Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas To you and your familes!
I wish i could have sent out an christmas card to all of you, but yah i'm not that rich ;)

Click on them to see them larger

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.

Just a normal week in winter

So the holidays are over. now it’s time to get back to normal. I really tried how to remember what things were like last year after the holiday slow down, but I can’t remember. All I do remember is I didn’t have the wonderful playgroup and story time that I do now. I wasn’t even a regular blogger or tweeter…just on face book, which if anyone knows it’s near impossible to go back to what was happening a year ago. But I guess it really doesn’t matter, as Bella is totally mobile in all directions, and communicating with words. So life with a baby would be sitting up and rolling around is nothing like a baby who’s almost a year half old!.

So this week Monday we had a visitor, my buddy Katie. It was nice to see her and visit. I don’t think we have done that in ages. Bella was a very good baby and even napped while Katie was here. After she left Bella and I headed to the barn. That night she got some new jammies.… they are Wonder Pet Jammies. They are suppose to be for a little boy, but I haven’t found any cute little girl’s wonder pets Jammies. She really enjoyed them and knows where each of the characters are.

Tuesday we went to Playgroup. It was nice to be back. Bella really had fun and didn’t want to leave.  IT was really cold, but we braved it to go to town. We came home and lunch and then Bella took a nap!  some how it ended up being a late night for milking and chores, so that pushed everything else behind. I did finally get some pictures of our new calves. Unfortunaly we have lost two bull calves..Taco that I mentioned before and another one named Taco that was only a couple days old. I guess I might have to retire the name Taco.

Wednesday was a crazy day. Bella and I had to run to the post office to mail out my jump drives so Tori could upload my pictures, (have i mentioned how much I hate that I’m limited to what i can upload?), then we had to stop at the bank and check into who’s name was on her savings account as the system says there is no adult. Well we need one on there, come to find out it’s just Josh and not me or the both of us, so that was on stop i should have left to Josh. LOL Then we hit up story time, where it was crazy busy, I think everyone came back, but once the actual story time was done, Bella had fun playing with her friend. Then we set off for the vet. It was time to get dewormer for All the cats and Cole. Well that went great until the last 30 seconds as Bella fell off the bench and hit her head on the ground… btw she would have used her hands if they hadn’t been holding on to candy.  So then I freaked out because after she calmed down and got in the car and was all happy and smily she got sleepy… also i should note that she was up at 6:30 am and by now it’s 11:30 and normally she naps by 10 or 11 at the latest… so I stop at Pamida to get a few things to wake Bella up too. SHe did fine in the store and then stayed awake the whole way home. It was lunch time when we got home and  I prayed she would nap. She did finally… a 2 hour 15 min nap! By the time we got up it was time for milking.  She did end up with a big ol’ goose egg on her head that was a light purple when she went to bed, but woke up in the morning and you could barely tell it was there.

Thursday, the snow had came… well at least 4 to 5 inches of it anyhow. I decided it was still warm enough yet to let Bella go out and play in it. Well then Josh said he had to go the Lancaster house to shovel. So yeah Bella got about 5 mins in the snow before we loaded her up, then she fell asleep in the truck. She slept the whole time we were in town and back home. Gave her lunch and then dealt with a cranky baby til she finally went to sleep again.  We started chores early since it was windy and blowing snow. I didn't’ want  to be out in the dark trying to feed calves, especially one who was new to the huts. So that gave me a nice break while Josh milked.

Today: While Bella napped I cleaned my house. I really haven’t done it yet this week, so it was much needed. I need to work on laundry, but that will have to wait til this weekend.  Once she got up, we had lunch, where I found a jar of cashew butter and it was so yummy, I think better than the almond butter. I’m diggin the other nut butters. Pretty sure we are going to convert completely once we are done with the peanut butter jars.  Then we went to town. It was amazing that with the sun shining how great the roads were especially since yesterday they were awful! Bella and I played in the house while Josh shoveled. Bella loves to play in the lancaster house since it’s wide open space! then we hit up the grocery store where we put to go use our xmas gift from Grandma and Grandpa.  Then we came home and attempted to give Bella and afternoon nap. She had other ideas, so again chores were started early and I got to head back to the house for a little break. I managed to update the shutterfly site and get pictures up on facebook. the pics on facebook have all been posted here already.

And since I just used a lot of words… here are a few pictures from this week.. pretty much one a day :)

Finding Lenny on her wonder pet jammies…and they do have a cape too :)

 

Bella got baby bottles and pretend baby food. she is happy to be able to feed Sophie now with out mommy getting mad

Walking out to the barn. It’s normal to have a least one kitten/cat to go with her. Sometimes it’s everyone who’s under the car port

 

 

Can you see on the left part of her forehead the red mark?

 

Her 5 mins in the snow..she did enjoy what she got to  play in.

 

 

“Found ya mommy”

Play dough

Today was play group. We had a good time dispite i was tired and Bella was in a mood.  I was tired from my book club last night. It was a great time, but I ened up chatting with the other woman til 11:15.  Then I got home and Josh and I talked until at least 12:30. So yeah it was tiring today.

But Bella and i went to Playgroup where they had playdough out. If i wonder if she was ready for it, i wonder no more. She did pretty good with it until she dropped a bit of it and it got all over the bottom of her shoes, then on me and then i was done.

The rest of play group went well. Bella played pretty good, even finding the toy tractor in all the toys. Guess she’s a farmer at heart.

We stopped to visit daddy after playgroup and then came home for a wonderfully short nap. After lunch of Mac N Cheese and yogert smoothie, Bella helped mommy clean up the house.

NOw daddy is home and Bella is outside watching him milk cows and feeding snacks to Chubbers and Cole.

Oh I’ve also posted the wedding pictures up on the Shared site

http://warpinski.shutterfly.com

Feel free  if you got any good shots of Bella, me or Josh to add them.  Some of the faces on us for family shots didn’t look the greatest on my camera :(

Website

Just wanted to let everyone know that I updated the shuttefly website with more September pictures, a small journal entry and hopefully a few videos soon. I’m working on October pictures too.

 

here’s the link: http://warpinski.shutterfly.com

feel free to leave a comment.  if you can’t see the site let me know

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