The Worn Out Word

Here is a question from Sarah:
"What is a good idea for old/worn out scriptures? Scott and I both have a set or two that we just don't know what to do with. We thought of giving them to investigators, but one set is too worn for that to be a good idea. I thought of saving one for Emma, but that's quite a few years away before she starts to need them, and she probably wants her own set with her name. Anyway, I'm at a loss, since I doubt a Used bookstore would take them, or the library (my fail-safes for other books)."

The Paper Problem

I recently ran across this article about what to do with children's artwork and projects. It had some great ideas so I thought I'd do a post about it.
Here is what we did this year at our house. I put all of Tyson's stuff from preschool, storytime, church, etc. in a box and kept it over the course of the school year. In June we got the box down and took a couple of hundred pictures of him with all of his projects. (It's digital-they are free!) Then, he helped me take most things to the trash. We saved a few of the favorites and put them in a binder. He was totally okay with it once I explained that we don't have room to keep everything and he will be able to look at it all whenever he wants in the pictures. Eventually I plan to make a photo book out of the pictures.

Here is a picture of something my sister has done. She has an unfinished basement so she just wallpapered her walls with artwork. She also keeps the favorites in notebooks, though.
Here are a few more ideas my sister gave me:
Magnetic paint: An easy way to hang up and display artwork.
Ikea has a bunch of cool magnet strips you could hang on the wall for displaying artwork. This one http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30117169 is only $0.99!
Scan artwork and just keep it in a file on the computer. Make photo books of the best pieces every so often.

Any more ideas out there? What do you do to manage the TONS of papers your kids bring home?

Videos on the Blog

From Rachel:
"I am having a dickens of a time getting a video posted on my blog. Basic question, how do you do it?

Here's what I've gone through already... I learned how to convert my .mod files to .avi since blogger only accepts certain kinds. I've edited my video to less than 100MB since that's the limit blogger accepts. I've tried uploading it to blogger by clicking on "new post" and the video link. For about 3 hours, it says the video will appear when its complete, but it never happens. I have no idea what the deal is!!!

Any blog video geniuses out there?"

Move It or Lose It

If you know me well, you know that I have the tendency to stress out and worry about a lot of things. You want to know what the current worry is? MOVING!!! I have moved before-several times, in fact. But never across the WHOLE ENTIRE COUNTRY! Its not quite a coast to coast move, but pretty dang close. When we were first married we moved across town several times. Back then I would just put all my dishes in a laundry basket and drive really carefully to my new house. No kidding. Then when we moved to Portland, Derek's company packed us and moved our stuff here. It really spoiled me. Now I'm getting ready to move in a few weeks and I want your help! No, you don't have to load my dresser on a moving truck. I just need your tips and advice. I know lots of you have moved many, many times. What do you know that I don't know? Besides the obvious (boxes and tape) what do I need to get? Anything that makes the process any easier or more efficient? Oh, and I'm fully aware that there is a good chance I'm worrying over nothing. Its not rocket science right? You put stuff in boxes and put it on a truck. But just in case. I have to ask.

Friday's Faves-Great Books

For today's favorite I thought "books" would be a great topic. I love books-self help, fiction, non-fiction. You name it. I don't know if this is my favorite book, necessarily, but it is a great book. "Catch a Fish, Throw a Ball, Fly a Kite: 21 Timeless Skills Every Child Should Know (and any parent can teach!)" by Jeffrey Lee.
I think the long title pretty much explains what the book is about.
If you are interested you can buy it used on Amazon for 1 cent (plus shipping)!
So what is your favorite book that is in your shelf? It can be any kind of book just one that you love. Please share! I don't want to miss out on the great reads out there.

Just Go to Sleep Already!

