Extreme Violining: Year 15 (And a Winner!)

I have a winner for the mymemories.com software giveaway! Sorry it's late- I've moved into my parents' house for the week and am computerless. Well, except for my trusty phone, which I'm learning is super annoying to write a blog post on.

Anyway, the winner as chosen by random.org is commenter #11- Shar! Shar, send me an email and I'll let you know what you need to do.

So this week, we're once again at our favorite violin institute. For the uninitiated, it's basically an intense week-long violin camp. Today I think Abby clocked roughly 6 hours of playing, and then another 1.5 of practice outside of her classes. It's a long week. Add to that major jet lag, a vacation hangover, and a baby whose sleep schedule has been shot all to Hell, and you get the recipe for what we had today: epic meltdowns from all three kiddos. (And no, I didn't miscount, Ashlynn was lucky enough to escape the madness this year and stay home with Dad.)

In all fairness, we love our institute. Abby is more driven than she's ever been before, and is having a ball. I'm trying to keep the baby happy, and chatting it up with all my violin friends. Max is hanging in the day care, and Ian is convinced that he can't possibly sleep more than two hours in a shot. I figured out today that this is my 15th or 16th year at ISSI, and while it's a lot of work, it's also an amazing experience for her and for me.

And I do have Hawaii pics. And I know you all want to see them and hear about how the Celestial Kingdom has been hiding on Maui all this time. But all I have is an iPhone, and I'm pretty convinced I couldn't find a power cord to my camera if I tried, so you'll just have to wait.

In the meantime, listen to about 367 versions of Twinkle and then you can feel like you're right her with me!

A confession and a GIVEAWAY!!!

OK folks, I have a confession to make.

Are you ready?

I'm a Mormon Mommy Blogger

AND

I don't scrapbook.

I know.  I can hear the gasps from here.  It's practically written into my religion isn't it?  Every good Mormon mom must make funeral potatoes, have big hair, and scrapboook.

I've just never gotten into it.

Don't get me wrong.  I think scrapbooks are awesome.  I love looking at the layouts other people do, and admiring the creativity and hours of painstaking work that must have gone into every page.  My sister does amazing scrapbooks, and I've often joked that I would hire her in a heartbeat to put ours together.  Problem is, I don't know that I actually have that kind of money!

BUT.

I had a chance to review an awesome digital scrapbook program.  Now this, this is something I could really get into.  Sitting at the computer?  Check.  Pressing a button to choose all the cute page layouts, decorations, fonts, and none of it involving scissors or whatever that fancy little paper-cutting machine is called?  Check.  Idiot proof?  Hey, if I can make it work, anyone can.

So check this out.  Within an hour of downloading the program for their site, (which was incredibly easy,) I was creating scrapbook pages.  They have album after album of layouts you can choose, and everything you could ask for was at the click of the mouse.

Now, being as I'm a scrapbooking novice, to be honest, I didn't know what half the buttons and options were for.  But that's what makes this program great- if I can use it, then certainly anyone can, whether you have a lot or no experience!  The bonus is, if I made a mistake or it was something I didn't like, I just clicked the little "undo" arrow- there was no re-cutting, re-gluing, or saying naughty words and throwing the ruined page in the trash.  In fact, I'm really excited to put my girls in front of it and see what they can do.  Maybe they should make their own baby books!

Here's the fun part:  I get to give a copy of this away, totally free!  (And it's my first ever giveaway, so I'm super excited!)  It's a digital download, so you'll be creating in no time.  Here's the rules:  (you could probably all recite them by now!)

**One entry for hopping on over to mymemories.com and telling me what your favorite was.

**A second entry for following me.  (Gotta stroke my ego somehow!)  Let me know if you already do- that counts too!

That's it folks.  That's all there is to it!  Contest will run until next Monday, June 13th, at 9 pm or whenever I manage to get on the computer.

OH!  And the folks at mymemories.com are giving a $10 discount if you order the software with this coupon code: STMMMS32773.  Go check it out.  I promise its cool.

And with that, I'm boarding a plane with my husband and baby son, who is too little to leave, (I don't have anyone who loves me enough to keep a 6 month old exclusively breastfeeding baby for a week.  I can't blame them!) for a week in Hawaii.  Here's the best part: because it's a working trip for my husband, everything, including my airfare is free! And, he works in "destination management" which means we're going to be staying in five star resort hotels.  I may never come home.  Whee!

Disclosure: While I was given a free copy of the software to review, all the opinions are mine.