Athlete Spotlight: Milene Domingues

Something about this athlete intrigues me! Today I want to spotlight Milene Domingues, a Brazilian midfielder who retired after 2009 at just age 30. Can you imagine?

Beforehand, Milene was a Brazilian MODEL that decided to play soccer (football, in Brazil) and became the highest paid player in Spain. She was first famous for being married to Ronaldo, a very well known soccer player in Brazil. She later married Spanish soccer player David Aganzo, who is still playing today.

The ex-model also holds the record for ball juggling - keeping a soccer ball off the ground for 9 hours, with 55,198 touches!

I think what impresses me most is that someone who is beautiful - and the camera loves - turned away from that to play an active, fast paced sport instead! She even played on the National Team.

Anything is possible! Without knowing her, I am proud of Milene!

Game Day Goodies: Bacon Wrapped Smokies

Yummmmm I am salivating as I type this already. If you haven't had these yet - they are a must try! Easy ingredients, fast procedure, super delicious! I've made these several times for football parties, new years, and, well, even breakfast. Talk about the perfect mixture of carmelized sugar, grease, and meat.

Bacon Wrapped Lil' Smokies!

1 package beef cocktail weiners (14 ounce)

1 pound bacon, sliced into thirds

3/4 Cup Brown Sugar (or more to taste!)

Toothpicks

Preheat oven to 325. Wrap each lil' smokie with bacon, securing with a toothpick. Place on a large baking sheet. Then sprinkle generously with brown sugar! Bake for about 40 minutes, until the brown sugar is warm and bubbly. Serve hot, or keep warm in a slow cooker on low setting until ready to party! This is supposed to yield "16 servings" ... but whatever, it's more like 3 or 4 at my house. Enjoy!!

Sport Princess Photo/Story of the Week...

Today's story of the week comes from our very own Sport Princess illustrator, Kristin Abbott, about her mom! I love this true story about the ultimate Sport Princess, back in the day:

"Here's a story my Dad likes to tell about my Mom. One day when she was pushing a stroller with two tots (my sister and I) through the park, a loose basketball from a pick-up game crossed her path. My eight and a half months pregnant Mom picked up the ball and executed a perfect lefty hook shot. All the guys in the game laughed and exclaimed "You could never make that shot again in a million years." "Oh yeah," said my Mom, and she proceeded to do it again, and again and again until all those guys went silent. She is an original Sports Princess -- luckily, in her home town of Gackle, North Dakota, a variety of sports were available to girls in the 1950's and she played basketball and ran hurdles and was a cheerleader. This was not true of so many places in our country back then. My mom loves sports!"

Shared by Kristin Abbott, www.abbottillustration.com

Feel free to submit a sporty picture or story for this weekly piece to sportprincesses@gmail.com and I'll share your blog or webpage along with it.

March is for SOCCER!

Here we go. Volume 1, Princess 1.

Josephina ... "Jo" ... came to me first, and she was also the easiest to create. Especially how she looked. Slightly latino, beautiful hot pink gown, but soccer accessories - the soccer socks, cleats, armband, headband, lots of black and white too. Proper parents who didn't understand... who just wished their princess daughter would act like the rest of the princesses in town did. This first book in the series is about a young princess finding who she really is.

Soccer was MY first sport, and probably my favorite sport still, back from my early years going to Uintah Elementary. I was fast. My dad took me running with him often, and would put us me in local races. We played soccer out on the recess field almost every day, and my friends and I joined a "Leopards" team and played on Saturdays.

I was viscious and jealous back then though. I had a major crush on my favorite boyfriend (friend/boy), Taylor Moncur. A grade younger than me, super cute blonde boyish boy. (How can you not be boyish though? I was in 3rd grade, he in 2nd!) I used to think he was "mine". We were good friends, playing kissing tag, (my first kiss) trying not to bump elbows when we walked on the sidewalk because that meant we were getting married, running wild together. But then he got a girlfriend in 2nd grade with him, a pretty girl who played aggressively on an opposing soccer team. One of my favorite memories is when we played her team, and she was dribbling the soccer ball my way and I went to kick the ball as hard as I could, only, whoops, missing completely and nailing her in the shin instead.

*balk*

Don't worry, she didn't even cry. She didn't even know who I was. But it was my little secret, and I felt better afterwards.

