Shutterfly Cards Received

So I am just getting around to update on which Shutterfly cards I chose. I was really struggling as to which cards I wanted to use this year. There are so many that I liked. I finally got it down to 2 and ended up ordering BOTH! I also ordered some for my parents.

Here are the ones that I chose:

I chose this one to send to family that can't keep up with us like they wish. I like the story card idea. Since there is room for writing inside, there is no need for a separate letter. This card had four picture/text areas inside, just enough to highlight memories for each of the kids!

Sweet Holly Story Christmas 5x7 folded card

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This one I got to send to friends who live near, family we see on a regular basis, and work co-workers.

Faith Hope Family Religious Christmas Card

Make a statement with Shutterfly Christmas photo cards.

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Here is the one that my mom chose. We had to be careful because the picture had been resized so the resolution was low. I think, given the situation, it turned out pretty good.

Three Wise Men Religious Christmas Card

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With this being the Christmas season, I was surprised at the quick turn around. My order was on my porch within a week. All the cards look great. This is the first time I had ordered the flat stationary card, and it is just as nice as everything else Shutterfly makes. Now I just need to get busy addressing them and get them in the mail.

Shutterfly Christmas Cards -- The most WONDERFUL CARDS of the year!

As I wrote in my last blog entry, Christmas is just around the corner. It's time to be thinking about Christmas cards. In past years, I have designed my own cards and had them printed by Shutterfly, but this year I am excited about the new designs Shutterfly has released.
Christmas cards are a great way to let family and friends know those special milestones and achievements that have happened throughout the year, what better way than to use one of Shutterfly's new story cards. There are a variety of designs including folded or flat cards. Folded cards have photos outside as well as photo areas inside with room for your story. Flat cards have ample room for your photos and story on the front side.

Christmas cards aside, Shutterfly is there for all your stationary needs. From birth announcements to wedding anouncements, and every occassion in-between, shutterfly has you covered.

Bloggers, get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly, for more information and to sign up visit Shutterfly's blog.


PS. -- Have I ever said how much I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Shutterfly's photobooks? That in itself is a whole other blog post, and will have to be covered another time. :)

Recent Projects

With Christmas just around the corner, 46 days, 7 hours and 44 mins to be exact, I have been working on various Christmas presents. Two of them I didn't take pictures of :( though. I had ordered a Vera Bradley wristlet for my mom, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it wouldn't fit her cell phone. I took on the challenge of making something that was similar but would work for her phone. Boy, was it a challenge! Now that I know what I am doing, it would probably be somewhat easier, but I don't think I am up to that right now. Here are some pictures of what I came up with.


Other gifts that I recently made were some hurricane vases. A friend showed me this blog post and I thought they would be great gifts. I forgot to take pictures of the ones I gave as gifts so here is a picture of some I am making for myself. I haven't glued the big one, as I am not sure which candle holder to use as the base.

This past weekend was a baby shower for my sister-in-law. K and M1 wanted to do something special for the baby so I suggested making hats for her. I got some soft nubby yarn and they went to work on their round looms.

K's hat for baby

M1's Hat for baby

Ta-may-to, Ta-mah-to

Which ever way you say it, we have 'em. The tomatoes in our garden are finally ripening and we are enjoying the harvest. Our garden is mostly tomato plants with a few peppers and a squash plant. The tomatoes seemed to take a long time to ripen this year but our waiting is paying off

Earlier this week, I was trying to figure out what to have for supper. I had some ground beef thawed in the fridge so I knew I needed to use that, but what could I make? Looking in the cupboard revealed angel hair pasta but I had no sauce. After thinking about it a little longer, I realized there were two pots of already stewed tomatoes in the fridge, so I got out the Victorio strainer -- which by the way was my garage sale find of the summer -- and made sauce. Cooking down the juice is the most time consuming part of the project, it simmered all day long. In the end, the sauce was still a little watery but oh so good. I put a little in a bowl and asked the kids to taste it, they all thought it was good, but J, who doesn't like "amatoes", was the one who finished off the bowl.

Craft Night

So I have been given the task of coming up with a Christmas craft for our home school group. The group ranges from K4-7th grades so coming up with an activity for every one is somewhat challenging. I have been blog hopping and have come across a few good ideas. There are so many GREAT blogs that focus on crafts that it’s mind boggling! Anyway, I saw these cute felted wool ornaments and figured that most kids would be able to make them. I have learned that I need to test the projects first, so I headed to Joann Fabric’s to pick up some wool roving. Today I had all the kids try their hand at making them. This is the first time I have worked with wool roving so I am learning as I go.

The process is fairly easy, you just pull off small bunches of the roving and stuff into cookie cutters. Once the cookie cutter is full, drop a small amount of soap onto the roving and wet with warm/hot water.

Use fingers or other utensil to poke the roving until it is all matted - this takes a couple minutes.

When the roving is all matted, rinse with hot water, then rinse with cold water. Pat with towel to get out excess water and allow to dry. When the ornament is dry, embellish however you wish.

One thing I have learned, the wool roving from Joann Fabric’s doesn’t seem to wet felt very well. After looking at all the wool on Etsy, I am thinking that buying there is the way to go. I can’t wait to get my hands of some good Merino wool and see how that works.

For the last 3 weeks, M2 has been reviewing colors in school. On Tuesday, he was supposed to paint a coffee filter and make a butterfly, but I put it off due to the fact of MESS and various other reasons. Tonight seemed like a good night, so we go out the water colors and aprons. All of them wanted to try their hand at it so now we have 4 water colored coffee filters ready to be made into butterflies. The girls are very colorful, and the boys, well, I guess they like camo colored butterflies.

