain wellness if you can’t take care of the building blocks of your body, and the building blocks need real food to nourishe your body.

Ever since I moved to US from the Mediterranean area, I noticed (when I was not freezing) that my fellow Americans are so stressed about food and most of them practice some kind of loosing weight diet. That is very unfortunate. Instead, I want to suggest a change and offer you to follow the Mediterranean way of eating, where food is a reason to be happy and to celebrate. Start to eat REAL FOOD and enjoy the process. Eating should be as natural as breathing. It is something very elementary to our existence.

Can you try to live your life thinking about your wellness, and taking small steps to eat food – real, wholesome food – as part of your lifestyle? For each family better eating means something else, as every family is in a different place and has special challenges.

Here ends Part I with a real teaser...How do we do what Yael is suggesting??  Part II starts to delve into specific ideas for how we can start to incorporate a healthier food lifestyle on a daily basis.  Tune in tomorrow!

As promised I am pleased and excited to introduce to you our first guest blogger ever!  Yael Dolev of Dolev LLC coaches people to sustain nourishing eating habits in the program “Enjoy Eating And Never Diet Again” - Ten Principles for Sustaining Good Eating Habits.  Coach Yael provides tools to enjoy better wellness by using food as a preventive method. Yael follows a Mediterranean diet and coaches how to sustain wholesome food habits as second nature. She trains how to make better food choices no matter how challenging life is. With a background in agronomy, botany, ecology, and coaching, Yael brings to her coaching a multidisciplinary approach focusing on the connections between sustaining the body, the food that we eat, and the environment in which the food grows.  Yael’s services are custom designed and include: coaching and counseling for individuals or families; coaching for special diet needs, workshops and seminars for workplaces, and classes for organizations.

For more information go to www.dolevfoodcoach.com or  contact Yael at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (email spelled out to prevent those nasty spam bots from using it) or 734-276-1317.

I will be posting Part I of Yael's post today and Part II tomorrow.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I have and that it inspires you as it has inspired me.  I was just thinking how I needed to start drinking more water and you know what??  I'm gonna make that commitment to myself today!  Happy spring and happy eating!

Does anyone else constantly feel at the end of the day like they haven't accomplished enough even though the day has been chock full of meetings and to-do's and this's and that's???  This is what my life has felt like recently.  Even with my renewed commitment to regular blogging, it's not happening nearly as often as I would like to.  I've got to get CONTROL of my schedule.  My plan to do this is to actually block large chunks of time out on my calendar for working at my desk in the office.  What invariably happens is I have a meeting here, a meeting there and I just don't get the focused alone time that I need to tackle everything I need to tackle.

I did have some nice time in the office yesterday afternoon.  Over two solid hours without the use of my laptop because my accountant was working on my quickbooks for me in the office (doh!  just remembered I still owe her something).  It was great!  I got caught up on everything I needed to do in my office that didn't involve my computer.  BTW, this is so geeky but I'm completely excited about my quickbooks inventory system that my accountant finished setting up yesterday!

I met with a PR firm today so I'm really looking forward to their suggestions for what I can do to get the word out there to everyone who needs my clothing!  I also was able to complete my listing on Kelly Bliss's Plus Size Yellow Pages!  I'm pretty psyched about that too!  So I was able to get some things accomplished in between the things that I had to do that led to these.

I finally figured out that I can change my homepage to take out the old "style consultant" button with an old button we had before that will take people to my blog.  It's the same color as the one below it which isn't ideal but it still looks fine.  Once I find an inexpensive (or free) graphic designer, I'll get it done with the right colors!

Looking forward to tomorrow when I post my first guest blog post!  Until then....

I've been spending some time looking at the competitive landscape of girls plus size clothing.  We've just finished within the past month an upgrade to the SEO (search engine optimization) for our site.  What this means for those of you who are new to this, is all the stuff that's written into the code of the pages that Google's robots look at when they're trolling around to get the information to put into the their search findings.  We're trying to get to the first page because that is where most people stop when they're doing a search.  Well we're near the top of the second page if you google "plus size girls clothing". 

It's a bit harder if you start looking for the nastier terms that people use to search because we don't use those words on our site.  There still is so little out there in terms of plus size clothing for girls (or even teens, but we don't handle teens...yet).  It should be a no-brainer for us to be on the front page.  Aaah, but life (and Google, apparently) is not that easy.

Okay, I have to rant just for a little bit here.  As I'm clicking through EVERY site that lists above mine, I keep seeing things like sophiastyle.com that comes up with plus size girls clothing and they have several categories on their site: plus size girls dresses, plus size girls outfits, plus size girls tops...THEY'RE ALL EMPTY!!!  They don't have a single item (as of today when I checked) that's for sale for plus size girls.  But they have all the headers for it so they come up before my site where I'm actually trying to sell the product that these poor people are looking for!!  How frustrating and, I think, underhanded. 

