Happy Holidays!

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Have a wonderful holiday! We'll see you next year!

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Macy's First T-Day

Well, Macy really enjoyed her first turkey day. We spent the holiday with Curt's side of the family with a big dinner at his grandpa's house. It was fun for me to see Macy wear the outfit and turkey hair bow that Chloe wore on her first Thanksgiving.

 

Even though it is so much better, Macy still has a touch of stranger anxiety. It came as a shock to all of us when she decided to befriend Curt's uncle, Bobby. Too cute!

After a great meal with great family, Macy finally decided it was the right time to learn how to crawl!

It was a great way to end the day. Of course several days of leftovers were in store for the rest of the weekend. Thanks to Curt's mom and dad for yet another wonderful holiday!

So very thankful

 

For so many amazing blessings in my life, I am so very thankful. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving day surrounded by all of your blessings.

Sweet deal...

 A couple of weeks ago I saw a status update on Facebook saying that bloggers could receive 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly if they wrote a review on their blog. Well, when it comes to great deals like that I am usually pretty skeptical. However, I decided to check it out, just in case, because I love to send holiday cards...but hate to pay for them. :) So I clicked on the link (http://bit.ly.sfly2010) and it was true! All I had to do was enter a little info about my blog and in a couple of days I got an email with the instructions for writing my review and getting my code for the free cards. Sweet!


What makes the whole deal even better is that I LOVE all of their cards. They have a huge variety, ranging from very traditional to modern and streamlined. This year they also have great stationary cards, and I love the folded cards. The folded cards have a photo on the front, but they also have space on the inside for at least one more photo and plenty of text space.


Here is an example of one of my favorite folded cards. The outside if for one photo, but the inside lets you chose from several different layout options.

Outside:

 Inside:

The other great thing about these, and all of their cards, is that they are so super easy to create and customize. Doing the sample above took me all of about two minutes. And I didn't even have pictures picked out when I started.


Until I started researching for this review I didn't realize that they had such cute photo gifts. I know a couple of grandmas who would love these coffee mugs:

Of course, most people know about their prints, awesome photo books and calendars. But another surprise I had was that they are offering canvas and mounted prints as well. These both make beautiful wall hangings!


So far my experience with Shutterfly has been pretty limited, but now that I know how many great services they offer, I will definitely be sending more of my photo needs their way!


I don't want to share our final pick for our Christmas card this year, but here is an example of one of the stationary cards that I liked with an outtake from our photoshoot. :)

So my overall review of Shuttefly's collection of goodies...Sweet!

Fourth of July

Fourth of July weekend this year was a little extra special. Not because of amazing fireworks or a wonderful cookout, but because we got Curt back. At the beginning of the month he boarded a plane to California for what was supposed to be a two week business trip... and was gone almost an entire month. We have never been apart that long, and certainly not since any of the kids have been born. It was a very tough month for all of us, but many phone calls and lots of good friends got us through. Thankfully, Curt flew home Friday night just in time for the holiday weekend.


Saturday was spent at a large cookout at a friend's house. This was our first time to make it to their annual party and we had so much fun!

Sunday evening we made our yearly trek down to the riverfront to watch fireworks along the water. The show is truly amazing!







The fireworks are set off from a barge in the middle of river and erupt right over our heads. It is spectacular every year and I always sit there in awe feeling like a little kid. I am always leery that one of the kids will be scared, but so far they have all loved it every year. Macy included. The only thing missing this year was a visit from my parents. Maybe next year!

Happy Holidays!

Well, here it is two days before Christmas and I never got around to posting about Thanksgiving. Oh well, moving on. We have been so crazy busy around here. Decorating for the holidays, holiday activities, doctor appointments (routine), me photographing a wedding, Curt's final exams, preparing to begin a construction project the day we get back from our holiday travels and, of course, preparing for the arrival of our new little one. I can't believe we have less than six weeks until she makes her grand entrance!

Curt is now off of work until after the holidays so yesterday we finally finished our Christmas shopping and took the kids to see Santa. They had a great time! Santa was so nice and had the best smile. The picture that we had to buy didn't turn out very good, so here is a snapshot that I grabbed while they were posing.

