Mac is crawling

Horray! We've had a great couple of days! On Tuesday Mac crawled almost 20 feet while playing, she said "daddy" in sign language, and moved her arms and legs in swim class like she was swimming. Today Mac crawled over to the couch and pulled herself up to standing. We think she's cutting some more teeth. So she is developing so quickly. Once she decides she can do something, she does it well.

She loves playing with musical toys. She has a puppy that sings songs when you push the tummy, feet, hands, and ears. Mac finally "gets it" and will push different parts of the puppy then dance to the music. She loves her "First Sign's" DVD and is beginning to enjoy her "First Move's" DVD, both by Baby Einstein. She still loves her bear-blanket. We're trying to look for another one to buy so we can have plenty clean and ready for her all the time.

We are so thankful that God has blessed Tim and me with such a beautiful and wonderful baby girl. We pray that she would continue to develop into a healthy, strong, and loving child of God.

How To Read 54 Blogs Every Day

Friends are often commenting about how much time I spend online, most likely because of the significant number of good "links" I come across (videos, news articles, new blogs, etc.). They may be absolutely correct that I spend too much time on the Web, but fact is I get so much news and other fun information from 54 (and counting) blogs and various news feeds almost every day.

No, I don't actually visit 54 websites every day. To read those 54 sites, I visit just one: Google Reader.

Google Reader is an online application similar to Gmail or Yahoo Mail that frequently goes out and checks all my favorite websites and adds new stuff (things I haven't seen yet) to my queue -- an "inbox" of sorts. Instead of logging in to read email, I log in to read new blog posts.

As I browse through the list of things, they get marked as "read" and disappear (unless I go digging for them). It's really quite useful, and I'm always surprised when a friend says they visit their favorite blogs the old-fashioned way. It's fine for one or two, but when you get to the point where you have 20 or so friends' blogs, it's impossible to keep up!

So, check it out. Google Reader. It's not just for geeks, I promise.