Thursday, November 25, 2010

Our first family Christmas card!

Green Ribbon Holiday
Get custom holiday cards online at Shutterfly.com.
View the entire collection of cards.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Christmas Cards

Well, it's one of my favorite times of the year again.  Christmas card time!  In the past, we've tried to organize a family photo session, but that usually takes a long time and is frustrating enough with just the dogs.  Add a toddler to the mix and it's pretty much impossible.  So this year, I'm just going to use pics I already have for our cards.  I've used Shutterfly in the past for holiday cards as well as other photo services, so I thought I'd check out their holiday cards.

You can check out Shutterfly's Christmas card collection here.  I love this one, called Perfect Paisley.  Wouldn't that look adorable with a picture of Emma's cute face?  I'd definitely love getting that in the mail (but I am a little biased).
I also like Peppermint Snowflake:

Shutterfly also offers some great Christmas photo cards.  I had a hard time settling on just one or two designs that I liked the best.  There's one called Top Ten Moments that would be fitting for our year, since we've had so many firsts (Emma turning one, walking, talking, running, feeding herself, first trip to the beach...I could go on and on).
I also really like this card, called What a Year.  It would let me tell everyone about our special year too.

If you're looking for a good gift idea (this is great for grandparents if you have kids), you can also make your own photo calendar
I'm making a few of these for our parents and grandparents, and might just make one for myself too.  You can add in your own special dates, which is great for our parents (and also my husband, who has a hard time remembering dates sometimes :-) ). 

Head on over to Shutterfly to choose your favorite card!  Hopefully you'll have an easier time choosing that I am!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Halloween 2010

This blogging thing is harder than it seems.  Actually I just haven't taken the time to update in a long while.  Even with Emma's 2-3 hour naps (thank you Babywise)!  I've been trying to get our house cleaned up, which is hard for someone who has never been a neat freak...until now.  For whatever reason, I have suddenly felt a huge urge to get this place clean.  I've implemented a weekly cleaning schedule, which is great.  It helps me to get most of the house clean, but I don't spend hours cleaning.  I keep finding more things to add though, so I'm still tweaking it.  I still hate cleaning but I feel so much better once it's done.  Although it's never really done...I would really like to know where all the dust comes from.

Halloween this year was quite different from last year.  Last year, Emma was a monkey and went to church.  This year, she was Elmo and she got to go trick or treating around my parents' house.  The weather was great and Emma seemed to have a lot of fun.  We pulled her in her wagon, but she walked to everyone's door for the most part.  She said hi and thank you; we'll hopefully have "trick or treat" down for next year.  She got to meet a lot of dogs, which she loved.  She stayed up a little late, but didn't get fussy at all.  Unfortunately mean Mommy and Daddy are eating all her candy...however, I did save the suckers for potty training treats. 






As far as the potty training goes, she has regressed a bit with peeing in the potty.  She has pooped twice though.  Fortunately, we started early enough that I'm not freaking it if she takes a few steps back...we have lots of time to get it done.  And she loves sitting on the potty...she always asks us to read her a book...and then another and another.  She is very grown up all of a sudden.  We've been working on self-feeding, which she's very happy about.  She can feed herself any finger food, but has a harder time with a fork or spoon.  She can put it in a bowl or plate, and then into her mouth, but there's usually no food on it.  But we're getting there, and she seems pretty determined to figure it out.  She's still just as picky as ever, but I am going to start offering more vegetables.  She usually plays with them instead of eating them, but I'm going to keep trying.