About Us | Mama Bloggers | The Mama Creed

for consideration.

Mile High Mamas recently launched a weekly email newsletter detailing Colorado’s hottest topics, events and deals for Colorado moms. Don’t miss out so sign up here! Do you have an event you would like to publicize? Be sure to add it to our calendar, forum and Facebook wall.

We are also pleased to launch our Daily Deal. Money-saving mama Danielle Apland will round up the very best bargains, coupons, sales, frugal tips and freebies specifically with Colorado moms in mind. If you know of any great deals, please email her at .

Mile High Mamas strives to use the very latest social networking tools and we want to keep you on the cutting edge. We can be found on Twitter and be sure to join our Facebook group and also become a fan of Mile High Mamas for fun updates and freebies.

The site is moderated by the Editor, Amber Johnson. If you are a Colorado parent who blogs and would like to be included on our blogroll, please email her at . If you are interested in starting your own blog, checkout our blogging starter guide under Mama-to-Mama or a Non-Techie’s Guide to Blogging. Most importantly, we want to hear from you! Every month, Mile High Mamas publishes blog posts from guest bloggers. To submit a blog post to be considered for publication, please email Amber.

Every two months, Mile High Mamas hosts a Mama’s Night Out where Colorado’s most influential social media moms gather. Past events have been hosted by the Warwick Hotel and Morton’s Steakhouse. In exchange, our moms blogged and tweeted about the venue, providing invaluable publicity. Please contact us if you are a community partner and are interested in working with us. Also, if you are a Colorado mom in social media, we would love to have you!

Mile High Mamas was a finalist in the National Newspaper Association’s Digital Edge Awards (“The Edgies”) and received an Honorable Mention for Web Site Excellence from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

Remember above all else, this site is about you and for you as a mother. The participants determine its tone and direction. We encourage you to log on and help us make Mile High Mamas Colorado’s most enlightening, supportive and entertaining parenting Web site.

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Mama Bloggers

AMBER BOROWSKI JOHNSON, EDITOR

Mile High Mamas is the brainchild of Amber, a former adventure-travel writer turned adventurous unraveling mother of two children. She attests the former birth was considerably less painful than the latter two, epidurals notwithstanding.

She is originally from Canada but spent a number of years working as a publicist for Utah’s ski and outdoor industry whilst moonlighting as a radio personality and travel writer. She relinquished her wanderlust life to marry the real love of her life seven years ago.

She and her husband Jamie are outdoor aficionados and share this passion with their two children, Hadley (age 5) and Bode (age 3). Amber’s self-deprecating humor is her coping mechanism for the daily joys and mayhem of motherhood and is what has kept her sane. Well, most of the time. She consoles herself that all other lapses make for stellar blog fodder. And the fact she is married to a man who is obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin.

Amber was recently named the Grand Prize Winner in Microsoft Office’s Winter Games Contest and will be their accredited blogger at the 2010 Vancouver Games. She works as a social media strategist at Pixo Web Design & Strategy and has been named as a Brand Enthusiast for companies such as Sara Lee, Nintendo, Ford, Playtex and Disney on Ice. She has been blogging at Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck since 2005. Amber has been the recipient of numerous blogging awards, including Mother’s Day Central’s Top 100 Mom Blogs, Best of MSN, Blogtrepreneur’s Top 50 Mommy Blogs and startup powerhouse Sampa’s Top 10 Mommy Blogs You Should Read. She is a family travel writer and a regular contributor for various publications and travel sites. Prior to launching Mile High Mamas, she was also a regular contributor at DotMoms, cited by Time magazine as one of the 50 Coolest Websites 2005. Twitter ID: @crazycanuckblog

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JOANN RASMUSSEN, ASSISTANT EDITOR

JoAnn and her husband have lived in Colorado for over a decade. They’d tried to leave the Midwest on New Year’s Day 1999, but Mother Nature had other plans: a raging blizzard had shut down all escape routes out of Iowa…for three days. Off schedule, but the mountains in their sights, they set out after the first snowplow cleared a path across the plains. Rather than see the blizzard as a sign to turn back, they knew it was proof that they were making the right decision.

