Shutterfly, Be Still My Heart

I have had MANY great experiences with Shutterfly orders.

After hubby and I's engagement we received a Shutterfly book.  Hubby proposed to me at the top of Pikes Peak....during a blizzard.  We were there with my company.  And my boss whom also happens to be a good friend of mine made the book.  The book includes pictures from this day and is a very special book.

After we returned from our honeymoon in London/Paris we made personal thank you cards,

like these:

With this photo.

We had a few pictures taken in front of the Westminster Abbey, but there were other people in these pictures, so we went with this one.  You can order your own personal thank you's here.  There are so many designs to choose from or you can choose to use a simple photo, so that you may use them for any occasion!

I have also purchased several calendars for grandparents for past Christmases.  The grandparents simply love these calendar's, you can order yours here.  Currently they are buy one get one 50% off.

Now Shutterfly is offering Bloggers 50 free Christmas photo cards!  YAY!!  I send out approximately 65 Christmas cards every year.  I usually make the cards myself.  With my busier schedule I simply do not have the time to put that much time into cards this year.  These picture cards are a wonderful alternative!  Just as personal as a homemade card, I feel.  You can peruse Shutterfly's huge selection here.

So here are a few designs I have in mind.  There is such a great selection, knowing me I will not end up with one of these.

The great thing about Shutterfly, aside from their fabulous designs, is how quick your order comes in! 

If you are a blogger and would like to be a part of this please check here.

Did I mention we recently got our family pictures done?  They are incredible.  I want to share them along with my new blog names for my little ones.  (That I have been promising.)

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

And Then There Was Christmas.....

......At least some preparation. 

I have been waiting for the holiday season for MONTHS!!!!  So happy it is finally here.  I can not describe my joy the day of Thanksgiving.  Now that joy gets to carry on for entire month!  Yay!

I have some things planned for this holiday season to really make some memories.  Hubby and I are and have really just made sure we do not go crazy with presents.  The kids get nice things but not too much......our families take care of that. :)  Mostly kidding. 

Anyways today we had planned to set up the Christmas tree.  Because we had cleared/rearranged the sitting room to make room for a Thanksgiving table to seat 18 we had plenty of room for a tree.  However, being the visionaries that we are, we had no tree.  That's right folks, the last two years our tree has had some lighting issues.  So we decided to throw it out last year and buy one when they were on sale.  Guess who did not ever get to those sales......  So in the midst of our Dave Ramsey makeover we had to make an "Emergency Fund" dip to buy a new tree.  Yes a tree with three kids is ESSENTIAL, and I will not back down from this statement.  We went with a white tree and not the most expensive option (which hubby wanted).  We bought some red lights and a red skirt.  I was hesitant because I really wanted the magenta lights, but this was the one stand against pink hubby has made, so I respectfully went with the red.  I am proud to report we ALL L.O.V.E. the result.  Even hubby sat and stared at the tree for a bit.  It seriously is gorgeous.  And any new moms with a fussy baby, I suggest getting that tree up and setting the baby in front of it to stare.  It has always soothed my kiddos just as it does me.  *SIGH*  I wish these pictures captured the beauty of the tree but they truly do not.  I hope you enjoy, all the same.  Merry Christmas season everyone, may the joy of the season bring peace to your heart!

Sad news, yesterday Blogger only allowed for one picture upload and now the upload window freezes and when it finally does allow uploads it does not use the new orientation saved.  Anyone else having these issues?.  Please forgive the abscence of photos in my post.  I will load them in another post.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Wow as of yesterday it has officially been 3 months since my last post. Yikes!  With my new job and all of the after school/work activities in our lives I just felt like I needed to be on a blogging break.  I have been thinking  alot about blogging and missing the blogging relationships I have had and so I felt it was time to get back to blogging. 
Well I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!!  I love Thanksgiving.  It is such a special time to spend with friends and family.  This year we had five new faces at our dinner table.  La, Q and Gooner from Famille d'Arsenal , Clarissa and her husband from In my oh-so-humble opinion...   Let me just say that if you remember me blogging about my first meet up with La here then you may remember that our friendship has been very easy from the beginning.  Strangley natural, in a good way.  Well La brought along Clarissa whom she has been friends with for a long time.  So while I was excited to have everyone I was also a little nervous about maybe things being awkward.  I am not sure how it happens twice but Clarissa was just as fun and awesome as La.  Again it was like highschool friends meeting up after a long abscence and just getting back to where they left off.  AWESOME!!  Here are a few pictures.  Thanks ladies for a great Thanksgiving!

Okay I had a bunch more pictures but Blogger is not letting me load anymore of the photos.  But this is a good photo.

Hope everyone is doing well!  What did everyone else do for Thanksgiving?