It's OUR Birthday Too?! Gabbafriends.com Turns One Today!

Today, August 1st, 2009 marks the one year anniversary of the official launch of Gabbafriends.com! Please join me as we take a look behind the scenes at what makes Gabbafriends the Ultimate Yo Gabba Gabba Fan Site!

The idea of Gabbafriends came to be in June 2008, after our son, Micah, turned two years old. We had been watching Yo Gabba Gabba with much fanfare for our friend Emma Jacobs who plays Foofa on the show. While planning Micah's birthday party, it was super hard to find any ideas already out there on the internet for Yo Gabba Gabba birthday parties. In fact, if you check out one of my very first posts on Gabbafriends, Micah's Birthday Party, you will see how rather primitive my ideas were compared to what parents are sending in today!

With great love for the show, I contacted Emma's brothers at Yo Gabba Gabba and asked for their feedback on the idea of starting a fan site. The objective was to create a space where the fans would have a community where we could exchange our ideas, answer each other's questions in the forums, and connect with other like-minded parents who simply love the show.

Since our launch, the good people at Yo Gabba Gabba have always been incredibly gracious, and have proven time and time again how much they care about their fans and what we think. Never doubt it, they DO read your words and look at your photos! We have received confirmation on that several times over.

And I can't thank the people in the Gabbafriends community enough who send in photos, stories, post in the forums, and take the time to comment on each other's stories. You guys are so rad!

Now to show you who is behind Gabbafriends, the people who keep it running!

Oh hai! This is me with my husband Scott. Scott is a technology consultant, so he kindly donates the few spare moments he has to do all the, um, hard technical stuff with the databases and other techie jargon. He's deeply obsessed with the Aquabats and likes UCLA sports (his alma mater).

This is Wendy, our eye candy! Wendy came on board in February when we got too big for our britches and I needed help posting all of your fabulous stories and photos! Wendy also now oversees all the rad Gabbafriends contests! She was originally a member of the Gabbafriends community who really shined, always emailing me suggestions for the site. Since we invited Wendy to come aboard with us, she has been AMAZING, and there has never been any doubt that we made the right decision. Wendy is a mommy of two beautiful children, and is a total maven in the kitchen. If there were ever a totally awesome punk rock version of Martha, there you go... It's Wendy.

This is Mike and his stunning wife Bethany. We go WAY back. Mike is a talented filmmaker and all around do-good genius. He is our graphics wizard and created the look and feel of Gabbafriends.com. If you thought from my prior paragraph that Scott likes the Aquabats, Mike takes it to a whole new level. I call him an Aquabats encyclopedia. It's impressive, believe you me. A little-known fact: Mike was the one who named us Gabbafriends. Yep!

Again, I want to thank the readers and contributors to Gabbafriends.com! Your emails and forum postings really lift our spirits and motivate us to be better! We have met so many wonderful people through Gabbafriends that we just love and appreciate very much.

Thank you for contributing to such a great first year! With filming for season three starting very soon, we're looking forward to all the good times to come!