My last post was about Spring cleaning of the site. Here I am on the verge of the 4th of July, saying, “what happened?” I guess by this time people have come to expect long delays in updating on the site. We were always a bit slow, but life just seems to have gotten crazier lately. Part of that is the fact that we are struggling very hard like many people in America (and around the world). Our financial situation is still pretty dire and lots of our sparetime is devoted to trying to make money. Lotsofkids is still very dear to us and we intend to keep it going. We have made a commitment to finance it regardless of our money matters. We intend to keep updating it and adding new content and functionality. However, there are certain times when we simply have to put administration on the backburner temporarily while we focus on things that will help our family, directly or indirectly. Our recent work was showcasing Jim’s programming talent on a new personal site of ours. Script Monkeys features lots of Jim’s work. Our hopes are that if someone sees his skills is may lead to something–freelance or permanent. At the very least, it’s giving back to the online community in a different way, since we are offering free wares for other webmasters.

I am always hesitant to say things have calmed down and we are gonna get back on track with LOK (or some of our other sites). That’s usually when something hits us hard and we end up with less time than before.

That said, I have to fight with discouragement sometimes, feeling inadequate like I have let the visitors of this site down. I get emails asking if we are closing or if we are ever going to put new content up. Since Jim and I do 90% of the work on the site, it’s quite a endeavor to keep it fresh and new. When long periods go by and nothing is going up, it’s a lot of pressure. That can lead to a vicious cycle were you avoid it and hence create more guilt.

Not really a whine, but I do want to share some of my thoughts and feelings with the many visitors who come here faithfully. The future of Lotsofkids (or any website) is not set in stone. Goodness knows I have had many of my favorites who I was convinced would be around forever close in the last couple of years. We have no plans to close LOK, but we do want our visitors to know that it can be hard sometimes. Most of our members are very patient and understanding, but we still like to reiterate that we appreciate your continued support and caring during times like this.

Our lives are very simple–even moreso in the last 2 years. The fact that LOK’s 6th anniversary month just passed by quietly is really par for the course. We hope to kick some things up in July, but as to how much will depend on a lot of things. Until then, we will be finishing up our revamp of many of the sections and reopening them to visitors. Hopefully in the interim we’ll find time to get some of our new stuff up.

One of the things I like about spring cleaning is that it gives you an opportunity to get to the projects that you have put off during the year. You know, getting the little piles of dirt out of the corners and cleaning those windows that still have a thick layer of dust on them from last winter. My problem is that I have wanted to do some major cleaning of LOK for several years now. We did have our big conversion a few years back where we updated the look of the site. However, during that period, we focused our main attention on 300+ pages to our new template, so there wasn’t a lot of time to tidy up the little things. It was actually a recent decision to incorporate a new commenting system into the site that spurred me to finally undergo the radical clean-up that’s been needed.

When this site started, content-management-systems were still newish and clunky. As with most sites of that time, all pages were created using HTML. Nowadays, the method of choice is PHP, since it makes adding new functionality so much easier. However, I have resisted switching over for a few reasons. Believe it or not, time was not the main concern–or else we would have done it when we redesigned. The fact is that LOK articles are linked on literally hundreds of websites and blogs, not to mention many of those pages have high Google ratings. I did not want to break all of those linkbacks. We considered and tried many workarounds (server-redirects, parsing HTML to PHP, etc), but ended running into more problems than solutions. Since I needed to add code to nearly every page of the site for the commenting system, I decided a manual conversion would be best, particularly since it would force allow me to do that much-needed housekeeping.

We just finished the Household and Kitchen sections, which entailed cleaning up the HTML coding, converting each individual page to PHP, and redirecting the original page to the new version. Of course, the process took a lot of time, and will continue to as we get through the site. However, I have to admit to being delighted nonetheless. I am finally getting all the old graphics and obsolete folders off the server and putting everything in order so that updating and maintaining the site in the future will be much easier.

Part of this spring-cleaning process has included changing the font on the site to something a bit more modern and readable. Most of the graphical logos and headers are being re-done with an eye on smaller and fast-loading. The layouts will stay substantially the same, but they will be tidied up to make navigation and viewing easier.

