A House Full of Girls

The week after Christmas Justin's cousin Eric, wife Andy, and their girls Ruth, Sadie, and baby May came to visit. We had so much fun! Ruth and Sadie are 4 and 2 so their ages matched right up. There were hours of dress-up and dancing. We had great weather and took a trip to Maymont to feed the goats, and spent a day at the Children's museums. For the adults we sent fun nights talking and playing cards. Also while they were here we went up to Kara and Todd's to bless baby Marrin. She is so sweet and the little girls couldn't get enough. We were sad to see Eric and Andy go, but since they are just 8hrs away in Georgia, hopefully we can go down to visit soon.

Christmas 2010

We had a great Christmas season. We stuck around Virginia so we actually got out our decorations and got a tree and the girls loved it. They were at such fun ages this year. They played with all the music decorations for the first week and spent hours perched on the piano playing with the nativity. All month we did an advent calendar from the Friend magazine where we got to put an ornament on a paper tree and read a scripture they loved doing it every night. The week before Christmas my parents and little sister came out and we all spent the week in Williamsburg. It was so fun. We did some relaxing, spent a couple days in Colonial Williamsburg, and an evening at Busch Garden's Chrismastown. It was all amazing. I knew my mom and Katie were taking a lot of pictures so I slacked off, I need to get some copies. Aunt Katie taught the girls, "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas," and they sang it everywhere we went. It was so much fun having them here, we were sad they had to go. They left Christmas Eve and we came back to Richmond. It was fun to actually be at our own house for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. The girls were so excited and had so much fun.

We got a little snow on Christmas night, for the girls to enjoy.

Reading her new scriptures.

Gifts from Santa.

We let the girls each be Mary and ride to Bethlehem. I was the Shepard, we were lacking a few other key roles, but we made it work. They really enjoyed it.

Thanksgiving 2010

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving in Omaha with all of my family. For the actual meal we went to this neat lodge, some of their family friends came too. We were there for a week, but I managed to take almost no pictures. The girls have so much fun playing with their cousins. Eliza and Lydia refer to Nate and Allie's house as their "other house." We miss them!

Bass Pro Shop

"Eliza, your friend has to wait outside!"

Singing Christmas Songs

Shutterfly Christmas Cards

The time has come again…Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is looming ever nearer. The clock is ticking down and my holiday to do list keeps growing. It is so nice to have already decided on Shutterfly for this year’s Christmas card. I love all their fabulous backgrounds and collage configurations. I am still trying to decide whether I want to do one larger picture or a group of smaller ones, but I know with all the options Shutterfly has to offer my pictures will end up looking awesome. I have bought photo cards from them before and my photos looked great, not to mention their website was easy to use and it was easy edit and fit my photos in to make them look their best. One of the cool options they have is the folded Christmas card where you can put images inside and out with room for a letter on the inside. Check out all the card options here and here.

In addition to the Christmas cards I have been checking out all the other photo gifts they offer. When choosing Christmas presents it is so nice to make something unique and personal with photos. Shutterfly offers fabulous templates for calendars you can see here. I also really like the mugs. The nice thing when getting presents for grandparents is you know they can’t get enough photos of their grandkids.

So good luck with your holiday shopping. Hopefully, Shutterfly will help you cross a few things off of your list, both cards and calendars are on sale right now. And if you are a blogger and want to take advantage of their free card offer check here.