Making Plans (or not)

I was laughed at today, in a good-natured manner, for mentioning that I had given my OB a copy of my "birth plan" at my last appointment. The person's response, besides laughter, was, "I plan on having a quick, easy and pain-free birth!"

Wouldn't it be nice to write it down and have it happen that way because that's "the plan"?

I was a little hurt feeling that someone thought I was being naive to make decisions about how I wanted my baby to be born and expecting things to go that way. I'm not saying that things will go the way I would like them to, but I would like to try to make it as beautiful an experience as it can be.

Paul and I have been taking our Bradley classes and, even if we don't have things happen the natural way we would like, I would like to: A) Prepare and hope for things to be the best they can and B) Feel as though people I care about are respecting my decisions and believing that I have the conviction to try my best.

No matter what, the classes have been a blessing for Paul to feel more involved in our pregnancy and to help him know how to handle me and all the craziness involved in pregnancy. They have helped me know better how to take care of myself and the baby (even if I don't do as well as I should), to feel Paul's support even stronger than I had and to have a chance to spend with him talking about our baby and the changes in our life as we made the weekly two hour drive to class.

People have also given me a hard time about cloth diapering and saying that I won't stick with it. Why don't people just say, "Hey, that's great! Good luck!" and then if it doesn't work out, so what? It doesn't hurt to try. [Side note: Yes, I know many think cloth diapering is expensive and could result in people wasting their money, so they feel they need to "warn you", but our whole point of cloth diapering was to save money. We've bought and had people give us good, inexpensive diapers that practically paid for themselves in two months of using them. If things weren't working for us, cloth diapers have an amazing resale value. Plus, they encouraged Lil' Man to start going potty! Now we hardly use any diapers!]

Yes, plans don't always go the way we would like, but we all need encouragement.

When my husband and I got married "the plan", in our eyes, was to let go and let God decide when He wanted us to start our family- us knowing, of course, that God's "plan" would be to give us a baby ASAP. Well, God either didn't get a copy of our ASAP version of "the plan" or He has a way different idea of "the plan" that was not what I wanted it to be!

Funny how plans go, isn't it? Praise God, I knew that so many friends and loved ones were praying for us.

Looking back now I can see why God had a longer, harder version of "the plan" than the one we had come up with. It was hard and I had some times when I just wanted to throw a tantrum (and did!) that God wasn't doing things the way I thought they should go. Especially when I lost my little treasure, Paul Joshua, and felt as if everyone else around me was being blessed with one baby after another.

We, as Catholics, can understand the beauty of Lent and redemptive suffering, but sometimes connecting the knowing and the accepting are two totally different things.

Now I can look back and see how my suffering was needed for my soul and to prepare me for where I am now and the joy I am able to experience if I accept it. I have a new plan that I pray God will give me the grace to stick to. I plan on doing all I can to make this baby's birth as safe and joyful as possible, but I am prepared to experience the pain, the long time of apprehension and waiting and the suffering that will strengthen my soul and perhaps help others. I will offer up my suffering for my baby and for those who are mourning the disappointment of "plans" that haven't gone the way we would have liked.

Again, that is "the plan", but I know that plan will only be stuck to by the grace of God and the love, support and encouragement of people who believe in me and will respect me no matter what. I have complained during my morning sickness, my long nights battling indigestion, back pain and almost every time I've had the opportunity despite the fact that just a little over 9 months ago I "coveted my neighbors wombs" as they bore children I only dreamed of! I am SO far from perfect! But, I am blessed that I do have a God who loves and  forgives me, Paul to support me, family who will be here for us and a baby who will be incredible no matter how he or she makes it into this world. I am blessed.

Sorry for the rant. There is a lot going on around here right now and I am crazy hormonal, so I just need to get the minor stuff off my chest.

Did any of you have unique birth plans (or a birth plan at all?)??? Did you feel supported? How different did things work out from the way you wanted them to?

