A Very Shutterfly Christmas

I just found out about this unbelievable Shutterfly promotion for bloggers. Bloggers who use Shutterfly, and write a quick post about their experiences with the photo site, get 50 free holiday cards! That's huge. Here are the details.

One reason it makes me so happy to write this post is because I've already started designing this year's Christmas cards on Shutterfly and am just waiting for a chance to snap the perfect picture of Emma to use for the card!

Here's the card that we're using this year.

I had a really hard time deciding, which card to use because they have a TON to choose from...check them out for yourself. I decided to go with this one because it uses a single picture; given my photography skills, capturing just one perfect picture, even given the beautiful subject, will be a challenge! I also picked this one because I love the red - it will go perfectly with the Christmas dress I got her from Gymboree - and because of the sentiment. I feel like this year has been filled with a lot of JOY for us.

Ever since Emma was born, I've uploaded all of our pictures to Shutterfly - it makes it really easy to share photos and to keep them organized. I have each month of her life organized in a separate folder.

When she turns one, I fully intend to do a one year photo book that highlights my favorite pictures from the year (I will MAKE myself do this because I think it will be a terrific keepsake). We have a friend who made a similar photobook for her daughter because babies love to look at themselves and she didn't want her good photobook to get all chewed and torn up. I think I'll do the same.

Shutterfly has loads of options to choose from for photobooks as well. If I was a little more on top of it, I'd make some great photobook gifts for Christmas presents this year. The upside to that is 1) they are inexpensive and 2) I can't imagine a gift a grandma would like better! Sigh, maybe next year.

So there you go. A win win for me! I get to tout a site that I already love AND I get a little Christmas present for doing it!

Things Going On In My Life

I'm too tired right now to piece together all of these items into one coherent, well written blog post. So I'll resort to my best friend, the bullet point.

• We are finalizing a contract on a new house (4 hours away from where we currently live)! Our loan application was submitted today, and we are scheduled to close on December 23rd. Our condo is still on the market. Boo! We've had a fair amount of traffic through but people just don't seem in a hurry right now to buy. We have until March to sell - that's when we want to be settled into our new house - praying it all works out in the end.
• Hubby didn't get home before 9pm from work each night this week. I'll have to reintroduce him to his daughter this weekend!
• On the infertility front, my husband's work is in the midst of its annual health insurance open enrollment. We've exhausted our lifetime cap on IF benefits with our current insurer so we are switching to one of the other options so that we can reset the cap (that does work, right? Please tell me that I haven't overlooked something!). It's weird to think about doing the whole process over again. But we are having serious discussions about baby spacing (2 years or 3?). I don't think we'll try the frozen egg transfer next year but we want to keep our options open. Yes, we have one wee little embie on ice! Not sure I'm quite ready for redoing the IF treatment process and dealing with that emotional roller coaster, but I also realize that I'm not getting any younger.
  
• On a totally different note, my big brother announced this week that he is running for Virginia's House of Delegates! Very exciting! I come from a pretty political family so it was a given that eventually it would happen. He is running to fill the seat of a current Delegate who won his election for the House of Representatives this month. I'm especially loving it because I love campaigns and am getting the opportunity to help out. I'll keep you posted. The special election will be in January.

So, folks, that's about it for now. Tired. Must go to bed!

Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy, Freeze

Please don't mind the obnoxious lady bouncing up and down and just pay attention to the sweet little girl...

Baptism

Just a quick post because I feel like I would be a negligent parent if I didn't at least write something about Emma's baptism, which happened this past Sunday (yep, a Halloween baptism).

The morning of the baptism

After the service with mommy and daddy

Our church is Anglican and they do infant baptism. I'm used to the idea of infant christening or dedications, but I came around to the idea of baptism. Basically the idea is that you, as a parent, are taking the first step, on behalf of your child, and then, later in life, the child must take the next step to accept Christ.

We had tons of family come into town - my mom, my two brothers, their wives and combined 7 children, my husband's mom and stepdad, and husband's dad, stepmom and half-sister. Needless to say we had a very full house. After the service, we had a room reserved at the church and had a little donut and coffee party with family and friends. It was all very nice.

And then we celebrated the pagan holiday of Halloween. Smile!