Christmas Cards

I love this time of year! I love the family time, the snow, the general happiness that surrounds us all. One of my favorite things, however, is choosing our Christmas card. I know, lame. But I just love picking pictures, and choosing the card that works best. In past years, I've used Walmart for our Christmas cards. This year I am going to use Shutterfly. Shutterfly is an online site that lets you upload your photos, edit and crop them, and the best part is the quality with which they are printed!
Their Christmas card selection is huge and they are all creative and cute! I honestly want to print a couple different cards to send out! Here are a few of my favorites:
If we had lots of cute pictures I think I would pick this one: click here
I love the black and green combination of this one.
I love the idea of having my card be my card and letter like on this one.

Not only do I love their picture and adorable Christmas cards, but I made a calendar this year for Father's Day, and Greg loves having it at work to show off his cute little buddy!

Don't worry I'm almost done...
The last thing I have to share is the photo gift section. For my mom's birthday, I chose a few and sent them to her. We were in Arizona and she was still in Utah. She was missing Collin big time, so I thought they would be a great gift! And she loved them...well she still loves them!

I have been so impressed with the quality and selection of things to do with my photos, I KNOW I will continue to use Shutterfly for all those important memories!

Thanks for letting me share :)

One more month!

That's right! Our little baby boy is now 11 months. Greg was at school all day on Nov 2nd, so I was by myself to take the picture. It was tough! That baby did not want to hold still. There were too many distractions: the toys, this new paper to eat, the shiny thing mama is pointing at me. This is probably the only picture where you can see both him and the sign.

Collin is starting to try and communicate what he wants. Its so fun! He will make all kinds of noises and expect us to know what he means. He figured out "bye-bye". He says "bu" and waves (towards him). It's so cute!

He is walking probably 3/4 of the time. He's getting quicker and more confident. Greg said Collin was doing it a while back, but at about 11 months I saw him stand on his own. He puts his hands down and then pushes his bum up in the air. Then when he is steady, he stands up! I am looking forward to the language explosion which is supposed to come between 12 and 18 months.

We just love and enjoy our buddy so much!

A post just for me

This is just for me. Collin (and Greg) do some funny things that I don't want to forget. This post is so I can remember those silly, endearing things.

1. Collin, the hiccup king in my belly, is STILL the hiccup king! He gets them about once a day.

2. Collin hates getting his diaper changed most of the time. He will tolerate it when you sing or tickle him. Because Collin loves to watch Playhouse Disney, I usually sing songs from that. The other day I was singing Special Agent Oso's theme song, and Greg came to help. In the process Greg came up with the Special Assignment song:
Sir Drinks-a-lot
He lives in a crib
And poops a lot
He needs to drink more water
So he won't have such solid, stinky poos
So drink up! Sir Drinks-a-lot!

Collin and I giggled...me more than him!

3. Collin chases the vacuum. Anytime I vacuum, I have to get creative with the paths I take to try and avoid running over his fingers. He chases it and yells at it. Too funny!

4. When Collin is done eating, he doesn't say so. He doesn't even get upset. He chucks everything left on his tray on the floor. Then when you get him down, he wants to eat the things off the floor! Good thing I vacuum.

5. Collin kneels and squats. I've never seen a baby do that before. He will kneel at his toy box pulling things out. He will squat to get things and then play with them while squatting. Crazy!

6. Greg makes up songs about other things too. All the time. What a dork :)

7. Collin and Greg wrestle. Well Greg attempts to wrestle; Collin makes squished faces and attempts to get away. So funny!

8. Both of them are SUPER ticklish. Gives me an upper hand...

9. They both have awesome, and extremely different dance moves. Dance parties at our house usually turn into a giggle fest.

10. They are both so full of love and SO lovable! We have a great time together.

Collin's first Halloween it was

Happy Halloween!

I was so excited for Collin's first Halloween I started costume shopping in July. I'm not too bad with a sewing machine, so mostly at that time I was looking for costume ideas. In early August though, I found this Yoda costume for pretty cheap and jumped on it!

And doesn't he make just the cutest Yoda EVER! Look at those chubby cheeks!


So I just had to make Greg and I a costume. Since I love the whole family theme thing I decided to do Han Solo and Leia. I looked around for costume patterns but couldn't find any. I finally was telling Greg about my ideas and he found a picture of some of his high school friends dressed up as Han and Leia. Their costumes weren't perfect, and although it went against the perfectionist in me, I decided to find things to make do. I got an "angel" dress pattern that would do for me, and found a belt how-to online for Han's holster. I used the ideas in that how-to to make the Leia belt as well. I bought some blue pants and a collared shirt at DI and then made a couple modifications to them so they would work for Han's shirt and pants. Greg already had work boots. He did need a blaster though. I bought a toy one online. It was bright orange and blue, so I spray-painted most of it black to make it look more grown up. The final piece was Han's vest. This was the most tricky and time-consuming piece. Most vests and even jackets that are worn today don't look like Han's vest. I had a lot of trouble finding anything. Finally I settled on a civil war military jacket pattern that I could use as a template. Unfortunately it was such an intricate pattern it was extremely difficult to change. It took many hours and lots of brainstorming and problem solving with my mom to come up with the final product. And Voila!



Because Greg was out of town for the only Halloween party we were invited to, I decided that we should go to my parents ward's trunk-or-treat. I wasn't going to do all that work for nothing! Not to mention it was Collin's first Halloween. He needed the experience of dressing up and going trick-or-treating! Plus my mom was so excited to show off her only grand baby!



As we were walking down the road, going trunk to trunk, there were huge storm clouds rolling in. All of a sudden it started raining. Collin was already cold, and confused so we started to run back to my mom's house, about a block away. About half way there, it started to HAIL! I had Collin tucked under my sleeves and pressed against my body, but he was still getting hit and certainly didn't like it. A couple houses away, I switched with Greg and took the camera and his belt so he could sprint Collin to safety. We were soaked and there was a snowball in my hood.



We hadn't even gotten a picture of all of us yet! We set out the clothes to dry and turned on some disappointing football games while eating a yummy dinner and candy. Right before we left my parents we took these pictures. One of the Star Wars clan and one of my parents, whom I inspired to dress up. My dad's a hunter and my mom, the deer! So fun! I also helped my mom make my sister and her boyfriend's costumes: Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm. As soon as I have a picture of them, I'll post it.


What a fun, and memorable Halloween!