I’ve taken the past month to focus on my family.  Although in my head I have a ton of blog posts planned out and plenty of things to share, the break was much needed.  Our holidays were fabulous and the kids being out of school for two weeks was extremely nice.  We spent quality time together every spare moment I had outside of working.  We took a quick trip in December to Sea World, which was a blast as always.  We stayed right on the Riverwalk in San Antonio at the Hyatt Grand and I can’t wait to share more details about the fun we had.

I’ve started counting down the days until I turn 30 in February.  Leading up to age 29 I was in a panic over the fact I’d soon be 30 and funny thing is now, I’m not so worried about it.  I’m sure my strengthened relationship with God over the past year has a lot to do with that.

I’m headed to San Jose, California for two days to meet with one of my clients.  It’s always nice when you finally are able to meet all the people in person from a company you’ve work with for so many months.  Plus California will be state number 20 on my list, which is one state closer to visiting all 50.

Until then….

The holidays have always been important to me.  I love Christmas and the magic that comes with it.  It’s the largest holiday of the year where all the family comes together to spend quality time in celebration.  To me it’s the most important holiday.  Every holiday we have together as a family I consider a blessing.

When I was growing up Christmas was filled with excitement of my childhood wishes.  After I had kids it became about seeing the excitement in my children’s eyes when they witnessed Christmas magic.

In 2007 the way I viewed things changed.  I think I started to cherish it more.  Gabby went in for her Hemispherectomy the first week of November 2007 and unfortunately we stayed in the hospital through all the major holidays and well into the new year.  Spending Christmas in a children’s hospital was not ideal for anyone.  Saying money was tight that year is an understatement.  Gabby was unexpectedly kept in the hospital for four months, meaning I was in the hospital for four months.  Not much work can be done when you are taking care of your child whose life was still in question.

There were times I wondered if we were going to have a Christmas.  Silly, isn’t it?  Christmas isn’t about the gift giving.  It’s about embracing life, family and truly being appreciative for what you have at that very moment, no matter how tough it is.  2007 is the year I witnessed a miracle.  Christmas time is when Gabby was able to move to the rehabilitation floor and learned to walk on her own again.  December of 2007 is the month we knew Gabby was going to live.

Spending Christmas in the hospital wasn’t so bad.  The girls were given the chance to take part in some fun holiday activities.  Gabby was healthy enough to take out of her room in a wheelchair or wagon to see the hospital Christmas tree and we were able to decorate her hospital room.  They even allowed her big sister, T, to spend Christmas Eve with us in the hospital so Santa could drop off their presents that night.

Those are the memories that are priceless.  Those memories are still fresh in my mind and capturing them to share with Gabby is worth everything to me.

YesVideo helps you preserve your memories by transferring your old home movies to DVD and digitizing your photos for you to share on a slideshow.  I love that you have the option of simply transferring your old media then editing online before ordering a DVD.  I have so many VHS tapes from when my oldest was little and several 8mm tapes from when I was younger that I wouldn’t know where to start ordering DVDs.  Being able to transfer the media first, then edit and arrange before ordering my DVDs is perfect.

YesVideo also offer the option to share your home movies with friends and relatives out of state through MemorySafe online storage.  This year I plan to capture as many home movies during the holidays on my HD video camera to transfer to BluRay.  While we are spending time together with my parents over the holidays we are going to gather all our old media to send in as a family and order copies of DVDs together.  My mom is excited about this.

Right now YesVideo is offering 15% off your entire order.  Use code: TRANSFER15 during checkout on their website to qualify.  YesVideo features various giveaways on their Facebook Page regularly so I suggest liking them to keep up to date.  You can follow YesVideo on Twitter where they also share photography tips and other specials.

What is your favorite holiday memory?  Do you have VHS tapes collecting dust on your shelves?  How often do you watch home movies with your children?

Full Disclosure: I was compensated for my time sharing the information about YesVideo with you.  The story and opinions are 100% mine.

~Cherish today, for you never know what tomorrow brings.

In exactly two days I’ll head to see Breaking Dawn at the midnight show in a local theater with a group of family members and friends.  Roughly six teenage girls and 5 adult women.  All Twilight Saga die hard fans.  To say we are counting down the days is an under statement.  My kitchen has been completely transformed for the party.  The walls do not even look the same and we are still preparing last minute party favors.

