Having to pinch a picture from Lily’s Instagram this week, as I don’t have any of the girls. Lily got Instagram on her birthday and majority of her pictures are of her and Megan. I think it’s pretty sweet though.
Pass Around the World
Did you ever see the story of the Photographer who follows his girlfriend around the world, holding her hand? It was a beautiful series of pictures that broke in the news during 2013 and gains re-exposure every now and again when a batch more photos come to light. Murad Osmann (the photographer) has an Instagram that follows their travels and photographs them spectacularly.
I always feel so jealous when I see these type of things. People are so clever when they have the forethought to take these type of pictures and then continue to do so over a period of time.
Then you get the people who re-create the “then” pictures, with a “now” picture. These have been in the news a lot over the last few years too. Loads and loads of people have done them and I’m sure will continue to do so. The Luxton Brothers have a Tumblr completely dedicated to theirs.
When the Ice Bucket Challenge was launched for charity last year, it took off in a big way. Everyone got behind the idea of videoing themselves having a bucket of ice thrown over their heads (and of course donating to charity too). I personally took the Ice Bucket Challenge, as did my partner and two children. It’s a lot of fun to know we were part of a campaign that ended up so big!
Now, this summer, you can be part of a big campaign too! Allianz have launched a project called Pass Around the World and it could be a lot of fun to get involved with!
So what are you waiting for? Get your family and friends together and make a great video to upload. Be part of a great campaign that brings together all types of people. I’m definitely going to get the girls down to the park and making their passes!
Disney Month Round-Up
As you may know, April on my blog was Disney Month! This was largely because I was spending 17 days of the month away on holiday, so Disneyfying my blog seemed like a good idea! While I was away, I had several Disney themed posts and on Instagram I did 30 days of Disney. Here is a round-up of everything you could have found on my blog during April.
Tags – Disney Tag, Harry Potter Tag (not Disney, but I visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter too).
Guest Posts – Why Disney World makes an awesome honeymoon destination, 10 reasons Disney is not just for kids, Disneyland Paris: an autism friendly experience.
Weekly Round-ups – Week 14, Week 15 & 16.
Wishlists – Disney Pop Funko, Hot Topic.
Movie Review – Avengers: Age of Ultron
I didn’t get as much of my holiday re-capped as I would have liked, but keep an eye out during May and you’re sure to see it all. However, here is my Instagram round-up.
1. Cinderella Exhibition in London / 2. Mickey Mouse Electricity Pylon in Florida / 3. Disney Princess Plasters (Band-aids)
4. First Visit Badge from Disney World / 5. Maleficent from Festival of Fantasy Parade
6. Cinderella’s Royal Table Menu / 7. Disney World Magic Bands / 8. Wishes Fireworks Display in Magic Kingdom
9. Lefou’s Brew in Gaston’s Tavern / 10. Finding Nemo – The Musical at Animal Kingdom
11. IllumiNations Fireworks Display in Epcot / 12. “The Grey Stuff” at Be Our Guest dinner / 13. Ursula from The Voyage of the Little Mermaid
14. Meeting Woody and Jessie in Frontierland / 15. Be Our Guest Menu
16. Meeting Mr Incredible & Frozone at Hollywood Studios / 17. Souvenir mugs from our trip / 18. Periwinkle, Fawn and the Neverbeast toys
19. Tsum Tsum collection / 20. Once Upon a Time store at Downtown Disney
21. Meeting Tiana and Naveen in Liberty Square / 22. Akershus Royal Banquet Hall Menu / 23. Cinderella’s Castle in Magic Kingdom
24. Meeting Stitch in Tomorrowland / 25. Magic Kingdom’s Electric Parade
26. Lumiere from Enchanted Tales with Belle / 27. Meeting Merida in Fairytale Gardens / 28. Walt, Mickey, Lily and Megan
29. The Prince|Beast painting in Be Our Guest’s West Wing / 30. Meeting Pocahontas in Animal Kingdom
It’s been a fantastic month and I wouldn’t change a thing, but now that it’s over – it feels like life can begin again. May is the month when Spring really begins to show and it’s making me want to get on with the house and get things done. There’s nothing massively planned for the next few month’s and right now that’s definitely a good thing. I’m looking forward to normal for a little while now!