The sun is finally shining here! I hope it is where you are and that you have the chance to enjoy it.

God bless!

Annie had a little cow...

I came across this picture the other day and it brought back so many memories of growing up on our farm.

The calf was a little orphan that I bottle raised and kept in the house with me for a while after his mother died. I named him Juan Diego since our property is called "The Guadalupe Farm". He was the cutest thing when he would come into the kitchen to be fed with a bottle the size of my arm. He would slip around on the tiles like Bambi did in the cartoon when he tried to walk on ice.

Even when Juan Diego grew up he was as gentle and playful as a bottle-raised lamb. Sadly, he was half Texas long horn and his horns combined with his playful nature required us to sell him, but I will always remember how special it was raising him.

I want my kids to grow up discovering the wonders of nature here at camp, but also the experiences that I grew up with on our farm raising chickens, goats, rabbits, cows and horses.

One day I was reading Lil Man a book about a farm. He scanned over the picture of the barnyard filled with animals, pointed to the baby chicks and exclaimed with a big smile, "CHICKEN NUGGETS!!!" Ummm, yeah...what can I say???? 

I also found this picture of my youngest brother when one of our pet cats had her kittens:

 

My siblings picking vegetables from our summer garden:

The tree house and zipline that my brothers built in our woods- complete with an elevator and dumb waiter!

 

What an amazing and blessed childhood we had!

Thanks for taking a moment to meander down the country road of memories with me. :-) God bless!

The End Is In Sight!

Paul and my life since last May has been such a roller coaster! I have been reflecting on all God has done and the ways he has blessed our lives since last spring.

To recap:

May 2010- We finished trucking and celebrated our second wedding anniversary.

June- Lil' Man came in to our life and we accepted the job at Camp Gray.

This was taken days after Lil' Man came to live with us.

This was taken a few weeks ago. He's grown so quickly!!!

July- We spent with family in TN. I turned 30. We packed and moved.

Riding Sunset at home on our farm in Tennessee.

 August- We moved to camp and that weekend we discovered that I was pregnant-

 Pregnant with this Lil' Monkey!

Over the following months, baby and I both grew...

and grew...

AND GREW!

Now the ticker on this blog says that I am 10 days from my due date! Baby is almost here!!!

It's crazy that I have been pregnant the entire time we've lived here at camp. And that the only people here that know what I'm like when I'm not a hormonal pregnant lady are my dear hubby and my wonderful cousin. Life is so wild!

My little angel could come any day now and I am so excited to know who he or she is, see if he/she has Paul's red hair or my blue eyes and to snuggle and smell the incredible new baby smell that we all love so much. I also feel unprepared in many ways and anxious, but I know God has everything in control.

I'm not going to lie, I am ready to feel "normal" again. Not to feel like I'm going to be sick if I eat one thing as opposed to another. Not to have to sleep on the couch while my husband sleeps below me on the floor because its the only way he can be near me and I can sleep (sort of). Not to worry that I am going to collapse if I am standing for 30 minutes cooking dinner. All the small crosses that I am willing to accept, but will be grateful to no longer have to bear.

I am such a baby, but I can't wait to have my mom here to take care of me. Doesn't that seem wrong? As I physically am about to become a mother (spiritually God has blessed me with my angels in heaven and with Lil' Man) all I want is my mommy!!! My mom is so wonderful and makes experiencing things so much more joyful. I know that my excitement will only be more fueled by hers. Plus, she will make sure I am eating well and staying away from things like the brownies that gave me the heartburn that has kept me up writing until this ungodly hour!


I am anxious for spring to truly be here, to get outside and enjoy my little ones in the sunshine! I've been in a slight funk after we had a enough warm weather to melt almost everything and to go outside with out a coat, but then we had two days of rain and we woke yesterday to a world of white. Again. At least mud is no longer being tracked in my house- only small puddles of melting snow! :)

Ahh, the roller coaster of emotional ups and downs! I will enjoy each day of anticipation. I love that our baby will be born so soon before Easter. I seems so fitting to feel pain and anxiousness about a certain loss and yet to know that it will all end with the greatest joy and celebrating. I just love Lent!