I love being a reporter for iVillage and what I love the most is being given the chance to report on such a fun and exciting topic with other like minded women.  Here what some other grown women Twihards had to say…

Featured Reporters include: Amanda Rodriguez from Parenting By Dummies, Brandi Jeter from Mama Knows It All and me!

Are you heading to see Breaking Dawn at the midnight show?  Will you attend a viewing party before hand and/or go with a group?

Join the Breaking Dawn conversation on my Facebook Page and tell me what team you are on!

On October 3rd I started the photo a day project. I know it’s not January 1st but I figured ‘why wait?’ I have been using Instagram daily on my iPhone to make sure that I take at least one photo of our family a day. Whether the photo is of one of the kids, our family pets or just some activity we are doing for the day, it’s a memory documented. I take a lot of photos daily already but this project will remind me to share at least one with a date stamp to look back on.

I created a Tumblr just for this project that will only showcase photos with captions and dates. I’m calling it the Perrin 365 Project.

Below are a few photos from documented so far.

Gabby fell asleep reading about God.

Photoshoot project with my mom on the railroad tracks, more info on this coming soon.

Family pumpkin carving night.

At Farmers Market buying pumpkins.

These are just a few of my favorites.  You can follow along with the whole project on my Tumblr page.  Are you on Instagram? I’m MommaDJane on there as well and would love to see all your photos!

Restaurant.com has launched a new contest on their Facebook page where contestants enter a video sharing their Sweet or Saucy dining out experience.

Restaurant.com has their own video giving you detailed information about their contest and how to go about creating your own short 1 minute or less video to enter.  What’s the prize you ask? Enter the Sweet vs Saucy video contest for a chance to win $1,000! They are giving away two prizes each for $1,000 which gives you two shots at winning.  The contest ends on October 21st so hurry and create your simple and quick video right away.

I wanted to share my own sweet memory from a previous dining out experience to enter the contest.

See how easy that was? Then you just go to the Restaurant.com Facebook page and enter your video for a chance to win $1,000!  It’s worth taking a few minutes for that nice of a prize.

Full Disclosure: For spreading the word about this contest I will be provided with a Restaurant.com gift card and movie tickets as appreciation.  All opinions are 100% mine and the story I shared is a true dining out experience.

Yesterday, along with many others, I was discussing the death of Steve Jobs.  It was horrible to hear the news, especially for a man so young, only in his 50′s.  A few weeks ago I confessed my love for all Apple products in a blog post discussing my need to clear some storage on my MacBook.  The topic of technology has been hot this week with the announcement of the iPhone 4S.

With technology being the topic of our conversation T and I started reflecting on mobile phones.  I got to laugh at myself while telling her about my family’s first mobile phone.  It was one of those old car phones that was actually stuck in the car.  Do you remember those? They were huge!  Then I remember the first cell phone my mom got for me when I first started driving and it was so clunky and the bottom of it had to flip open, not those fancy flip phones just the speaker piece.  Hilarious!

The first mobile phone I ever bought myself was one of those prepaid phones that AT&T had out.  I believe it was called a Go Phone.  Maybe they still have them? I can’t remember if I got it because I didn’t have enough credit yet to get a real account or if it was because I was only 17 at the time and wasn’t old enough to get a cell phone account in my name.  I remember it was one of those non-luxuries of moving out on my own before I was legally considered an adult in many eyes.

Now I’ve had one version or another of the iPhone for going on four years.  And I love it.  I am already planning to get the iPhone 4S.  I honestly can’t imagine having another mobile phone.

So tell me… what was your very first cell phone?  Are you an Apple lover?  If so what was the first Apple product you purchased?

This past weekend I completely cleaned out my closet. I went through boxes and bags of stuff that I can’t say I forgot I had but more or less the whole out of sight out of mind practice. I found so many bags that I’ve received at conferences over the past couple of years that I could pack my whole house in them. I also organized several items into a Christmas present box. Yes, I’ve already started preparing for holiday gift giving.

As I went through clearing out stuff I found several small items that will make perfect gift basket fillers.  That’s one great thing about getting stuff at conferences and events that you can’t use or don’t need, it makes perfect gifts.  Last year I was able to donate quite a bit of stuff to charity and make nice gift packages for two children on the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree.