Disney Countdown – Days 107 – 101
It’s that time of the week again when I round up our Disney Countdown! I can’t believe our third week of doing this has passed and as of tomorrow we’re 100 days till Disney!
Monday (107) – Dec 15th – Make or Draw Disney
Tuesday (106) – Dec 16th – Read a Disney book
Wednesday (105) – Dec 17th – Dress up Disney
Thursday (104) – Dec 18th – Read a Disney book
Friday (103) – Dec 19th – Watch “Frozen”
Saturday (102) – Dec 20th – Dress up Disney
Sunday (101) – Dec 21st – Make or Draw Disney
This week has felt a little repetitive with some of the tasks, but its really the way we planned it because of December being so busy. Monday we had Make or Draw Disney and while Lily was so tired she went to bed without bothering, Megan started to use her Frozen loom bands, to make an Anna. Tuesday was Read a Disney book, largely because Tuesday is often a Daddy day and it was this week so this fitted in perfectly. Wednesday the girls dressed up, the first time since Megan’s birthday party. Since Lily had hurt herself getting out of the car, Megan let her be Elsa and as Rapunzel is Megan’s only other fitting dress, she had to be her. Thursday – because Tuesday or Thursday can be Daddy days – was Read a Disney book again. We didn’t mind though as we’re really getting into this book and actually read two chapters that night. On Friday the girls had their first day off school so we knew picking a movie night was a good choice. Frozen was the particular movie we were tasked with and this is because the next few days were going to be very Frozen-tastic. On Saturday it was Dress up Disney again, I think because the girls had wanted a full day to be able to dress up, not just after school. This time Megan insisted on being Elsa and so Lily chose to wear Megan’s Rapunzel dress. Sunday was the first of many FROZEN days. We were going out for lunch with Anna and Elsa, the girls were dressing as Young Anna and Elsa and everything would be very Frozen orientated. On top of that, the girls had to fit in Make or Draw Disney so Megan worked on her loomband Anna, while Lily chose just to do some colouring in.
This coming week is going to have two more days of FROZEN mania, before we settle down for Christmas. I already know that there will be no shortage of Disney in our house, even on the days without tasks! Check out my post next week, to see what we got up to!
Disney Countdown – Days 114 – 108
Our 2nd week of Disney Countdown has passed and its been another full week of Disney fun!
Monday (114) – Dec 8th – Watch “Beauty & the Beast”
Tuesday (113) – Dec 9th – Read a Disney book
Wednesday (112) – Dec 10th – Make or Draw Disney (turned into Harry Potter)
Thursday (111) – Dec 11th – Megan’s Birthday
Friday (110) – Dec 12th – Make an Elsa Peg Doll (which turned into Katai comes and sleepover with Enchanted)
Saturday (109) – Dec 13th – Day with Katai (finally time to get the Peg Doll done in the evening)
Sunday (108) – Dec 14th – Read a Disney book
So this week was another busy one and Monday I was worried we wouldn’t have time to fit in a movie. However we did get Beauty and the Beast crammed in and it reminded me just how much I love that movie. Tuesday we had read a Disney book and that’s because Tuesday is often the kids day with their dad. However for one reason or another he didn’t have them this week but we enjoyed reading the book without being too late to bed this week. Wednesday was Make or Draw Disney but with Lily’s school play taking us till 7.30pm and then Megan’s birthday cake to make – the best we could do was honour the other Florida park (Universal) with our Harry Potter cake. Next was Megan’s Birthday on Thursday and as I mentioned before, having December as part of our countdown came on the condition that some days were easier to relieve the stress. Megan’s birthday had no specific task but there was no lack of Disney – from cards, to wrapping paper, to gifts – it was mostly Frozen but plenty of Disney everywhere! Friday our task was to paint our first peg doll (Elsa) as we had originally planned for Megan’s friend Katai to come on Saturday. However it ended up being Friday so we put off the peg doll for when we had more time. Luckily for the girls sleepover, they chose to watch Enchanted so we had watch “Enchanted” as our task for the day. Saturday we spent the day with Katai and that was marked as such on our countdown. She was gone by 5pm though so in the evening Megan got her Elsa peg doll done, to make sure she was up to date. Sunday was read a Disney story again, so we got another chapter of “in a blink” read and I have to admit I’m quite into it.
