Apparently, I am not meant to have a free photobook.  Last weekend, Inkubook was giving away free photobooks to readers of Simple Mom. So, I upload all the photos and patiently waited…and waited…and waited…

The program froze on me.  I got tired of waiting and just left it be, not wanting to try again and waste my time.  Plus, I knew that I still had a free book from Snapfish thanks to Oprah.

So, tonight I realized was the last day to take advantage of the Snapfish offer and I got to it. I just spent the last two-three hours carefully choosing the right photos (sorting through HUNDREDS).  I’d gotten through 10 pages of designing my book…and see that the credit isn’t in my account anymore.  WHAT?! I just wasted MORE of my time for nothing?  I’m not about to pay that huge chunk of money they now want me to pay. And? Even if I did want to order it? It’s now gone into the world of cyber space, never to be seen again. Even thought I hit ’save.’

GAH, I’m ticked. Stop wasting my time photobook sites!

The blog is back up and working correctly, hallejueah!  Can I tell you how frustrating it is to wake up to a broken blog and have 3 companies and many (many) support people tell me nothing useful what so ever?  Some even told me my blog looked absolutely fine! Finally a guy at Cpanel told me something to try and it worked. Turns out it was something very minor and very easy to fix, thank goodness. Who would have thought something so little could affect all my blogs? Oy. I’m glad that stress if over.

Anyways, what’s new around here? Well, Savannah is obsessed with:

-Baby Dolls

-Listening/Watching “That’s How You Know” from Enchanted. (Over, and over, and over…)

-Anything with princesses

-Slides

-Shoes

-Thomas the Tank Engine (Gotta throw off all the girly stuff, ya know)

Prime example:

She is quite fun these days. I really think this age is a God-given in between resting stage between the tough infant year and the “terrible two’s” that will be arriving soon. Right now? She is a breathe of fresh air. Sleeping well, napping well, eating, makes up cute songs and games, laughs and smiles pretty much constantly, amazing us with all the words she is picking up.  Oh man, I love her. She is one wonderful little girl and right now she makes parenting look easy.  Thank you, God.

I mean, who couldn’t love and adore this little girl in all her girly ways?

See, back in August I was super stoked to find out that I won a blog makeover…for free! I’ve always wanted a personalized blog look, not just a layout that I adapt myself, as I have here now, with easy changes like headers and link colors.  You see, this blog isn’t just a blog to me, it’s my cyber home.  It’s my personal newspaper, my memory book, my photography portfolio, my digital scrapbooking page, my personal social network to meet other cool people.  And so, this blog deserves more than just a white canvas with outdated pictures of our family (from WAY over a year ago!), it deserves to express who I am as a person and what this blog stands for.

But, alas, the free prize fell through some how. The designer kept pushing back getting things done and eventually just stopped emailing me all together with design ideas and productivity. I’m sad and mad and just totally bummed.  But, I thought, “Hey! I’m good at learning things and good with designing things so let’s stretch myself and try to do what I want myself.”  And, it started out well. I got a beautiful header (thanks to the help of Little Dreamer Designs) and got it in place of the layout I chose.  But…things have ended sourly and I’m stuck.  The background image is HUGE, I can’t get the sidebars to change correctly to show my matching sidebar images, I can’t get the white space to disappear behind the header, etc. The list goes on and I’m done. Frustrated. See my bad work here (thank goodness it’s just my sample blog!).

I would totally pay some one to do it, but it’s just not in our ‘2 college student and a toddler’ budget right now (Most designs run over $60! I’ve even seen into the hundreds! Crazy).  And so, what I need help with is this: Either you (or some one you can refer me to) use your nifty blog skills to help me figure out this mess to make it look good. Or, out of the kindness of your blog designing heart, create my dream layout for me (what I have started is NOT it, just something I could live with).

Please? Help? Referrals? Any kindness in those hearts?

New review post up at O Momma Reviews!

We got a “Wee Songs” tape (yes a TAPE, HA!) because it was a $1.00. And let me just say…I wanted to plug up my ears and then throw the tape out the flippin’ window. It was horrible. The songs were awful, the sound quality was terrible. Thank God for CD’s…and better music options.

I’ve been searching around for better kid’s music for in the car (or ya…when we just wanna dance around!) and so far the one I know about and LOVE is Laurie Berkner. She’s on the Noggin channel between shows and on “Jack’s Big Music Show.” If you go to that website you can see some of the fun videos they play. I also saw Lisa Loeb on that show and I think I’ll download some of her kid songs, too. And how awesome that she is doing kid music now? I used to love her stuff on the radio in the 90’s! (”You can’t hear it, but I dooo…”)

So…do you have any more suggestions for me that won’t hurt my ears?

Introducing…

O Momma Reviews! BlogHer Ads is starting a new paid review program and I desperately wanted to be apart of that. So, a new blog was quickly in the works yesterday and here it is! Things are still getting adjusted how I want it, but for the most part it’s ready for viewing.  I’ve moved (copied, really) my past unpaid reviews from here to the new review blog and all the new reviews will be done over there, obviously. Of course, I’ll give you guys a heads up when something is posted over there.

Following the lead of Live,Laugh,Blog I joined Technorati:

Technorati Profile

Consider my blog claimed.

This is just a quick note to say 1) I’m still alive 2) I’m super-de-duper busy between final exams/papers/projects, Savannah Banana (who is finally feeling better from her ear infections) and visiting friends one last time before they go to Africa for the summer 3)  Yes, I said uber up there in the title. Cause it speaks at how busy I am. And cause I’m cool like that. Maybe.

On top of the stress, there is more stress as my car and lap top are falling apart on me and therefore are now eating into our budget like cookie-monster gobbles up his cookies. Now is really not a good time to fall apart, ok technology? I think I have a cursed touch or something. Or, they’re just getting too old. Either one.

Any way. Hi and Bye. I’ll be back after Thursday with the world’s weight off my shoulders (well, almost cause I won’t have a new car or laptop). Man, that’ll feel good.

A quick note:

I braved another restaurant meal today with the Diva-Child.  Things went well.  Thank goodness for naps, motrin, lots of food, a window seat and fruit (the girl loves fruit!).

And, we visited with Kaylee today.  Savannah is extremely jealous if Kaylee is touching me (sitting in my lap, snuggling, etc.). What in the world will she do if/when we have another baby?  I beat her brother at Mario Cart twice, I tried to tell him it’s my favorite game but he didn’t listen! Then, he wanted to be the charcter I was (Peach) to try to win, but I told him,”It’s not about the character, it’s the person playing!” Meaning, I’m just that good!

Life is good again. Goodnight, folks.

(P.S. Do you realized that the Nintendo 64 is at least 12 years old?!  That makes me, this 20 year old, feel old.)

It’s some one’s birthday today! Mark is officially the big 21. Not that that means much since we don’t really drink, but still, another wonderful year has gone by that I’m so glad to have shared with him. Here’s to hoping this next year is even better as we inch closer to his college graduation!

We’ve got a date night planned to celebrate. Now is a good time to use our Texas Road House gift certificate from Christmas, don’t you think? Some ribs sounds mighty yummy right now.

And, can I tell you how much I love Adobe Photoshop? I pull out some digital scrapbooking stuff, download some new fonts, say what I want to say, and wa-la! A custom card equipped with his favorite color (orange), an original orange cupcake and even a kid-like font for Savannah’s name. Sweet!

What I have here is the front and inside of his card, I just print them on photo paper and paste onto some blank cards I have. It’s so simple and I love that I can do whatever I want to do with it…and I don’t have to leave my house to buy it!