While browsing online at closet organizers I found some great ideas from Taylor Gifts to make sure everything has its own shelf in my closet.  Now I have a section designated to gifts.  Whether it’s for gifts I plan to give my own children (which are hidden in a dark colored box) or gifts I plan to give other family members or even donate, it all has a place.  Now that my family is more involved in our church I’m constantly thinking of someone who needs something and it felt great to get a better feel for what I actually had stashed away that could help someone else.

I even have products left over from the time I had a brick and mortar store.  By the end of this year, I’m finding a home for it all.  I find it ironic that I have no problem tossing out old clothes, shoes or even the kids’ old toys but yet I keep boxing up all the bags and conference swag.

I am an Apple lover, to say the least. I have had iPods in the past, my kids have iPods now, T and I both have iPhones and I use a MacBook for all my computer needs. Oh and I almost forgot about my iPad that I bought to use during travel and for portable work that was taken over by the household munchkins for gaming and video viewing.

The past few months I have been running low on memory on my MacBook. I store a lot of family videos and photos from our trips within folders and my iTunes account hosts all the music my family owns stored right on my hard drive.

Last month I realized my use of DropBox to send large files back and forth with clients was actually taking up a lot of memory. After going through my Downloads folder and deleting everything I no longer had a use for and shifting through documents to free up space, it just wasn’t enough. I finally had to unlink DropBox from my computer because I realized one of my client’s very large video files were being stored on my computer. I loved having the ability to share files without emailing but the storage of our shared folders was becoming too much.

This month’s project, after fighting against it for so long, is to store more of my photos on my Flickr Pro account, save old images and documents to a CD-Rom or USB and try to get my favorite MacBook back up and running to full speed. If all else fails I’ll be heading back into an Apple store to see what they recommend and work hard at resisting the urge to buy a new shiny object.

Tell me I’m not the only one that avoids certain stores to ease my tension of desire! Which store makes you feel like a kid in a candy store?

My good friend Linda was given the opportunity to attend the Lands’ End Sale of the Year event last month.  She graciously blessed many of her friends with Lands’ End goodies.  My kids were thrilled to receive their lunch totes in the mail and I must say my tote is pretty nice too!  It even has my initial on the front.  Sweet, huh?

Noah has taken his lunch to school every day since he started kindergarten.  He loves helping me pack his lunch tote and pick out his snacks.  Even though this was totally unplanned, the lunch tote matches his new school shoes perfectly.

T loves the fact her lunch tote is slightly bigger and even has the soup container in the bottom of it.  She likes to take hot items to school during the winter months and this is a perfect way to keep them warm.  Although she doesn’t take her lunch daily she has already put her lunch tote to good use in the first week.

Thanks a million to Linda for the perfect back to school gifts!  They are just what we needed.

The George Foreman Knock Out The Fat Weight Loss Challenge with Mamavation has finally come to an end.  I will admit that I learned a lot.  The challenge forced me to stay disciplined in making healthy choices and trained my body to reject foods that are bad for me.  I broke some bad eating habits and have learned I truly love some healthy new foods.  I am impressed with the changes over the past three months.  I’m a little shocked honestly at how easy it was to make such a big difference in my physical appearance by just paying attention to what kinds of food I intake.

Beginning Measurements:

Height: 4’11
Weight: 106.5 lbs
Waist: 32.5″
Hips: 35″
Arms: 10.5″
Thighs: 20.5″

Final Measurements:

Height: 4’11
Weight: 101.5 lbs
Waist: 29.5″
Hips: 33″
Arms: 9″
Thighs: 18″

Besides all the inches lost, I feel better.  When I slip and eat junk food I feel like crap.  My body now craves the healthy options and it really isn’t as hard to find healthy options as I thought it would be.  I feel more confident as well.

Even though the challenge is over, I don’t plan to stop.  I’m happy that I’ve made lifestyle changes and plan to keep them.  I also plan to start working out more with weights and tone up.  I’m eager to get back into running again.

Full Disclosure: I am one of 10 Brand Ambassadors in the George Foreman Knock out the Fat Weight Loss Challenge. I was sent a George Foreman Grill for my participation in this challenge and will be compensated for my time at the end of the 90 day challenge. HOWEVER, ALL opinions expressed in this post are 100% my own.