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! 

Sheryl and I are busy getting ready for me to haul myself down to Huntington, West Virginia.  I will be participating in the Direct Selling Education Foundation's Home Based Business Show - Self-Employment Opportunities through Direct Selling trade show.  This is going to be an awesome opportunity to share our RealKidz business with women who are looking for something special to become involved in.

We've got samples and flyers and brochures and more!!  Oh my! I'm looking forward to connecting with potential consultants and sharing the RealKidz mission and opportunity personally with them.  So if you're anywhere close to Huntington, West Virginia come on out to the mall and say "HI!"

We also are preparing for our first radio spot on a Christian station based out of the Chicagoland area.  I'll be traveling to Kankakee, IL to record the spot.  I'll be putting in a lot of miles over the next week!  We've got a lot of exciting stuff happening here at RealKidz.  I'm looking forward to sharing it with you as we grow! 

Here's a picture of me at the Huntington Mall in Huntington, WV

 Well how about update your blog????  Good idea!!

It's been a crazy little bit!  I've been working hard to finalize the changes on our website update.  We're going to have a great new home page. It'll be the same...but different!!  We're implementing a bunch of Search Engine Optimization stuff that you won't be able to see and some User Interface stuff that you will be able to see.  We've cleaned up our online store to make it even easier to place an order.  We're adding in the ability to comment on the blog.  I'm excited about that.  That way people can start to participate in the conversation here at RealKidz!

Along those lines, I've just finished selecting some top notch interns for the summer.  These MBA and BBA students will be working with me to populate our RealKidz Family Network and get that launched by the end of the summer!  Wow!  It's really going to happen!!

I really want to rant, but I've promised myself that I will not do that on this blog.  However, I'm going to just mildly point out how frustrating it is when your computer stops working.  I know most of us have dealt with the joy of this at some time or another so I'm sure you can appreciate the feelings that are swimming around in my head as I'm trying to make my computer workable again now that it has been resurrected from the dead.  It's missing a few key parts of its brain and personality.  Hopefully, like the 6 million dollar man, we can rebuild it...faster, stronger, better!

Well that's it for now.  I'm going to go back to Google to search through the intricacies of the web to find that silly file in the OLK temp files that some programmer in their brilliance decided was too dangerous to just put where the path says it goes.  As I do this, I'll wait for my son to join my daughter at home and I'm sure frivolity in the snow is soon to follow (for them, I'll be the one inside staying warm).

 That title's kind of catchy isn't it.  It doesn't really relate to this post other than the post will be about jeans.

Cynthia, the factory and I are having fun, fun, fun perfecting our latest version of our jeans.  We're working on a style that uses a black denim and whose fit is a bit longer in the leg and tweaked a bit through the rise and waist.  The funny thing is it's really two styles because for every "style" that we do we have to create two patterns:  one for the above average (plus-size)  and the other for the average sizes.  The thing that remains constant between the two is the look of the legs and, of course, the fun things like embroidery on the pockets and such. 

Realizing that plus size jeans for girls are just sooo incredibly hard to find, we're committed to growing our offerings of jeans so that all our girls can have access to the same great looks and styles as their peers.  I'll keep you updated as to when we have this latest style ready to go.

 I'm puttin my sunglasses on because it's a cold and rainy day outside!  Gotta feel like there's sun comin from somewhere.

The Great Lakes Entrepreneur's Quest announced the latest group of winners for its business plan competition last Thursday night.  RealKidz came in 2nd place and took home a big check for $2500 (and I do mean big, it was one of those big blown up dealy-bobs!).  This was very exciting for me and I was so pleased to be recognized by the competition.

It was a long day having flown back from New York City that morning. Cynthia and I had a very productive visit to New York.  We met with fabric manufacturers from around the globe and found some awesome new patterns and materials that we are looking at incorporating into our Spring 2011 line up.  While I love going to New York, coming back is always difficult because I have to play catch up!