No, this post is not about my children, its about my computer.
Anybody out there that is computer savvy know why my computer refuses to go on standby or hibernate? I have windows XP and I go to "power options" on the control panel and pick the "energy star" option. It is supposed to go on standby after 20 minutes and hibernate after 1 hour. "Enable Hibernation" is clicked and I have enough disk space. Even when I go to the start button, click "turn of computer" and click "standby" it does not work. It goes to standby for about 1 second before it just comes back on again. I hate listening to it running all day and I hate knowing I'm wasting all that power. Any ideas?

Can't find a cute one? Make Your Own!

A lot of people have asked me how to build custom backgrounds on blogs. Now, I would type all the directions here but my friend Jessica has already done it on her super cute blog! Check out the link to the post on her blog.
http://jessicabills.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-make-cute-background.html
You do have to have some kind of photo editing software (like Photoshop Elements-Costco has a $30 off coupon right now for Elements 7.0) and a web album (like Photobucket or Picasa Web Albums). And you might want to check out my post here for a huge list of places you can go to download the different elements you might need to make your blog super cute too. Have fun!

Tired of Titanic?

Anyone sick of their old movies, video games, books, and CD's? Instead of giving them away or trying to sell them for next to nothing-trade them! My friend told me about the site Swaptree that will help you out with this. I already tried it with some Wii games and it worked splendidly. What you do is sign up for an account and then you start making two lists; things you want and things you have. Then Swaptree will search all the other user's lists and see if they can find a trade for you. They will email you if they find a trade and you can decide to accept or reject the trade. If you accept it, you just mail the item to the address they give you and wait for your item to arrive!

Hummingbird Feeders

From Jennifer:

"We love having a hummingbird feeder hanging in front of our windows. We didn't even know there were hummingbirds in Texas until one flew right into my husbands office window, and died! We've bought numerous feeders since (they don't seem to last long,) and I've noticed they don't print a recipe with the feeders anymore, so I thought I'd share one we use. It's easy!

4 parts water (4 cups)
1 part sugar (1 cup)
2 drops red food coloring
dissolve the sugar in 2 cups hot water, add 2 cups cold water, let cool, add food coloring and pour into feeder.

We see them everyday now! Happy Bird Watching!"

Head Lice, Dead Lice

Here's a tip I just got from Jennifer that I'm praying I never have to use! Thanks Jennifer!

"WARNING, This will leave your scratching your head.

I hate to admit it, but recently we had some unwelcomed visitors, hair visitors. My oldest came to me and told me her head itched, so I check and saw nothing. We’ve had lice once before and I knew where to look, behind the ears, the top of the head, and the nap of the neck. Two days later I found them. Yes them, there was a whole city in there, AT THE FRONT of her hair.

It was one hour before church and my husband ran to Wal-Mart to get some shampoo and I took the other two to church. When I got home, he was nitpicking (way to go honey). He had to go to a meeting so I took over and 8 hours, yes a full 8 hours later I finished. Her hair is to BLOOMIN’ thick. Thankfully no one else had it, but that didn’t stop me from bagging up all the pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, etc in the house for a few months (usually a few weeks is fine, but I had to make sure).

I could tell the shampoo wasn’t going to cut it as I was pulling live ones out that I swear were hatching as I pulled. The last time we got it I found a book in the Salt Lake County Library system (best library system EVER) called "Head Lice, Dead Lice" it is a fascinating book about lice. It suggested a olive oil treatment that can also be done to get rid of lice since the shampoo’s often don’t work alone. Well, I couldn’t find the book but I did find this similar (if not the same) olive oil schedule online. http://www.mindspring.com/~options3@mindspring.com/lice.pdf
It is messy so I used old sheets and towels. I washed everyone’s linen EVERYDAY. My washer ran non stop for 1 week. I nit-picked every day. After three days, I never saw anything again but followed the olive oil treatments until the end. Because I did the shampoo too, I only did olive oil on days 2, 3, , 17, 21 with days 1 and 9 lice shampoo.
It’s one of those things you really don’t care to learn about UNTIL IT HAPPENS TO YOU. It may be a LITTLE bit overboard, but it's worked for me twice so why cut corners? Since school just got out, you may want to check."