Ho! Ho! Ho!

[mylady]

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday, whatever you chose to do this day. I thought I would share what my children woke up to this morning! My son was not too impressed as we had to drag him out of bed, but my daughter couldn't wait to tear into things! There are still presents unopened as the gifts from my husbands parents are waiting until his mom arrives on Sunday. Funny thing is, she doesn't know what they are since she just sends me money and I buy the gifts, wrap them, and put them under the tree! My father in law cannot come as he has just come down with pneumonia and also has some kind of parasite.
Santa was pretty good to the kids this year. You know, when I was a kid I would come out to see the tree and the presents would be so numerous that it was spilling out of the room. My mom was a single parent raising three kids and I have NO IDEA how she always made that happen. Not complaining, just realizing how much my mom had to do every year to provide that for us. I had a lot to wrap last night and then of course had to set everything up, fill the stockings, eat the cookies (Sully ate the reaindeer carrots) write the note from Santa in different handwriting. Finally got to sleep at 3:30am. Evie woke us at 8:30am. It was a pretty easy day. Opened gifts, threw the ham in the oven and my sister and dad were bringing side dishes. Unfortunately they both decided to make scalloped potatoes. What are the odds? LOL, so we had lots of potatoes. Opened a jar of applesauce, made some crescent rolls and that was it. Easy peasy rice and cheesey!
My sister brought her dog with her, THAT was funny. Having 5 dogs trying to play in a house that's 1000 sq feet with 6 adults, 2 kids and a pile of presents, LOL
Enjoyed the day, looking forward to hopefully sleeping in tomorrow.

Oh the one thing that stinks is I bought hubby a blue ray DVD player AND I even remembered to buy a fancy schmancy HDMI cable only to find our HD TV is not HDMI compatible. So now hubby wants a new TV LOL

[Admin]

Most HDTV without HDMI accept DVI. You can get a DVI converter and attach to the HDMI cable. And finally most HDTV otherwise have component inputs and most Blu Ray have component RGB output, and you can get that cable, but I would go with DVI first if possible.

[4Sibes]

Your tree and those wrapped prezzies look beautiful...and quiet,... from here that is.
Get some rest...if you don't know what that is, google "r e s t".

[wet noze]

That sounded like a busy but lovely day. Merry Christmas to you and your family mylady!

[dogspaw]

Beautiful tree! I usually get mine up on Thanksgiving, then tear it down on Christmas couse im so tired of it, but due to things going on I did not get it up till the other day. We had a pretty quiet day. Just my 2 children that are still at home, my BF, me and the dogs. My oldest son and his wife and grandchildren spent the day with her mother, which was fine with me as it was a very difficult day for them. My DIL's Daddy passed away a week and a half ago, but had already bought and wrapped gifts for the kids. Believe it or not it was kinda nice to have just a quiet day. My daughter (14) cooked the ham (only burned it a little) while I slepet. That was so nice to not have to cook! I think ive just about decided to "pass the torch" on to my DIL next year and she can cook and we can go there!

Happy few days off everyone!

[azoci]

Wonderful looking tree and goodies!

We had a very busy day on Christmas Eve, but a fun day of traveling around to kids on Christmas Day, but I was pooped by the time we got home!

Christmas Eve we had 14 people stating at about 8 in the morning! But I had been up long before getting thigs ready! We did a Crock Pot buffet with the exception of one dish, everything was made in crok pots or the table top broiler(which held the ham w/mincemeat glaze). The grand daughters (ages 9,10,11,13) made cookies, and cherry tarts, as I had left the oven free for them!

We had roast beef, corn off the cob (tasted like corn on the cob), Italian green bean casserol, lil' Smokies, and the one dish that I came up short for a crock pot? the Sweet potatoes! Well, toasting the marshmelloes would have been a challenge in the CP <G> relish plates and as many cookies and goodies as you could eat! Maybe not the traditional dinner, but everyone had a great time.

After an early dinner, we did the unwrapping of gifts giving the kids a chance to enjoy the gifts.Then the adults played Uno Attack, gals against the guys, but we did a woeful job. So we restarted the game, and whipped them good! The kids were enjoying gifts, movies, Wii and who knows what else!

Christmas morning we has just the "sock gifts" and that was way too funny in one regard...I had purchased the 4 foot long cat toys (feathers, etc) for the cats, but to my surprise, my little Iggy keyed in on the fast moving feathers and played as if she were a cat! Catching them, jumping for them , so maybe she's part cat? (or maybe it's cause she's a sighthound in a very small package)!

We went traveling around to family and friends on Christmas day and took her too. I was amazed to see the difference in the feet of the Pom-Chi mix my son has compared to her. She was his same size, but has toes and feet twice the size of his! The got along great, he even gave her one of his small tennis balls to play with, we all got a huge chuckle out of the dogs playing!

I hope everyone had a super holiday as this one was for us.
www.pamsbubblemobile.com

[mylady]

Most HDTV without HDMI accept DVI. You can get a DVI converter and attach to the HDMI cable. And finally most HDTV otherwise have component inputs and most Blu Ray have component RGB output, and you can get that cable, but I would go with DVI first if possible.

THANK YOU! We went out and bought one tonight. LOL, the adapter cost more than the cable!

[Admin]

A few other blu ray tips.

If it has an ethernet connection like many new machines do today plug in your DSL if you have that and get updates to the player. Since that player was boxed there are probably many updates. Otherwise you register and they mail a CD with firmware updates to you. It can make a big difference as some of the bells and whistles on advanced blu ray discs need those updates. I recently got a new blu ray and there were 17 updates waiting for me after I hooked the machine up to the Internet. Much easier than waiting weeks or months for them to send you a CD.

A lot of the machines have a slot for memory sticks and the machine can use that extra memory for tricks, or sometimes the machines will do slide shows of hundreds or thousands of your family photos. I get those memory sticks on eBay pretty cheap. It's pretty easy to learn. I may put all the upcoming Rags to Riches 2 contest on a stick and study pictures on the big screen through blu ray in high definition. Oh look at that little curl! That stray hair! Just kidding! LOL

Blu rays are far more than a great DVD player. With the Internet connection you can download enhancements to select movies that have taken advantage of it. Pretty amazing stuff. That's where all this going. Most people don't know that and it's an aspect still coming into its own. Sure you have to be really into it but if you are, it's great stuff.

[mylady]

Thank you, hubby went to hook it up to the computer last night and realized that it has to be hard wired. He doesn't want to run a cord all the way from the DVD player to the computer and we don't have one long enough to go under the floor, into the basement and back up. I guess I just assumed it would be a wireless nic in there. That just makes sense to me. It is a Sony blu ray and I knew that hubby liked Sony DVD players as that was what the one we had before I bought this one was. He's very picky about his electronics, but I didn't see any Onkyo blu rays LOL, as thats what everything else is in the house. I don't know anything about this stuff, it's all his department. I'm sure he'll be having fun with all the bells and whistles soon enough. He actually is one to read the operators manual! And I thought those things were just free coasters!

Stephen: They finally put wireless in the Sony blu ray S560, that's just now becoming more standard but not quite yet. Some people have had a bit of problem with that, some not. I still use the corded connection. I use an Onkyo for the receiver and Sony for the player, they do work well together. Depending upon the blu ray, it actually takes some time to learn all the things you can do with an advanced blu ray, the movie disc itself. Pretty remarkable.