Blogging in bullets

Fresh from my shower this morning, I walked into the kitchen and found my nine year old son standing at the counter brewing a pot of coffee--FOR HIMSELF.  Hahahaha!  It's really too bad I make him drink decaf; I'd have really enjoyed a cup, too.  ;)

That same boy is meeting with the deacon at our church this afternoon as one of the final requirements before receiving his First Holy Communion on May 8th (Mother's Day!)  I can't believe that day is (finally) nearly here!

Caitlyn and I are having so much fun working towards more AHG badges!  She created some beautiful works of art for her Artastic badge; even Dylan joined us at that kitchen table for that one!  I love including the other kids whenever possible for the requirements we complete at home.

I am seriously loving getting up early each morning.  I was up at 5:00 a few mornings ago and was able (in addition to emptying all the trash cans, sweeping the kitchen, starting the dishwasher, and sorting a load of laundry) to say a whole rosary while watching a beautiful sunrise.  The loveliest shades of  pink filled the morning sky while I sipped my coffee in the quiet living room.

Having said that, I'm realizing more and more that I'm a terribly lazy person.  This morning I accidentally overslept, waking (again) at 7:15 and feeling terribly behind from the moment I set foot out of bed.  So, just for fun, I decided to play a little game with myself; I called it "Let's see how much I can accomplish while Caitlyn has her bath".  The answer:  a LOT!  Had I known how much I could get done in a mere 10 (or so) minutes, I'd have given up facebook long before Lent!  Or maybe not.  ;)

I'm itching to take another road trip.  We went to Tucson in February and it was so much fun!  One night in our hotel room, as we were all sprawled across the two Queen sized beds laughing our heads off at America's Funniest Home Videos, I said (not entirely in jest) to Darren that I wished we could sell all of our things, including our house, and just move into a hotel--the ultimate experience in family togetherness.  :)

Netflix is awesome and I can't believe we held out for so long.  But now a certain five year old is reminding me that I told her she could watch a movie while I prepped for dinner so I guess that's my cue to get off the computer.  ;)

Look who's walking!

He finally figured it out yesterday afternoon! Caitlyn saw his first steps and came running to tell me. We bribed him with chocolate cookies to keep him going. ;)

Kristen's Third Birthday (aka St. Patrick's Day)

Puppies!

I never imagined that puppies (of all things!) would bring me back to blogging, but I tried e-mailing this video to my mom and the file was too big.  So, I'm posting it here because it's the only other way I can think of for her to  see it.  She's not on facebook and besides, I gave it up for Lent.  ;)

Meet Bailey and Janie, the two newest members of our family!   

More about Picasa Web Albums

Charlotte asked a good question and, since others might not know about these Picasa albums, either (I didn't until last night!) I thought I'd try to explain it a little better here (as well as I'm able!). I checked and I don't see anything in the new editor that shows how much photo storage has been used, so if you're using the new editor, you'll first want to click "Settings", scroll down to the bottom, and select "Old Editor". If you're already using the old editor, this is the box you'll see when you click the "Add Image" button in a blog post:

I've added a big red arrow next to where it says, "You are currently using xxxMB (xx%) of your 1024MB". There's an orange question mark next to it and if you click it, you should reach a page that will explain a little more about the Picasa Web Albums (with a link to them, too). From what I understand, these Blogger albums are not viewable to the public unless you choose to make them so. From the side bar of my album page: "Blogger albums are unlisted by default. You can make these albums public and searchable to the entire Google Photos community as well as Google Search for Images." I won't choose to make mine public, and I'm relieved to know that they won't be without my permission! But I was surprised to see how very, very MANY photos were there that I uploaded just as tests (old banners, backgrounds, posts I never published, etc.) I'm sure there are more I can delete, BUT! It states clearly (also in their side bar): NOTE: If you delete an image from the Blogger album here, the image will be removed from your Blogger blog as well, so please delete images with care! Yikes! That scares me. For some reason, I have duplicates of some photos, but I'm afraid that if I delete them I'll lose them here, as well!

Anyway, hope this explanation helped a little bit. I think that from now on I might have to be a little more selective about what photos I post, LOL! I never knew I might actually someday reach a limit! ;)

Whew!

That was a close one! I experienced a brief moment of panic when I tried to upload this totally adorable photo of Austin after voting last night and Blogger told me I'd reached my limit of photo storage!  What?!  I never realized such a thing was even possible!  Guess I should have been paying more attention to that little note in the photo upload box (hmmm, I know it's there in the old editor, but now that I think about it, I'm not so sure it's there in this new one...) Anyway, I spent some time today (too much time, if you ask me) deleting old photos that I had no idea were being stored in the Picasa web albums that I didn't even know I had. Apparently Blogger stores them there automatically every time you upload a photo, even if you never publish it!  Good grief!  I couldn't even believe the number of useless photos I had stored there taking up valuable space.  But, by clearing out those cluttered albums I've gained more room for new photo uploads, so I'm happy.  :)