Stamps cost how much now? I sure hope I get some free prints for this....*wink wink, Shutterfly*

*disclaimer: You will find a lot of links contained within this post as I am trying to earn 50 free Christmas cards from Shutterfly for being a blogger.  Please do not base your commitment to my blog solely upon this post!

I have used Shutterfly for many different events in our family.  I first stumbled upon them around the time Zac and I got married.  I was looking for a place to upload pictures so family and friends could view them and someone told me about Shutterfly.  I moseyed around the site for a bit to make sure that I would be able to share them with others and discovered that the site was so much more than I expected!  I had no idea that we could make different projects, create photo books or even get prints.  From then on out, I have used Shutterfly for multiple gifts, prints and photo cards.

Last year I used them to create our first family of three Christmas card (2010 Christmas Cards stock).  I absolutely loved our Christmas photo cards last year.  We chose a card that allowed us to put 3 pictures on it.  Since Reese was only 8 months old at Christmas time I figured it was a good time to send a progression of his growth to family and friends out of state who had not seen him in awhile or ever.  I really can't decide which picture of the three is my favorite.  Of course, I put three of my favorite pictures of that time on the card.  We only had one really good family picture of the three of us and then we added a few pictures of Reese all by himself.  One really shows his bright personality (him winking) and the other (I just noticed today) displayed his very bare head and chubby face!  Check out last year's Christmas Card.  

I also used them to create Reese's birth announcements and first birthday announcements/invitations (too much cuteness to choose from here).  Eventually, I will be using them again to create gifts such as a calendar to keep all of our important family and friend birthdays in (maybe we'll make daddy a desk calendar like the ones here). 

Since Keely took pictures of us for fall a few weeks ago I have been experimenting with Shutterfly again to get an awesome Christmas card for this year.  The unique difference with our card this year is that our pictures will be in black and white, as opposed to last years' full of color one.  There is just something more beautiful about the look of black and white photos. 

Check back for another post in a few weeks to see the outcome of our 2010 Christmas cards!

Amy : )

It's been a while....

I can't believe how long it has been since I last updated!  Looking back at my last post--which I never had the opportunity to follow through with another post on--it was just before Reese's first birthday.  Now the boy is almost 20 months old, growing big, talking lots, and loves to love on everyone!  He is now in the toddler class at school and has circle time everyday.  We are seeing the fruits of his teachers' labor because he is starting to have a large vocabulary.  Some of the words that he can say are:

Dad, Dada, Dad Dad
Mom, Momma, Mom Mom
Drew
Tyler
Kyle (or Kykle)
Hannah
Papa
Baby
Boat
Car (and vroom vroom)
Van (pronounced Ban)
Train (and choo choo)
Ball
Juice (even milk is juice)
Water
 Why?
What's that?
No No
Buzz
Woody
Elmo
Apple
Applesauces
Up
Uh-oh
I don't know
Want
That
This
Coat
Shoe
Sock
Balloon
Amen


We're excited to see more of his vocabulary flourish--and we're already starting to hear him try to put two or more words together to make a sentence.  One time he babbled off a full sentence and it sounded like he said, "I want to watch Elmo too much!"  This kid is hilarious!  We are grateful to the Lord for blessing us with such a sweet little man who is full of joy, love and humorous moments!  Reese also has a best friend that he carries with him almost anywhere: Woody.  He loves, loves, loves Buzz and Woody and anything Toy Story.  Takes after his Uncle Drew!  Good thing we decided to get him his big boy bedding for Christmas...a Toy Story themed room!  I sure hope he likes them still in a few years!

We recently moved from our small apartment to a beautiful home.  We are renting a duplex and our neighbors on the other side of the house are awesome--because it's my younger brother, his fiance and baby!  We each have 1100 square feet of home with two bedroom, one bath and basement.  We are loving it!  We may not have a closet in the master or any counter top space or outlets in the kitchen, but he have love for each other (and now this beautiful home) and we have been blessed with creative minds and ideas, as well as a super organizer helper in our good family friend Alta!

I'm sure there could be lots more that I could update you all with but for now we'll make this small!  I've been seeing friends do a 30-day challenge on the blog and I'm wondering if I have enough time in my busy schedule to keep up with it--or even if my hubby will let me see the computer everyday!  : )