Aside from all this, there has been loads of other Disney influences in our life! I can’t wait till next week and work being over, so we cram in even more!
Disney Countdown – Days 121 – 115
I posted earlier in the week about our Disney Countdown to Florida. It started on 1st December and will count down right up until the day before we actually travel to Orlando. From the day we started, it was 121 days to go and to keep track, I’ve been posting pictures on Instagram to mark each day. This is my recap of the week.
Monday (121) – Dec 1st – Decorate the Disney Christmas Tree
Tuesday (120) – Dec 2nd – Read a Disney Story
Wednesday (119) – Dec 3rd – Watch “Tangled”
Thursday (118) – Dec 4th – Make or Draw Disney
Friday (117) – Dec 5th – Make Disney Inspired Food (actually Disney Sing-a-long)
Saturday (116) – Dec 6th – Megan’s Disney Party
Sunday (115) – Dec 7th – Play a Disney Game
Originally we weren’t going to add December to our Countdown Calendar but when the kids convinced me into it, it was on the proviso we made some of the days really easy as December is such a busy month. Monday was 1st December and as such we were putting up our Christmas Tree anyway. As its Disney themed, it covered the criteria anyway. Tuesday was a night with Dad and as he didn’t have the kids back till 8pm we were really pushed to get in our Disney task. Luckily it was read and so we snuggled up in bed and read one of the new Disney stories we’d bought. However it still wasn’t ideal. On Wednesday, Tangled got watched while eating Disney, sewing costumes and blogging. Basically everything at the same time just to fit it in. Thursday Lily wasn’t really in the mood to participate (she was still tired from Tuesday) so she just chilled out while Megan drew pictures and I did more sewing. On Friday the hope had been to make Disney inspired food, in preparation for Megan’s party the next day. However I was so far behind on my sewing that I really didn’t have time to supervise the kids. Instead we blasted out some Disney and had a sing-along, just to get our Disney fix. In the end, Saturday was such a rush that we still didn’t end up making any Disney inspired food and it was all just finger food with a vague theme. However the whole of Megan’s party was Disney so that ticked all the boxes for our Disney Day. Finally that left Sunday which was to play a Disney game. While we plan to make the most of some board games, the Wii and the Xbox, this week we were all so tired that the iPad was about the most we could manage. Megan and Lily played a variety of Disney games and I tried out Tsum Tsum.
This has been our first Disney Countdown week and I’ve really enjoyed it, as have the kids. I’m looking forward to having more time to breath in the upcoming weeks and hopefully have a lot more fun with Disney themed projects.
Bloglovin’ – Bye Bye Google Reader!
Probably sick of seeing these posts but this is the only one you’ll see from me.
As of tomorrow, Google Reader is no more! Please continue to follow my blog, maybe via Bloglovin’?
Okay, that was all!
Other places you can keep track of me are….
Twitter – for links to Blog posts
Pinterest – pics
Facebook – real life stuff
Tumblr – barely use but maybe again one day…
Instagram – randoms, occasionally
#BEDM – Favourite Social Media Channel
So today’s BEDM is:
Are you a Twitter-lover? Or maybe you can’t get enough of Pinterest? Do you need to share every meal on Instagram? Do you waste away the hours watching Youtube? Or Facebook is your comfort zone? Tell us about your favourite social media channel and why.