Our big focus right now is getting out there in several different mediums to generate leads for new Style Consultants!  We have such an amazing opportunity and important mission of supporting girls' self esteem.  Our clothing has been well recieved and the fit is great, but we need more people out there building their RealKidz businesses to share our products with all the people who don't know we're here.

I am so excited we are on the cusp of taking off!  I hope you'll think about joining us as we shoot for the stars! 

  I can't believe it's already a new year!!  Wow!  2009 was good but I think stressful for most people, myself included!  RealKidz made some great progress in a lot of areas but not enough in the growth of our consultant network.  That is our main focus now for 2010 getting that network going and helping more and more women realize what a difference being their own boss can make in their families' lives!  To that end we have all sorts of help from our newest staff member in Karen Olson, who is just amazing with our girls and has so much experience to offer them, to our newest team member, Rod Heckman, who has tons of experience with start up direct selling companies like mine and is making sure we have our ducks in a row and that we're reaching out in all the right places. 

Right now I'm finalizing the eventuity site so that our consultants can have their own webpage which customers can order from, the consultant can manage invitations to all her parties on and even place all her orders on there.  It's been longer than we expected to get this up and running but it'll be exciting to have that tool for the consultants to use.

Cynthia and I will be heading to New York in a couple of weeks for a sourcing trip.  It'll be quick and I'm sure cold (brrr) but I love New York City!  There really is no place like it!

I'm also working with a development team to implement the SEO project we had completed last year which includes improvements to our user interface.  I am excited to make it easier for our visiters to navigate our site and make purchases.

That's it for now!!  For more up to the minute updates remember you can follow us on Facebook (RealKidz) and Twitter (@realkidz).

We found out last week that we were approved by the Direct Selling Association's board of directors for membership within the DSA!!!!  Woohoo.  What does this mean?  Well several things:  first) it means we have gone through the reveiw process by the lawyers at the DSA to make sure we have abided by the DSA's Code of Ethics, second) it means that we are now listed as a member company on the DSA website, and third) it means that we can now display the DSA logo!

I have gained so much over the past year as a pending member of the DSA.  The relationships with other owners and corporate staff have been hugely helpful as we have built RealKidz.  I am so proud to be able to display this logo and to support everything that the DSA represents.

 It looks like I'm always going to be starting my posts with emoticons.  That's fun though, so I'll just take my little computer "work around" and be happy about it.

Crains Detroit Business published an article on our recieving a MicroLoan from Ann Arbor SPARK.  You can find the story at the following link, http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20091216/GEO01/912169984. 

We also have a great article at examiner.com, http://www.examiner.com/x-31018-Ann-Arbor-Womens-Business-Examiner~y2009m12d17-plus?#comments, that highlights our above average offerings and our Christmas special.  I just went there to pull the link and found a comment there already.  The reporter pulled a photo from our newest collection off the site and I approved its selection.  This photo happens to have one of our average size models featured, so I think it's a bit confusing even though the reporter states within the article that we sell to both average and above average sizes.  Hopefully, people will catch that.  Meanwhile, I think I'll just pop Laura an email and see if we can't put a different photo on.

I'll post again in a bit because we have all sorts of fun exciting things going on around here, but for now I've gotta mosey.

 Okay, so I had to insert an emoticon to figure out how to start typing my latest entry.  (Remember the love hate computer relationship.)  Juan keeps telling me "computers are your friend". 

Being relatively new to the whole regularly submitted blog entry lifestyle, I must admit to needing a bit of help on the Blog titles (see above).  I'll take any suggestions anyone has for creating fun, interesting, or just plain useful titles.  I also think I figured out that my last entry was blown away because I hit save but had no title.  Just a theory at this point, but it's the only reasonable explanation I can come up with.

Man, do things get hectic around the holidays!  Karen came over from Chicago to help out with the Novi show.  We had a good time, met some great folks and sold some clothing.  For the past year, I keep hearing about how all the shows and expos the various vendors have attended have just been bad (poor turn outs, people not purchasing).  The economy really has affected these events, but we always learn something from them.  At this stage in our business that's a good thing (although it certainly would be cool to move more product and sign up more consultants!).

