Book Signing!

You asked...



I delivered...



Here you go...



A small sampling of my 272 page PUBLISHED blog book!!
It is more amazing than I even thought! I absolutely love it! It is hard to describe to those who can't tangibly touch it, so I took a few pics to help showcase it better. I chose the 8 1/2 X 11 Landscape size, and I am very pleased with it- it was only $75 for it- and if you finish one before the 30th of September, there is a coupon code for $15 off! That is a huge savings!! So, get going, and get published!!

Okay, so one thing I don't love is the white cover- only because it has already gotten dirty!! Fingerprints are not clean, and they don't really come off that easily....but, I love the simplicity of the black and white. Next time I will probably do a black cover and still keep the black and white pics, or do a full page picture- so many options...

This is the title page inside- there are many variations and templates for a title page.

For my collages, I just chose a full page bleed, and imported the entire collage so easily!



For one huge piece of advice for those working on theirs and for my next one...I will ONLY choose white page backgrounds. You can choose the colors for all the backgrounds, and change them in thousands of ways, but the colored pages have text that is too hard to read for me. I did several, but I truly love the white ones the best. I also chose different fonts and certain ones are easier to read too.

Here's a layout with just text and it still looks great!

These two are two of my very favorite pages.

I chose this layout a lot too- it's photo boxes are big enough for a good view.



If a picture's resolution isn't that good, it will allow you to make the picture smaller so it will print better, and then just leave the background the same- I thought that was a great feature, because I had a few pics that were too high or low in resolution, and this was a way that I could still use the picture, even if it was small.

Love the baseball background on this one!

I just chose picture templates for these pages and just put random summer shots in them. Most of my collages are from Shutterfly, and I would just import them as a whole page bleed, but when I had random pics, I just put them in this template. So easy.

Love, love this page of our racoon adventure at the park.

This one turned out great too- with a long pic on the left and a full page bleed on the right with an imported collage from Shutterfly.

This fence background, my sister in law, Es showed me and you could easily make it orange and black for Halloween, too- I love it!


Overall, I am just ecstatic with the results. Sure, it was time consuming for a bit, but worth the work. Honestly, I spent a great deal of time trying to make it perfect, which just wasn't necessary, and not worth the added effort. It has a few spelling errors, and a few things I should have caught, but that is the beauty of it, and most people don't even notice the errors- it really is great. I hope this inspires you to get going on yours. I look forward to hearing how yours are going!!

My Poor Kitty

Celeste loves our cat! I mean LOVES our cat!! The poor thing is just so loved on by Celeste! She is getting old, she will be 10 this year, so she tolerates much more from Celeste than she ever did from the other two. She allows Celeste to pick her up from time to time, against her will, though, as you can see...and hold her there for a minute or two- good thing I had the camera nearby!! Celeste is very gentle with her and that is probably why she isn't running away- or it could be that she was sleeping in that little sunlight you see on the carpet and Celeste caught her off-guard...either way, these are cute shots...and my sweet cat just hung in there long enough for me to take these!

Wind Damage!!

On Sunday afternoon, we had hurricane wind!! Can you believe that?! It was crazy- 75mph winds raced through, leaving us and hundreds of thousands of others without power!! For nearly 6 full days!!! Ahhhh!
We, actually never lost electricity, but our phone, internet and cable were completely lost until about 10 minutes ago!! Yes, I was dying!!! I can hardly believe I survived! Thanks to Autumn for letting me come over today and check all my emails! I have been missing all of you and seeing pictures and reading all the blogging you have done! I have been busy, nonetheless, but not like I wanted to be necessarily.
My parents were without power for a few days, and my neighbors are still without. It is strange how the grids work here- right next door to me lost it all! We at least never lost lights and our one 13inch tv. I am so grateful for electricity, let me tell ya! My heart hurts for all those still without- it is misery! I am also grateful we were able to help others during the outings- our freezer is holding several people's food, and our neighbors ran an extension cord to our house to keep their fridge running. It has been crazy!
My kids and Dana, of course, were out of school for 3 days this week! It felt a lot like summer and we had some fun family time. On Monday, we went to the zoo for the first time in over 2 years! We didn't renew our membership, because of gas prices, but we had free passes for the kids, so we only had to pay for Dana and I and parking, so we went. It was so fun!! I forgot how much my kids love the zoo- here are some shot of us enjoying the day!












The best part of our zoo day- NO STROLLER!! It was so nice not to have to push that around! Celeste's tiny little feet were so tired from doing all the walking- she fell asleep about 2 minutes into the drive home! It was awesome!
So, we have survived the power outage- thank goodness it is finally over. However, we need to keep praying for those without- let's hope we pull together to get them through it too.

Pity Party...

Well, today is a pity party after our awful loss to USC last night...boo hoo...oh, well-we must move on, right?! Dana and I are going to the Troy game this Saturday, so there is much to celebrate!!Last night we went to our dear friends, the Clay's for dinner (always fantastic at their house) and to watch the game. Here are the kiddos having fun prior to the game:



The Clay's have a great house for parties!! The kids love their swingset and playing on their huge deck. Since it was still so hot and humid, we adults preferred the inside. Here we are ready to cheer on our Buckeyes.
Todd and Dana pose for me with the "O"!! GO BUCKS!

We loved hanging with our friends and watching the game- we stayed until half time, then came home, sulking already- here we are in the beginning- happier times:

Celeste probably ate half the bag of Doritos' - she had a good time!

Alex played with the Clay boys most of the time, but would take a break to eat and watch a play or two.

Leah kept busy watching a movie upstairs, but would occassionaly creep down for more chips!

So, we lost- big deal- this too shall pass...
We still love our Buckeyes and that is that!

Corny but Cute...and fun!

