Seven of these quick takey things

1. Name of Wii game, as promised: Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars. I'm a big fan of mystery games for the PC (I've spent a lot of time with my girl Nancy) but I never saw any for the Wii (or any of the other consoles, which, yes, we own those too, surely you're not surprised.) Phillip heard about this one and we've been playing it almost every night. It is REALLY. HARD. to play a mystery game with someone else (okay, maybe just hard for ME) but it has a decent two-player system and some of the puzzles NEED an extra brain. It's a decent story so far and the dialogue only annoys me occasionally. I'll give it the Cheung Stamp of Approval.

2. I am feeling guilty about the lack of photo albums in my house. Jack looooves looking at pictures (of himself, natch) but I'm overwhelmed at the thought of putting picture books together. Because you KNOW I can't just print out a few and stick 'em in a book. I'll have to go back to Jackson Day One and print and fuss and organize and deliberate and I WILL NEVER GET ANYTHING DONE AGAIN. So. I'm thinking about uploading them to some place like Snapfish? And just making books there? Because I'll have to do the picture-choosing no matter what, but then I don't have to deal with the printer (which is inconveniently located) and running out of ink and finding books and sticking them in and feeling all inadequate about my lack of scrapbooking know how. What do you think? Quick way to go broke?

3. We're going hang out in our shared driveway tonight and have a nice neighborly cookout. Ooh. Tangent: is "cookout" a Midwestern thing? Because the only people I know who say "cookout" are originally from the Midwest. Discuss.

4. Okay, so a COOKOUT and I'm excited because the neighbor who suggested it tends to make these really fabulous chocolate desserts and she said she would have 1) a side salad and 2) margaritas and 3) a dessert. WIN. Although I'm not sure about the margaritas. I am not really a fan of tequila, but I notice that many grown ups ARE fans of tequila and perhaps I need to get over this personal issue so I can start Fitting In. But really. Why go for something vile and blended when you can have a Bombay Sapphire gin & tonic?

5. I feel like Molly and I have Turned A Corner with this whole eating thing. I swear, if "FEEDING" wasn't in the job description I would be an AWESOME MOM. But anyway. I have discovered that Molly actually likes food if it is cut into chunks and I don't dare to give it to her myself. No, it must be placed directly on the tray for awkward and inefficient SELF-feeding. Which: FINE BY ME! I also figured out not to put ALL of the chunks on the tray lest she stuff them ALL into her mouth at once. I would like to point out that her preferences were the DIRECT OPPOSITE mere DAYS ago, so props to me, I say. Today she ate peaches and cheese sandwich and SCRAMBLED EGGS. (And yes, I know, not a year old, I don't care, SHE EATS IT.)

6. I don't know why I thought people wouldn't know that Beauty & The Beast song. I mean, we are all LADIES of the same ERA and of course I am not the only one of us who has the entire Disney songbook memorized. RIGHT? I felt considerably less dorky, so thank you.

7. Good stuff I read this week:
Mrs. Flinger on The Road to Mid Life because oh no, Phillip and I haven't done ANY rebelling whatsoEVER.

Jenny Ryan on And This Is Why I Would Be The Worst Contestant Ever On The Amazing Race because it made me laugh out loud.
Heather on Maybe Not Now And Possibly Never because I feel that way almost every day.

Comments

[Elsha]

I LOVE scrapbooking (yes, I am a giant mom cliche) but I'm totally behind and I just try to ignore that. I figure as long as the framed pictures around the house are up to date I'm good. I know nothing about the online books though; I just print pictures through walmart.com and do the books myself.

Is Colorado the midwest? I wouldn't think it was weird to call it a cookout but we usually call it barbecuing. Maybe that's a habit we picked up here in Texas?

Back in the day my husband would have taken a gin and ginger ale over a margarita anytime. Maybe other people need to start liking gin and fitting in with YOU.

[Sheila]

I've spent my whole life moving up and down the East Coast, and we've always called them cookouts.

While I'm not going to choose alcohol that tastes like juniper berries over a fruity rum OR vodka concoctions, I would DEFINITELY have a gin and tonic with you while everybody else had margaritas. Even the slightest whiff of tequila is enough to make my stomach roll!

[Morgan S.]

I have come up with a photo system that works for me.

1. Don't think too hard about it. I just whipped through my photos on the computer in chronological order and picked a few from each "roll" - I ended up with about 250 for the time period between pregnant with Brooke and her first birthday. (There were approx. 2,500 photos in iphoto at the time!)

2. I uploaded them all into Kodak's Ofoto and ordered 4"x6" prints (Bonus: coupon code for free shipping and 25% off orders greater than $25, so 250 prints ended up being about $.10 a piece).

3. Bought $5 cute photo album from Ross that held 300 photos.

4. Spent one wine-filled evening stuffing the photo album in chronological order.

5. CALLED IT GOOD. I have been so happy I just dang GOT IT OVER WITH. We look through them frequently.

I repeated the process for the next 12 months of photos and plan to do it annually.

Also, I can sing all the Disney songs word for word with you at the Blathering. That Beauty and the Beast song is one of my absolute favorites.

