Stationery card

Wishing You Merry Christmas Card

Don't send boring Christmas cards , personalize them at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Caring Bridge

My mom suffered a stroke on Wednesday caused by an Arterivenous Malformation (AVM).  I have set up a site on Caring Bridge where you can keep up with her recovery and leave comments.  Jim and I are posting updates pretty regularly.  She (and we) appreciate knowing that you're thinking of her, praying for her, or whatever. 

xoxo Lauren

Joey-isms

Joey is three years eight months old and growing up much too fast.

We had some rough times (terrible twos, terrible threes), but Joey has become such a sweet, considerate little girl.  Most of the time, anyway!  She adores Charlotte and takes pride in being a good big sister; she will stop what she's doing to give Charlotte some loving when she wants some attention.  Joey is learning how to write her name and she drew her first self portrait a few weeks ago.

Here are some tidbits about my favorite three-year-old:

Interests: 
princesses, Shrek

Favorite Game:
dress-up

Favorite Color:
green

Favorite Number:
three (because she's three)

Favorite hangouts: 
Chick-fil-A, Barnes & Noble

Favorite books: 
Pinkalicious; Disney princess stories

Most-watched movie: 
Tangled

What she wishes for on a star:
a Princess Tiana doll

Check out Joey-isms from a year ago. 

Happy Halloween Part Deux

Joey was a baby vampire, too!

Happy Halloween!

love,

baby vampire

Only 56 days, 7 hours, 3 minutes 'til Christmas...

I am oh so excited (really) that, for the second year in a row, I have the opportunity to critique Shutterfly's holiday cards in exchange for 25 free cards.  What?  I was going to do that anyway.  This is a special promotion for - ahem - bloggers, so if you have a blog, check out the promo here.  I ordered my cards from them last year and I was incredibly pleased with the designs, ease of personalization, and with the quality.  I was so happy with our Christmas card last year that I would order it again, but alas, they have an entirely new collection for 2011.

Yes, maybe it's a little early to be considering Christmas cards, but we're just window shopping here.  Shutterfly prints and ships very quickly, so you can probably put off ordering your cards until mid-December.  But then again, it's nice to get it out of the way. 

Shutterfly offers more than 900 (nine hundred) Christmas and holiday cards to choose from.  If you have an idea of what you're looking for, you can view what you want to view.  You can select as many options as you want under each category.  Personally, I like to look at all of them.  While a "whimsy" card might not be your cup of tea, you never know what will jump out to you.

I am attracted to colorful and modern cards like a magpie is attracted to a pile of nickels.  And I definitely lean toward black and white photographs with colorful designs and text.  Now if your photo needs some doctoring, don't fret.  Shutterfly allows you to edit and add effects to your photos as you're designing your card.

Shutterfly has a convenient compare feature that allows you to select cards and, well, compare them with other cards that you like.  It's much easier than opening multiple cards in separate windows to compare them.  I figured that out the hard way.

These are some designs that I'm considering.  Click on any of these pictures for a direct link to the card on Shutterfly.

With so many options it's tough to make a decision.  Maybe I'll order them all...Shutterfly will let you do that.

Shutterfly also sells gifts, such as personalized photo mugs.  You know that your kids' grandparents need some of those.

Another great gift idea would be a canvas print of a favorite photograph.

And who doesn't need a blanket?

Check out Shutterfly for their complete selection of holiday cards, invitations, photo gifts and more.



Nine

Charlotte is nine months!  She is crawling, pulling up, and cruising.  She has four teeth:  along with the two on the bottom she has two "vampire teeth" on the top - just in time for Halloween!  She loves to play peek-a-boo.  She is very social and has two BFFs at school.  She is starting to eat table food and even ate a beignet (sans sugar) a few weeks ago.

At her nine-month check-up, Charlotte weighed 17 lbs 2 oz, which puts her in the 25th percentile for weight.  She had dropped down to the 5th - 10th percentile at her 6-month check-up, but she is now back to where she was.  I think that she was just a little behind hitting a growth spurt.  At 17 lbs, she has gained a whopping 10 lbs since birth!  She is 28 inches long, which puts her back in the 50th percentile.

Several weeks ago Charlotte had tubes put in her ears.  Her surgery went well and the staff at Children's South took excellent care of us.  Just a few days after the procedure she started making several new noises.  I guess she just couldn't hear before!  She now says "bye-bye" (while waving "bye-bye"), Dada (and sometimes "Daddy") and she occasionally says "Mama."

I couldn't resist snapping this picture when I went to wake Charlotte up one morning.  It looks like she's about grown out of her 6-month jammies.

To Joey's delight, Charlotte is finally big enough to ride in the "beep-beeps" at Publix.  And now I have room to stow the groceries, unlike a few months ago.

The girls sit and play together.

 "Too tight, Joey!"

 This tired girl fell asleep at the dinner table, puffs in hand.

 Charlotte got many compliments on her Halloween costume.