4 hours ago
For our ugly sweater/gender reveal party, Derek and I painstakingly came up with a bunch of different Christmas trivia questions and tasks. I tell you, it took us forever! We wanted to include questions that had to do with the nativity story, Christmas songs, and Christmas movies, and then we had to figure out good "easy", "medium", and "hard" questions.
It's tricky trying to come up with questions of varying difficulty that aren't too easy or too hard! Personally, I think our easy questions were too easy, but a lot of the difficult questions I wanted to include would have been too hard, so I'm probably not the best judge. It's a good thing I had Derek there to help me, because I was surprised at how many people had a hard time with questions that I thought were fairly easy! I'm glad Derek was there to rein me in.
We also had such a wide range of guests, in age and Christmas knowledge. I knew some people would probably know the answers to every question, and some might not know the answers to any! So this list ranges a lot in difficulty, but that's because it was tailored specifically to our guest list. If you are trying to come up with Christmas trivia for one of your parties, you'll probably have to tailor the questions to what kind of people will be at your party!
In the end I think we could have made every category one step harder. Many people picked from the "medium" or "hard" categories, so the "easy" category was rather neglected - if we upped the difficulty of each category a little I think each one would have had more equal use. But I'm glad we played it safe to start with, because I wanted people to have fun!
I'm posting them here just to give you ideas and inspiration for coming up with your own questions! These are the ones we came up with, starting with the easy ones and moving down to the harder ones. We kept all of the nativity story questions pretty easy because I didn't want those to be too hard to answer, regardless of category.
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Finish this song lyric: “Away in a manger, no _________.”
Answer: Crib for a bed.
Say the next line to this carol: “Joy to the world . . .”
Answer: The Lord has come.
Fill in the blanks to this song:“__________ night, ______ night, all is _________, all is ___________.”
Answer: "Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright".
Say the next line to this carol: “Hark the harold angels sing . . .”
Answer: Glory to the newborn king.
Name your favorite Christmas song.
Answer: Any answer will do.
(We just decided to throw a couple "gimme" questions in there to encourage people to play!)
What was the name of Jesus’s mom?
Answer: Mary.
What was the name of Jesus’s (earthly) dad?
Answer: Joseph.
The wise men followed a _________ to baby Jesus.
Answer: Star.
Finish this movie title: “Miracle On ________ Street”.
Answer: Miracle On 34th Street.
What Christmas movie is this quote from? “From now on we won’t let Rudolph join in any reindeer games.”
Answer: Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Finish this Christmas movie title: “It’s A ___________ Life”.
Answer: It's a Wonderful Life.
What was the main character’s name in Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”?
Answer: Ebenezer Scrooge.
What color is the Grinch?
Answer: Green.
Draw a Christmas tree.
Give me your best Grinch face.
Say the next line to this carol: “The first Noel . . .”
Answer: The angels did say.
Which Christmas song is this line from? “Until the other kiddies knock him down.”
Answer: "Walking In A Winter Wonderland".
(You'd be surprised at how many people had to think about this one! I guess it's easy for me since I came up with the question.)
Name a popular Christmas orchestra.
Answer: Mannhein Steamroller or Trans Siberian Orchestra.
Say the next line to this song: “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas . . .”
Answer: Only a hippopotamus will do.
What are the three gifts the wise men brought to baby Jesus?
Answer: Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Finish the sentence: “There was no room for Mary and Joseph in the _____.”
Answer: Inn.
Finish this sentence: "They laid baby Jesus in a ________.”
Answer: Manger.
In the movie “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer”, Rudolph and Hermie run from the _____________.” (Hint: Large, white, monster-ish creature).
Answer: The Abominable Snowman.
In what Christmas movie is there a pink bunny suit?
Answer: A Christmas Story.
Go out the downstairs door, grab a handful of snow, bring it back, and put it in the sink.
Using the paper and scissors, cut out a snowflake.
Give me your best Frosty The Snowman impression.
Which Christmas song is this line from: “You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel.”