Pray that God gives me the strength to carry my crosses better and with a joyful, willing heart.

A blessed Lent to you all!

The Little Miracles

Have you ever heard of the Marian apparitions in Garabandal Spain? My mom had a devotion to Garabandal when I was growing up and passed that on to my siblings and I. When I was 20 I went to Spain on a pilgrimage and ended up staying there for a while discerning my vocation with a religious order that has a devotion to Garabandal and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.

When the Blessed Mother appeared to the girls in Garabandal she made a point of expressing that God cares about everything in the girls and villagers lives- even their cows! That has always stood out in my mind as just how concerned God is with the details in our lives. As we read in Luke 12:7 (Douay-Rheims), "Yea, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: you are of more value than many sparrows."

I am always amazed at how God answers the silly request I hold in my heart. He gives me find a parking spot when the entire lot is full and I'm too tired to walk, He blesses me with a call from a friend when I need to hear a loved one's voice and He gives me gifts I know I don't really deserve.

Since before I was pregnant I've looked at pictures online of maternity photo shoots and thought that someday it would be special to have beautiful pictures as a reminder of how amazing it is that God has allowed me to be blessed with the gift of carrying a child- a child I wasn't even sure I'd ever have!

Professional pictures are far from necessary, but I love photography and couldn't help but want to have some nice pictures. I have a brother-in-law, cousin and two uncles who are all photographers, but they all live so far away that it is impossible to have any of them take pictures for us. There was also no way we could afford to have pictures done by a local photographer. But, as I said, God knows the desires of our heart and, sometimes, He allows us to be a little spoiled.

One night I was having really bad heartburn, so I tried to distract myself by looking up baby things on craigslist (I recently freaked out realizing that I'm much less prepared for this baby's arrival than I thought I was!) and I noticed a posting for FREE maternity and newborn packages!!! A young, local photographer was trying to build her portfolio and was offering the first three people to respond to her posting a free maternity photo shoot and, once baby arrived, a free newborn shoot with discs and copyrights (to be able to print at Wal-Mart) of the pictures! My late night heartburn payed off because she emailed me the next day to tell me I had been one of the first to respond!

Last Saturday she drove out to camp and took pictures of Paul, Lil' Man and I around camp. Yesterday we received a package with two discs of pictures. I was so excited to see that the pictures had turned out even better than I had hoped they would.

 Here are a few of my favorites:

 

Isn't God good??? No request is ever too small for Him! I didn't even pray for the pictures, but like a loving spouse God already knew. 

Enjoy a blessed Sunday, friends!

Anyone Want Some Free Money???

Last year I discovered that I could earn free amazon gift cards (and lots of other gift card brands) without spending a dime. Every time I get on amazon and get something awesome for free I get so excited! I hate to sound commercial, but this is just such a great thing that I have to share it with others.

Some of you may have already heard of Swagbucks, but for those of you who haven't I want to give you a very quick and brief explanation of what it is. Swagbucks is basically a search engine that gives you points- a.k.a. "swagbucks" for searches. I find that I usually earn swagbucks between 2 and 4 times a day by doing searches that I would normally use google for. It is free to join and this week they are celebrating their anniversary. If you sign up (please do it through my widget at the bottom of this page!) and use the code: BirthdayFun when you are signing up you'll earn extra swagbucks! When you get to 450 swagbucks you can cash them in for a $5 amazon gift card. $5 may not seem like much, but in just the past 2 months I've earned about $30 in amazon gift cards. I bought Christmas presents with the ones I earned last year and now I'm saving to possibly buy an Ergo baby carrier for free!!!

I have had heartburn a lot late at night recently, so after I say my prayers I hop on swagbucks go to the sidebar and click on games and then play Word Drop until I am ready for sleep. I earn 2 swagbucks for every 2 games I play!

