Christmas Cards

Oh Christmas Card season, are you already here again?  It's around Thanksgiving that I start "conveniently" dressing my children in matching colors so that I can snap the perfect photo of them all.  It never seems to happen.  This year, however, one of my best friends from high school took some amazing pictures of my family when we were in town for a wedding.  She had her work cut out for her that day, I had one exhausted baby who hadn't napped, one squirrely 2 year old who never sits still, and a 3 year old who was on his way to getting a fever.  The fact that she got a shot of all of us was a miracle.

I love sending photo cards.  They are easy.  They are fun.  And they are reasonably priced.  I know of a few families who receive the cards and put them in a basket and pick one out each night and pray for that family.  Isn't that a great idea?

I've used different companies every year that I've made Christmas photo cards.  I'm not going to lie, I'm usually looking for the most affordable option.  However, I am so thankful for the advances some companies have made in letting you be creative in designing your card.  This year I am going to use Shutterfly for this very reason.

Some of my favorite designs that they have available are these.  I love that you can include more than one photo on this one. 

And I love the design of this one.  

You can check out their entire selection here.  

This year I have used Shutterfly to create some photo books and have been so pleased.  The quality is outstanding and they almost always have a deal on them which makes them very affordable.  One of my favorite ways to use this feature is to take pictures of an event that the kids and I participate in and then recreate it in storybook form with pictures and captions.  Caleb even authored one of the books we made this year. 

I also used Shutterfly this year to create some personal thank you notes.  You can make some like it here.  Again, they were good quality and the price was right. 

How about you?  What kind of Christmas cards do you like to send?  What kind do you like to receive?  If you're on my list, you'll be getting a photo card that I made on Shutterfly for free.  Would you like to do the same?

Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… sign up: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Deep Sea Diving

It all started a couple of months ago when Caleb asked Ben how much a submarine costs.  He had decided earlier in the day that he wanted to drive one when he grows up.  After explaining that they are very expensive Caleb promptly told me, "Mom.  I can't spend any more of my money buying icees at Target.  I need to save all of my money up for a long time so I can buy a submarine."   (Isn't it incredible how he has a long term saving plan already????  Ha!) 

So when I asked Caleb what kind of costume I could make him last week he quickly suggested scuba diver.  So that is what we did.  It was a very inexpensive option with the base of the costume completely reusable for the rest of the winter.  Awesome!

The boys dressed up in their costumes to give out candy yesterday.  They had a blast!  We encouraged them to give generously (and in return we let them eat a bunch of candy while they were doing it.)  It was a fun night! 

Without further ado, here are my little Scuba men:

Looks like he found a treasure while he was under the sea--two bags of skittles!

And here is my little pumpkin man.  I didn't make him a matching costume (though I was tempted) but isn't he so cute?  He melts my heart!