[Tara]

The printable books are nice (we've only done it through Mac) but not something I want my 2 year-old flipping through. :-)

I say (here I go giving advice!): do something like that for you, and print out 50 or however many of Jack's faves and put them in a cheapo album for him to do with as he pleases.

[Lindsay]

RE quick takes 2 - 4

2. My aim for perfection is what prevents me from doing so much, picture albums included. My new plan is to just buy a 4 x 6 album and print stuff off as it happens - no captions no cutesy anything. This is still in the planning phase I add.

3. We (BC) call it barbecueing although the midwestern huz mocked us so much the 'rents and I now call it cooking out to appease him. So perhaps midwest.

4. I love margaritas. May I come to this cookout? Hehe, I can't do gin, not even if I have to pretend -- I once accepted an offer of a martini and had to give it back to my host because I felt like I was drinking floor cleaner. Felt like a real grown up that day, I tell ya.

[Emily]

I agree, go with the cheapo album for Jack.

BUT! As much as I love scrapbooking, I realize I will never have the time to do it right now, especially since I have to set up and put away all the stuff every time I do it since we don't have enough room to keep it out all the time. So I uploaded a bunch of photos to Shutterfly and made albums there. I did two - one of Asher 0-6 months and one of Lucy 0-6 months. I plan to do more as I find the time.

Here's a link to the one I used:
http://www.shutterfly.com/shop/Sweet-Baby-designed-by-Becky-Higgins/product_c18570

[Heather]

I was a scrapbooker, but I don't have the time anymore. I love the online photo books they are easy and just as rewarding. Getting the pictures into an album/book is really the important thing, how you get them there not so much. Good luck.

[Jess]

I use Snapfish to order photo prints. The prints themselves are very affordable but the shipping is very expensive. BUT if you Google for a promo code you can almost always find one for free shipping.

You can also order prints via Flickr to be picked up at Target. I've done that before too.

[Jenny Ryan]

Thanks so much for the mention-so glad I made you laugh :)

[Heather of the EO]

Love your Quick Takey things :)

I have THOUSANDS of pictures inside my computer that need out into the real world. So overwhelming!

Thanks for the shout-out, too.

Happy weekend,
Heather

[Ashley]

I'm from the south and "cookout" isn't strange or exclusively Midwestern, although I'd be more likely to say we were grilling or barbecuing.

I'm not a big fan of tequila per se, but margaritas are my alcoholic beverage of choice! I also hate wine. *cowers from the collective outrage of bloggers all across the world*

[Raven]

What got me over my loathing of tequila was actually getting GOOD tequila. IMO Guervo Gold (which is what most people buy) is crap. I prefer Patron Silver or Suaza Silver-SILVER IS BETTER. I also like rocks margaritas better than frozen. Obvs I am a drink snob. I won't even do tequila shots unless it's Patron, the Patron is chilled and I don't bother with that salt and lime nonsense.

I love snapfish! So quick and they often times have coupons and offers to make it less expensive.

I say grillout vs cookout and I live in the south but am originally from Az, so I'm not sure where I get that from.

[Dr. Maureen]

I am from MA and still live here, and I call them "cookouts." But last year, when I invited people to a cookout, comments were made about how cute it is that I call them that. So I don't know.

I second or third or whatever the photobooks online thing. I have switched to Shutterfly and after making Jack's "Year One" album while nesting, I made a "Year Two" album online and it was so easy and when it arrived, there were no prints to store and no putting of prints into a book. Also: For the "Year One" thing, I just picked some favorites and did one page for each month and used a marker to write captions. And also wasn't super uptight about getting it perfect - which is a good thing, because dammit if I didn't mislabel the months - but it is DONE and Jack LOVES it. He also loves the "Year Two" book. So. Yes, expensive, but not if you limit yourself to one or two a year. Totally worth it, in my opinion.

[Lindsay]

I'm from the Midwest and I call them cookouts. It seems like everybody in Massachusetts calls them barbecues, though, and this REALLY annoys me. If barbecue sauce isn't involved, it's not a barbecue. Grrr.

[Kate P]

2. I often feel sad for my niece & nephews that their family has no albums and all their photos exist in the camera or on the computer. Kids love looking through photo albums. I'd love to know how the Snapfish books turn out if you decide to do that.

3. We here in the Philly area call them cookouts. No "barbecue" but maybe the occasional "BBQ" in writing. My mom moved around a lot as a kid, but never lived in the Midwest.

4. Life's too short to drink stuff you don't enjoy. Not a fan of margaritas, myself. (Margarets, yes.)

6. Nah, dorky is when you're singing along to it in the car. On a cassette. And there aren't any kids with you in the car.

[Becky aka StinkyLemsky]

I recommend Blurb for the photo books!! www.blurb.com - it's what I used to make my wedding album after reading this post: http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/12/11/our-honeymoon-in-paris-a-blurb-book-review/

And the software is SO easy to use - seriously you can make your book super basic or with different layouts on every page. I used to do scrapbooking, but this is so much easier. I did our 2008 family "yearbook" using it & am working on 2009 now. Not too expensive, either!

[scrapbook supplies]

Great article. Great Blog. I will visit again.
I just started reading all the blogs. This one is great.

thanks.

Mary, The Scrapbook Lady.