Tis the Season for Christmas Cards...

and this year I'll be getting our cards from Tiny Prints.  They have such great options! Holiday cards, Christmas cards, ones with photos, ones without photos, tri-fold ones and even ornament ones that can be hung on the tree! What makes them even better is the personalization that's available. Who doesn't like adding their own little touch to make them more personable!?!

As I was looking through their selection, I could tell I would have a hard time choosing which one we would use this year. I loved so many!

Here's a Tri-fold option that I love. I love the bright colors, what it says and that it offers space for 3 pictures: one of Noodle, one of Nugget and either one of Newby or one of our whole family!

Here's an Ornament option that I love too! "Happy Everything" it says so that no one is left out! And it, too, has room for more than one picture. What a great little keepsake it could be for our family members and friends' Christmas trees. I really like that

I've just noticed that I'm leaning towards maybe an aqua and red color scheme this year. I just love those two colors together.

Ok, here's one last option: The Flip Card! These are so fun and different!

Well, those are just three of the options that I love! I think I'm going to have a very hard time deciding which one! I think, first, though I ought to decide when and where we'll have our Christmas pictures done. I'll need some fantastic pictures to fill any one of these Tiny Prints fantastic options!!!

Not only does Tiny Prints do Christmas and Holiday card, they also have a wide selection of
Birth Annoucements

Birthday Invitations
,

Address Labels and much more.

Also if you are a blogger and want to receive 50 Tiny Prints Christmas cards in exchange for a review, you can go here to sign up:

http://blog.tinyprints.com/feature-tiny-prints-christmas-cards/

Keep checking back to see which option I picked.

**I was offered 50 free holiday cards in exchange for this post. The opinions, however, are my own.

Better Days are on their way!

So a few posts ago, I hoped for Better Days for our family in 2011 and they are finally on their way! Of course, we've gone through a lot to get to these better days!

The Hubs finally got a promotion at work but unfortunately, it came with dealing with a boss that was a real piece and horribly long hours that kept him from seeing the kids a lot of the time. Well, that job is now history and he has been given a better opportunity with more potential at another company. We are super excited! The hours are much more family friendly, the pay is better for less hours, as well as less responsibility and drama. I think he'll have more opportunities for advancement with this company too! The best part is he's taking over a week off to spend time with us before starting the new job! Yay for Family Time!!

Nugget is having lots of better days these days too! His face is completely clear except for the occasional and minor break out from some environmental change or food sensitivity. A few months ago, he went through allergy testing torture and we learned he had a Tree Nut allergy. It hasn't affected him too badly! He didn't eat nuts often before anyway. We just recently got a Trader Joe's in town and found him some Sunflower Seed Butter that makes a great sandwich! He loves it! The allergist also gave us a new ointment that couldn't be used on babies less than 2 yrs. old and it did the trick. Within days, his face started clearing! It's been amazing!! He looks like a different baby! Here's a very recent picture! Last time we had some professionally done at Christmas, there was lots of editing to clear up his face. Not this time!!!

And I've saved the best for last! Our Better Days are bringing baby #3 in February!! We are so excited! I'm just out of my first trimester and hoping that my second brings better days with less nausea, morning sickness and just plain miserableness! Of my three pregnancies, this has definitely been the most difficult for me! I just feel way more pregnant than I actually am and with that, can only imagine what it will be like the further along I get! The kids are getting used to the idea of another baby. Noodle's excited sporadically! She really wants this one to be a girl and I think until she knows for sure what it is, she doesn't want to show her excitement! We've discussed with her how we have no control over what this baby will be and that God will give us what he thinks our family needs! So for her, let's hope He thinks we need a girl! Nugget's just 2 1/2 and he doesn't quite understand. He loves babies but when you ask him if he wants Mommy to have one, he emphatically says, "NO!" At his age too, we've had to explain to him that he has to be more gentle with Mommy's belly since there's a baby in there! He thinks the baby is in my belly button, it's so cute! He also has been telling people  he has a baby in his belly, which we think is really, really cute! That's how we've told a few people our news!
Me: Nugget, What's in your belly?
Nugget: A baby's in my belly
Me: Who else has a baby in their belly?
Nugget: Mommy!
The older people have really gotten a kick out of that!
So this one is due Feb. 25th which means if all things go as planned (which we know rarely happens), we'll stay Together 24. My Dr. has already said we can schedule my c-section for Feb 24th so this baby with be a 24 too! It will also share a birthday with Nugget if it comes that day! What an exciting 3rd Bday Present for him!

Just a last random picture that's just cute not to share! My favorite pic from our last session with the amazing Kristen Pace! I plan on getting it as big as I can because I love it that much! Hope you love it too!

Well, Here's to Better Days for us and all of you too!

Until next time...

Chattanooga Mini Vacay!

