holidays & occassions

The birth of Jesus Christ. Decorations. Traditions. Gift Giving. Food. Family.

We celebrate all of the above and this year was no exception. It was a little different with my grandma having passed in May as well as family drama that has caused some traditions to cease. That didn’t stop us from making this a memorable Christmas for our children as we do every year. I wasn’t the least bit stressed about shopping this year which was nice. Ken always helps me shop for the kids and as they get older the presents get more expensive, but usually more simple and easier to wrap.

The kids got me a MacBook Air, which now means I will be able to blog more and make many more videos for our YouTube Channel. Since I work at my desk all day I just can’t stand to sit there for a second longer than necessary to work on the Mac desktop that we have.

The kids were all spoiled as usual.

Andrew

Blake

Chase

Karli
She also made a What I got for Christmas Video, it’s all the rage on YouTube.
Her blog post is here.

Our elf, Clyde, also wrote the kids a letter before he left on Christmas Eve. If you click on it, you can view it larger.

We had a wonderful Christmas with our kids, both sets of grandparents and my grandma Mille. It goes by too fast as always. Our tree only has one more day before it gets moved back into storage. Soon the house will be back to normal. Kids back to school. Here we come 2014.

We didn’t send out cards this year so consider this your Christmas card!

I know some of you probably thought we took you off our card list since I always send out cards. But nope, just wasn’t feeling it this year. The internet pretty much keeps all of you updated and you see plenty of photos of us throughout the year.

Thank goodness the photos even turned out. We had enough time for one photo right before Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and fingers crossed that we ended up with something presentable. I would have got yelled at by Ken to hurry up if I would have tried to take anymore than that. We are all always getting yelled at before church. If you think about it, church is one of the few things that we go to as a complete family where we really have to be there at a specific time. Must be why I whine about going to church most of the time. I enjoy mass while I’m there, but boy do I hate the process of getting there. Plus you can’t wear sweats.

Rest of our photos will be coming shortly :)

So how was your Christmas?

I wanted to do something different when sharing my Easter photos this year so I thought I would give Picture Collage Maker for Mac a try. For the past decade I have been using Paint Shop Pro and I have never updated the software or tried a different version. Every new PC I have bought I just keep reinstalling the same old program. There are so many neat apps and programs out there that allow you to easily add background patterns, create photo frames, add text and more. So it’s about time I get with the program and start using a program from this decade, don’t you think?

I chose Picture Collage Maker for Mac primarily because I love using our iMac for non-work related things. The app which is actually available on both Mac and PC was extremely easy to use. The steps to create a photo collage are so easy! First you select a project: blank project, calendar, greeting card, layout or photo album. You are then able to use the predetermined background with some of the layouts or you can easily choose your own from the various backgrounds that are offered. There are over a hundred different templates you can choose from. Adding photos is simple – just drag and drop. My favorite feature is being able to resize and move the photos even when you choose a predesigned template. You are still able to make changes and make it your own. There is also the option of adding text to anywhere on the project that you choose. You can move the layers up and down so your photos and text are appropriately overlapping one another as well. The best part is printing your creations to give them to family! You can print greeting cards, calendars and photo collages which could also be used as scrapbooking pages.

I also made a desktop calendar for April for my laptop. Again these can be customized however you choose. For example this particular template had two horizontal photo slots and I was able to delete one of them and change the photo to be vertical instead. I just love the flexibility of this app. I’m always looking for new ways to share my photos on my blog and this app offers that and so much more. The app is currently available for Mac for $19.99 which is almost $10 off the regular price.

Click on the eggs to view all of our Easter photos :)

From our home to yours…

Hope you all have a wonderful day! Yesterday I made cake pops…it was quite the experience. I have been recording vlogs to share a video every day during Spring Break but I’ve been having uploading issues. Friday’s vlog is uploading now and I will share as soon as it is live. Be sure to be “like” our Facebook page for the most up to date info and posts.

{2013 made by Karli…she requested that I add that}

I try not to live with regrets, but I really regret one thing this Christmas- taking photos with my darn iPhone. Normally under the right amount of light the camera takes excellent photos. But this year the results were really disappointing. They are just photos, but the years are going by so fast anymore. It’s time to start using my Canon Rebel SLR. Speaking of, I was thinking of investing in the latest model – anyone have any feedback they would like to share? The one I have is 12 years old, that sounds crazy!! I remember that Ken bought it for me the Mothers Day before we built our home. I was thinking of just buying the latest Digital Rebel body since I already have two lenses to go with it. I do have a small Canon Powershot SX120, but it takes real batteries that die so fast it’s annoying. I used it on vacation most of the time and I had to make sure I had backup batteries with me everywhere I went.

Anyways, so how was your Christmas? Typically I get pretty grumpy right before Christmas only because I get so stressed out over what to buy everyone. This year everything went pretty smoothly and I got my shopping done early and without much stress. The kids were easy to buy for this year and I actually had fun buying for everyone else. I came up with some good ideas for Ken as well which isn’t usually that easy either. Ken bought me some Ugg boots and gift certificate for a cleaning service. (Yikes, I need to clean this place up first! haha!) He also got me a blanket to replace the blanket that I lost at the airport when we were on the way back from Mexico. I have this thing where I like to cover my face when I’m sleeping, particularly if I am going to be sleeping with strangers nearby on an airplane, which is why I brought it on vacation. I had let Karli use it to cover up because she wasn’t feeling well and I ended up losing it somehow. Once I realized it was missing we were already boarded on the airplane. Ken had called to try and find it, but had no luck. The new one he bought me was a Baby Morgan blanket, look them up- crazy expensive! I can tell you that the blanket I had, that I am embarrassed to say was Andrew’s when he was a baby, was most likely a Kmart special or something!

It really was a great Christmas, the kids were happy and here it is New Years Eve and everyone is certainly ready to get back into the routine of work and school again. I’m bored of being lazy- how crazy does that sound? Don’t get me wrong, I thankful that I didn’t have to work at all over break, but I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. I hope your Christmas and break has been an enjoyable time for you!