Answer: "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch".
Do your best impression of a Christmas tree in the wind.
Do your best impression of an ornament falling off a tree.
What Christmas movie is this line from: “Don’t you touch that! You were always jealous of that lamp!”
Answer: A Christmas Story.
Stand in front of the fireplace and sing the first line of any Christmas song.
Which Christmas carol does this line come from? “All seem to say, throw cares away.”
Answer: "Carol Of The Bells".
(This is the one question that I am unsure if I would have known the answer if I hadn't written it myself.)
Attempt to sing the next line to this carol: “Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad Feliz Navidad . . .”
Answer: Prospero ano y felicidad.
(Our guests mostly do not speak Spanish, so they just had to attempt to sing it!)
What Christmas song is this line from:“Mom says a hippo would eat me up, but then, Teacher says a hippo is a vegetarian.”
Answer: "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas".
What is a Christmas tree called in German? (Hint: “O ________”)
Answer: Tannenbaum.
Finish this sentence: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and . . .”
Answer: Goodwill to men.
Who were the first people to see baby Jesus (besides Mary and Joseph)?
Answer: The shephards.
Who did Mary go to visit while she was pregnant?
Answer: Elizabeth, her cousin.
Which Christmas movie is this line from? “The best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear.”
Answer: Elf.
Which movie is this quote from? “Look Daddy! Teacher says every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings!”
Answer: It's A Wonderful Life.
What is the little girl’s name in the Christmas cartoon “How the Grinch Stole Christmas?”
Answer: Cindy Lou Who.
Neil, who always wears ugly sweaters, is a character in what Christmas movie?
Answer: The Santa Clause.
Put the red construction paper on your nose, stand in front of the fireplace, say in a loud voice “She thinks I’m Cuuuuuuuute!”
and leap at least once.
(Derek and I were absolutely cracking up when we wrote this one! If you haven't seen "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer", the old clay-nation version, you might not get it, but we thought it was hilarious!)
Step into the snow barefoot, and stay there for 3 seconds.
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(These are the snowflakes and Christmas drawings that some of our guests completed when they drew the slips of paper with those tasks. We decided to hang them up and display them, right under our ultrasound pictures since it was a combination Christmas/gender reveal party!)
So that's what we came up with. Brownie points for you if you think you could have answered them all! I think I could have gotten almost all of them if I hadn't known the answers beforehand, but everyone in my family are Christmas aficionados. And I totally would have done all the tasks (except the singing one might have been a little intimidating, but that was the point).
What do you think - were the questions super-easy to you, or difficult? Comment below! I need this information in case I ever need to come up with more Christmas trivia again!
Since finding out the baby's gender fell right at Christmas season this time around, we decided to do an Ugly Sweater/Gender Reveal party!
We asked everyone to wear an ugly or crazy Christmas sweater, and also to bring a wrapped ornament as part of a gift exchange/gender reveal.
For food we did Christmas cookies (including Snowdrop cookies - you can find the recipe here), Christmas punch, jello popcorn, and other snack foods. I wanted to keep it easy for myself this time, so sticking with snacks helped since I didn't have to get a whole meal ready.
When the guests arrived we had them decorate either a red sweater or green sweater name tag according to whether they thought the baby was a boy or girl. I had little sticky pins so that they could pin the tags to their sweaters!
Instead of doing individual gender reveal party games this time, Derek came up with a great idea that kind of made the whole party a game!
When guests arrived we confiscated their wrapped ornaments in a black bag so that no one would know who brought what. Then we had each person take a cup of Hershey's kisses (we did candy cane kisses, mint truffle kisses, and cherry cordial kisses, just because they were so Christmas-y). Each cup had seven Hershey's kisses each.
We explained that we were going to hold an ornament auction with all the wrapped ornaments everyone brought, except there would be one extra package that would contain the answer to the gender of our baby! They would use the kisses to bid on the package they wanted. One person would be allowed to win two packages (since there would be one extra).