I use majority of social media platforms, however by far Facebook is my most used. I also use themarketingheaven.com for marketing on these platforms.
I check Facebook on my phone and on my computer, several times a day. I have notifications set up for all my close friends, so I don’t miss anything on my newsfeed. I’m also addicted (on and off) to some facebook games, but I play farmville daily. However that’s not to say I love Facebook or anything, its just that it seems to be the easiest/most used etc especially when you can buy cheap likes.
Having this topic today has actually resulted in me doing a bit of a web crawl. I’ve gone back to all the old sites I used to use, along with the new ones I do use. Here are the findings.
MySpace – aka My Spazz
My account wasn’t viewable unless I logged in, so I went to the effort of resetting my password and logging in. I haven’t used MySpace in 5 years and even then I obviously didn’t use it all that much. I still have 30 something friends on it and a few old photo albums. The ones that made me laugh the most were the ones of me, with the typical “myspazz” picture pose that we all seemed to do back then.
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| It makes me cringe really to look back on these |
My friend Amy might possibly kill me for posting this next picture, but it amused me and it was like reminiscing so I’m going to do it any way. This is presumably from 5 years ago too.
One thing I did notice was that majority of MySpace layouts have gone and aren’t viewable any more. There was the offer to go to the “new” MySpace site, but my login doesn’t work for that so presumably you need to make a new account – which I have no intention of doing.
Bebo
Wow, anyone remember Bebo? The days of teenage angst…
This is my Bebo profile page. I’m already amused at this point that one of my usernames so far have been Tinker-Bel and the other Sleeping Beauty. Told you I was a Disney freak ;)
I didn’t really make a note of when I last used this, but it will have been at least 5 years ago too. The most amusing part of Bebo was always the whiteboard and the random quizzes you could set for your friends.
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| This one made me smile |
Next comes… the ones I do still use…
While I understand the concept of Twitter and why some people like it, Twitter isn’t really for me. I check it occasionally and of course if I get an email alerting me to being tagged or messaged.
On the whole I tend to just use Twitter sporadically and when I’ve made a new blog post. I don’t really like to publish my blog to Facebook as I don’t really want it to be a place that all my Facebook friends know about. Instead I tend to keep Twitter for blog friends and blog posts (I don’t tend to add blog friends to Facebook either).
I only just got myself a Pinterest account, maybe 2-3 months ago. I was looking for cake ideas for the Alice in Wonderland cake I was making and Pinterest seemed like a good idea to pin ideas and be able to find them easily. However I was one of those idiots who though it was called P-interest, rather than Pin-trest. It was only last week I was corrected on that.
As you can see, the few things I have pinned are Disney, Superhero, Alice in Wonderland etc. My page is called odds and sods because even as I was signing up I had no clue how it was going to work or what I would be pinning. Again I tend to check it once a week at the most and only re-pin or add pins when looking for cake/party ideas.
I use instagram, but very very infrequently. I have it as an app on my iPhone but I hardly ever remember to check it. I don’t really even follow anyone on it, except Amy and even then I forget to check in and see what she’s up to.
As you can see I only have 22 photos uploaded, follow 14 people and have 10 following me. In fact I have only just realised, by searching my various forms of social media, that you can access instagram online. I have added it to my bookmark toolbar now though and so hopefully I will remember to check it more often.
Finally that leaves…
Tumblr
About a year ago I used to use tumblr all the time. I would check it several times daily, always working back to the last place I’d seen. However as I’m on the net a whole lot less these days, I don’t tend to bother as much. I check it once a week or so but only scroll down a little way. As you can see the last thing I reblogged was a month ago.
Obviously there are other forms of social media but either I don’t use them, or I use them so little that they’re not really worth a mention. Am I missing out on anything? A site you’d recommend?
Do you still have access to your old social media accounts?
When was the last time you went trawling through them?