You can print coupons through swagbuck to use at your local grocery store. For every coupon you print and redeem you get 10 swagbucks.

I get a point a day for just opening the page "Trusted Surveys" and for answering the Daily Poll. That's equal to 60 swagbucks a month in a 30 day month. It's really easy to earn swagbucks and earn some free money for your family.

There are lots of other ways to earn points and you can feel free to ask me. Or you can get on Swagbucks and search "Swagcodes", "How to earn swagbucks", "Swaggernaut", etc and see what tricks other bloggers have discovered while possibly earning yourself some points just for searching!

I know moms who save their swagbucks and use them to buy diapers and groceries on amazon. I saved up and bought several Christmas presents this year with my gift cards that I had earned from Swagbucks. I am trying to decide if I should use my gift cards that I have earned since the first of the year to buy a diaper sprayer or an Ergo baby carrier (because I think my hubby will be more likely to use an Ergo carrier than my awesome Moby wrap or Mei Tai carrier)- maybe I'll just get both. :-) Their are so many possibilities. See what I used the first gift card I ever earned from Swagbucks for: HERE Perfect for Easter, right?

Okay, so I know I sound like a commercial, but it is so much fun to get something for free with out having to worry about telemarketers and the like. Plus it can be a real blessing to your family to be able to purchase something that you might not have been able to otherwise.

I am not writing this for swagbucks, but rather to help other people get a little something that will be blessing to them and their families. Plus, if anyone does sign up through me, I will earn extra points because I will get the same amount of swagbucks as they do for their searches. Its win-win!

If you want to earn some free gift cards, just scroll to the bottom of my blog and click on the "Sign Up" part of my swagbucks widget. Don't forget to enter the code BirthdayFun (just as its written here) and earn yourself some extra swagbucks to start off right.

Just so this post isn't completely commercialized, I must share Lil' Man's newest cute saying. His favorite book is "Go, Dogs,Go!" and we have recently begun eating a lot of mangoes around here. What do these two things have in common, you ask? Lil' Man is calling a mango a"Goman" as in, "Go, Man, Go". Cute, right? :-)

Snowy Sunday!

They are calling for 8 to 14'' of snow and freezing rain today. I'm actually kind of excited. We enjoyed a wonderful week of balmy 40 degree weather, but all of our snow was dissolving into mucky heaps that were far from lovely.

This morning we were blanketed in white again (with snowflakes the size of golf balls coming down!) and it reminded of St. Therese and how badly she had hoped it would snow on the day she took her vows- and it did!

She wrote this little poem:

The Flower

All the earth with snow is covered,
Everywhere the white frosts reign;
Winter and his gloomy courtiers
Hold their court on earth again.
But for you has bloomed the Flower
Of the fields, Who comes to earth
From the fatherland of heaven,
Where eternal spring has birth.
Near the Rose of Christmas, Sister!
In the lowly grasses hide,
And be like the humble flowerets, --
Of heaven’s King the lowly bride!

 

-St. Therese 

My Bradley class was canceled for today and, as much as I enjoy my class, I am enjoying a full day at home with Hubby and Lil' Man being absolutely lazy. 

 

We went to an early mass to make sure we could get through the snow and Lil' Man was so good. When we got home and had eaten breakfast we sat down to watch Don Bosco which we had gotten from Netflix. As wonderful as it was I passed out on the couch and slept a full two hours! When I woke up hubby had put Lil' Man down for a nap and made me chili and tea for a cozy winter lunch. Can I just say, I LOVE SUNDAYS!!!

 

As you can see from my ticker, I am 34 weeks today. My best friend had her baby yesterday and I'm becoming more anxious to meet my wiggly lil' monkey with each passing day!

 

Paul took this picture this morning after mass of my ever enlarging tummy.

 

 

 

Hope you have a peaceful and Christ-centered Sunday! God bless, friends! 

No, baby can't just wear anything!