Derek and I came up with a variety of different Christmas-related trivia and tasks. I printed them up on Christmas-y paper, and we divided them into three categories based on difficulty.
We also threw in a couple questions that had to do with Baby #3 - easy ones, like "Tell us what you think Baby #3 is and why," and "Look at the ultrasound pictures and tell us who you think Baby #3 looks like." It was a gender reveal party after all! It was fun to hear what everyone thought.
If the guests wanted to they could "gamble" some of their kisses to try to win more for the auction. Easy questions were worth one kiss, medium questions were worth two, and hard were worth three. If they got the question right or completed the task, they would win the appropriate number of kisses! If they got it wrong or didn't complete the task, they had to give up that number of kisses.
I wasn't sure how many people would want to gamble their Hershey's kisses, but we ended up having to form a line because so many people wanted a chance to win more! Either Derek or I manned the table, and we were there the entire time. Finally we had to cut it off because everyone just kept coming! I was glad there were two of us to tag-team it, because then at least one of us could be socializing and enjoying the party as well.
We also had a voting station for people to got for their favorite ugly sweater - one guy sweater vote, and one girl sweater vote. I printed the ballots up on fun Christmas paper. At the end we had a prize for each of the winners - "ugly sweater" s'mores snowman ornaments!
Finally it was time for the auction! We set out all the ornament packages and let people take a look at them so they knew which ones they wanted to bid on.
Then Derek played auctioneer (he actually has really good auctioneer skills) and we auctioned each ornament off one by one! I was surprised at how many kisses some people had gathered. The "winning" package that we snuck in, a red box with a red ribbon, went for 19 kisses, I think.
Once all the packages were gone, we had everyone open them at once! My cousin unknowingly won the gender reveal package. Inside, I had another ugly sweater ornament, but I wrapped it up in a baby sweater that announced the gender . . .
And it's a BOY!
We had a lot of fun with it! It was different than our other gender reveal parties, but I thought it was unique to make the whole party a game! Kuddos to my hubby, he always has such great ideas!
I'll post some of the trivia we used and more pictures of the party soon, so stay tuned!
P.S. In case you are curious, the results of my boy/girl blog poll were:
Girl - 67%
Boy - 33%
I was surprised at how many of you thought it was a girl! Definitely a significant majority (which I guess is good for those of you who voted boy - ups your chances of winning!).
I used a spreadsheet and Random.org to choose a winner and it was Rachel M! Who I actually know in real life too, so that's kind of fun. Rachel, I'll get your Starbucks card in the mail this week!
P.S. In case you are curious, the results of my boy/girl blog poll were:
Girl - 67%
Boy - 33%
I was surprised at how many of you thought it was a girl! Definitely a significant majority (which I guess is good for those of you who voted boy - ups your chances of winning!).
I used a spreadsheet and Random.org to choose a winner and it was Rachel M! Who I actually know in real life too, so that's kind of fun. Rachel, I'll get your Starbucks card in the mail this week!
Here is a peek at our gender reveal party invitations! We decided to combine it with an ugly sweater party this year since we get to find out at Christmastime - it should be a lot of fun!
To make the invitations:
1. I used some blank cards - brown paper served my purposes.
2. I took a basic t-shirt shape, traced it onto some scrapbook paper, and cut all the little "sweaters" out.
3. Then I got a big, thick needle and some colorful string and stitched around each sweater.
4. I used mode podge to glue each sweater to the paper, and I swept a layer of mode podge over the whole front of the card to seal it.
5. I designed the inside text using photoshop, then I had it printed on some semi-transparent paper.
6. I punched some holes in the cards tied the whole thing together with some red and white baker's twine!
I think they turned out pretty cute, and I'm really looking forward to our ugly sweater/gender reveal party! Full party recap (and gender announcement!) coming next week!
Today is Thanksgiving. A day when people all over the country take time to reflect on the things that they are thankful for. I love making lists of things we are thankful for on Thanksgiving, but I think it can be easy to focus so much on the things, especially material blessings, that we forget about Who gave us these things.