I know that I've been MIA for a while now but life has been crazy hectic and I've been in an extreme funk!

My funk is slowly starting to die and I think it's because I know summer is a week and a half away. It does help that we just got back from a mini vacay in Chattanooga. The Hubs' cousin was getting married so we jumped at the chance to take a few extra days to do fun things with the fam. The best part was that the Hubs actually got to take a few days off and go with us!! That's a rarity these days!

So we left Friday night and got in at like 1:30 in the morning. Saturday we woke up, ate breakfast at the hotel, took the kids to the indoor pool for a bit then headed to Rachel's wedding. It was a great wedding even though the weather wasn't great. It took place at the General Lee Woods Inn and it was a gogeous backdrop. Congrats to Rachel and Nathan!

Sunday, we ate breakfast at the hotel then headed to Creative Discovery with the kiddos. It was a great children's museum! Nugget could have stayed at the water table forever! Noodle even had fun!
After the children's museum, we headed to the Hubs' Uncle's house! Now I have to say that I am not a mountain person AT ALL and their house was literally perched on the side of one! The road to get there was winding back and forth with a great big drop off down the passengers side of course. Needless to say, the visit with them was nice but this girl won't be going back there anytime soon.

Monday morning we got up, packed up and started our trip home. We stopped on the way in Ringold, GA which just recently was devasted by tornadoes. We were able to see lots of damage when we stopped off to eat at Cracker Barrel. It was so sad! Tornadoes scare me to pieces and to see the aftermath and how random it was firsthand, made it even more scary! I pray for all the people affected by those devasting storms and hope their lives get back to normal soon and that they don't have to experience anything like that again!

On the way home, we stopped off at the Georgia Aquarium to break up our trip a little. I have to say that the place is AMA-ZA-ZING! It definitely puts the SC Aquarium in Charleston to shame. We got to see penguins, whale sharks, sea turtles and my favorite Beluga whales!  The kids had a blast and enjoyed every minute of it but I think we may have enjoyed it more than they did!

A Whole Lotta Changing going on!!

As my last post said, we're are hoping for better days in 2011 and I think to do that a whole lotta things have got to change!

First thing that has changed is my job status! I am back to Full Time Mommy Status and I'm loving it!!! A little over a week ago, I quit my job! I have mixed emotions of the whole thing however! I loved working when I worked a lot but being that it was a PRN position, the work was far from steady! Over Christmas, I worked for a whole month and I was actually starting to enjoy it! I missed spending Christmas break with the kiddos but it was nice to have adult interaction and to be contributing to the household. However, at the same time, I HATED being away from the kiddos and I felt like I was doing everything on top of working! That did not work for me! If I was going to be working, I wanted help from the Hubs around the house! That did not happen! It was left all to me! Well, the month of steady work ended and they told me they could use me somewhere else. They asked me to look at my schedule, let them know what days I was available and then I could work those days. That is just what I did! I looked at my schedule, needed a week off to gather my thoughts, take care of errands, organize and throw Noodle's 7th Bday Party and just chill. There was no urgency indicated when they told me I could work. It was very nonchalant however it was apparently urgent. That week I needed off was disappointing to them causing a meeting with my boss. That meeting was a week and a half ago! I go in hoping they were going to offer me the full time position they wanted me to cover for but instead I got condescension. They talked to me like I was a child about how I wasn't "available" enough! I just worked everyday for a month even though my child got sent home from school twice with a fever of 102+, my son got a Staph infection in his nose, I got Strep throat from a patient, I was made to get a flu shot which later resulted in me getting sick. I gave my all and went beyond the duty of a regular PRN person I can promise you. So with their rudeness, I quit! No one treats me like a child when just a week early, I was being praised for what a good job I did and how patient I was with the children.

Second thing thats changing: Hubs has had several interviews in the last week! After some severe changes at his current job, his old position re-opened so he interviewed for it! We're hoping that since he's done the job before and the person that caused his demotion is no longer with the company, that he will be back to his old job with his old pay very soon. There are of course mixed emotions with it because what if in a few months, he's right back where he is now. How do we know the promotion will be a permanent one? I am extremely frustrated with the way they've treated him so I'm torn of how I feel. But in case that doesn't pan out, he's had two interviews with another company. The hours would be much better and the pay would have to be better because at this point, anywhere would pay better than what he currently makes. Having two interviews has to be a good sign, right? Hopefully, we'll be hearing something from them very soon! (Don't you love how I say "we" when it's really all up to my husband!)

