We have a winner!

The winner (drawn by the birthday girl herself) was commenter #1 Jessica! Shutterfly should be contacting you soon with your $50 winnings code! Thanks everyone for playing along!

It's time to order your Christmas cards! And a giveaway!

It's that time of year again! Christmas time means time for celebrations, time for togetherness, time for giving, and time to start snapping pics and scouring Shutterfly for your favorite card to send out to friends and family!  I LOVE collecting and displaying my Christmas cards in our foyer each year.  I do treasure each of the photo cards that we receive & keep I most of them displayed on my refrigerator well into the new year.

As in years past, I've been asked by Shutterfly to review their new Holiday Card Collection and photo gifts and I'm more than happy to do so (hey, they give back to me, so it's the least I can do!)!  I've ordered from them for the past three Christmases for both our cards & our calendar gifts and have been more than pleased with the result, particularly the 5x7 stationery cards! They also have some new card options for their 2013 collection, including tri-fold 5x7 styles, as well as the ability to customize the back of the cards with various designs.  Their new styles are so varied that you're sure to find something that suits your fancy, including contemporary, whimsy, classic, merry & bright, religious, & photo basics.

I love the way their site is set up, because I can easily navigate and view only the type of cards that I'm searching for!  I can select the size (5x7) and also choose the number of photos that I would like to include. Christmas card selection this year is going to be particularly challenging, however.  Usually, I like to find one with four photos so that I can include one of each girl individually, as well as a photo of them together (that's the challenging part!!!), and then a family photo, but my girls just don't stop moving, so that does make things somewhat difficult! 

I'm a big fan of the solid-color backgrounds that really let the photos stand out...now to find the perfect photos...let me show you a few of my favorites (but keep reading through to get to the giveaway info!)!

This particular card has color options to add even more pizazz!

This card has a very "natural" feel to it & would really let the faces in the photo stand out!

I love the grey with the black and white pics!

I love how the black makes the photo POP on this card!

I love the "country" feel of this one with the berries and branches, but the classy look of the script.

Obviously I had a hard time choosing just a few of my favorites to show you!  There's just so much to love! The newest designs just seem so sleek and contemporary, but still timeless and traditional at the same time. 

Ok, and now here's the part for YOU! The contest! Shutterfly has graciously offered to give one of my awesome readers a code for $50 off your total stationery & gift order plus free shipping!  To enter, all you have to do is click through to the Shutterfly page and comment with the name of your favorite holiday card!  The contest will end on Tuesday, November 26th & I'll let the birthday girl (Haddy!) choose the winner that day before bedtime! Good luck & happy card-hunting!

Carlie's 18 month update

Carlie is officially a year and a half old & she is most definitely in full-fledged toddler mode!  Carlie loves to walk, run, climb, and DO just about everything!  She has really become Little Miss Independence & if you try to help her with something that she wants to do on her own, she'll shriek, "ME!" until you let her continue on her own.  This includes climbing up and down the stairs (she will say "rail!" as she climbs up and "ba-ba-ba" as she climbs down to say, 'bummy-bummy' or 'belly-belly') and eating everything all by herself including yogurt or cereal with milk.  In short, Carlie just loves to do everything just like her big sister does!

At Carlie's well-visit today, she measured at the 50th percentiles for both height and weight at 31.25" and 24lb, respectively and she is just under the 75th percentile for head circumference at 18.25".  She wasn't really a happy camper at the appointment, but she checked out to be very healthy & got her flu shot for good measure, so hopefully that's the END of illnesses at our house for a while.  Carlie has gone from an ear infection, to hand, foot, & mouth disease, to the stomach bug all within a few weeks!  We're all ready to be healthy here!

Carlie now says about 100 words, phrases, & sounds (some of which may only be understood by Mama who is fluent in Carlie!).  Some of her favorites are "no!," "me!," "optapa" (octopus), "appo" (apple), "Oh-mo" (Elmo), and most of the characters from Finding Nemo (thanks to Hadley!)!  Carlie also loves to have Haddy be her own personal DJ by asking her to sing "RawrRawr" (Soft Kitty), "Dee-Dee-Dee" (the alphabet), and "Round n Round" (The Wheels on the Bus).  Carlie knows a few colors (pink & black), and then all the others are "geen!".  She also appropriately answers "how many?" by 'counting' but her answer is always two!

Car-Car is wearing mostly 18-24 month clothing now, size 3 diapers & size 4 shoes.  She really doesn't care what she wears, but does love when she can be "nu-nu" before bath!  Carlie still has no interest in watching tv, but has taken an interest in using the ipad or our phones for playing games and watching videos.

Since our last update, Carlie took her first trip to Disney World in October (she loved It's a Small World & the Nemo ride, but wasn't so sure about the characters)!

Carlie's first plane ride - she did great!

Haddy and Carlie Mouse in Disney

Carlie thought drinking out of a water fountain was pretty exciting!

Carlie LOVED Nemo and the 'Mine-Mines'

Carlie and Hadley in Downtown Disney

Carlie loves:
to climb & slide on her climber
to play in the corn table
to spin 'round'
to sing or listen to the Wheels on the Bus
to dance to (or spin to) the Belly of the Whale by the Newsboys
brushing her teeth
eating pretty much everything!
to play the airplane game & "We are Penn State" with Daddy
taking baths
napping & sleeping (she still sleeps 12-13 hrs at night & a 1.5-2hr nap each day)!

Carlie loved playing at the pumpkin patch!

The corn pit at the Savidge Farm pumpkin patch was fun!

These two love each other so much!

Hadley and Carlie both dressed up as Minnie Mouse for Halloween and had so much fun trick or treating at the homes of our family and neighbors - I think they may have had just as much fun sitting out on the porch (in the gorgeous weather), giving candy to the trick or treaters, though!

Carlie loved her Mem-mem-mems from Aunt Mel and Uncle Pat

Giving out candy to the trick-or-treaters from the front porch