This day isn't about the turkey, or football games, or even spending time with family. This is a day to give thanks to God, not only for the blessings He has given us, but for who He is and what He has done. It should be a day not only of thanks, but also of praise - not just for listing blessings, but for reflecting and remembering what a great God we serve and thanking Him for everything that He is.
One of my favorite passages of Scripture around Thanksgiving and Christmas is Mary's song in Luke 1:47-55:
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel,
In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed forever.”
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel,
In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed forever.”
The lyrics of one of my favorite Christmas songs, Magnificat on Todd Agnew's Christmas CD, is based on this passage. You can listen to it here. I feel like it presents Mary's song so beautifully, but it resonates with me so much because of how it focuses on God and His work.
He has done great things for me, and for you. Even if you have nothing but the clothes on your back, this is true. We are entering into the Christmas season, when we celebrate the fact that He became a man, so he could die for us. So He could rise from the dead and save us. That is a great thing. It is the greatest thing.
God and who He is right at the top of my list, right along with this mighty thing that He has done for us. I'm so glad to serve such a strong, holy, and merciful God as this.
In case you missed it yesterday, I did end up changing my blog design! With this lovely rollover header/navbar. Cool, huh?
In the process of blog designing this time, I discovered a resource that I overlooked before - free photoshop brushes, patterns, and shapes! So for all of you who like to play with Photoshop Elements or do your own blog design, I thought I'd share where I got some of the tools for my current blog design, as well as some websites I've found with fun free resources.
One of the issues with getting "free" things on the internet (like photoshop stuff or fonts), is that it may only be free for personal use. If you advertise on your blog at all (which I do), you have to use items that are free for commercial use. It makes it more challenging to find what you are looking for, but not impossible!
As of this writing, the following resources are free for commercial use! But read the license before you download to make sure, in case something changes.
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Free (for commercial use) Photoshop animal shapes - I used this set of free animal shapes for the deer, bird, and moose in my rollover header images (I just used some of the shapes I already had for the other rollover shapes). It only comes as a jpg, but you can use the magic selector tool to select the shape, drag it into your new image, and then use the paint bucket tool to change it to whatever color you want!
Free (for commercial use) deer brushes - I downloaded these too and didn't end up using them this time around, but they are nice and free for commercial use! You can use brushes as shapes as well - just create a new layer (SHIFT-CTRL-N), put the brush on the new layer, and then you can use the paint bucket tool to change it's color, make it a gradient shape, and resize it using the free transform tool (CTRL-T).
Free (for commercial use) tree brushes - I was thinking about using these for the trees in the main part of my header, but I ended up making my own tree brush instead. But once again, more free brushes! Yay!
Free (for commercial use) snowflake brushes - I'm thinking about using these to spiff things up around here for Christmas, if I have time.
Free overlays and free "paint" brushes - I used one of the overlays in this set to create a pattern in Photoshop Elements to use behind the trees in my header (see this tutorial on re-coloring overlays). Then I used some of her other brushes to create another pattern, which I added behind the first pattern for more interest. I love this site because she has so many great Photoshop freebies! The ones that are free for commercial use are marked with a "CU". I also got the little arrow brushes that I used in the above image from here.
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And those are all the resources I used!
I found several more sites with photoshop resources that are free for commercial use in the midst of my search, which I might share at a later date. Or if you just can't wait, you can check out my bloggy Pinterest board, in which I pin all things blog, and you can find them there!
For installing shapes check out this tutorial, for installing brushes look here, for installing patterns see this.
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(These grasses are gone now, but they were really pretty while they were here last summer.)
I'm tempted to break out in a verse of "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do", but I haven't had a friendship "break up" since elementary school. Friendships don't usually end that way. In my experience, it's always been more of a slow fade.