Dana got "corn hole" last Christmas from my parents-

do ya'll even know what "corn hole" even is?!

Well, for you not from here, it is a bean bag toss game, but the bags are made from corn, hence it's corny name. I am pretty sure the name came from some Buckeye fans, because it is played all over tailgating parties here and if you call it that to someone from another team, they look at you as if you are nuts...well, buckeyes are nuts, right?! The NUT is nuts, not the fans...okay...enough....

Well, we love this game! We love it so much, we play it all the time! Usually we set it up in the basement and it is always Dana and Leah vs. Alex and Me. Sadly, Alex and I hardly win, since Dana is pretty good. (I failed to mention that we hardly ever have it set up at the right distance!) Anyway.
Monday, for Family Night, we played outside and these are some of the pictures. Notice the determination on Alex's face, with the tongue protruding...I love it! We lost, but came awfully close for once! Celeste is the official "bag picker upper"- she is very helpful- I never have to bend over to pick them up! Love that little girl!


Leah gets to stand quite a bit closer- hence she "helps" Dana win! Kidding...he really doesn't need any help- he has a bit of competitiveness in him that drives him to win and beat the children!

Alex is actually better than I am, he tends to score more points than I do each round...I think it is his stance! How cute is he?!
If you are ever at an OSU game, you will see hundreds of these games going on everywhere people are tailgating- it is a super phenomenal craze and we are swept up in it too!

Dinner Dawdler...

Okay, so you already know that Celeste likes to eat, right?! Yeah, well, she does like to eat, that's for sure, but she likes to eat on her own terms: what she wants and when she wants. Translation: she eats all day: fruit snacks and suckers, crackers, and pretzels, mostly, except when it comes to dinner- yep, she hardly ever actually eats a good dinner- I say about 2-3 nights a week on average at best will she eat a decent meal. It's not as if she isn't getting proper nutrition- I did say fruit snacks! I am kidding, she really does eat well through the day, but dinner is so different! I don't get it- I do not let her snack right beforehand, so she should be hungry, I just think she is a slow eater, and half the time is talking instead! Funny how I can do that and still eat in a timely manner- maybe she is still learning how to be more like me!


So, tonight was no different. Dana is always first at finishing (he blames that on his large family growing up, by the way), followed by me or Alex, and then Leah and eventually, much, much later, her. Tonight, again, like most nights, I had to sit at the table long after all the dishes were put away and "help" her finish....

Here are the faces I got while watching/waiting...

I couldn't help but grab the camera and snap away- I think I got over 20! These are the funniest of them.

She just loves to dawdle when it comes to dinner!

She did finally finish- and then you know what comes next: DESSERT! Seriously, she wanted that right away!! I made rice krispie treats- and since she finally ate, she did get one- or two- she's so cute, I caved....only after she finished her cold dinner, though.

IT'S A CONTEST!!!

Okay fun friends....check out Bonnie's Blog for a chance to win a goodie bag of treasures! She only gives away good stuff....so visit and leave her a message so she knows you are in!!
GOOD LUCK!! Oh, and do it right away, because the deadline is Monday!!
GO, GO, GO!!!

The Bucks are Back!

Ohio State football season officially began last Saturday, so in due tradition, we wore our gear and took some pictures- here we are all ready to cheer them on to a victory, which worked!!
Dana is working all the home games doing parking, so he is not in these- lucky. We are so jealous of his new little side gig- except that he has to get up at 4am!! That I do not envy- but watching the games in the Horseshoe, I AM!!

Alex snaps a shot of us girls!
Now it's Leah's turn behind the camera. She does a good job, too!

Celeste actually took this- isn't that amazing- and I didn't even have to tweak it! Digital cameras are fantastic!

BIG thanks go to Abbey for the adorable cheerleader uniform for Leah!! She so loves it and wore it the entire day!

Here's to another winning Buckeye season!! Go Bucks!

PS- here is the new B&W picture frame that hangs about that perfect welcome bench!! (Jennifer, you are the best!) Oh, and Annie, yes, I took these- thanks to the white sheet backdrop and a little cropping- the wonders of digital camera software!

My BLURB book is being published!!!

So, late last night I uploaded all 272 pages of my blog book to Blurb.com to be published!! I am more excited than I can even begin to tell you!! I have worked on it for hours and hours, striving for perfection! It is not perfect, but it will be wonderful! It was quite the time consuming project, and I nearly gave up many times- the program sometimes exhibits gliches- which don't save your work!! Ahhhh- this was soooo aggravating...but, despite having to re-do a few times, I did it!

If you haven't checked out Blurb.com- now is the time to do it! You just download the software to your desktop, upload your blog to it- it shows you how and walks you through it- and then begin designing your very own!! It is much easier than you think, and the results are just fantastic. I even have whole page layouts of just pictures- as a matter of fact, it has nearly 700 pictures in it total!! Isn't that just amazing!

I think the pricing is just great too- it was $74.95 for my book, and that includes a hard cover image wrap- which you must have for yours! It is worth the extra couple dollars. Otherwise you get a dust jacket- which just falls off and gets torn. I emailed them and asked for a discount code, and they sent me an email for 10% off!! Whoo Hoo!!

I also ordered a 7X7 photo book of our vacation that has 40 pages and was only $24.95- so both books, with shipping was under $100!

Just wanted to share that! It has been just over a year that I started my blog- 26 August 07, so I did it from Aug to Aug! Oh, and I had been working on it for a while, up to March, and then I needed to add what I had done since then, and it was so easy to update that! I am just thrilled and as soon as it comes, I will have it to show off!!

Come and see for yourself!!

The cover has these 3 pictures on it with SIMPLIFY on it and our name- I tried to copy it for you, but it wouldn't allow me- so this is the best I can do. The back has black and white pictures of Dana and I on it- it is going to be so great!!