Now fast forward 4 years to 7th grade. I was living in Kansas at the time, and two of my girlfriends and I joined a co-ed indoor soccer leage. (whatever. It was so a boy's league. We were the only girls there) Only my little missing-the-soccer-ball-instead-kicking-the-shins didn't work anymore. I remember one time I literally missed and kicked this tall, bronze, god-like muscled male in the shins. (Wait, wasn't this 7th grade?) But instead of inflicting any pain on the guy, MY foot twisted completely backwards, and I was out for a couple weeks. There was my karma, call it what you will. :)

Athlete Spotlight: Mia Hamm

For my first *Monday Athlete Spotlight*… how can I NOT start with a spotlight on arguably one of the most important sportswomen of our time, Mia Hamm!

Ohhh where do I start! This sportswoman was… IS… incredible. Do I begin with how she was actually born with a club foot and had to wear corrective braces as a toddler?

Or how she is the youngest player EVER to play for the U.S. National soccer team at just a young 15 years old?

Becoming the youngest American women to win a World Cup championship at the still young age of 19?

Or how about the fact that Mia has scored more international goals in her career than any other player, male or female, in the history of soccer?

Yes, she has done it all. Named the FIFA World Player … TWO times … inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame when receiving 137 votes out of the possible 141 … has the largest NIKE building on corporate campus named after her … and was named the 1997 Sportswoman of the Year!

Hamm retired in 2004 at the age of 32 to start a family with her then-Red Sox shortstop husband (later Dodgers), Nomar Garciaparra. (Does it get any better than that??) In 2007 she gave birth to twin girls! With soccer star momma, and baseball daddy, you better believe those little girls are Sport Princesses!

You gotta watch this awing tribute I found to Mia Hamm! Super cool youtube Mia Hamm Tribute

........AAAAND we're back. New format!

Did I forget? Nah. Has a lot happened? Yup. Am I excited to share it all with you? Absolutely!!

I want to first KICK OFF the new Sport Princess blog format, and will quickly be getting into the nitty gritty and exciting updates to the Sport Princess series and where we've been the last half a year! Sooo much to delve into. But first, the official-ness of fun updates:

Every Monday will be a girl/woman power *Athlete Spotlight*..... from super celebrity athletes, to local small town young girls. I will absolutely take submissions for this weekly blog post, and want to hear about your own Sport Princess highlights, or an all star athlete in your town that we need to know about and can be empowered by. Email me the skinny along with a photo or video at sportprincesses@gmail.com!

Every Wednesday we will share a *Sport Princess photo or story of the week*. This is also open to submissions, send me those fun stories and a picture so we can all be in on it together!

Every Friday I will share a fun *Gameday recipe* to give you lots of yummy sporty goodness to go along with watching or playing sports! (Wait now, how many ways can you make nachos and hot dogs? Let's get creative and share loads of hoo-ra food!)

There will be lots of book, merchandise, and series updates all mixed in between these too.

Now here's the fun part: unveiling the rest of the Sport Princesses. Because guess what... there are now 12 OF THEM! So to kick that off, I am going to introduce one character a month, highlighting that specific sport for that entire month. We will go in order of how they will be published in the series. So to start March 1, we will be having a SOCCER MONTH, to go along with the first book to be published in 2011, The Soccer Princess.

Stick around for lots more soon, starting tomorrow with the first Athlete Spotlight.

~Hugs!! Bethany

And the winners are...

CONGRATULATIONS to

CHLOE who won the 1st Grand Prize with the most votes on her photo "BB", pictured here again! You can see more of this super cute sport princess at her mom's blog here.

and ANA won the random drawing for the 2nd Grand Prize! You can see more of Ana at her mom's blog here!

From what I can see, these two girls are real Sport Princesses, with posts about the fun girl stuff they do (ballet, dance, girl-ness) but sports too! (soccer, baseball, fun outdoors!)

Both girls win $250 and all sorts of fun Sport Princess gear including a custom Soccer Princess dress!

Thank you to all the participants in the photo contest - you will all get a free Soccer Princess book when it is published. It is being illustrated again right now, and lots more fun news coming out about it soon! We will be kicking out a new format on the blog in the next week with each day dedicated to a different aspect of sport... fun... education... photos, stories, book news, and more:)

Thank you!