School Daze -- Week 3 Complete

Wow, I can’t believe we are done with our 3rd week of the 2010/2011 school year. The kids got into the groove pretty quickly and have been doing well keeping up with what we have set for them to do. K is in 6th, M1 is in 3rd, M2 is in 1st and J is just into trouble. Ha, not really, he has been doing pretty well playing and keeping himself occupied. We have gotten out the Legos a couple times this week and I helped him build a small house, dog and truck. That kept him busy throughout the mornings. Today he asked me if I would play with him. I asked what he would like to play and he answered “Star Wars!” Hmmm, I don’t think mommy plays Star Wars very well.
First Day of School

My Grandpa - Chalmer Eugene McCall

Fireworks, Flowers Beds, and a Dragonfly

Sean hates to mow the lawn near the pond so this last week we turned it into a flower bed. Thanks to Rebecca who got the flowers for me. It's still not quite done, we want to edge it with rocks but for the time being this is what it looks like.

Before:


After:

On the 4th we spent the evening with the Thomas'. They have a great view of the fireworks out town puts off. The town's fireworks were postponed on Wednesday but we put off a few of our own.

Yesterday we had a little visitor at our pond. The kids thought it was pretty neat but at first they were afraid that it might hurt them.

Happy Independence Day

America, America

by James H. Lee (c)2004

America, America
I love this land, America,
From sea to shining sea,
And love the things it stands for,
The fact that I am free,
Because of those who fought and died,
And gave this right to me,
And to the ones I dearly love,
My friends and family.

I love the Flag, Old Glory,
And what it stands for here,
And when I see it waving,
I want to stop and cheer,
And lift my voice in singing
Its anthems, loud and clear,
And offer up a prayer to God,
And even shed a tear

For those who do not understand
The feelings that I feel,
This pride and love for country,
Which has a heart appeal,
And for the victories we have won,
Which I declare are real,
Knowing God is blessing us,
Each time, in prayer, I kneel.

I love the Founding Fathers,
And love their families, too,
And every sacrifice they made
To keep this nation true,
True to God and true to man,
And our Red, White and Blue,
One nation, indivisible,
Their gift to me and you.

America, America,
I salute you every day,
And I salute your patriots,
And heroes in harm's way,
Who also love as I do,
The good old USA,
And love our flag, Old Glory,
So proudly on display.

Let's rally 'round the banner,
And 'round our President, too,
Who loves our nation also,
And our Red, White and Blue,
Whose goal is to vouchsafe freedom,
That's worthy to pursue,
And keep this "One nation, under God,"
As He wants us to do.

Camden & Philly through K's eyes

This weekend we took a field trip to Camden and Philly. On Friday we went to the Adventure Aquarium then on Saturday we rode the train into Philly to see the historic sites. The kids loved evey moment, with the exception of walking all over the place. Over the two days K took 398 pictures. Here are a few from her point of view.

^Adventure Aquarium Camden, NJ^

^View from the train^

^Philadelphia^

Stouffer Reunion

Thanks to Uncle Vance and Aunt Mary for hosting the reunion. Everything was great, the pig was delicious. The kids loved playing on the swing, running around in the yard and meeting new cousins.

Ducks!!

For the last few weeks we have had a duck couple visiting our neighborhood. They really like the neighbors pond and we really like to watch them.

Soccer!!!

We started the spring season for soccer last week. Here are a few pics from our first 2 games.

Tackling the Hay Field... er, um Yard

Monday Sean decided that it was time to mow the lawn. We had a few days of rain last week and some beautiful days which lead to a yard with VERY tall grass.

Not very good at Blogging

Well as you can see I am not very good at this blogging thing, it has almost been 2 weeks and I am finally getting another post done.

The kids and I were at my parents house this past week. We left Sunday after church and went as far as my grandparents house. Mom and Dad were there and we went home with them. This is the first time they got to see J. We had a good visit.

Since I was at Mom and Dad's I wasn't able to upload any pics. Here are some from Easter.

I'm Back

It has been a while since I posted. We have had a round of colds that started right after I posted last. Between chasing noses around the house and quieting coughs, we really haven't gotten tons done. We were hoping to keep it away from J, but he ended up with it anyway. I ended up sleeping on the couch a couple nights because he woke up with a stuffy nose and couldn't breathe. Hopefully this will be the last for a while. The kids still have lingering coughs but they are getting quieter everyday.

Hopefully I can keep up with this a little better than I have this past week. Here is a picture of M taken while he was sick, he was watching Fomas (Thomas the train) and fell asleep.

Barry and Cheryl Webb

Barry and Cheryl Webb were at our church this week from Sunday to Wednesday. Because of sick kids Sean and M were the only ones to make it every night but by Wednesday we were all able to be there. It was funny to hear the girls come home an tell me about the puppet show had been done, and me knowing exactly which one they are talking about.

It has been awhile since I have seen the Webbs, since high school, so it was nice to catch up a little.

Learning to Ride

Yesterday K was riding her bike on the porch when she said "Daddy I did it, I rode by myself." Sean then took her down to the road to practice her new skill. She really hasn't ridden since last fall, when we were trying to teach her how to ride without training wheels, so this is quite an accomplishment.

New Carpet Dance

On Friday we got our new area rug for the livingroom. As you can see the kids are enjoying having something comfortable to play on. J has even gotten his share of "floor time"

Up close and personal with PA wildlife

Yesterday we took the kids to the Pennsylvania Outdoor Life Expo. The kids had a good time looking at all the different types of wildlife, indian artifacts and displays. K wanted to try her hand at shooting a compound bow but the lines were long. It was very crowded and hard to get around. Also, the people were quite rude, we would be standing in line or waiting patiently to get a look at something, and they would be pushing in front of us. It is sometimes understandable with children but these were adults pushing in front of kids. Oh well, the girls said they liked going, so that is what's important.