I used to be the type to try to stop this as soon as I saw it start. I hate the thought of losing friends, drifting away from people, and I never wanted the fault to fall on me. If I saw it fading, I'd make sure I did everything I could to let the person know I still wanted to be friends. Sometimes the friendship died anyway, but it was never on my conscience. I never wanted to look back and wonder if I should have tried harder.
In recent years I've changed my mind about this a little bit though. Certainly there are a lot of friendships that are worth saving, or sometimes friendships just fade during certain life seasons only to come back later. But over the years I've started to learn that there are some friendships that I'm better off letting go.
This is really hard for me to do. It goes against my nature. I try really hard to be a good friend, and just letting someone go doesn't seem like it fits in with good friendship skills, but I've realized more and more that not everyone is like me. Some people don't care about being a good friend. Some people don't know how to be a good friend. Maybe they are busy with their own lives, maybe they never had good friendship skills modeled for them. Either way I've realized I can't be the only one who cares.
Recently I was struggling with this, wondering why certain friendships of mine over the years have ended or gone stale. I would go over everything that happened toward the end, trying to figure out if I said something or did something that might have offended the person. Wondering if I should have handled this or that better. Wondering if it was me who had dropped the ball.
Then a couple weeks ago a dear friend wrote me a note, out of the blue, just thanking me for always being there for her, for loving her through the tough spots and not judging her (which is ironic, because I've thought the same thing about her actions toward me over the years). It made me want to cry, because she couldn't even have known how much I needed to hear those words right then.
Shortly after I randomly turned the radio to a Christian station, and a speaker was talking about letting go of toxic friendships. The timing was interesting, and I somehow knew the Lord was trying to tell me something.
As I listened my eyes opened up, and I realized what kind of friends I really want. I want friends like the one I have who wrote me that note. I want friends who make me feel loved and accepted even with all my flaws. Friends who I know will be there for me through the tough times, friends who will forgive me when I make stupid mistakes, friends who will overlook the little things. Friends who not only love when I call or write to them, but who reciprocate and reach out to me too. You may not have talked to them for months, but you can get together again and feel like nothing has changed.
Those are the friends who stay. Those are the friends who are worth keeping. I have several friends like that - and what a blessing they are in my life! To have multiple women in my life that are these kind of friends to me - how can I ask for anything more than that? I am blessed.
On the other hand, friends that always make me wonder if I did something wrong, friends who don't call me back, friends who always seem to have an agenda, friends who are too busy (or just don't care enough) to make the effort to keep in touch - those friendships are exhausting. They aren't edifying, they suck the energy right out of me. They don't make me focus on God, they don't make me focus on things that are really important. If anything the constant effort and drama that they require distracts me from my walk with the Lord and from the good relationships in my life. I think this second type of friendship qualifies as toxic, and these are not the kind of friendships I want. They are the kind that need letting go.
The Lord showed me that sometimes it can be the right thing to do. When I accepted that, it turned out that letting go wasn't as hard as I thought.
Wyatt has two things he loves right now - anything related to transportation, and animals. But he's been especially interested in tractors, trucks, trains, planes, and cars for the past several months. Any mechanical thing that moves.
This week Wyatt and I opened up some new books that Teresa from Barefoot Books was kind enough to send us!
One of the books was "I Wish I Were A Pilot", which was a book with a ton of vehicles in it - airplanes, cars, ships, submarines - you name it. Wyatt loved looking at all the pictures and pointing out the things he knew, and there were a few things he didn't know! It was so fun to hear him say "submarine". I liked that it was a board book too, because he's less likely to tear the page when he "reads" by himself.
The other book Teresa sent us was called "Driving My Tractor". I thought this book was so fun, because not only were the pictures beautiful and the story perfect for a two year old, the book came with a music CD!
The lyrics on the CD are the same as the words in the book. Wyatt was too busy looking at the pictures in the book for us to listen to the CD the first time - we probably spent five minutes on each page. He was so excited about the tractor and animals and was exclaiming over everything! But I love that it comes with a CD! Wyatt also loves music, and I think it will be so fun to follow along with the song.
