Social Media
Several of you asked for resources on the dairy post– I’ll work on pulling those together for you, but in the meantime, a frivolous Friday post:
I know iPhone’s are the gold standard, yet somehow I still chose an Android phone when I finally hopped on the smartphone wagon. I might be reconsidering that choice now that I’m on my third Rezound in 3 months. I just don’t know how all you iPhone-users get along without Flash. Anyways, since I’ve become an expert in starting from scratch when it comes to apps, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite Android apps with you- specifically the photo apps I use since I always get questions about them on Instagram {I’m sideofsneakers, btw}.
My favorite free photo apps for Android:
Photo Grid is my favorite collage-making app. Sometimes just one feed. Photo Grid lets you make a collection of pictures, choose your layout, your background you want.
The best text-on-photo app I’ve found for Android. I think the iPhone version lets you make a solid background behind the text which would be an awesome feature, but I still love it nonetheless. You can choose a variety of fonts, change the size, color, shadow, etc. Again, you can share it right from the app.
My favorite feature of this photo editing app is the crop function. If you’re going to be using a photo for Instagram, it needs to be a square. It’s helpful to already have the picture cropped before you add any effects, borders, or text. Pixlr Express easily lets you do this. I also love the photo correction features, like brightening, contrast, color correction, etc. The overlays, effects, and borders are fun too.
This is my go-to for fine tuning photo correction- you can choose an adjustment and select how much or little effect you want by sliding your finger. This one crops too, and has a great center-focus feature.
The big brother to Pixlr Express. This app has lots of fun effects, but finding the one you want to use takes a little longer than the express version.
More fun effects & overlays, because you can never have too many. 
I would use this one more if it had a built in crop feature, but it is fun to layer different effects and see what you come with.
This isn’t so much a photo app as a social media-esque app: it’s a super simple photo sharing app. I use it to share pictures with my mom and the husband when he’s out of town. I can just click share from the picture on my phone and it uploads to a gallery they can see. Much easier than emailing attachments or sending a billion texts.
After my first phone died I quickly learned backing up my photos automatically was key- enter Dropbox. I already use this on my computer for work, so it was easy to add the app to my phone and have it automatically upload my pictures.
Any favorites to add to the list?
Baby
Although I was more than uncomfortable the last few weeks before my munchkin was born, it took merely a few hours for the memory of pregnancy to start fading. It wasn’t the most pleasant 9 months, but without a doubt a journey I don’t want to forget. For all the morning sickness and aches and pains, I loved being pregnant. The feeling of my son kicking, squirming, and hiccupping in my belly was a priceless experience. I loved the anticipation of whether my baby was a boy or a girl, what he or she was going to look like, and what he or she would love to do as they grew up. I loved the instant conversation starter pregnancy gave me, and the shared connection with others going through the same journey.
I documented the entire journey on my pregnancy blog, but that’s not something easy to go back and read. It can’t sit on my living coffee table or grace the shelves of the nursery. I have a collection of scrapbooks from college that I love to go back and look at from time to time when I see them sitting in the closet, but I have neither the time, energy, or desire to pick up that hobby again. I love the look of a scrapbook and the ability to add trinkets and memorabilia, but it doesn’t quite capture the feeling I was going for to document my pregnancy.
Instead I decided to make a pregnancy photo book on Picaboo. Since I already had all the photos I’d collected over the last 9 months, it was extremely easy to make. I downloaded the program, uploaded my photos, and got to work building my book. The program can build the book and organize the photos for you, but I loved taking the time to look back through each photo and decide where to put each one in the book. It’s easy to add custom backgrounds, add captions, and change the photo layout of each page.
My plan was to have the entire book ready except for the very last photo: the birth announcement. But since my little boy had other plans, my plans for the book also changed. I continued to put the book together with pregnancy photos, but I couldn’t resist adding in the first six weeks of his life. Those first six weeks were beautiful, wonderful, difficult, rewarding, and trying. I never want to forget them.
You can view my photo book here!
I’ve already starting uploading more baby photos into the Picaboo program so I can be on top of things for the next baby book I make: the first 6 months and a year. If I can wait that long- knowing me I’ll probably make one every month. 
Thank you to Picaboo for allowing me the opportunity to document such a momentous occasion in this special way.
Holidays
5 married Christmases together: our tree has grown up… and so have we.
Can’t wait for the next 5 Christmases!
Race
Official race photos are notoriously bad. Like really bad.
But the Rugged Maniac official race photos were not only rugged, they were awesome- so fun to go back and look at what all the other racers were doing and what the course looked like.
Here’s a few of the proofs from the photography company, AltaSky. {Who did a fantastic job- the pictures rock.}
Ready, set, mud!
It’s tire time.
Oh, just a little cargo net in the way…
The jumping may have been worse than the climbing.
Yes, that’s barbed wire.
Do you like my blonde highlights mud-lights?
After crawling hands & knees through the first barbed wire pit, apparently I decided to crouch my way through this one.
Balance beaming. {As you can tell, it wasn’t exactly a race.}
This guy was just freaking awesome rugged.
Water’s a little deep…
Do you see how high I’m looking up? Long climb up to the slide.
Almost mudslide time…
How you can you not love this picture?
Here goes nothing!
{No slide pictures of us. Boooo.}
Speaking of deep water…
The bottom of the mudslide was at least 4 or 5 feet deep…we watched people just disappear at the bottom before we slid down.
Yup, I’d say it was rugged alright.
Do you ever buy race photos? Even if they’re awful?