I have been planning for baby's arrival since that pregnancy test showed up positive. I've thought about baby's birth. I've thought about baby's Baptism. It wasn't until about two weeks ago that it occurred to me that I hadn't thought about baby's baptismal gown!

I mentioned this to my dear husband  responded, "Do we really need one???" !!! ( Good man was just trying to be practical and thrifty. You can't blame a guy for not understand the importance of clothes.)

Does a bride need a wedding gown? No. But, this is a SACRAMENT people! Its an outward sign of an inward truth. It must be celebrated! We want people to recognize through the symbolism the powerful truth of what is taking place!!!

And, heck yeah, I want my baby to look cute!!!

My siblings and I were baptized in the same baptismal gown that my mom and her siblings were baptized in. A thin white gown that was cut from my Grandmother's wedding dress. Beautiful, huh??? I called my mom to ask about using it and she told me that it is so old and delicate that it really is no longer wearable.

I was heartbroken, but decided that we would just have to start a new tradition for our new little family. I wanted something lovely, so I did a quick google search to see what is out there. OH MY GOODNESS! Sweet and lovely is available, but it comes with a serious price tag (some 3x more costly than my wedding dress!)! There were a few less expensive options, but none that seemed right. And I really don't care for buying clothing online. I need to feel the fabric. That's just the way I am. Sadly, there aren't any shops around (that I could find) carrying what I needed. I was told that the closest religious gift shop that might have any was in Minnesota!!!

I was feeling desperate.

One of the moms in my mom's group at church has a children's consignment shop here in town. I messaged here asking if she had any baptismal gowns. She did not, but yesterday she told me she had gotten some in that were brand new and from Ireland! Paul and I love our Irish heritage and I just swoon over anything Irish (especially my husband!)!!!

I raced over this afternoon and found the perfect gown to start a new family tradition with. It is Irish linen, so it has that antique/family heirloom quality that I really wanted. It is beautiful, but is traditional enough that we can have both our boys and our girls wear it.

 

Isn't it lovely and old fashioned?

 The Collar

 

The Sleeve

 The Hem

And (drum roll, please) the beautiful Celtic cross on the skirt that is spotted with shamrocks!

Friends of mine have embroidered the initials and dates, on the inside hem, of each child in their family who has been baptized in their family gown. I think it is a wonderful idea and I hope to do the same.

I'm so happy that I found a gown I love, purchased it at a great price from a friend and have one more thing checked off of my list of things to do before baby arrives! I'm just so excited and happy that the new tradition of wearing this gown in our family will have special meaning because of its Irish beauty!

Did (or will) your children use a family gown? One you purchased? What do you love about it? Does your family have any special baptism traditions?

Little Hands, Little Fingers

Last night I could not sleep, so I decided to take advantage of the peace and quiet.

I have been pregnant ever since we moved to camp and have moved through phases of morning sickness, indigestion, achiness, heartburn and dizzy spells. It's been well worth it, but I have yet to make our little apartment "homey". I keep wanting to paint and fix up Lil' Man's nursery, but I really can't with the cold weather and my current intolerance of paint. I decided I needed some wall art to brighten things up.

I went by the store and picked up 3 cheap canvases and three tubes of that cheap acrylic paint that almost every where seems to carry. I bought a bottle each of chocolate, aqua and pink.

Step 1: Paint a base coat on each canvas, allow to dry and then apply a second coat.

Note the beautiful roses my incredibly sweet husband gave me for St. Valentine's Day.

Ignore the Christmas tablecloth that I have yet to pack away with the Christmas tree that went back into storage LAST WEEK! Yes, I like Christmas to literally last the whole year 'round!

Step 2: After everything has dried completely, I took an assortment of cups and baby bottles and applied paint to the rims to use them as circular stamps.

Step 3: After the circles had dried, I painted my hand and stamped it on the middle of the canvas and repeated the process this morning with Paul and Lil' Man just after breakfast.

Aren't my boys adorable??? 