Gwen got in on the book action too!
Teresa was also so thoughtful and sent along a worksheet/craft idea that goes along with the book! I had no idea that Barefoot Books came along with activities! The website has activities to go along with many of the books! I think this will be a great resource for some fun home pre-school projects this year, and in homeschooling years to come.
The craft she sent me was a cut-out coloring sheet to make paper finger puppets, and she even sent along some popsicle sticks in case we didn't have any! So Wyatt and I sat down and colored the pages together. It was such a fun project for the two of us!
This one was a joint effort (see the green scribbles):
So was this one:
Ah, but this one was Wyatt's masterpiece! I think he was really trying to stay inside the lines (up to now he hasn't cared):
If you haven't checked out Barefoot Books, definitely visit their website - they have so many fun books. I think some of them will be great for future homeschooling lessons, and they have a lot of books that are just for fun and perfect for gifts! Be sure to order through Teresa Banner - I highly recommend working with her. She's so knowledgable about all the books that are available, and she is very thoughtful! Thanks again Teresa for the opportunity to review these great books!
Note: Teresa sent me these books for free in exchange for this review. This is my honest opinion!
When I was in grade school I loved reading Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer at the library. We didn't have any at home, and I just thought the illustrations and stories were so fun!
I was excited to learn that Thomas Nelson has come out with some new Little Critter books that have a biblically based message! They sent me "It's True" and "You Go First".
"It's True" is about Little Critter learning to tell the whole truth, because telling half-truths is the same as lying. In the end he corrects his lie and all the other kids forgive him for lying to them.
"You Go First" is a story about Little Criter always wanting to be the first to do everything, and he steps all over his friends to do it. His teacher tells him that we are supposed to treat others as we want to be treated, but Little Critter ignores her and learns his lesson when he rushes ahead of his friends and gets lost in the woods. He didn't exactly have a change of heart for the right reason in this book, but in the end he learned how to be a better friend, so I still liked it.
Both of the stories were cute, and as always the illustrations were colorful and fun! Wyatt loved looking at the pictures, and I like that these are good lesson books as well, and they will be good for training as he grows!
Note: I received this books for free from Thomas Nelson as part of their Tommy mommy program in exchange for this review. This is my honest opinion.
I had never thought much about the fonts that I use on this blog for my blog design and graphics. If I could get a font for free somewhere, I was just excited about it! I pinned all the images with cool font pairings and downloaded some of them to use in graphics for my posts. Who doesn't love a free cute font, right?
Then last week I read this post on font types at Pink Heels Pink Truck and I don't know why I never thought about it before, but obviously there are people who created these free fonts. And they may only want them to be used in a certain way.
Taylor does a great job of explaining the different font license types, so I won't re-do that here - please go read her post. But the bottom line is this:
If you advertise on your blog, you need to use fonts that are free for commercial use.
If are advertising on your blog and you have used fonts that are only marked free for personal use, then you need to purchase a commercial license.
Talk about a nightmare! Back when I created the majority of the graphics that are on my blog I was not advertising on my blog - so it was fine to use fonts that were free for personal use. But earlier this year I started advertising with Blogher and selling sidebar ads - so all those fonts that require a commercial license that I used in the past needed to be fixed!
I spent two long nights going back and changing all the fonts I could find on my blog that were not free for personal use, and purchasing a commercial license for a few of the ones I used heavily. Thankfully most of the ones I had used in the past were already either free for commercial use or the commercial license was pretty inexpensive - but I still had to change a lot of my graphics and it took forever!
You want to know the one that really hurt? I've been using a font called "Before The Rain" for the watermark on all my pictures for the last few years. I knew I was going to have to buy the commercial license for that one, because there is no way I could realistically go back and edit all those pictures with a new watermark. Well, the commercial license for "Before The Rain" cost $60! Yes, $60! Ouch. There goes all my ad profits for the last few months.
