Best Attempt

I did everything I could do capture just how sweet Sophia looked in her Christmas outfit, but alas, she is a toddler and it was nearly impossible. 

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Merry Christmas

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Random

Can you believe Christmas is a week away? I can't wait for a little time off, family time and relaxation!

I feel like I have a million things I could post about, but our computer was misbehaving on Sunday (strange pop-ups and Live Writer shutting down), and it freaked me out. Instead of dealing with it, I shut it down very quickly and a few days later Dan fixed it - Hooray! But, I'm at work, without the laptop, so no pictures. :(

Speaking of Dan, he's been full of surprises lately! He's not a computer guy - usually I'm the one on top of the computer issues, but Wed. night he spent two hours cleaning it up and restoring it to its full glory. A few nights before that he jokingly picked up a guitar and declared it to be Family Worship Time. I just laughed, knowing he is musically illiterate, but as I sat at the computer music starting coming from the guitar behind me - Wow! Even after six year, there are still surprises here and there!

Last week I mentioned a group diet plan...anyone interested? It's still in the works, but you may want to get on board. It may be the next South Beach Diet. :) I thought it might be a good idea to have a healthy plan in place before the New Year even begins. If it's not labeled a Resolution, it's more likely to be successful!

Lastly, random incident of the day: I had the kiddos at Ridgedale Mall today at their play area and we ended up sitting down with a drink for a bit. Somehow, my 20 oz. drink ended up all over the place, with at least 10 oz. landing in my diaper bag. Awesome. And of course, instead of hitting the super-absorbent diapers in the bag, it ended up on my phone, wallet and camera. Everything is still in working order, thankfully. Just one of those days with two toddlers in tow!

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The finished products...

Now the trick will be to actually get them to people!

Sweet And Merry Christmas Card

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Paper Ornaments Christmas Card

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Funky Christmas Pink 2010 Christmas Card

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Christmas Cards!

Have you ordered your Christmas cards yet?? Christmas cards are one of my favorite things to get in the mail and I have a VERY hard time throwing them away. I already got a few, but I had a hard time choosing which one. I got ours from Shutterfly's wide variety of options, but I couldn't decide which style to choose, so I picked three:

Which one do you think you'll end up with?? I like that they are printed on cardstock, rather than on photo paper, (not that I'm EVER picky). The picture I chose was from our Christmas photo shoot with our friend Nealy, and I LOVE the pictures, so I'm really excited about these cards. I already got one shipment, but quickly realized that we didn't order enough!

I wanted to get the third option we picked this year for LAST year's card, but I just never got on top of things (probably something to do with having a small baby!), so I'm really excited to have it this year. They also have options that are generally holiday cards, but I prefer the ones that are specifically Christmas.

This is probably my go-to site for cards and invites. I used to be better at making cards, etc., but not since Sophia showed up.

We actually got Sophia's birthday invites from Shutterfly too. This style:

This girlie is cute, but naturally, I think our pumpkin was cuter on the card. :)

Have fun ordering your cards! I hope we're on your list!!

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How to: An amazing Christmas on a budget

So, obviously Sophia will not really know that Christmas is going on.  She will only notice that we’re having a fun day with a lot of goings-on, even so, I still want her to have a great Christmas.  I know that’s not about gifting, etc., but I do really like giving gifts and it’s so fun to see kids rip open their presents. 

 

SO, the solution is to spoil Sophia, with restraint (I’m TRYING!), but to do it on a budget. 

Have you met Rody??  This is Rody – it’s a cute little horse made of durable, inflated vinyl.  The kiddo gets to hold onto Rody’s ears and bounce up and down.  Sophia plays with one when I have her with me at work and LOVES it.  On a whim, I looked for one on Craigslist and found just one result, which happened to be pink for $20.  Since they typically sell for $50 new, this is a great deal!  And it’s sizable, and it’s fun to give a BIG gift for a lower price!

Sophia LOVES my Camelback water bottle, so I’ve been wanting to get one for her for a while.  I saw an old friend at a wedding a while back.  He works for Target as a buyer in the sporting goods department and hinted that Target would be carrying them soon.  Well, I kept looking for them, and now they’re here, plus the first week they were at Target, they were on sale for about $5 less than usual.  I snatched one up and started a pile for Sophia’s stocking.

Moral of the stories? 

Whether you are trying to save money, have a limited Christmas budget, or you would just rather spend less than full price on the same things you are planning to buy anyway, you can end up spending far less on Christmas than you’d think.  All you need to do is spend a little of your time looking around and think ahead about what you’d like to gift to people. 

We’ve gotten many items on Craigslist, brand new, for up to half the price you’d pay in store (more on that later…).  Take a look around – you may end up with a little wiggle room in your budget or a bit of extra cash in your wallet.

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Christmas...FINALLY!

Finally, some pictures from Christmas (which was almost a MONTH ago!)

We had planned on waking up at home and having a small celebration with the three of us on Christmas morning, but the weather had other plans. We left Wednesday night, trying to get ahead of the big storm, but ended up right in the middle of it. Fortunately, we got to my parents' home safely and stayed there until Saturday morning.

My family's tradition is to open stockings first, then have a big breakfast and then pass presents out and open them. She got a few fun things in her stocking, including tights, a book and some new bowls for eating real food in a month!

And once again, Sophia was spoiled! She had the biggest pile of presents and ended up with some very cute clothes, including a new party dress from Grandma and Grandpa, and a lot of toys.

She even got her very first purse, all cloth and very chewable.

After a while, it was all just too much - this is actually one of my favorite pictures from Christmas - I think it's so cute!

Presents - Round 2

We were pretty impressed with her ability to actually unwrap the presents. She got really into it!

Finally, a picture of mom and baby! Like most moms, I'm usually behind the camera, so I'm happy to have any picture of the two of us together!

Because of the weather, Dan's family postponed the Christmas celebration until Saturday, which worked out well for us and we were able to come too!

Sophia got a lot of time with her cousins, who were happy to hold and play with her

At each Christmas, we were able to get a four generation picture with Sophia. I'm so happy she'll be able to look back on these from her first Christmas. It's just too bad we couldn't get her to look at the camera!

I don't think our first Christmas as a family of three could have been any better!

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Preview: Baby's First Christmas

Since we took over 100 pictures of Sophia's first Christmas,it's going to take me a while to go through them all. But I HAD to post this one - it might be my favorite one from the weekend:

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Christmas Celebrations

This weekend was full of Christmas celebrations. We started off Saturday at noon with the Zustiak Christmas. It was fun to finally introduce Sophia to more of her Zustiak extended family. She had already met her Great-Grandpa Zustiak, but none of her great aunts and uncles and other extended cousins. She got a lot of love and met a LOT of people. We had such a good time!

Next up was Christmas with Dan's parents and grandparents. Mike and Lori were unable to join us, but we were able to do a video chat with them and opened Christmas presents "together." Technology is amazing!

Can you say SPOILED? She got an adorable 1st Christmas ornament from her Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Shaw and Grandma and Grandpa went crazy with Sophia's gifts. Remember this post? We came home with quite a few things on that list! She especially loves her new little blankie and has been having fun chewing on it.

Christmas wore Sophia out!

We ended the weekend with our small group Christmas party, complete with a white elephant gift exchange. We ended up with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots and a lovely cutting board with a duck head on it - WOW! The Robots went home with someone else (sorry, Erica!), but we were fortunate enough to keep the duck. This lovely treasure may reappear at another Christmas gathering next year!

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