Step 4: Step back and enjoy getting something other than laundry done! :)

 

Our plan is to do one for each of our children and create a line of them in the nursery. Cute, huh?

 Have any cute and frugal ways of decorating a nursery/kids room that you could share? We'd love any inspirations. I'm also trying to come up with cute ideas for homemade baby stuff (I'll be posting a few projects that my family has helped me with). Any and all ideas are welcome and appreciated!

Playing Catch Up!

I'm back! I have been so busy chasing Lil' Man, being preggo and being exhausted ALL. THE. TIME that I just haven't had the time or energy to blog. I promised myself I wasn't going to bed to night (not that baby or heartburn would let me anyway!) until I posted something! ANYTHING!

So, what has happened since back in December???

1. We celebrated the feasts of St. Nicholas, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego during Advent.

 Package from Grandma and Gramps for the feast of St. Nick!

Note the ziplock bag. It contains my husband's favorite warm beverage-

Russian Tea!

• 1 cup instant tea powder
• 2 cups orange-flavored drink mix (Tang)
• 1 (3 ounce) package powdered lemonade mix
•   1cup (we often use less) white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1. In a large bowl, combine instant tea powder, orange drink mix, lemonade powder, sugar, cinnamon and cloves. Mix thoroughly. Store in a sealed jar or bag.
2. To use, mix 3 to 4 tablespoons of mix with 1 cup hot water. 

Setting up the Creche.

 

Mary and Joseph really traveled to Bethlehem on a Tonka truck!

 

 

Sombrero cookies for the feasts of OL of Guadalupe and Juan Diego.

I stole the idea from Catholic Icing

2. Our dogs had puppies!

Lil' Man claimed the runt who we now call Zoe because she is a girl and hence could not be called Elmo!

3. We got our first real glimpse of our little angel!!!!

 Smiling, happy baby!

4. We visited one of my best friends who is due this week!

5. We had a wonderful Christmas with my family (and I ended up sick for the next 3 weeks-ugh!).

 

It was extra special because my brother-in-law drove up from Texas to Tennessee and he was there just in time to celebrate a white Christmas with us!

BIL and Lil' Man blowing out the candles on Baby Jesus' birthday cake!

My favorite 2010 Christmas memory: We told Lil' Man that Christmas was Jesus Birthday and that on that day we would be celebrating because He had been born for us. Since we were staying at my parents, Lil Man was sleeping in the pack n play by our bed. Early Christmas morning, while we were still half asleep, we heard Lil' Man stir. A moment later he popped straight up grasping the side of the pack n play and shouted at us, "JESUS BE BORN!!!!" It was the most excited, perfect and innocent way to announce the good news of the day! 

The innocents of children at Christmas truly makes Christmas. This was Paul and my first Christmas since we had gotten married where we hadn't spent Christmas in our truck making deliveries. It was perfect, but not because we were out of the truck, but because we had Lil' Man to share it with us!

Engagement Pictures

Click here to view this photo book larger

BabyBeat Fetal Doppler Giveaway!

Attention all my dear pregnant mommy friends!!!

 Chari at Take Time To Smell The Rose is giving away a BabyBeat Fetal-doppler that you can use at home to listen to your baby's heartbeat! This is so perfect because there just seem to be soooo many pregnant ladies out there right now! I would just love to spend time each evening with Paul and Lil' Man listening to our Jelly Bean's heartbeat. I know you and your families would enjoy it too.

I love that Baby Beat also offers recordable dopplers so you can keep a recording of your little one's heartbeat and send it to proud grandparents.

Take a moment to check out both Chari's blog and the Baby Beat website!

Happy Feast of St. Juan Diego friend's! I am making sombrero cookies today in his honor. Are you doing anything special?

Your thoughts on family time...

Last night after dinner my husband and I took turns reading to Lil' Man and then, after his bath, he ran around in his pjs with so much stinkin' energy that I just wanted to plug myself in to him and share some of that same charge!

