Wonderful Easter

Ever have one of those days where you think of blog posts you want to write all day but don't have the time to write them?  Yeah, it's been one of those days.  But on the bright side, I got a LOT accomplished today.  A lot of things seemed to be hanging over my head and I worked on them and they are not hanging anymore. Yahoo!

Anyway, remember when I anticipated Easter?  I anticipated doing Julie's hair, seeing my kids dive into their baskets and spending time with family.  Well, this Easter delivered all those things.  It was truly a great Easter. 

I think it started out well because I set my alarm for 30 minutes early.  I wanted plenty of time to do Julie's hair and we wanted to get to church early and get a parking space.  A few minutes before my alarm went off, I heard the little Munchkins getting into their baskets.

Highlights this year: Enchanted movie, playdoh, pencils, American Girl sleeping bag and PJ's for Julie; 

How to Train your Dragon movie, silly putty and Ninjago Lego set for David.

Then it was time to get beautiful.

 (Note:  A 5-year old took this, hence the "looking up our noses" feel to the photo.)

 David posed me here.  Thought I'd include it too.

We had a wonderful church service with record attendance.  A total of 1232 people attended in our 2 services.  (Normally we have about 700 in attendance each week, so that was a HUGE Easter Sunday increase.)

After lunch at Grandma's, it was time for the egg hunt.  

On your mark, get set...

GO!!!

Lots of goodies were found inside the eggs, including $3.23.  

Unfortunately our batteries died on our camera so we didn't get pictures of the second egg hunt at Mamaw's house.  Another $1 or $2 was found in those eggs.  All in all, a pretty profitable days for the kids :).

I ate waaaay to much yummy food (although all the candy was chocolate, which I'm allergic to, so I didn't have any candy).  But overall it was probably the best Easter that I remember. 

HomeSav: Earn a FREE $10 credit

Have you heard of HomeSav?

It's the latest and greatest daily deal site out there.  And if you sign up now under this link, you'll earn a FREE $10 credit to the site.  It never expires and it's good on anything, including shipping.  Hurry!  Sign up now!

DealPulp (another daily deal site) is currently offering a $40 credit to HomeSav for only $15.  Another great way to save.

**Invite your friends and earn more credit.  Any friend that signs up with your link will get a $10 credit.  When they spend that credit, you'll earn $15 credit.
**The above links are my referral links.  If you'd rather not use them, you can go directly to the site to sign up.

Guest Bloggers Needed

Hey out there to all my wonderful bloggy peeps.  Have I told you lately how great you are?

OK, ok, I'm trying to butter you up a bit here.  Why?

Because I'm in need of some guest bloggers for the week of May 2-6. 

Guest blogging is a great way to get the word out about your blog.  Advertise yourself, tell my readers who you are so they can go check out your neck of the blogging woods.

If you are not a blogger, that's OK too.  Maybe you have some issue you've wanted to get off your chest and out into the world.  Now's your chance.

You can write about anything you want.  However, because this is a family-friendly blog, I can't take any posts with curse words, or the Lord's name taken in vain.

Just leave me a comment saying you want to guest post and make sure I have an email address where I can contact you.  That's it!

Book Review: Nightshade

Nightshade by Ronnie Kendig



Nightshade is book 1 in the Discarded Heroes Series.

Max Jacobs has been discharged from the Navy - discarded.  His marriage is crumbling and his life is spiraling out of control.  Then he meets Nightshade, a group of elite soldiers - discarded heroes like him - who join to form a secret elite team.  They go in where others don't dare to tread. 

Nightshade is called upon to go into the jungles of the Philippine islands to rescue a missionary family held captive by local radicals.  At the same time Max's estranged wife, Sydney, a reporter, is coming dangerously close to uncovering the identity of the Nightshade team.  Can Max rescue his objectives and lead his team out safely?  Will he heal his marriage with his wife, or alienate her even more?

My Thoughts

When I first read the description of this book, I was a little hesitant to read it.  I don't usually go for the military dramas.  If I had gone with my instincts, I would have really missed out!  This was a wonderful book!  Kendig incorporated just the right amount of military drama to balance the relationship issues facing this team.  I never felt overwhelmed by military jargon; yet at the same time, the military moves the characters made and the terms they used all seemed very authentic and believable to me.

The characters were wonderfully flawed.  The team, the wife, the missionaries - they were all real.  No perfect heroes in this book. There were a few predictable spots in the book where you knew exactly what the characters would say and do, but those spots were few and far between.  The storyline took enough twists and turns to keep me up reading at night.  I am currently reading the second book in the series, Digitalis (review to come soon) and eagerly await the third book coming out in July of this year.

I give this book a 5 out of 5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me the Kindle version of this book for review.

What I Learned Wednesday: Changing your Blog Header

Time to keep pimping our blog in our What I Learned Wednesday series!