Karen and I have been working hard on our revision of the RealKidz Easy Start Guide.  We've changed quite a few things to make it easier for our Style Consultants to get their RealKidz businesses going.  I'm so excited about what we have put together!  In particular, I'm super excited (yes I gotta find a different word but it FITS!) about our New Founder Program!  We've got the details finalized and will be posting more information on our website soon.  Woohoo!  You know, you just don't get the opportunity to come into a company at a Founder's Level that often.  I think this really elevates our business opportunity.

I'm looking forward to hearing back from the Direct Selling Association (DSA) after their board meeting next week.  They will be voting on our membership status.  After the board meeting, we should be full members of the DSA which means we'll be able to post the DSA member logo on our site as well as having our company posted on the DSA site.

Meanwhile, Cynthia has been hard at work figuring out our latest jeans pattern.  In order to provide better fit to more girls, we have created another jeans pattern.  Our first one (the Hannah Jean) is a bit wider in the waist and hip and a bit shorter.  Our latest one, which we have yet to name, will be a bit narrower (still fitting above average size girls well, but just a different kind of fit) and a bit longer.   Since designing and manufacturing jeans (and, hence, working with denim) is so new to us, we're taking a bit longer on this second pattern to make sure all the variations between fabrics and shrinkage are taken into account.

Finally, RealKidz is a bit richer today!  We received a Micro Loan from Ann Arbor SPARK that will enable us to continue moving forward on our spring line and help us as we move towards sustainablility and our next round of fundraising.  I appreciate the trust and confidence the team at SPARK has placed in us and we all look forward to suppying them with many happy returns!

Well, after typing out a whole entry I went to post and the whole thing got blown away!  I totally have a love hate relationship with computers!  I absolutely LOVE them when they do what they're supposed to do, but errgh when they don't I get a bit testy. :)  So my two sentence rant is done and now I'm really excited to share with you AGAIN what has been keeping me busy these days!

We just introduced an exciting online promotion for December so that all purchases made in December are 25% off if customers use the coupon code xmas09.  This is going to be a very rare occurance because as our network of Style Consultants really takes off, our promotions and incentives will be channeled through them.  We understand this has been a challenging year for most people and would like to make this holiday season a little easier to handle.  We also introduced gift wrapping to add convenience and fun to our products!

Getting a good jump on things we have announced our January Incentives and Promotions.

Ring in the New Year!! 

Hold a show between January 1st –10th and Founder Merrill Guerra will help your guests to Ring in the New Year with chances for additional gifts for both Hostesses and Guests!

DOUBLE Free Hostess Product Dollars!!

January Hostesses will recieve DOUBLE Free Hostess Product Dollars.

Sign Up Rewards!!

Sign up in January earn additional FREE samples.  Hold two qualifying January shows and receive two sample items FREE, hold four qualifying January shows and earn five sample items for FREE!

I think we'll see lots of exciting things happening in the next months as our new consultants start working their businesses and creating the incomes they desire! 

Another thing I'm quite proud of having accomplished is getting us going on Facebook and Twitter!  You can find us by searching RealKidz on the Friend Finder on Facebook and on Twitter @realkidz.  We're doing our best to provide many different points of contact for potential customers and consultants.  I'm really happy that we're finally getting into the swing of things on the social media front!

Well, I lost a bit of time having to retype this entry so I'm cutting this one a bit short so that I can get my Facebook page updated and then move on to the business of the day!

I have had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and my wishes are that you all have too!  I started off with my monthly board meeting on Wednesday afternoon.  Board meetings always stress me out (and I think that they should!).  This is where I have my monthly accountability session for what is (and is not) happening with RealKidz.  I am so blessed by my board members.  They know sooo much and ask the right questions that I need to hear to help me keep things moving in the right direction (or redirecting where needed).  I always feel better after the board meetings.  My board members believe in and support me and having smart people asking important and good questions is both good for me and my company! 