After visiting with Santa, the kids HAD to ride the little Christmas train. I think this year Chloe might have been more excited than Colby. The second she saw the train she began yelling, "Toot, toot!"

We are leaving for Indiana tomorrow morning for a quick holiday trip. We will be back Sunday night. This is probably the shortest Christmas trip we have ever done. This year it is just necessary to keep it short. My pregnant body does not handle the car trips very well any more and Curt will be building a bedroom for Colby the week between Christmas and New Years. Busy busy busy!!!

I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season!

Merry Christmas
and
Happy New Year!

Halloween, Birthday, Halloween

This time I am not going to start out this post with an apology and a promise to do better. I can't believe that it has been close to two months since my last post, but our lives are kind of crazy right now. It seems like things have been kind of non stop and I know that the next couple of months will only be even more hectic. Hopefully I can squeeze in several posts, but I just can't make promises. :)

So, today is about Halloween and my birthday. The Halloween holiday started out with an event called "Hall-zoo-ween." It is an event held at our local zoo and this was our first time going. There was a long treat or treating path through the zoo, face painting, a costume contest, a magic show and plenty of food tents. Unfortunately, all of the animals were put away for the night, so we only got to see the giraffes and some monkeys.

We didn't enter the kids into the costume contest since they just had store bought costumes. Chloe was a ladybug and Colby was Dash from The Incredibles. Cute, but nothing too original. :) We went to the magic show. However it was so boring that the only good thing that came out of it was an excuse to sit down and get into the candy!

The following weekend we went to Huntington to celebrate my birthday with my family. We arrived Friday afternoon and dropped the kids off at my parents' house. Curt and I then went out to a movie and dinner and then stayed overnight in a hotel. It was the best thing I could have asked for! A whole night with my husband, we don't go on dates nearly enough!

Saturday we went back to my parents' house where we had a small birthday party with my grandma, aunt, uncle and cousin and her family. It is kind of a tradition and always a lot of fun! The kids' favorite place to play:

Colby and Izabella actually posing for a picture!

Of course I had a lot of little helpers opening my presents. :)

One of the few pictures of me with one of my babies. (Please ignore the pregnancy double-chin. Gag.)

Every year my mom makes a red velvet cake from scratch. It is the most delicious cake in the world. Colby thought so too.

After the party and dinner, the little kids put on a Halloween costume fashion show for us all. It was too cute! Unfortunately, by that time in the evening they were getting tired and wound up so it was really hard to get good pictures.

The weekend after that was actually Halloween. Curt's parents were able to come spend the weekend with us. We had a blast! Saturday started out with pumpkin carving.

I drew the designs and Curt did a lot of the actual carving. I had drawn a ladybug for Chloe's pumpkin. It had several small holes, and my smart engineering husband thought of using a drill. It worked perfectly!

Then in the evening it was time for Trick-or-Treating. Chloe loved it, but Colby's shoes were hurting his feet so we ended up only going through about half of our neighborhood. We still had a good time though. Here they are with their pumpkins right before the candy gathering started.

October was a really fun month, and November is shaping up to be a good month too. Hopefully it won't take another month to get a post up, but remember I'm not promising. :)

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

So here I am, again, way behind on my blogging. Chloe was sick with a stomach bug and now Curt and Colby are both hurling. However, most of our time lately has been spent enjoying the Spring weather...finally! Park visits have been keeping us very busy. Hooray!

Now I am finally getting around to our Easter post! Easter celebration actually started the weekend before the actual holiday with a visit from MaMaw and PawPaw. There was a lot of shopping, playing and snuggling.

We also had an Easter pinata. Kind of strange, but lots of fun!

Then Saturday night before Easter we colored eggs. Chloe was already in bed, but Colby did a great job.

Easter morning was a blast. As you can see, Colby was a whirlwind of excitement and an egg-hunting superstar.

Chloe didn't wake up until after the egg hunt was over, but she sure loved getting into her basket. Colby made sure that she found everything hidden in the grass. :)

I wasn't able to get pics of the kids in their Easter outfits on the actual day, so I tried again when we were visiting Curt's family. Once again, the kids were tired and hungry after church, but I decided to take pictures anyway. As you can see, it didn't work very well. These are best shots I could get.

Overall, it was a nice holiday that the kids seemed to really enjoy.