We're still making strides, but we've got a ways to go.  In our efforts to look at all the different ways to drive traffic to the site,  I'm getting ready to participate in some different social media learning opportunities to continue in my quest to learn how to use Twitter and Facebook, etcetera, etcetera more effectively.

Well back to the research!  Let's see what else I can find out there!

We had a pesky little problem with our shipping that has been preventing people from checking out.  That is now all fixed!!  Yay!! 

Now we will finish doing a little cleaning up to make the checkout smoother and more convenient for customers but at least people can place and complete their orders now!

I hope those of you that are familiar with RealKidz and our mission of supporting girls self esteem through providing age appropriate clothing to plus size girls (as well as average sizes) will feel free to share your insights with us on what you would like to see on our site.  We are forming relationships and developing the layout and framework of our RealKidz Family Network that will be coming on line later this year.  Your feedback will be an important part of the process as we get things up and running.  With our guest bloggers over the next several months, you'll start to meet some of the contributors to our site. 

If there is someone you know or you are someone who might be interested in contributing to our social network that will focus on supporting healthy lifestyles for famililes and children, then please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

After thinking I had updated my entire site and things were really starting to hum, I had a big jolt yesterday when a customer emailed to say she couldn't check out.  What??  You're kidding right...didn't we fix that?  Once, sure, but as seems to be the case in the lovely world of programing...what once was done can be undone, or redone, or who knows. 

This re-glitch ended to be a good thing though.  What I found as I was trying to recreate the glitch so my web-developers could fix it was that my checkout is completely WONKY!  Oh my goodness.  I thought we had fixed this along with the rest of the wonky things on our site, but when you've got what amounts to be hundreds of pages sometimes issues slip through the cracks. 

Well it turns out that the checkout process was not part of the scope of my last web update so we're now getting that addressed promptly! 

So if you've tried to place an order and run into issues with our checkout process.  Give us a week and we'll have a straightforward, easy-to-use, glitch-free checkout process for you to use.

Onward and upward!!

I knew I liked this woman!!  You can read the whole article here, but Michelle Obama in her meetings with major food manufacturers is encouraging them to provide and push healthier alternatives for kids (and presumably for the rest of us).  She also wants to make it easier for parents and kids to figure out the labels so that when they're looking at the calories at a can of soda they don't have to think, "Oh...yah...this says serving size 2 (even though it's obviously ONE serving size) so I need to DOUBLE the calories."

Anyway, what she is NOT doing is saying they need to label Twinkies or McDonald's cheeseburgers (and I do LOVE McDonald's cheeseburgers!) with health warning labels.  I think this is GREAT and makes such good sense.  I don't think you can or should tell kids (or adults for that matter) that all this nummy food is evil and they need to stay away from it.  Kids like things that taste good and I think it's much healthier from a psychological/emotional standpoint to encourage moderation in indulging in foods that taste like Nirvana but have the health value of a cheesepuff. 

This was part of the reason WeightWatchers (of which I am a Lifetime Member) worked so well for me.  It helped me to manage my calories, portion sizes and activities WITHOUT telling me I couldn't eat donuts, McDonald's cheeseburgers, cake and wine (all of which are some of my favorite foods and the hardest things for me to stay away from).  Now I know that if I indulge in one of those, I'm gonna have to cut back on my total calorie intake, run another mile or two, or all of the above.  This is what we need to teach our kids from the word go....You CAN have your cake, but you can't stuff yourself with it  and everything else in site without paying later.

Basically, it'sabout the extremely hard (at least for those of us with food issues) balance of learning how to enjoy those foods we love and be responsible in our total food intake and activity level.   I think Michelle has it right you can't legislate good health, you need to teach it and provide plenty of healthy options.

If you want to find out more about Michelle Obama's Lets Move Initiative go to www.letsmove.gov.

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what I should be blogging about.  Should this remain the way it has been and just reflect what's going on with RealKidz as a business?  Should I make it more personal since we do call this the Founder's Blog and start to let my readers (all two of them lol) in to my personal life and share some of the struggles that I face as a wife, mother, entrepreneur, and local business person?  What do people want to read?  How often do they want to read it? 

So many questions!!  Well, I've decided that I need to really share with the readers who choose to follow everything (without making this a tell all or seedy affair - hehe).  But really give people an idea of what it's like to try to start a business in this economy, with little cash, but a HUGE vision and passion for an idea whose time has come!!

I'll try to keep from rambling so I'll pick a topic and try to limit the rambling to the topic at hand.  But that's where I want to branch out.  I just saw Julie and Julia the other day and I was inspired.  I think if people can somewhat relate to me and my struggles to make RealKidz a businss that will change people's lives, they might want to share this with other people.

So here I am!  I hope you will enjoy what you read and I encourage you to comment and partcipate in the conversation.

