Finally finished!

I've been seriously slacking on my blogging lately but it's had to take a bit of the back seat for the past few months while I've been working on my family slideshow for 2010. I've actually been working on several slideshows the past few months. A slideshow doesn't take all that long to compile, but it's the countless hours of watching it over and over again as I tweak it to perfection. It probably shouldn't take me so long, but I want it to be absolutely perfect in every way. Even after watching it dozens of times, sometimes something will pop out at me even though I've seen it so much. I truly spend hours carefully scrutinizing every aspect so that I make sure everything is 99.9% perfect in the end. (I would say 100% perfect, but I don't think this is attainable since I'm sure there's something that could be better. I can settle for 99.9%!)

I started doing slideshows for the first time last year. I recently went back and watched last year's slideshow and I could tell a definite improvement in my work because I was noticing things right and left that wouldn't be acceptable anymore! It just made me smile because last year I thought my slideshow was pretty much perfect, but now that I watch it with another year of experience under my belt, and I see how far I've come!

The slideshow is 31 minutes long. I tried really hard to keep it short, but that's a tall order when I have so many good photographs to choose from. I don't know the exact number of pictures I had to work with this year, but I would say I probably had at least 3000 pictures to sift through. It's really hard to narrow the pictures down, too, since so many of them are good and have a story behind them. This year's slideshow has 854 pictures in it, 13 video clips and nine songs. I can't wait for my family to watch it, and I'm just glad that so many of us will be celebrating Christmas here at my mom's house so that we can all watch it together.

Hooray for documenting my life – it's seriously like a full-time job. I get on my computer almost every day of the week depending on what's going on, and I stay on it all day. I almost always get back on my computer after I'm back in bed for the night. I'd say I'm on my computer a good eight to 10 hours a day. Although I'm disabled, I definitely have a busy and productive life and I feel so blessed that I can spend my days doing something I love.

Channie turns 22

My younger sister Chandra turned 22 today. My mom, my sisters Kristin and Laura and I celebrated by taking Chandra out to lunch this morning. We went to Red Lobster. I can't remember the last time I've been there (it's been at least seven years since I haven't been there since my accident). We got there right as the restaurant was opening, so it wasn't busy at all, which is just the way I like it! We had a fun time together and it was nice to have four of the seven sisters in my family together. (Plus Mom!)

Chandra is going out with her friends tonight, so we had her family birthday dinner last night. We had chicken enchiladas and my sister Kristin made her a three layer chocolate truffle cake with a bittersweet chocolate filling between the three layers and a chocolate ganache on the top and sides. Here are a few pictures from last night:

Jared turns three

My nephew Jared turned three on December 9, but we waited to celebrate his birthday until yesterday since his dad was out of town interviewing for a job. It's a good thing he's not any older, because waiting an extra day to celebrate your birthday is tough when you are young! Jared loves music and he wanted a piano for his birthday, so that's where he got! (Last year he got a guitar for his birthday, and little does he know, he's getting a drum set for Christmas.) Anyway, it was so cute to see him sitting on his tiny stool playing his little piano! His brothers also love his piano, especially Aaron who is almost 11 months old. It's precious to watch him sit on the stool and play on the piano!

For dinner we had pizza from Pizza Hut and an awesome chocolate cake made by my sister Kristin, of course! It was such a fun day and I'm so grateful that Kristin's family was around so that I could be a part of Jared's birthday.

Here are some pictures from the celebration:

Movie #23

This morning my family and I went to the movies to see Tangled. I'm usually not a huge fan of animated movies, so I almost always wait for them to come out on DVD before I see them, but my sister Kristin thought it would be fun to take her whole family to the movies to help celebrate my nephew Jared's third birthday.

The movie was so good and I really loved it! I don't think there have been too many Disney movies that have come out in the past 10 to 15 years that are on the same par as the classics like Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, etc., but I thought Tangled was fantastic! It definitely gets a double thumbs up from me!

By far the best part of the movie experience today was looking over at my nephews and seeing/hearing them laugh during the movie. That sort of thing is priceless to me!

Life has been crazy lately, so I haven't been able to see as many movies as I would like, but now I'm just two more away from meeting my goal!

Tis the season

This past weekend my sister Kristin made more of her holiday cupcakes. (She has several different cupcakes for different holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) Over the past several years she's e-mailed me in-depth descriptions of her different cupcakes and treats, but now it's finally nice to be able to see them in person and taste them! She makes the best chocolate cake (that's what the cupcake is made out of) and it's so fun to eat them when they are decorated so cutely!

Here are some pictures of Kristin's snowman cupcakes: This is another festive dessert that Kristin recently made for my book club treat.It's a holiday peppermint cheesecake with a bittersweet chocolate ganache on top. It was amazing! The bittersweet chocolate complemented the peppermint cheesecake really well. Kristin always goes above and beyond to make her desserts visually pleasing as well as palette pleasing and cutting a piece and putting it on a plate is never enough for her! This time Kristin made little white chocolate snowflakes to put in the dollop of cool whip frosting on top of the cheesecake and finished it off by sprinkling some peppermint baking bits on top. It truly was a masterpiece and looked too good to eat, but I still managed, as hard as it was! :)