Get ready..

Get ready because you are about to read the best money saving tip for the holiday season.  Maybe you already know this tip, I learned it from my friend Suzy.  If you are a person who does not like saving money or trying new things, you may not want to read on.

Do you send out Christmas photo cards each year? How much do you spend to make them?  At Walgreens.com their "Simple Holiday" card with only one picture starts at $15.99 for a set of 20.  EXPENSIVE.  After Easton was born, Suzy used Photoshop to create a birth announcement for him using several pictures, sent them to Walgreens as a digital picture and only paid 10 cents per copy.  This made the 30 copies I needed for family and friends only $3.00!!  

I do not have Photoshop on my computer and I do not want to buy it, so I found the next best FREE thing.  There is a program made by Google called Picasa.  Picasa is a free download and with it you can touch up photos, create borders and backgrounds for your photos, make collages and type on your photos.  This is what I am going to use to make our Christmas cards this year.  If you want to see examples of what you can do using Picasa, just look at my blog.  The top border of my blog was made using the program as were all the picture collages in my recent posts..  So there you go, was it worth the read?

Here's an example card I made using Picasa...keep in mind I just threw it together quickly for this blog post!  Now go and save some money!

And I think this says it all...

A picture worth a thousand words.  This picture tells why kids are worth the hard work, the tears, the fits, the never getting time to yourself unless you get up before they wake up life that is yours once you become a mother .  They look like angels, don't they? It probably helps that I added a "soft focus" feature to the photo, but still the same, in this picture they are my angels. I love them and even when I get frustrated beyond belief it all circles back to the fact that they are mine and worth every minute of frustration.  Children bring happiness to a home, giggles to a room, and everyday smart little comments to a conversation that make you wonder, "where did they learn that from?"   Take another look at the picture, it will say everything else that I don't write in this blog entry that should be said about the wonders of children.                                                                            

     

Tutu for a two year old..

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. Ecclesiastes 3:1
This last Saturday was a time to party! A time to celebrate our baby girl turning two, a time to wear a tutu, and a time to get together with family and friends.
Even a party is divided into "times" for each activity.  This is how Melanie's party went down.

Yes, there is certainly a time for everything, and this time was a success! Thanks to all who helped, and thank you Lord for such a precious and beautiful little girl!

A trip to the Danner Boot Factory a boring day does not make..

We drove to Portland. We looked at boots.  We bought some for daddy and a car seat to boot! :)

Why Portland you ask? Well, apparently the winter work boots are about $100 cheaper there and tax free! Thus, we bought a new car seat to boot, because, well, we needed one, and hey, no tax!
Surprisingly, boot shopping is not boring, it was quite fun..but when are spur of the moment road trips NOT fun?  I think the kids especially loved it that we took the portable DVD player so they could watch Elmo on the way.  Here are more pictures of our day...

It was a good day. Truly, a very good day..the kind of family day you dream of having before you even have a family.  And I'm so glad I get to have the family of my dreams.