In the process of researching all my fonts, I found a website that has only fonts that are free for commercial use, called Font Squirrel. You can try to research the licensing information for every font you want to use (trust me, it can take some searching for some of them), or you can just get all your fonts from Font Squirrel. They include a file with each font that gives the specifics of each font license, and most of them are fine for commercial use on blogs (though you should still read the individual licenses to make sure).
So blogging PSA:
If you advertise on your blog, or you think you might advertise on your blog at some point in the future, make sure all the fonts that you use on your blog are free for commercial use!
You'll save yourself a lot of work, money, and stress later on if you do.
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For my blog, I really like the look of having my images laying flat against the background. Not only does it look cleaner, but when I want an element to look like it's embedded in the page, I just make the background white! This lets you do images that appear round, triangular, with rounded edges, or like the text is embedded into the post or page.
(This seemed like a good time to share a picture of Harvey. He's kind of cute, even though he drives me nuts sometimes.)
Unfortunately, Blogger automatically adds this annoying shadow/box thing around the photos you add to your blog. If you're like me and you want your images to just lay flat against the background, there is a way to remove the photo shadow that Blogger adds!
Lots of people have written very nice tutorials on this, so rather than re-write one here, I'm just going to point you to one that I think explains things well.
How To Remove Image Shadow In Blogger
One thing that I will note is to make sure to hit the space bar after adding the HTML to custom CSS box! I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working, and then I realized I just needed to hit the space bar to get the code to register.
Also, I've noticed lately that when I upload a picture with a white background, it sometimes appears a yellowish white on my actual blog. Which kind of defeats the purpose of making the text look embedded. I was even having problems with my new header because of this!
Thanks to some experimentation and good 'ole Instagram informational sessions, I learned that it's some sort of issue with Blogger and .jpg's. So if you want the background to truly be white, save your image as a .png instead and it should work!
I recently received Return To Me by Lynn Austin in the mail. I actually requested this book in the summer, but I wasn't sure I was approved to review it - and I unknowingly requested it again! So I actually received two copies of this book from two different review programs! Whoops. I'm thinking someone might just get a little surprise present.
This book is about the period of time in the Bible when the Israelites are exhiled into Babylon, and King Cyrus issues the decree that the Jews may return to their homeland to rebuild the Temple. It follows the story of Iddo, a descendant of the temple priests, and his family as they make the journey back to Jerusalem. When they arrive there they receive a lot of trouble from the local people, and the building of the Temple is put on hold. Will they ever get it built? (Obviously you who know your Bible know that they eventually do.)
I love Biblical-based fiction when it is done well, and this book is done extremely well. Not only is everything in it very biblically accurate, from what I could tell (I'm thinking I need to go back and read those passages in the Bible again - it's been a while), but the story was gripping. I love the personal stories of the characters that Austin weaves through this book. I could hardly put it down! I think this book may be the first in a series, and now I'm definitely keeping an eye out for the next one!
I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who likes Biblical fiction or is curious to read more about Biblical history. This book is a really fun and interesting way to do it, and I was inspired while reading it to dig further into the actual record of these events in the Bible!
Also, check out this page to enter to win a free Kindle Fire and RSVP to Lynn Austin's Facebook party on October 22nd!
Note: I received this book from Bethany House publishers, and also from Litfuse Publicity Group, for free in exchange for this review. This is my honest opinion.
I have to admit, the reason I requested Unforseeable by Nancy Mehl was because I saw that the main character was named Callie! I rarely meet a Callie in real life, and I think I've read two other books with a character named Callie. It's kind of fun to see your name in print.
Callie Hoffman is a Mennonite woman, getting ready to marry the man she loves, Levi. But then a series of murders come to their town, and Levi starts acting like he knows something about what's happening. At the same time Callie starts to wrestle with some things about herself that she has never faced before. Will they find the murderer? What does Levi know? Will Callie and Levi get their happily ever after?
