Happy Thanksgiving To You!!

Luke is seriously such a ham!

Look what came in the mail!

The Free Snapfish Photo Book!
That was seriously fast delivery...
It is so neat too! The kids had a great time looking at it.. They kept asking me to read the story again!
I put the book together using my favorite blog posts..

I will definetely be ordering one of these in the future again and won't mind paying the full price for it (though free was pretty darn nice) The only thing that kind of stinks is some of my images in the book are not very clear... but it is because of my camera I know it.. the photos I put in the book that were not taken by me turned out fantastic..

Very Rich Desserts...

and I don't mean by being too sweet...

I was looking for some yummy dessert recipes for the holidays and I stumbled upon Neiman Marcus's Gourmet Desserts...

I mean oh my goodness Gourmet is right....
A $150 carrot cake? Really?

Do people really buy these?

Carrot Cake
150.00

How about this pumpkin cheesecake..

Harvest Pumpkin Cheesecake
140.00

This cake is just over the top..

Zebra-Striped Handbag Cake
235.00


Some of them looked really really good though

Love the name on this one..

Big Daddy Chocolate Cake
60.00

and this looks delicious..

Turtle Cheesecake
70.00

Love the presentation of these sorbets...

Six Fruit Sorbettos
50.00

Well that was fun.. think I will go eat one of Luke's Ding Dongs now... that is as close to gourmet it gets in my house...

Holiday Photos..

Every year for Christmas we have pictures taken of all the cousins together....

We are so blessed that all of us live so close.. It brings us all such happiness to know the kids are growing up together..

They are so close in age and always have a BLAST together!

This year we decided to hire a professional photographer....
Camille Gould is a natural light photgrapher in Gilbert, AZ and she did a wonderful job of capturing the kids and their personalities...

We also squeaked in some family pictures too, so that was nice!

Luke cracks me up in our family picture..this is sooo like him...Again, what the heck?? Mr. Personality he is.....

Check out her site because she has some great deals going on right now and really cute Christmas Cards... ( I still can't believe it is that time already!)

Check out her blog too! (We are all now famous because we made it on there ..hehe)

Luke hearts Hailie

I went to tuck Hailie in and I noticed a heart foamie stuck to her door and I asked Hailie how that got there and she said, "Luke put it there"...... so I ask Luke if he put the heart on Hailie's door and he said, "Yes, mommy I found it and I wanted to put it on Hailie's door so it looked like a princess door because Hailie is a beautiful princess.."
You can hear my heart melting...

Talking Turkey...

Both the kids came home with the same Turkey homework project...disguise Tom the Turkey... So last night I asked the kids what they wanted to disguise their Turkey's as and true to each of their personalities Luke states he wants a Batman Turkey and of course Hailie said she wanted her Turkey to be a Princess Ballerina... sounded easy enough...
We raided my craft closet and found all the materials they wanted to use on their turkeys...
TWO hours later here are the results.. (took far longer then I anticipated but the kids did pretty much everything themselves..so they were really proud, which made it worth it)

Luke during the project tells me we can't forget Batmans "booms".. I was like do I dare ask what "booms"are..so I was like, "baby..what are Batmans booms".. and he said you know mommy and proceeded to touch my "boob" and I was like ohhhh.. and I said well honey boys don't have "booms" (well most of them anyways) they have muscles and he says to me"okay mommy can we just make sure that he has big booms to put my cool bat on".... point made..please see big booms above..

Here is Hailie with her Princess BallerinaTurkey..I was so impressed with her on this project.. she picked out the crayon colors and colored the whole turkey herself and they are kind of hard to see but she put tiny crystals on the end of the "wings" as she called them.. she was so thrilled with herself.

Too turkey cute!

Free SnapFish Photo Book.. experience

So I got an email from my fabulous cousin Loren yesteday, she wanted to let me know that on Oprah yesterday they had a segment on cleaning up your messy home and one of their suggestions to declutter all of those art projects your kids bring home, they suggested taking pictures of them and then uploading them to SnapFish.com and make a photo book out of them...

Here is the best part (thanks Loren!!) They are offering a free 8"x11" custom-cover photo book!

So I am passing her great find onto you..kind of..keep reading

Just follow this link...

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081029_tows_messyhouse/7

Oh, the hurry part...* This offer is only good for one standard 20-page 8" x 11" custom-cover photo book per household. Coupon dispersal ends at 11:59 p.m. PST Friday, November 14, 2008. Free photo book must be redeemed by 11:59 p.m. PST Sunday, November 16, 2008. Offer does not include customary shipping and handling changes or additional pages. Offer applies only to mail-order delivery to U.S. customers. Offer cannot be combined with other coupon codes. Coupon cannot be resold or otherwise transferred and is void on the earlier of redemption or the offer end date.*

SO I hurried and went on the site and started the process to redeem my free book..

This is where I start to get frustrated... the system being slow didn't bother me too much.. but the next part does....