I don’t know if you have checked out our new Recipe section, but it’s incredible. We are so fortunate to live in an age where so much open-source software is available for us utilize on this site. Even still, it is a blessing to have Jim on-board to do installation and modificaiton. Jim did a lot of work to the recipe script to get it to where I wanted it. As with a lot of these systems, this new one requires an account and log-in and Jim got it to work with our existing forum system. Another goal we have is to have a “universal” log-in for the site. This means you register once and that information will work on the various systems. So, if you create an account on our forums, you will be able to log-in to the Recipes section.

Speaking of universal log-ins, I wanted to note that is one of the reasons we have held off officially premiering our new Reviews section. It’s done (and it’s awesome too), but Jim is working on getting it set-up to work with universal account. So, look for that to premier next month.

A few other things we are doing and/or hope to do with the site soon:

* Add more interactivity. We are really happy with the commenting system we have been implementing into our pages. We did have a comment system previously, but it was not very good, and thus not utilized much by our visitors. The new system is easier to use and allows comments on each individual article. Aside from that, we also have plans to incorporated more for our visitors to interact.

* Re-organize our content. We continue to re-arranged and re-categorize our content. As our site continues to grow, this remains a challenge, but we hope to get things organized in a way that will make it easier for our visitors to find what they are looking for. One thing that we have been working on is a site map, which will give users a one-stop to all content pages.

* Article Randomizers. We have already incorporated a randomizer to our Household and Kitchen pages, and will be doing it with our other Feature sections as we upgrade.

There’s lots more, which I am sure I am missing. Even though from our visitor’s viewpoint, the site has been stagnant for a few months, changes have been going on. However, we realize that our visitors want to see something new…or else they forget about us! Our hopes are to have the substantial changes done by June (when we’ll be celebrating our 6th birthday of the site), and endeavor to get regular monthly updates started again, so our guests have something new to see when they visit.

Just a quick note to let our visitors know that we have a brand-new RSS Feed link. In the past we haven’t utilized RSS much, but we are changing that! We will now be posting news on updates, as well as site delays, forum downtimes, and more on our feed. Of course, we will still be using our mailing list. But, if you want up-to-the-minute news about Lots of Kids, be sure to add our feed to your reader!

You can access the RSS link on the bottom of the home page. Here’s a direct link if you can’t wait to add it now: http://lotsofkids.com/buzz/?cat=14&feed=rss2

P.S. You can read below about our fixing of the Buzz Blog!

Well, after well over a year of using the old blog system for the blog (which I really did like), I ended up switching back to Wordpress. Unfortunately the old system just broke, which is frustrating since it was nothing we did on our end. Sometimes a server upgrade or something like that will cause a program to glitch out. Apparently that was the case here. Even though I like the program for several reasons, I have really become an avid Wordpress fan over the last couple of years and decided to switch back for good.

It’s been quite a rough couple of months for us. As if money issues and other economy-related stuff weren’t enough, we ended up with a string of illnesses that totally knocked us for a loop. Me particularly, as I ended up developing pneumonia. I’m a lot better now–though not totally mended. Still, I feel bad that the site has not been updated with new content in so long. That’s changing as we are continuing our revamp of the forum system with an updated recipe board–or rather recipe section since it will be quite a bit different. We have a new Reviews section that has been unofficially open for a while, but we intend to give it a formal launch. Plus, lots more.

Lots of Kids celebrates its 6th anniversary in June, so we are gearing up by getting things done! We thank all of our loyal visitors for continuing to check-in during this long lag period. You really are the best!

P.S. We have imported all the posts from the old blog system over, so you shouldn’t have problems finding a past entry if you need it.

Actually, I *did* know this blog had blown up for a while, but since I have already had to change this blogging program about 5 times for this blog, I was purposely avoiding it.