JoAnn and her husband have traveled the world together and have had many adventures in the 12+ years they’ve lived together. They met after they’d both graduated from college, and JoAnn’s husband is still working in his field of study. JoAnn, on the other hand, has changed paths many times. Social Worker, Corporate Drone, Adventure Vacation Travel Consultant, Sales Director, and Independent Contractor are some titles that she has collected over the years. In November of 2005, their little girl was born, and JoAnn added the title, Momma to Claire, to her résumé.

In 2007, JoAnn started a blog. She wanted a creative outlet for her writing that would also give her an easy way to chronicle their forays into parenthood and share their adventures with their relatives back in the Midwest. At the time, she was in the midst of juggling a baby while working from a home office, and writing was one of the ways she was able to find some semblance of sanity. In 2008, JoAnn had the opportunity to quit her “real job” and focus on parenting and writing, two of her passions.

JoAnn has combined these two passions at The Casual Perfectionist, where she writes as Momma. She is a self-proclaimed perfectionist, but doesn’t consider herself to be the stuffy, up-tight kind. She’s more of a casual perfectionist, hence the name of her website. She tries her hardest to focus on the positive, learn from the negative, and laugh at both. In fact, she is a firm believer in the notion that if you haven’t laughed today, you weren’t really paying attention. Twitter ID: @casualperfect

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GRETCHEN WHITE, BLOGGER EXTRAORDINAIRE

Gretchen was born in Denver in the early 1970s. Her first six years were spent in the suburbs, out in the middle of nowhere near Hampden and I-25. She thought the center of the universe was the big fountain at Cinderella City and that Mayor McNichols and Mayor McCheese were brothers.

Then her father got news. His job was being transferred to a place with no mall. No escalators. No fountains. No Elitches. Quite rudely she was taken from Denver to the remote desert and peach-dotted landscape of Grand Junction. It was a good thing, ultimately. She learned to love the astounding natural beauty of our state. She realized if she couldn’t be entertained by the offerings of a big city, she’d have to entertain herself. So she began to read and write and plot ways to escape. After high school graduation, she joined the tie-dyed masses at CU-Boulder, promising her friends back home she’d never, ever change. But she did.

After three years of classes like Ancient Athletics, she returned home to Grand Junction where she got a job slinging burritos and beer at a local favorite hangout. Not content to forever ask “red or green chili?” she enrolled at Mesa State College, where she met her future husband, Lee. They each earned a BA in English Literature. Shortly after graduation, they married and settled into a quiet life in the Grand Valley. Their first daughter, Aidan, was born in 1997. Their second child, a boy named Ryley, came along a mere 18 months later. Job prospects for English majors weren’t abundant in the Grand Valley, so they decided to move back to the Denver metro area in mid-1999.

Five more kids have joined the family since returning to the front range and another is on the way. Their names are Sam, Tommy, Joel, Beatrix and Archer. Life with seven kids is never quiet, so she began blogging in 2004 as a way to record and reflect on the whirlwind. She calls her blog Lifenut. She is also a regular contributor for the popular blog 5 Minutes for Parenting. Twitter ID: lifenut

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LORI, BLOGGER EXTRAORDINAIRE

Lori has lived in Arvada for most of her life, except for forays to Kansas (college), Japan (searching for self), Syria (adventure with new husband), and Denver proper (fixing up an old Victorian, pre-kids). She is now raising her two children in the same zip code where she grew up.

Major transitions in Lori’s life tend to come with a twist. There were twists in the way she met and married Rob (involving comedy improv and a DiamondVision scoreboard), in the way she became mom to Tessa (involving a dying man’s vision and a batch of cookie dough during labor), and in how she became mom to Reed (involving a battle and a blizzard). The twists are all good.

