I had promised Caeden I'd make him biscuits and gravy after wrestling season was over, and I hadn't gotten around to it--until today.

When we get "bored" around here, we send our family group goofy SnapChat photos and we all laugh.

The girls and I colored Easter eggs today!  We used lemon juice instead of vinegar.  It worked really fast and the colors were pretty and intense.  

Sylvia joined a dozen of her Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp friends today for a Zoom concert.  Each of them played a Bach solo for the others. So many of them are having concerts, recitals, tours, auditions, competitions and lessons canceled right now, I thought it was such a wonderful beautiful way for them to connect and console one another.

Annah practiced her makeup skills this afternoon when she needed a break from school work.  

Weekend

Yesterday morning, I taught lessons and helped Mikaela get warmed up and ready for her ACT audition.  Then the girls and I went to Stephanie's baby shower! It was the most darling shower I've ever been to, with a children's book theme.  We sat a the Thomas the Train table!

Guests were asked to bring a children's book in lieu of a card.

 Stephanie's little boy is due to arrive in June, and after the lovely shower, I think she will be much more ready.  It was such a sweet afternoon, and lovely to see so many friends from our days at Bloomington 1st Naz.  We wish the best to Stephanie and her little one!

 Last evening, we all hung out together in the living room.  Sylvia asked Jeremy to play some Guess Who? with her, and they were quite entertaining as she taught him how!

Annah was doing homework, and trying to focus with the rest of us goofing around.

Caeden was playing on his iPod.

I also downloaded the Heads-Up app, and we all cracked each other up with that!

Today after church, the kids had Beacon youth band lunch/practice, so Jeremy and I had lunch at McD's.  We drove there separately because we had different places to go after.  However, we both ended up at Meijer later and did some tag-team shopping.  We decided to check out together for maximum mPerks benefits, and also so Jeremy could take all the groceries home. He bought a bag of our favorite pretzel pieces, and when I got home this evening, I realized he had bought a little bag for me too.  We call them crack pretzels, because once you start eating them you can't stop until the bag is gone.  They are yummy!

Project Life App approach update

I'm doing fairly well keeping up with the Project Life App digital scrapbook pages, and documenting our photos and stories in this way [that is somewhat new to me] so far this month.  At one point I did change the design/theme/cards I'm using, so on the blog posts, the new ones don't match the first few I posted.  For years I have admired the Cherry Edition I started out with, but I decided the new Everyday Edition would be more neutral and fitting for our current photos, and since I was only a few pages in, I changed.

There are pros and cons for me about this new process, but I'm going to try to stick with it at least for this year and decide which outweighs the other. So far...

Cons:

• I'm having trouble thinking about journaling/card placement in relation to a 2-page spread while I can only look at 1 page at a time on my phone.
• I'm keeping it photo-heavy, because it will cost $1.99 per page to print, and it's making me feel limited to bullet-point journaling instead of story-telling like I usually do here on the blog. 
• I'm not sure if it will cost me more or less than printing pics and buying physical product in the end, and I keep reading Becky Higgins' social media posts and buying little $1.99 things like more page layouts in the app, and an awesome photo editing app that is worth the $1.99--PicTapGo.

Pros: 

• I am using "extra" time (riding in the car, waiting at kids' lessons/appointments, etc) to scrapbook!
• I'm "keeping up!"
• Blogging is quick!
• I'm enjoying a new challenge and goal.

I got off track towards the beginning of what will be our "book," so I put a bunch of the uplifting images I collect together for one page.  I always have a bunch of these kinds of things on my phone, computer, and digital folders...keeps me thinking!

Twisty-headed giggles

Uncontrollable giggling was coming from the back seat of the car this evening while the kids were playing with the Photo Booth app on the iPad.  It never ceases to provide entertainment for them!

Irises

The pretty irises along the side of our garage have been blooming this week!

I snapped these pictures with my iPhone as I was parking the car.  I am still really liking the Camera+ app--editing effects right in the app!

blowing about

We have had some windy days recently--so typical of central Illinois prairie life!  We like to see the "helicopters" fly about in our yard and neighborhood.  They are covering our yard now, and collecting in places all over.  Makes us smile.

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Caeden and I, playing Air Hockey on the iPad

I am liking the Camera+ app for iPhone!  It has lots of fun actions for editing right in the app...fun to play around with it!

Family Feud

I've had some friends invite me [through Facebook] to play Family Feud recently.  What a fun game!  I always loved the gameshow, and now we have fun playing with the app!

Sketch Me

Playing around with another free app...Sketch Me.

I wuv these wittle faces!

iPhone 4s

I am now an iPhone girl.  My phone's upgrade time came up a couple weeks ago, and we made the switch from Android to Apple.  Since we have an iMac computer and an iPad, it made sense to switch to the iPhone and sync everything up with iCloud.  And, since it was my upgrade time with Verizon, the cost was a fraction of what an iPhone costs regularly.

We decided to go with white, because it's so signature Apple-looking and different from anything else.  For now, I'm just using a bumper (had to add a little red!), but I'm nervous about dropping it and smashing the screen or back since I'm such a klutz.  I may get another cheap rubber case for my own peace of mind, but for now I like seeing the shiny Apple on the back. 

I'm still getting used to everything.  It is very easy, but there are so many amazing things to learn to feel like I'm using these tools and technologies to potential!  

In order to sync all the devices with iCloud, I had to upgrade our iMac operating system to OS X Lion ($30) and then upgrade iPhoto too ($15).  While, I wasn't excited about spending more on those things, they are nice upgrades, and the iCloud syncing is pretty convenient and cool.

My only complaint would be that I have to put the phone on Wi-Fi to sync with the cloud, and I normally wouldn't do that with my phone since it has its own signal.  Not too big of a deal though.

I'm already liking the Instagram app, having an app for Pinterest, and a friend got me playing Family Feud.  I'm trying out Menu Planner, but not liking it too well so far.  If I put the time in to enter my recipes and pantry items it would be great, but I haven't done that yet.  Still using Grocery IQ instead.  Oh, and it is so great to have the Reminder app synced up on both my phone and iPad.  Love that one!

Aliens?

Sylvia and I laughed ourselves silly playing with the Photo Booth app on our computer tonight.  How do you think we look like aliens?