That said, I have decided to go back to Wordpress for “The Buzz” and hope to have the new blog up sooner than later. Until then, I apologize for the error messages. Sadly, not everything works as it is supposed to indefinitely. :O(

We have been very busy the last couple of months working on a project which is very close to our hearts. Both Jim and I grew up reading. From Archie to more gritty stuff like Batman and Watchmen, we enjoyed the great storytelling and art comics had to offer. Our children have inherited that love for the “funnies” and have poured over our collection, discovering many of our old favorites. As the internet grows and newspapers lose more readers, comics have done as many others industries have and branched out online. Thing is, anyone can put up a comic on the internet, and as a result there are just as many (or even more) mature and adult offerings than family-friendly ones. With literally over 12,000 webcomics out there, finding a strip that is safe for your child to read can be difficult or impossible.

As parents ourselves, we found this problems discouraging. Movies and video games have rating and review sites where parents can get information as to content. There is just not something like this for webcomics. So, as we are known to do from time-to-time, we saw a need and decided to fill it ourselves. Thus, Family Webcomics was born.

It’s initial launch was last year, but unfortunately it was a false start. We did it the quick way, using a pre-packaged system. It worked okay, but not the way we wanted it and it was very difficult to maintain. We were getting so much positive feedback from the site, and emails from people asking us to expand the site, we realized we needed to do something. So we made the decision to take the site down and re-build it from the ground up. It took several months of hard work, but the site is now up and running once again.

The site features detailed profiles of strips, but will also have reviews and a community where people can discuss comics and their content. The main goal of this site is to help parents find webcomics that are right for their families (i.e. keeping them safe).

Be sure to check out the site. We already have a good collection of strips listed, and more are being added every day.

Family Webcomics

Looking for a gift for a large family, or wondering what to ask a family member for? We’ve compiled a list of the Top 10 Must-Haves for the Large Family Kitchen.

2 new printables for the holidays! Just Me Coupons and Snowman Stocking Stuffers.

Whether it’s for the holidays or an impromptu gathering, we’ve compiled a collection of games you can play without any props, or simply with pen and paper.

In Features, a new creative work, and a new holiday Michelle’s Musings.

We’re introduce 2 new blogs to our line-up: Lots of Kids Birth Stories and Lots of Kids & Pregnant Again.

As part of our re-tooling, we have done some work to our Household Center, grouping our articles into new categories and making things easier to find.

Our family was featured in a New York Times article on large families that appeared in today’s print version. If you’d like to see it online, click HERE.

First of all, we’ve gotten quite a few emails expressing concern about our family and the future of LOK in light of the current financial conditions. Well, we cannot know what the future will hold, but as of now we are fully committed to keeping Lotsofkids and its sister sites going. We started accepting donations last year, and while we were very blessed by the generosity of many of our guests, the bottom line is that everyone is struggling. We receive a lot of email telling us that people would love to give but they just can’t. Being in our situation, we totally understand. Lots of unemployment and foreclosures. As a result, we have not received a donation in over 4 months. We don’t state this to guilt anyone, but simply because people are concerned and we feel it’s fair to disclose it. From what we have heard from other sites…including dedicated cause sites…donations have dropped to a trickle. As always, we appreciate any help our visitors can give, but we managed to keep this site alive on our own funds for 4 years prior to opening for donations, and we’ll do our best keeping it going on our funds in the future.

As mentioned on the front page, we have been doing some much-needed freelance work, which has been a big relief. Of course, it’s taken time away from our personal projects (including LOK), but we haven’t forgotten them! In fact, we have a lot on the drawing board for the sites, and are shooting to get the majority done in February:

* New content on Lots of Kids, including new utilities in our Homeschool section, new articles, and a couple of “fun stuff” goodies.

* We recently finishing upgrading and re-opening our social network site, Large Family Network. We have additional goodies planned for that site, with a focus on making the community as easy to use as possible and giving our members better ways to interact with each other.

* Lotsofkids.net has been quiet. It is the site we hope will be an extension of local groups where large families can find other large families in their communities. We are working hard to re-launch that site and as the summer months approach, coordinate with members on local gatherings.

* Other stuff - And we have a lot of other stuff planned. Too much to list. This includes more fun on our blogs, and enhancements on our other sites.

We thank everyone for your understanding and patience and hope you’ll keep checking back to see what we’re doing!

We wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.