Lori writes at Weebles Wobblog about adoptive parenting, open adoption, spirituality, and 1970s trivia. She spoke at Blogher08 about Adoption/Loss/Infertility (ALI) issues and she is a Contributing Editor at Bridges, an awareness consortium of compassionate bloggers. She founded ColoBloggers for Coloradoans in the ALI community. She is tickled pink to be a Mile High Mama Blogger.

Lori is passionate about de-freakifying open adoption for people considering this path to parenthood. She and her daughter’s birthmom teach at Colorado Free University and speak at adoption agencies on how (and why) to create successful open adoptions. Lori’s adoption stories are told at Drama 2B Mama. Twitter ID: @bestlight

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AIMEE GREEBLEMONKEY, BLOGGER EXTRAORDINAIRE

Aimee was born in Maryland but moved to Denver in 1994, after an exhaustive road trip around the country that led her and her husband-to-be Bryan to feel that Denver was the perfect mix of the big, small, fun, funky, energetic, and most importantly – friendly. They married in 1996 and finally jumped into the parenthood gig in 2002 with their one and only son Declan. Yes, that’s an Irish name that you may or may not have ever heard before but the musically inclined may know it is also Elvis Costello’s real name.

Both Aimee and Bryan are graphic designers and web developers, specializing in health education sites…the content of which tends to color all aspects of their lives. It’s good to believe in what you are building!

Aimee also has recently reached back into her past and rekindled her long-time love of photography. Primarily focusing on nature close-ups and portraiture, Aimee has been extra busy in her time away from her family and work taking tons of photographs, many of which are featured on her personal blog, Greeblemonkey. Her blog was recently nominated for a coveted Bloggie award as the blogosphere’s “best-kept secret.” Aimee also takes pottery classes for yet one more creative outlet.

Aimee, Bryan and Declan like to laugh a lot, which is reflected in her writing – and her outlook on life. Twitter ID: @greeblemonkey

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DANIELLE APLAND, DAILY DEAL EDITOR

Danielle and her family moved to the Denver area in April 2009. She grew up in smalltown Northwest Iowa where she learned the simple things in life are the most important. Danielle and her husband were married in 2006 and are proud parents to a 2-year-old boy and a 7-month-old baby girl. Danielle stays busy at home with her two children and wouldn’t change her job for anything.

Danielle loves to be outdoors, especially at the lake in the summer. She also has quite the domestic side to her and enjoys cooking, baking, sewing, reading, and writing. She is addicted to coupons and finding the best deals. Her husband is quite amused at her ability to go into a grocery store and purchase several items for next to nothing. She loves to laugh and play with her children and husband.

In July 2009 Danielle started a money-saving blog in hopes of helping other families save money. She has reduced her family’s grocery bill by 50% and is always looking for creative ways to save money and pass them onto you. Danielle is excited about contributing to Mile High Mamas’ Daily Deal and looks forward to hearing about great deals from readers. Twitter ID: @denvermetromoms

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JULIE BIELENBERG, PRODUCT REVIEW EDITOR

Julie Bielenberg is a Denver-based writer. She was a managing editor for a regional home and lifestyle publication before starting Tweeter Communications, her editorial services boutique. With a BA in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin, a MA in Humanities from the University of Colorado and five years experience in Mexican radio and television, Julie has a very diverse background and bilingual career. Her passion is writing and she currently contributes to numerous lifestyle publications and outlets. When not working, she enjoys spending time with her boys—two dogs, a son and husband—in the mountains of Colorado.

Once Julie’s editors heard she was pregnant in 2009, the mommy story requests began coming and haven’t stopped. Julie has written dozens of stories on pregnancy, life with infants, shopping advice for moms and traveling with children. Nearly a year into life with her first child, Julie makes it her passion to be an urban chic mom. Balancing both work and play with Hank the Tank is the best challenge she has ever been given. In trying to accomplish this feat, Julie enjoys writing and researching about everything motherhood.