I really enjoyed this book. I felt like the struggles and doubts that Callie had throughout the book were believable, and there was good character growth (which I always like). The mystery was really good, and I didn't figure it out until the very end, and even then there was a little surprise twist that I wasn't expecting at all.
I also really liked Mehl's style of writing. If I had to pick one word to describe this book, I would say "cozy". Mehl's writing style is warm and cozy, which is quite a feat when she is writing about blizzards and murders.
I would definitely like to read the other books in this series after reading this one, and I would recommend this book! It had just the right amount of suspense, romance, coziness, and lessons-learned. Good read.
Note: I received this book for free from Bethany House in exchange for this review. This is my honest opinion.
In Stranded by Dani Pettrey, Darcy St. James returns to Alaska to help her old friend with an undercover investigation aboard a cruise ship - but right after she arrives, her friend goes missing. Darcy goes on a hunt for her friend while struggling to maintain her cover. What she doesn't expect is to run into Gage, the man she almost fell for on her last trip to Alaska.
I liked this book. It was full of adventure and sinister happenings, and I liked the romance woven in as well. The characters were likable, and it was easy to read. The conclusion of the mystery was not something that I was expecting when I started the book. I don't want to say too much so I don't ruin it, but I really liked it.
This is another one of those series where the characters are connected to characters in the other books, and once again it leaves me wanting to go back and read all their stories! It also makes me want to visit Alaska.
I'm looking forward to checkin gout more of Pettrey's books - I love it when I find a new author that I like. I would recommend this book - it's a perfect fall/winter read, because you can read about the cold Alaskan landscapes from the comfort of your cozy living room!
Note: I received this book for free from Bethany House in exchange for this review. This is my honest opinion.
I really like citrusy things.
I'm not sure when this started, but ever since having babies I just get these cravings for citrus. Like lemon in my water. Or orange juice. Or lemon bars. Maybe I'm just deficient in vitamin C.
Regardless, lately I've been in the mood for lemon-something. Then the other day I remembered seeing a recipe for lemon fudge on Pinterest a while back, so I looked it up. However, I read through several different lemon fudge recipes, and . . . I just didn't like them. Either they called for stuff I did not have on hand, or they seemed too complicated, or they had to set up over 4-6 hours. Yeah, that wasn't working for me. I wanted lemon fudge, now.
So I decided to invent my own. I looked up a cherry almond white chocolate fudge recipe that I have used in the past as a starting point.
I have to say, I love that white chocolate fudge recipe. You could probably do all kinds of things with it besides just lemon, and it's one of those fudge recipes that is hard to mess up. Kuddos to whoever invented it (apparently it first appeared in Woman's Day magazine?), because it's a good one.
So I changed a few things and turned it into lemon fudge! It turned out pretty good, so I thought I'd share my little adaptation here.
Lemon Fudge
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cups whole milk or cream
1/2 stick of butter
2-3 drops yellow food coloring (if desired)
10 oz. white chocolate chips
1 tbsp. lemon flavoring
1 tsp. lemon zest (optional)
1. Grease a small plate or pan with butter or cooking spray, and set aside.
2. Mix together sugar, milk, butter, and food coloring in medium-sized pan. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.
3. Boil for 5 minutes without stirring. Actually I boiled it for 6 minutes the first time and it set up right away but it was a little riskier. If you want to be safe just do 5 minutes and then expect it to take longer to completely set.
4. Remove from heat and stir until smooth. Stir in white chocolate chips until melted. Stir in lemon flavoring (you might have to do this to taste, because if your fudge is still hot some of the flavoring will burn off). Stir in lemon zest if desired.
5. Spread in prepared dish.
6. Now go lick the pan while you wait for the fudge to set up.
And that's it! Lemon fudge. I'm feeling like I should try experimenting with some other fudge recipes I have and see what I can come up with. I feel like so many fudge recipes are so complicated - I'd rather just stick with the recipes that I know work for me and see what I can do to change them up!
Anyone else have some amazing fudge recipes they'd like to share?
Check out some of my other fudge recipes!
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