Paul and I were discussing how nice it is to have family reading time, but Lil' Man want the same 5 books read over and over and it does become slightly monotonous for Paul and I. We were trying to think of other activities we could do together as a family, but its hard because most of the games or ideas we had were just too difficult to get a two year old to go along with. We go hiking and to the park, but evening home are going to become more frequent the bigger I get and the colder Wisconsin becomes! I was thinking about some of the Montessori learning methods, but I am not yet an aficionado on said methods.

After we watched our crazy child "dance" (aka jumping, rolling, bouncing) to a toddler cd, Paul pulled out a remote control helicopter/spaceship thing and let Lil' Man chase that around trying to knock it out of the air. It was fun and cute and I managed to get some fun video footage of my boys playing together.

Soooo, does anyone have any thoughts on evening family activities with a two year old??? I will take any ideas!

In other news, we just discovered that BOTH of our dogs (both of whom my parents have been watching since we can't have them in our apartment) are pregnant!!!! Anyone want a puppy for Christmas (maybe Epiphany)??? Just figured that it couldn't hurt to ask!

Enjoy your Friday and have a wonderful weekend! We are looking forward to our town's Christmas parade on Saturday (who ever heard of a "Christmas" parade before thanksgiving?!?!). :-)

It's the Holiday Season!

Which means that it is time for me to get my Christmas cards printed and ready to mail out after Thanksgiving! Crazy as it seems Thanksgiving is next week and Advent will soon be upon us! I always try (and rarely succeed) to have all gifts and cards taken care of before Advent begins, so I can focus on what's truly important- preparing my heart and my family to once again to receive Christ and celebrate His sacrifice for us.

This year I am using Shutterfly to print all of my Christmas cards for the first time. I have made a lot of photobooks using Shutterfly and just love how they turned out! I love cards with family picture on them and now that we have an adorable toddler underfoot we seems to have hundreds of precious poses to choose from. The only hard part is limiting the number of pictures to just my favorite "card worthy" ones. The great thing about Shutterfly is that I really don't have to limit the number of picture I can use by many. They have great cards that can have multiple images such as this one:

 

Or this one:

 

You can check out their beautiful photo card collection here: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery

Last year my brother gave my husband and I a canvas print of our wedding picture. It was one of the most special gifts! Consider giving an impossible to shop for Dad a canvas portrait of his family. The ideas are endless!
http://www.shutterfly.com/home-decor/canvas-wall-art
My brother will be getting a family photo calendar from us this year to remind him of his family since he is living far away.
http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars

And for those bloggers out there, Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… sign up: http://bit.ly/sfly2010 !!!

Hope you are as inspired as I am!

Wordless Wednesday- 20 Weeks!

Tired.

I apologize that I pretty much stink at blogging these days. I have thoughts to share, creativity to express, pictures of all the fall adventures my men and I have been having. What I don't have is energy or time. And when I have one or both of those to important elements, they get used for exciting things like housework.

I was so tired today because I didn't go to sleep until 3 am (indigestion+back/muscle pain=insomnia) that I felt the way I imagine it must feel like to be "hung over" (something I have never had to actually experience- PRAISE GOD!). And then I felt guilty all day because I've needed Paul so much recently to help me with Lil' Man and to take care me that I know he is feeling torn between work and home. Sheesh.

We did have a wonderful weekend. The week will be equally wonderful, but crazy busy. Prayers are appreciated. We will be off to California Friday morning, but home by Monday night. Tomorrow is a huge Catholic Charities event that I'm excited to attend and Wednesday I am hosting a large dinner party. All good. All exciting. But pray that God gives this preggo body a little extra steam. And that Lil' Man survives Friday's journey that will include 7 hours in the car and 4 and a half on an airplane, a time change for two days and then Friday's journey in reverse on Monday. Guardian Angels be with us!


I do hope to be a better blogger soon. Don't give up on me yet, friends. May God bless everyone as the joyful and hectic holiday season quickly approaches!