WooHoo! Free Christmas Cards!

Stationary lovers...this one's for you!

I stumbled across a promotion for Shutterfly through a friend's blog the other day and was super impressed to read that Shutterfly is offering bloggers 50 FREE Christmas Cards this year! Oh.MY.Word. Since having Meg and with the introduction of baby VH#2 on the way, Kyle and I are always searching for new ways to save money and stick to our allotted budget aaaandddd the month of December with Christmas presents, travel, and parties, etc. consistently seems to break our bank. Actually, I always aspire to make our Christmas cards, but fail miserably through lack of creativity, time, and organizational skills. :) This year, though, Shutterfly is helping us keep in touch with our dear friends and family without the added stress of cost. All you have to do to participate is have a blog and follow this link to sign up:

http://bit.ly/sfly2010

You won't be disappointed!

I haven't officially decided which style to use, but my favorite card so far is this one:

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/peppermint-dots-christmas-card-5x7-flat?sortType=1&storeNode=93496

Obviously, this is not our family, but what I love about this card is that it gives the option of two pictures (that way I can use one of our family and one just of our Meg), the polka dots, and the brown color mixed in with the traditional green and red. The brown is important because in the picture we're using for our Christmas card, we're wearing colors that clash with the "christmas" red and green and the brown helps offset the clash. And, just in general, I love that Shutterfly has over 300 options just of Flat Stationary Christmas cards...this number doesn't even include their selection of folded Christmas cards and Photo Cards.

Besides the promo, I love using Shutterfly because of their variety of services including calendars (one of my college roomies made a beautiful calendar for her hubs for Christmas last year), baby announcements, birthday invitations, and my favorite, photo books. The photo books are particularly special because they're a beautiful and polished way to keepsake a family vacation or special time. We made a photo book documenting all of Meg's birth and first day pictures and have plans to make one out of our Virginia pictures. If you'd like to do more searching on your own, you can follow the links below:

1. calendars: http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

2. christmas cards: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards

3. birthday cards: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/birthday-cards-stationery

Hope all had a happy Thanksgiving! More details to follow on ours as my cousin and her husband are still with us, but we had a great day of turkey trotting (a timed 5k and family walk to benefit Edmond's Turning Point Ministries), relaxing, family cooking, and reflecting over a year's worth of special, God-given blessings.

Love to all,
Shannon

Kyle had a Dream

Shortly after we found out that we were pregnant with Meg, Kyle came to me one morning and said, "I had a dream." Coming from Kyle, one of the deepest sleepers and most rational/least likely to have-a-dream-and-remember-it-to-tell-about-it people I know, this dream was big news.

"Really? Tell me about it."

"Well, I dreamed that we are having a little girl. She has brown hair and her name is Margaret Lillian."

"Oh," I replied, kind of dismissing his dream away. You see, from the moment of her conception, I had this overwhelming feeling that I was carrying a boy. I didn't particularly want or hope for a boy - I was just praying for a healthy baby - but, I just had what felt like this innate sense that our Meggie was a boy. And brown hair? Both Kyle's mom and I have red hair and Kyle even had white-blond hair as a babe, so in my mind I had conjured up an image of a roly-poly, bouncing boy with red or blond hair. His dream didn't make sense to me and my mother's intuition. :)

Throughout my pregnancy with Meg, when I would talk about "the baby boy" or want to talk over boy names, Kyle would say with a knowing smile, "Ok, but I'm telling you. Our baby is a girl and her name is decided. It's Margaret Lillian." And, sure enough, on her spectacular delivery day, to my wonder and surprise, I pushed out this great big, brunette, baby GIRL. Our Meggie girl. Now, I can't imagine our family being any other way.

So when, on our car trip home from Virginia in the early days of October, Kyle turned to me and said, "Oh yeah, I meant to tell you. I had a dream the other night," my ears perked up and my heart began to pulse a little faster.

Gulp. "You did?"

"Yeah, it was the strangest thing. I dreamed that we have another little girl and her name is: _____ _______ (to be kept a secret). I didn't see the details like in my dream with Meg, but our new baby girl was there."

I responded in amusement. "That is funny. What if I were pregnant RIGHT NOW and we didn't even know and you just dreamed about it?!?"

We both chuckled and thought: that.would.be.wild.

Until the next day when we got home (Oct. 4th) and I took a pregnancy test just to be sure and what do you know??? It was POSITIVE! And our newest baby is on the way, due on June 12th.

:) :) :)

Where have I been?

I've got a lot to share...but it's gonna have to wait a couple more days. :) For now, the day's off to a good start. I went and jazzercized with a friend this morning, came home to put Meg down for a late nap, and checked my email while watching an enormous herd of wild turkeys cross our backyard - one of the many things that not only endears OK to me, but also this opportunity of living in the country. The weather has finally started to cool down and today there's a definite fall crispness to the air that whispers of holiday things. AND, Kyle made it hoooooome! Hip hip hooray! He crossed our threshold for the second time (the first time was for a mere couple of hours) in 30 days on Thursday night and we've had a splendid weekend of doing almost nothing but spending time as a family of 3 (in person) once again.

I'm off to hop in the shower, but be on the lookout for a new blog post in the next couple of days. You won't want to miss it! :)

Go Gamecocks!

Is she not the most scrumptious gamecocks cheerleader you've ever laid eyes on? This mama's eyes surely think so!

We had a tremendous Halloween/Fall week including the Storybook Forrest at Arcadia Lake, Haunt the Zoo with lots of our squadron friends, and even a trip to Amarillo to visit cousins Kaitlin and Adam for Halloween weekend. Our front porch now proudly boasts a painted pumpkin done by Miss Meggie, artist extraordinaire. She so "got" the concept of trick-or-treating, that I had to make sure she didn't sneak candy from other kiddies' bags. :) I think her favorite part was toting around her purple Jack-o-lantern bucket. What childhood bliss!