In So Many Words

Thank you to all of those who commented on my New Year’s post. I appreciate you all so much!

I actually ended my year with a fun-filled trip to the vet, complete with cats escaping from the carrier before I could get them out to the car and lugging said carrier with 27 lbs of cat inside into the building for their exams.

We were there quite a while, and after much exploration, Wallace and Willow found an empty cabinet that they seemed to like! (Sorry about all the shadows; I am not much of a camera person and this was on my itouch anyway.)

Michael started the year with a new reward menu at school. We have increased the time it takes to earn a checkmark from six minutes to ten, but we also cut the point value of all rewards in half and added some new rewards that he seems quite excited about.

One of the new options is to help with the morning announcements, and he spent a good chunk of the week earning this. He was so excited about it, and he did a great job! The first picture is of Michael reading the opening lines before turning it over to one of the seasoned vets, and the second is all three of the kids saying in unison, “Let’s all be Paxtang Proud!”

I feel a bit sneaky posting a Straight Out Of the Camera shot since the only thing I have ever done to a picture up to now is crop it, but anyway, here’s a shot that shows what I feel like doing today – NOTHING!

However, what I will actually be doing is catching up on cleaning and laundry, going to the library, hanging out with Michael while Bob is at the music studio (oops – that’s on hold due to a power failure) and going to church tonight.

Oh, and I wanted to let everyone know that I am back on Twitter.  I had closed my account at one point but am now up and running again.  I’m @wheresthebox if you’d like to follow me.

What are your plans for the weekend?

Well, I’m not technically stealing it.  Even though she didn’t tag me specifically, Jen @ Autism, The King and I did invite anyone who wanted to play along to do so.

So, here are the rules:

• Open your first (oldest) photo folder in your computer library
• Scroll to the 10th photo
• Post the photo and the story behind it
• Tag 5 or more people to continue the thread

And here’s my picture:

This was taken at Disneyland on December 24, 2003, the day after we got our first digital camera as a Christmas present from my brother and his wife, whom we were visiting for the holidays.  Michael was 21 months old at the time.

Consider yourself tagged (if you so desire)!

Click here for more Wordless Wednesday and Special Exposure Wednesday.

Updated on 6/26/08: Thank you everyone for your kind and helpful comments–I really appreciate all of your input. After taking into account all of the responses I received here and offline, I actually ended up using an entirely different picture for the project. More info to follow later!

I need to select a photo for something and need your help. Can you please take a look at these two pictures and leave me a comment telling me which picture you like better, #1 or #2?

Thanks for your help, everybody!

Make a Smilebox postcard

I had commented on Who Says 8 Is Enough? that I couldn’t believe she had scrapbooked several pages of her sisters’ birthday party by the next day, and she shared her secret – Smilebox. So although I really do plan to start scrapbooking this year (I know, it is June already and I haven’t started!), I thought I would try it out. I downloaded the software and used one of the basic designs to create this “postcard” of the Little Guy’s preK graduation from last month.

It was very easy to use and even generates the code to blog your creation. There are paid options to get additional designs and other features, as well. Just a note, when you click to play the postcard, it will take you to a page on their site and there is some background music (just in case you are not reading this somewhere you want music to suddenly start playing).