If you have been keeping up with the series, you have learned how to create a blog signature and how to change the background of your blog.

Today we are going to learn the next step - how to change your blog header.

Actually changing your header is really easy.  However, creating that header - not so much.  You guys may be able to help me out on this.  I'll tell you what I know and you can comment and tell me what you know.

1. Choose your favorite photo editing or digital scrapbooking software.  A lot of people use Photoshop Elements.  I use Creative Memories' scrapbooking software program - Storybook Creator Plus.  It's a great scrapbooking program but it does have some limitations as a website design program.  
2. Spend as much time as you need (or have to because your computer is not cooperating) to make your new header.  This step will take some trial and error, especially as you try to make a header the correct size for your site.  If you are using the Minima template, your header will need to be 660 pixels in width.  There is a way around this that I'll mention below.
3. If possible make your header transparent.  What does that mean?  Well if you look up at my header you'll see that it is all in a white box.  If it were transparent, it wouldn't have that white box.  Remember the limitations of my software that I mentioned?  That's one of them.  It can't make transparent images. I'm trying to find a good program that does. If your software is capable of that, you'll need to save your file as either a PNG or a GIF file.  JPG does NOT support transparent images.
4. Next go to the design tab in your blog.  At the top of the Page Elements section, you'll see "your blog name (header)" and a little "Edit" link.  Click on that.  Your current header picture should show up there.  Click on "remove image" (you can't get it back once you remove it, so make sure that file is saved somewhere on your computer).  
5. Now if you aren't sure about the sizing of your header, before you pick a new file to upload, click on the "scale to fit" box at the bottom.  It will disappear after you add your image so you'll need to click on it first.
6. Now just add your header picture that you have saved.  Make sure the middle choice of the bottom buttons is clicked, save it and you're done.
7. Preview your blog.  Tweak anything that needs tweaking and relax.  You did well!

That's it!
I'd love to see any design changes you've made to your blog.  Simply comment below and I'll stop by to look and return the comment love.

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Remember a comment on today's post earns you another chance to enter our boredom to Disney contest.

Pack now or later?

As you know, Disney is looming in our near future.  Yay!!!

What you may not know is how differently each of my family members approaches the upcoming trip.

Guess whose suitcase this is?
You got it!
Julie, my overachieving, extremely excited second-grader.

This was packed on April 5, a full 25 days before our departure date.  What does that tell me? 

One - She has WAY too many clothes if she can leave 7 days worth of clothes packed and still be fully clothed for a month. 
Two - She's a tad excited about the trip (just a smidge).
Three - She's totally my child :).

OK, this one is David's.  The only reason it is partially packed (the things are literally just thrown in there) is because Julie convinced him that he needed to pack it.  Unfortunately he doesn't have the amount of clothes that Julie does.  Which means that after he packed all his clothes, I had to unpack most of them so he wouldn't be naked at school.  He's excited, but not nearly so much as Julie.

Embarrassingly so, this is my little stack of things that I can't forget to pack.  As I think of them I either write on my list or put them in this chair. 

I am a list-maker, big time.  Here is my Disney packing list:

Um, except that's just part of it.  My "list" is actually 5 lists.  I've divided it into Papers/Books, Toys/Games/Electronics, Clothes/Toiletries, Misc, and Food.  But, hey, I rarely forget much that way.

This is what Tim has done to get ready....NOTHING.
He'll pack about a day or two before and put everything here on the bed.  He packs by asking me what he should pack and then I actually do the packing into the suitcase because I have a knack for getting it all in one suitcase.

But the cool thing is, we all get where we are going and we all are packed by the time we get there :).

Now that you know our quirks, here are a few packing tips for your next trip.

• For each child, I took gallon ziploc bags and put dates on them for each day we are going to be gone.  Their shorts, shirt, underwear and socks for that day all go in that bag.  When they wake up, they just have to pull out the bag for that day and its all right there ready for them.
• For adult clothes, you can fit a lot more in your suitcase if you roll all of your clothes instead of folding them.  (I actually rolled the kids clothes inside each bag as well.)
• We are only taking 2 pair of shoes each - tennis shoes for walking around Disney and flip-flops for the pool.
• I've gotten each child a fanny pack to wear in the parks (good thing they don't know how uncool that is).  They will put their sunglasses, chapstick, mp3 player (in a plastic bag), and snack in there.  That way they get to "share the load."

13 days to go. What additional packing tips do you have for us?

**Don't forget to enter our Disney trip boredom contest.  A comment on this post earns you an additional entry!**

Starting a 50/50 journal

Some days, it's hard to come up with something interesting to write about.  Today is one of those days :).  In light of that, I'll leave you with this article by Kathi Lipp.  (I reviewed Kathi Lipp's book, The Me Project, back in February.)

Remember, a comment on today's post will earn you another entry into the Disney boredom contest.
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