Julie is also a contributing editor for The American Dog and regularly appears in Colorado Meetings + Events and Denver Magazine. She has also covered diverse topics for www.sheknows.com. All of her editorial can be found at www.tweetercommunications.com.

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BECKIE MOSTELLO, MAMA TECH TALK EDITOR
Beckie grew up surrounded by cornfields in Indiana. She did NOT grow up on a farm, but her small school, K-12, was literally right next to a sheep farm. She remembers petting the sheep through the fence in elementary school. For some reason, Beckie always knew she was not going to stay in Indiana and had always dreamed of living somewhere out West.

In her pre-mommy life, Beckie taught 5th grade for Jefferson County Schools. She enjoyed teaching the dreaded Growth and Development Unit and helping young students strive for success. In 2003, Beckie had her daughter, Emma, and decided to stay home and be a full-time mommy. In 2007, she and her husband Steve welcomed Tommy to the family. Beckie has recently entered the wonderful world of blogging through the request of her friend Lisa Welch, owner of BornFit. Lisa wanted to start a blog for her business, but could not find the time. Beckie has since built and maintained the BornFit blog and started Tech-Talk for Moms, a blog to help mom entrepreneurs navigate the world of social media. Beckie currently manages social media for BornFit, as well as teaches and consults with businesses about Social Media.

In all of her spare time (which is not much) Beckie enjoys hiking with her husband. Now, instead of looking at cornfields all day, Beckie gets to watch beautiful sunsets complimented with mountain silhouettes reflected in Standley Lake, right in her own backyard! (But she does miss the great sweet taste of Indiana farm-stand corn.) Twitter ID: techtalkformoms

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LISA VRATNY-SMITH, MAMA DRAMA EDITOR

Lisa is a small town girl who came to the big city for college and never left. One of Colorado’s rare natives, she has lived throughout the state from the mountains to the plains and everywhere in between.

Lisa and her husband are raising two big-brained boys who keep them on their toes, literally and figuratively. She has worked with children and families for more than two decades and is passionate about doing what is right for children, hers and everyone else’s.

A vegetarian and vanilla soy latte addict, Lisa spends her days striving finding the balance between the never ending details of life. The strength and support of family and friends keeps her going and feeds her spirit. As a recovering perfectionist, Lisa’s mantra is “life is a practice.” Practice leads to growth and more opportunity to practice. Motherhood continues to provide a consistent source of these opportunities!

As most mothers do, Lisa wears many hats in life, the most important of which is Mama. She is also a school social worker, behavioral consultant, parent coach, yoga instructor, blogger, freelance writer, and the list goes on… She created Behavior Support Solutions, a parent coaching and resource website, writes Laughing Yoga Mama blog, and loves sharing the tips, tricks, and perspective shifts that make a difference in her journey through motherhood and life.

With her ever present smile and infectious giggle Lisa is committed to using kindness and humor to create a supportive community of motherhood; helping moms to be gentle with themselves and their children, find their strengths, and continue to reflect and grow each day. Twitter ID: @laughingyogamom

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The Mama Creed

Welcome to Mile High Mamas, a place for area moms to connect and reflect.

Where isolation is obsolete, laughter reigns and judgments cease.

We are in the prime of our lives. If we were slabs of meat. And since we are not, we are over-tired mamas who love our children.

But don’t necessarily always like what they do.

We dream of a maid but live under our laundry pile.

We relish Girl’s Night Out, mini-vacations and playgroups.

We don’t always shower but manage to look purdy anyway.

We believe our children are brilliant, beautiful and blessings.

That toddlers and teen-agers are terrors terrific.

We believe Teletubbies are of the devil.

We acknowledge that insecurities, frustrations and calamities are a part of motherhood.

Above all, we laugh, learn, cry and vent.

And it is here we are reminded that we are not alone.

P.S. We like chocolate. Lots of it.

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