You already know that you can be successful with lowcarb, so that's a good start. Perhaps your little ones might benefit from your experience, and unlearn the taste for sweet things, and white flour breads and sugary baked goodies...
To answer your questions about using the message board -
1) The picture with your username is called an avatar. You can choose from large selection of cute icons OR, you can upload your own picture from your computer, as I have done.
To add an avatar to your username .... click on the Profile icon (top right, just below the red menu bar) On your User Control Panel page, click on Edit Options. At the bottom of that page, you'll see the Avatar option .... click on Change/Edit Avatar.
You can select one of the avatar icons from the database, or you can select your own Custom Avatar, at the bottom. Use the Browse menu to find your file, then be sure to click Submit.
(note, your pic can't be any larger than 100 x 100 pixels, or 20 Kb, whichever is smaller ... so you might need to use an image editor to shrink it down if necessary)
2) We have an International Category, with forums for countries and regions around the world! You can either go back to the Forum's home page, then scroll down the page to Local Lowcarbers, and you'll see there's a US forum ... or
click here to open a new window. You can also click on the members icon at the top right of this page. You'll get a list of every registered member, which you can scroll through. Sorry you can't do a search specifically by location ..
All the best to you, and I look forward to reading all about your lowcarbing success..
Doreen