iFUN

Robbie got me a very neat surprise for my 34th birthday- an iPHONE! I was flabbergasted, b/c I thought iphones cost hundreds of dollars, though when I was cleaning around the house I found a bag with the receipt, and turns out my deal-loving hubby got it for only 19.98 at Sam's Club! He did, however, get me an itunes gift card and an indestructable "Otter" case for it (smart, since the kids are always stealing it) so the total wasn't cheap! :)

I must say, I know it is just a thing, but it is the neatest thing i have ever owned! There are so many things to help me reach my goals on this nifty gadget! (ones to distract me too, but so far the benefits outweight the distractions!)

1. First of all, I have a "Missal" app for the daily readings, with an audio option, AND a "read the Bible in a year" section- the kids and I are going to listen to it at bedtime for our reading and "read the Bible" together. Also includes daily commentaries based on the readings! The new place for my kids to find me when they wake up is in the dining room in our prayer corner, listening to the readings of the day. LOVE IT

2. I have "Saint of the Day" - also with audio, that I plan to play through the car speakers or at snack time after school. We usually read from the Saints for Young readers for Every Day book, and we may still do that too - we'll see.

3. I have a "My Fitness Pal" app that lets you effortlessly log your food with a simple click- it takes your height/weight and tells you how many calories you need to eat to lose up to 2 lbs a week, and recalibrates based on your actual eating. Coolest of all, you can use the iphone camera to "scan" the barcode of any food item (even Aldis brand nutella! :)) and the nutritional info pulls up instantly and you just click to add it. It makes keeping a food journal a cinch and also includes an online community if you want to use it, and you can input any exercise, etc as well. It's awesome!

4. I am trying not to ABUSE THE POWER of the apps in getting my kids to get things done around the house. Jimmy just cleaned the basement playroom and put away all the items to go up the stairs quick as a wink so that he could play a game of Boggle on my iphone. We have Stack the States, a super fun app that quizzes you on U.S. States while balancing them up in a pile, a math facts quiz game where you build a rocket ship, Fish School that teaches letters and numbers... super fun for little snatches of time!

5. SO many more like Dinner Spinner, where you can pick the type of dish, main ingredients and time to prepare, and it comes up with a list of recipes for you from allrecipes.com to save and use...

6. The ipod! My ipod was very very old and couldn't hold more than a handful of songs at a time- I now have my entire library of songs with me everywhere I go!

7. Geocaching- we can use my phone to go geocaching- the kids are super excited to try it out!

8. OH I could go on and on. But I won't- b/c it is probably super annoying. But I would highly recommend this thing! It is awesome!!