So right off the bat, my weekend started with me very excited about some of the things we worked on in the meeting.  Part of this is due to a guest we had at my meeting who has started working with RealKidz.  I am so blessed and thankful for the many people who have taken me and RealKidz into their hearts and given of their time and knowledge.  It is partly for this reason that I am so confident that we will grow to be a very important and successful organization.

Thanksgiving day was spent with our neighbors and best friends.  We have been blessed there as well!  Our family is all on the other side of the country starting in Texas and then heading west from there so we don't always have family with us on these special occassions.  To have friends who bring you into their family is such a special gift.  I appreciate it for Juan and myself, but mostly because our kids have an adopted extended family to be a part of.  So much of what we have to give thanks for revolves around our relationships with other people and especially family.

We did hit some of the sales on Black Friday.  By the time we got out and about, the crowds were steady but not insane.  I am hoping that this was indeed a black Friday for stores across the country!  This has been a rough year to be a business owner so I really hope some positive news comes out of this weekend. 

Then we finished up our Christmas decorating at home with our tree.  It was always such a meaningful and special time for me growing up when we put up our tree at Thanksgiving with my mom.  My kids are both old enough now that they look forward to helping me decorate our tree.  Our tree is filled with ornaments that have been recieved as gifts over the years.  There is not a theme but if I were pressed to give it a theme name I would call it a "Family Story Tree".  A lot of the ornaments represent the loves and special interests of our different family members so we have plenty of planes for my husband, horses for my daughter, cars and Star Wars for my son, and angels and even a trombone for me.

"Well what about the New Year's Resolutions piece?" you ask.  This is a direct result of the aforementioned board meeting!  One of the things I have to do better is figure out the whole social media component to my business.  If I'm going to reach all the people out there who need RealKidz in their lives, I'm going to need to make better use of all these wonderful tools.  So that's what my big project for today is...figure out how some of these pieces actually work so that I can start using them.  We already have a RealKidz Facebook page, but ever since our intern Aki left we haven't kept it updated.  I'm gettin that figured out today so that I can start sharing more with people out there.  Juan got Ubertwitter installed on my blackberry yesterday so now I've got to learn a bit more about twitter, but at least I can start tweeting.

My early New Year's Resolution is to start my days with updates on my blog, facebook and twitter accounts.  I am so excited about the potential with these tools and I just need to reach out there and grab it.

Right now, we have everything in place to really get things in gear with RealKidz.  We have an awesome team and great products.  We're meeting an important need for plus size and above average girls who have a hard time finding clothing that fits.  We've got an amazing business opportunity for women who want to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of girls.  Now we just need to put ourselves out there so that the women who are looking for us can find us!! 

Onward and upward!!!  Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all Happy New Year's EARLY!!

Wow, I apologize for the months of neglect on my blog and will now make sure that I am diligent about keeping you all updated about the happenings here at RealKidz!  If any of you have ever dealt with web development you'll understand my sad story (that I'm not going to bore you with!!!).  Suffice it to say, I've been through a couple of web developers and in the process I lost my "experts" who provded me my current software.  I'm no techie (much to my frustration) so I have been avoiding the task of figuring this darn blog thing out.  Who knew it would be relatively simple!

So with that teaser I will say, I am excited to be back online and, hopefully, in your lives!  We've got a lot of fun and exciting things going on here at RealKidz and I'm really looking forward to getting you all updated.

RealKidz Clothing and Founder, Merrill Guerra, were recently featured by Detroit television station, WXYZ-TV, during their participation in the Michigan International Women's Expo in Novi, MI.  RealKidz, a new life style and apparel company for young girls, has captured state and national attention for their focus on creating age appropriate, average and above average fashionable clothing for this often overlooked segment of business.

RealKidz just received the honor of being one of Top Leading Moms in Business by Startup Nation. The link provides other winners (http://www.startupnation.com/leading-moms-2009/winners/) and if you would to get more information about Startup Nation click here (http://www.startupnation.com/series/134/9430/leading-moms-business-trends.htm)

If you like to hear what others are saying about RealKidz follow the link below.

http://www.startupnation.com/leading-moms-2009/contestant/6121/index.php

We would like to thanks to all those that voted for us!!!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!