Third thing that's changed: Noodle turned 7 which I also mention in my last post but we finally had her birthday party! Having her a birthday party is always a stressful thing because we never know when to have it! Her birthday is Christmas Eve so we can't have it on her actual Birthday. We can't have it around Christmas because everyone too busy, So we've been waiting until after the first of the year after everything has settled down but still haven't had good luck with her little friends showing up. This causes me great stress! Every parent wants their child to have the best birthday and in the child's eyes, the more friends the better! After lots of stress and work, her party ended up being lots of fun. More little girls showed up that we thought would even though there were only 3. The 3 that showed up were Noodle's best friends though so it worked out nicely. She had a Hello Kitty themed Tea Party. They decorated Princess crowns, made their own bottle cap necklaces with Hello Kitty images, decorated their own cupcakes and ate lots of yummy finger foods. I worked really hard on the decor and favors. I worked on Hello Kitty cake pops for days. Nana and I made tissue paper flowers. Nana made Olivia a special dress. We just knew it was going to be hideous with the fabric Noodle picked but it ended up being way cute!!! So here are some pictures!

Well, I think that is all for now.

Until next time...

A Hodge Podge of Holidays, Birthdays and Better Days!

Since I've been M.I.A for a few, this post is most definitely as the title describes.

As for the Holidays part...did everyone have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year? I sure hope do because I know we surely did! I was nice and more relaxing than our usual Holiday season and we enjoyed every minute of it. We've been celebrating Christmas for the last week. We did our house and my mom's side Christmas Day, we did Hubs' family yesterday and we did Christmas with my Dad today! It was nice to have them all stretched out since we normally cover them all Christmas Eve and Day!

As for the Birthdays part...we celebrated Noodle's 7th Birthday! I can hardly believe my precious little baby is 7! She has grown up so fast!For her birthday, she got her very own digital camera. She was so excited! She loves taking pictures but needed her own camera since we no longer have a reg. digital camera and there's no way she's playing with my SLR! She took it everywhere with us that night! After church on Christmas Eve, we went to the local Japanese restaurant to celebrate! She loves Japanese and sushi! She also pestered us the whole dinner about them coming to sing for her and when they got there, she refused to get up and dance. So I had to get up and dance with her! It was a good time!

Here's a picture of her when she was just a couple of days old!

How I loved her squishy little cheeks!

And here she is now at 7! She's becoming quite the little lady!

She's got a fashion sense that's all her own. She's into anything that's peace signs, hearts or rock-n-roll. I'm pretty sure she's got Beiber Fever and she love singing along loudly to Taylor Swift, Katy Perry or anything else on the radio for that matter! She's a great reader and her cursive is neater than mine! Her abilities continue to blow me away daily! She's a great big sister to Nugget and most days he calls for her more than he calls for me! Along with all those wonderful things about her, we struggle daily with talking back, being ungrateful and her just being 7! But we love her dearly!

Now lastly for the Better Days part...we're hoping 2011 is full of them! I'm pretty sure 2010 had it out for us. We weren't dealt the best hand in 2010 so we're hoping 2011's hand is full of better opportunities. We're looking forward to what is to come this year!
We're hoping for a new job with better pay for the Hubs since his current job has been the bearer of most of our hardships in 2010! I'm hoping for his new job for selfish reasons too! I want to be a full time SAHM like I've always been until this year. The working world is not for me! This is the first year that I haven't been able to spend time with Noodle over Christmas break and it had killed me. My job is only PRN and lucky for me, they've needed me the whole time she was on break! I love being at home with the kiddos way too much. They continue to amaze me every single day and I don't want to miss one moment! To go along with the hopes of being able to quit my paying job, I hope to start my own business of craftiness, maybe an Etsy store! I got a Silhouette for Christmas and can't wait to use it! I'm hoping to turn my Onesies I've been making into something better and to start making lots of other things to sell!!
I'm secretly hoping to add to our clan. Of course, this depends highly on if Hubs gets a new job. Of course baby's cost money and we have been struggling in that area for the last 6 months or so. I'm hoping that we'll get back on our feet and that baby #3 will become a possibility rather than just a dream!
I'm hoping that 2011 will be a great year health wise for my whole family but most importantly my precious baby Nugget. 2010 has been such a hard year on him with his eczema. He has a rare form for children but all that I have read says that it last between 18 months to 2 years. Well we're going on not quite 18 months and we're hoping we're near the end of this adventure! As of today, he's looking amazing! Now if you would have asked me how he was last week, my story would have been different! His body was doing amazing but his poor face was not! See, he's prone to infections and his face is the first place that gets it since it's always exposed! I hope 2011 consists of less flares, less antibiotics and more management! Today our management routine consists of Aveeno Oatmeal Baths, Aveeno Oatmeal Baby Wash, Aveeno Oatmeal Moisturizer, Hydrocortisone Valerate and Altabax ointments for his face, and Zyrtec for the itching. I know it sounds like a lot but as long as those are all and it doesn't include an antibiotic or steroid, it's a good thing!

Well, I hope 2011 bring you all great things! That's enough rambling for me for one night!

until next time...