Little sickie

Friday morning Bella woke up with a fever. No one around us has been sick, so i was very puzzled. She also was not acting like herself. So I called up the Doc to see if we could be seen before the weekend.  Bella pretty much slept up until the doctor’s appointment then slept for about 3 hours afterwards. oNce she woke up she was feeling a bit more like herself. There was no reason to warned any meds other than for the fever, so we just had to wait it out. Her fever broke that night and with in a couple days she was back to her old self

 

 

playing with the stickers she earned for being good with the doctor

 

She loves the books at the doctor’s office

All she wanted was juice… it took her 45 mins to move from this spot.

 

Once she was up she was in a good mood.

Babies, Balls, Ponds, and family

Bella is very lucky to have one of her Great Aunts and Great Uncles so close.  We are also lucky they don’t mind coming to visit or watching Bella. Last week we were able to see quite a bit of Duane and Diane.  We also had some other fun those days..so here’s a whole bunch of pictures from a couple days

Bella has been very into her Baby the last couple of weeks.

 

Aunt Di Ann (Bella makes it sound like two words these days).  Bella had a lot of fun with the balloon that won’t pop :)

We got balls for Bella’s climber, but haven’t had time to put them with the climber yet, but Bella wanted to play with all the ball anyhow

 

the little balls were not good enough for Bella, she had to find the big ones instead

 

Bella all ready to head to the pond.

 

at the pond with Aunt Diane

 

Bella playing with Uncle Duane. She doesn’t see him very much, but often asks about him when we got to visit and he’s not home.

Christmas Cards

Every year since i was little I’ve enjoying getting Christmas cards in the mail. When i was smaller my mom would let me open them all, then as i got older we took turns. Once I went to college it was such a joy to send out my own and get ones back in return. There is so much joy in getting a card or letter in the mail.

Once I was engaged to Josh and we had our own house(totally can’t believe i was a home owner before graduating college. eeks), i decided we were going to do photo cards. I’m a big photo person and love taking pictures, so it only seemed natural. I also enjoy receiving photo cards and seeing how our friends and family have changed in the last year. IT’s so much fun to back  and look at the years before.

Our first year I made Josh dress up nice and we took a picture with our then kitten Annabelle. Josh was not impressed and neither was the cat.

Our 2nd year we used a picture from our honeymoon..it looks almost photoshopped, but i swear it’s the real deal!

 

*created at Shutterfly

our 3rd year we were able to announce our sweet little baby girl.

*created via another site

 

Last year, it’s harder to get a good family shot that looks Christmassy, so instead i opted for a great family picture of us and then a cute little photo shoot picture of Bella with some Santas.

*created via another site

 

This year, I know what part of the picture will be, but not sure of what style or another pictures might be part of the card.. Ok that’s kind of a lie i know for sure what pictures i want, but I want it to be a surprise for our friends and family. Since I've just shown the last few that we have done, I’ll try hard to post this years too!

But after picking my pictures I want for my card, I have to go looking for the perfect photo card. After a few years of playing the “cheapest best deal game” with all the photo sites then uploading only a few pictures here and there and ordering too many of the same picture, I'm finally to the point where I’ve narrowed choice down to doing everything via Shutterfly .

I love their prints, photo books and cards. They have great customer service who’s helped me out a lot and grateful to have all my pictures in one location as a back up. The Shared sites have been perfect for both my family and friends to easily share pictures. I’ve actually gotten a few people to change to just shutterfly also. Going through their new selection of photo cards makes my job so hard to pick just one.  they make it so easy to help narrow down your choices

I love this one with the monogram: O Mod Tannenbaum

 

and this one: Snowman With Style

I’ve learned that it’s best to have space to write a little message so you don’t have to write on when the cards come. One year we had to sign them ourselves..that was so silly!

But my husband likes a more traditional Christmas card

like this example of Traditional Damask Red

or the Faith And Family

Oh the choices I have to make. Thankfully it’s not even November yet, so i have a couple weeks to figure it all out. But either way once I make it i know it’s about a week and they will be at my doorstep. Not only is the process to create and order your photo card quick, the shipping is it. It’s probably one top five reasons that I’ve converted everything of my photo wise to Shutterfly.

I totally would recommend them for all your photo card needs!

Don’t forget too they have more than just photo cards, Shutterfly also does birthday invites or for parties and birth announcements for that new baby.

Bloggers! You can receive 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly http://bit.ly/sfly2010

 

 

 

I will be receiving a credit for 50 free photo cards from Shutterfly for writing this post. No other compensation was received and these are my own honest opinions from my experiences with Shutterfly.

Jack o’ Lanterns

Josh, Bella and I work one night last week to finally carve our pumpkins. We have had them picked since end of September but one thing just led to another and we never sat down to carve them.

Bella picked out her pumpkin from the very beginning. We let her paint her pumpkin this year since it was a “baby” pumpkin. She had a lot of fun painting.

 

One finished baby pumpkin..it has a lot of color on it and the picture doesn’t do it justice.

 

After had used most of her colors on her pumpkin, we let her paint on paper and her hands. ;)

 

Josh and I carved our pumpkins and this year used templates instead of just winging it. It was a bit more work than i think either Josh or I thought it would be, but end result was pretty cool.

Josh cutting into his pumpkin

The guts in my pumpkin. Apparently I picked a “pie” pumpkin for the third year running. (that means the sides are really thick)

I let Bella help me since we didn’t carve her’s. BTW she wasn’t a fan of the pumpkin guts

Me getting the last of the seeds out

Josh carving my pumpkin

The end result :)

Farm fun

Last week it was warm out, but not to warm, and the sun was shining. We had some awesome days. A few of those days Bella and I got to go along with Josh while he worked on tearing out fencing and getting the cows in.  We were able to hang out between the corn fields. Bella was able to spend time with both Josh and I, along with Cole and Corn. As you can see in the pictures, Bella loves corn. She had part of a cob that she wouldn’t let it out her site for two days. *note it did have to remain outside, Mom’s have to set some limits*