I clicked on the link and it sends you to a page that says get started.. I clicked on that and it has you create an account and if you already have an account it has you log in.. (which I already had an account with them so I just logged in.. I have never used them before though..had to sign up to view some friends pictures..anyways) It has you follow the prompts to start creating your photo book.. which I followed.. you only get your choice of one layout which was kind of disappointing, but whatever, not complaining too much yet..it's free.. so basically it is one picture per page (it is a 20 page book) and you can put text under the pictures..

I completed my book and then went to preview and check out.. I follow the check out process and then it starts asking for credit card information or coupon code.. never in the process was I given a coupon code so I am confused as how I will "redeem" my free photo book..

Seriously by this time it has been a couple hours of my oh so precious time and I am getting annoyed.. so I just decide to call the Customer Service Number.. I listen to the options and a message comes on saying that my call can not be completed at this time..please try your call again later.. then hangs up on me...

SOOOOO.. Snapfish if you are reading this.. What's up??

If anyone else has any luck "redeeming" this supposed free photo book..mine is all set up ready to go... just need to know how to get it for free..

UPDATE!

Love that I have an angel by the name of Liz looking out for me!! How amazing are you.

Thank you so much for your comment. Sure enough I went back and followed your instructions( I was too nervous to continue once I put my cc info in because I was sure that it would charge it straight from there) and what do you know.. it showed the credit and just charged me the shipping. Plus you had a great idea to do a book for Christmas gifts to family members.. I was being selfish but now I may have to go back and follow your lead..

Thanks again!

Liz's comment:

I had a little trouble too but once you get to step 4 (Review) it credits your account for the book you have created. You have to put in your credit card info first but you do not have to hit submit/accept until after you review your order and see that they have given you the credit. My total came to 7.49 for shipping. Hope this helps...I think I am going to try to make a couple of more for xmas gifts before tomorrow. -Liz

Giving New Meaning To The Title Paper Boy

Still talking about shoes..but mommy edition

This fashion risk intrigues me..especially because it is about shoes...Okay picture a cute flirty black dress with say one black shoe..one silver... maybe...
Or am I wanting to try it just so I can have an excuse to buy two new pairs of shoes... hey, they both need to be exactly the same shoe, right?
I wonder what people's reaction would be.. I am thinking in Gilbert it would probably be "Hey, did you get dressed in the dark..do you know you have two different shoes on?"

Melissa..maybe in New York you could try it out and pull it off... A little more fashion forward there don't ya think..

I am still tempted though..

I found the equivelant of Mommies Manolo's for little girls ...

So my mom let me know that for part of the kids Christmas Present she is going to take them to see the play the Velveteen Rabbit.. Of course.. naturally, that got me thinking about what I would dress the kids in.... I am going with trying to find that perfect brown/tan velvet to make Hailie a dress out of.. I have a design in my head.. we will see how it goes.. So I was searching Etsy to see if I could find any special occasion shoes that were unique...

And let me tell you that you are going to fall in love when you see who I stumbled upon.

Frosting Couture

I mean look at these shoes!!!!

They are so well constructed..so much attention to detail.. the designs are insane..

This is her Marie Antoinette..and you know what puts the "frosting on the cake" they are only $21.50!!

Samantha Leopard Booties (these would be so perfect for my niece) Again..only $21.50!!

These Chanel inspired ones are what I have my eye on for Hailie... There is the option to up size and she is sooo super "sweet" (her shop is called frosting couture) about speaking to you about custom orders.

She was even featured in Cookie Magazine.. which is a children's magazine that I love and anticipate the arrival of each month...

Go check out her Etsy site... and buy a couple pairs for that price!!

These are the perfect accessorie to make her shine during all the upcoming Holiday events..

Happy Birthday Preston!

We love you!

Keeping myself entertained on the commute...

So obviously I get bored on my drive to and from work everyday and it truly amazes me sometimes as to what grown women will do for attention...

Example....

She obviously is not the best of golddiggers as she is driving a Toyota Corolla...


This one had me cringing....

She was not... unless you count a woman at least over 50 with crunchy over processed blonde hair and fake baked beyond recognition with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth too hot for you.. I kid you not.. wish I could have snapped her pic as well. I am suppose to be driving though..

All of these are real AZ license plates that I took pictures of from my phone while I was at a stop light sitting behind them..

True entertainment at it's best people...

Curious, does anyone have a license plate story that they found hilarious?

Hanging out with their cousin...

Yes, it was hot enough that Luke ran around in the sprinklers after a dare from daddy to see if he could do it without getting wet... he lost the dare..

After a fun time at the park it was time for a Tinkerbell viewing party..

umm.. as long as it took for me to snap these couple pictures is how long Hailie and Sydnie lasted watching the movie... Kyle, Luke and I ended up watching it.. the girls played dress up.

So much for the weeks of anticipation Hailie had for that movie.. She even went as far as tearing out the advertisement from a magazine and taping it to her vanity so she could tell Tinkerbell that she loved her and couldn't wait to see her movie.. and so I thought for sure she would get into this one... nope..that girl just does not do movies..