I spent hours last night trying to get a slideshow element to work properly from Photobucket. I gave up. Today, I downloaded all of my pictures to my NEW MacBook (Thank you, Matty!), clicked a button in iPhoto, and made a beautiful online gallery. Well, I made three online galleries, for artwork, cards and scrapbooking. Use the link on the right to check them out! .Mac may not be free, but after last night, I can honestly say that it's worth every penny! I love Mac.

I'm actually caught up with the Christmas album, but not the scanning. Today It really felt like the holidays. With all of the sickness over the last month, we really haven't done any baking, or trips to the city to see the decorations; all the little things that make the holidays feel special. Well today, John John came over for breakfast before the Raider game, and after the boys left, the kids and I headed over to the bookstore for books for the kindergarten exchange and hot chocolate in the cafe. We spent a good two hours there, then came home for a little baking session. John brought presents for the kids, and while I was turing on the Christmas lights and Matt was outside saying goodbye, the kids decided to open them! I didn't mind though. Christmas morning is so overwhelming, I think they were more appreciative of the gifts having opened them early, so they could play with just those gifts tonight. While they loved the toys, nothing really can beat a cardboard box, so they finished off the evening back in their "space shuttle" and taking space walks through the living room. As Madeline said before bed tonight, "We had a really fun day."

I actually got in a challenge this week (can you tell I'm proud of myself?). Actually, this is a combination of the 4x4 Friday Mona Lisa challenge and the Created by Hand Tuesday collage challenge. The background stamp is from Stampington, and the text is Quietfire. The scan came out a little funky, but the background is from a technique I learned friom Tim Holt's 12 Days of Christmas Tags. I stayed up until 1 am last night playing with six of his techniques, until Max woke up and wouldn't go back to bed unless I went with him. Since it's almost one now, I should probably sign off.

Challenge links: Created By Hand http://createdbyhandchallenge.wordpress.com/
4x4 Friday http://4x4friday.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/127-mona-lisa/

Oaky, I completely stole this idea from Ali Edwards (hail to the guru), but it gave me a great excuse to try my new Zutter Bind It All. It's a 6x6 made from my favorite Christmas line from Cosmo Cricket, some old chipboard dividers, and a Hambly overlay. I admit, I'm a day behind, but I should get caught up tonight while the kids are watching Frosty.