The voting for the Sport Princess photo contest closed as 12 noon earlier today - and we are busy tallying up the votes! The remaining names will be entered into a www.random.org drawing for the 2nd prize! Both winners will be announced on here (and contacted by email) by 12 NOON PST on Friday, June 11th... almost there:)

So many cute photos, and comments in the emails we received! Your daughters are beautiful.

Hang in there just a bit longer!

Vote on your favorite Sport Princess photo

Are you ready for some DARLING sport chicks? I LOVE all of these. The fun news is ... your chances are high to win, too. We decided to still follow through on the photo contest even though the publication date is being pushed back while the first Soccer Princess book is being re-illustrated:)

So on with the next step! Below are all of the pictures entered for the contest.

Starting today, June 1st, through Thursday June 10th, the VOTING period opens. You - your family - your friends - are allowed ONE VOTE on ONE PHOTO per day! One vote per household per day - so rally up the troops to vote for your Sport Princess!

The first winner will be the princess with the most votes by Thursday June 10th 12pm PST.

All remaining names will be drawn from on random.org (equal chances all around) for the second winner!

Both winners will be notified and announced on the blog on June 11th.

To vote, simply send an email to sportprincesses@gmail.com with the subject title "Photo Contest" with the Alpha Letter of the photo you're voting for in the body of the email!

Thank you for those who took pictures to send in! Yay best of luck!

p.s. special note to check out the last three listed here late. We received the entries at the very beginning of the contest and missed them!

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THE new illustration style =)

Real quick, I just received this tonight... *much anticipated*... I saw the model sheets of the sport princess characters from this illustrator, Kristin Abbott, earlier this week, and loved them right away. You can see more of her portfolio at http://www.abbottillustration.com/. I wanted to post this full illustration so you can see the new style we are most likely going with for the Sport Princess series! We will have an official decision by Leo Publishing Works next week, and then after some minor tweaks to the characters themselves, new BIO pictures and style on here, soon.

More details to be continued...

UPDATE: it's official, Kristin Abbott is the new illustrator! We will have new character bios and images up as soon as they are completed... finalizing now!

3 days left for the Sport Princess photo contest!

In good faith, we are still doing the Sport Princess photo contest even though the publication date of the first book has been pushed out while it is being illustrated again! Click on the Sport Princess Photo Contest link at the top of the page for full details... You have until May 31st midnight to email a photo!! There aren't many entries so far, so that's good for you... Your chances to win are very high! We have received some super cute sporty pictures that will be posted On June 1st. There are two grand prizes... And two ways to win. One is completely random, we will use random.org to pick the winner! Everyone has an even chance. The second way to win will be by voting all next week during the contest period! Could be an easy way to pick up some quick cash and some fun sporty princess gear:) Send a cute sport picture you already have, or pull out your cameras this Memorial Weekend! Spread the word if you have a friend that has a little girl and could use the money rift now! Cheers:)

The many faces of The Soccer Princess "Jo"

I don't know why I've put this off... because from what I've heard so far, this news I'm about to share has been received enthusiastically. And now that I'm looking through older illustration examples again, I'm getting a kick out of this thing called starting over. Since getting signed with my lovely Irish Literary Agents... and in talking to several overseas publishers and marketing companies at the London Book Fair, I heard a consistent message:

"LOVE the idea. Illustrations look a little old or off for the younger target audience though. Change that and you have something that could go international, too"

And then it hits me, too, as so apparently obvious that I don't know why we didn't see it sooner. So with the big picture in mind, and what's best to get all our little girls to love sport princesses and spread the idea... we all agreed to push off the first publication date of The Soccer Princess, (still in 2010!) while we start over on the illustrations! It was perfect - blessed - timing at the Book Fair, because my publisher had just received the proof sample from the printer in Minnesota, and we were at that point to either plow forward with the printing, or make any revisions.

I'm waiting for a new sample illustration from a fantastic agented illustrator right now that we've been in negotiations with, and my publisher will be able to make that decision by the end of next week. In the meantime though, I want to show you several of the faces of Josephina that I've received since the beginning from different freelance illustrators!! The first two (uper-amatear) drawings are my own... how I initially pictured Jo. The rest are several different styles and mediums based on different artist perspectives!

Have fun looking through all these examples!! I would LOVE your feedback and opinion. Several of these are obviously not her exactly, but some are closer than I originally considered... is there a style here that you love for little girls? Is there one that you think is close? Or right on? Have your daughters look through it with you too!

Stay tuned as we continue the search for the right match......

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