I don't often do this but I'm gonna have to vent here!  I've been doing some research on the internet on how childhood obesity affects chidren's self esteem.  There are TONS of good articles...but they're all in journals that you have to pay to access!!  No wonder parents are feeling more than a little bit lost out there!!  This is good information and why is it that you have to pay massive amounts of money to access it. 

Well, that's exactly why we're planning on launching our RealKidz Family Network here so that we can provide parents with access to all that great information that is sitting out there.  Meanwhile, I'll keep fighting the good fight as I reach out to my different resources to get ahold of this information so I can share it with you.

BusinessWeek.com reported yesterday that more kids ages 10-17 are obese.  They're reporting about the Health Findings from the March issue of Health Affairs based on the U.S. National Survey of Children's Health.  You can read the whole article here, http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/636504.html, but basically there were two points they pulled out of the report:  poorer children tend to be affected by obesity more and children living in neighborhoods that parents felt were unsafe had higher levels of obesity due to not being able to play outside.  

One other interesting finding of note was the increase in snacking between mealtimes for kids.  As one of the researchers from the study says, "Kids still eat three meals a day, but they're also loading up on high-calorie junk food that contains little or no nutritional value during these snacks."  

As a mom, I often struggle with the eating choices I make for my kids.  Not so much for my daughter who is pretty much old enough now that she is making the choices for herself, sometimes with my input and othertimes, not so much.  But my son is still young enough that a lot of what he eats is still controlled by me.  I was thinking about this study and the snack issue.  My youngest has always been a "grazer" which I've heard was a good thing.  He doesn't eat a lot at mealtimes, but then he's snacking all day long it seems like.  We do our best to limit the snacks to healthy items, cheese, yogurt, fruit, but I'll admit to the occassional request for a cookie or crackers being okay'd too.

Obviously this is better than always allowing cookies and crackers and, in our house, candy is considered a "treat' or a "dessert" not a snack so I guess we're okay there, but I doubt the authors of this study would say it's a bad thing to provide a snack with decent nutritional value to a kid who's hungry rather than making them wait for mealtime?  Or would they?? 

BTW, this makes for two posts in one day...haven't done that in awhile.  It feels pretty good!! 

I just wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that we have added the ability to make comments to the page.  It's supposed to be moderated (which means I get to make sure no one's saying anything inappropriate before it posts), but I've gotta test that feature out to make sure.  We've almost got all the little kinks worked out of our upgraded site and I'm really happy with the results.

Now for the next project...RealKidz® Family Network!!  We're going to build this on my friend and fellow entrepreneur (one of the rarified Silicon Valley kind that is here in Michigan now) Howard Brown's CircleBuilder software.  I'm both blessed and excited to have the opportunity to use this software as the basis for our RealKidz® Family Network.  By the time my interns join me in May, I should have things well underway for them!

Right now, I am going through all of the contacts I've made over the past three years and culling that information for those people who wanted to participate in and contribute to our healthy lifestyles for families network.  If you have suggestions for people that we should be talking to, feel free to send them along.  You can email them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

As always if you know of any girls who are in need of plus size clothing, refer them our way.  Our new prices really put our high quality, made in the U.S.A. clothing within reach for most families.  Remember we have a 100% satifaction guarantee.

It's been a big week here at RealKidz!  We have made some big changes to how we are bringing the RealKidz mission and vision to the public.  After a lot of discussion, thought, and soul-searching, I have decided to discontinue our Direct Sales model for now.  We have been working hard to get the network going and while I think we were finally on the right road with the right team players, we just ended up not having enough cash and time to give us the chance to make that happen.  This is the story of a lot of start-up companies.  In the end, it became a decision between saving the dream or sticking with the channel that I thought would work best for RealKidz. 

So where does that leave us?  Well, first of all, we were able to lower our prices on ALL our products between 25-40%.  That's pretty exciting for our customers!!  Second, we are focusing on advertising through the web to bring people to our online store.  Third, we are continuing but now with even more focus and intensity to put together the family network.  To that end, we are bringing on a couple of interns from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan to help get the framework and partnerships in place to be able to launch this important place for families to support one another in healthy living!!

What can you expect on the site?  You'll see more regular updates from me on our progress with the social network as well as requests for feedback on both our clothing and what you might like to see incorporated in our family network.  There will be a bit of time before we completely have the site changed over from mentioning our Consultant network to our current model.  I can do almost everything but the small graphics changes....here's me wishing I knew graphic design again!

To all the consultants who believed in the RealKidz business opportunity, I thank you for everything you have done to share RealKidz with your friends, family, and neighbors.  I wanted this to work for both of us!!  One of my greatest hopes for the future was celebrating your success with you.   Now that we've put that on hold, I ask that you continue to share RealKidz with your friends, family and neighbors.  Ask them to sign up for our newsletter.  We'll be keeping our community involved and updated on the progress of our social network. 

Finally, to my Direct Selling team, Karen and Rod, I want to say "THANK YOU!!"  You guys are amazing and I am thrilled and honored to have worked with you both!