Did someone say, "Free" and "Christmas" in the same sentence?

Shutterfly has the best Christmas Card Collection ever! There are a ton of different styles, colors, and photo options to choose from. You can bet, I'm already searching for the perfect card!!! With my new camera, all I have to do it upload my favorite Christmas picture and choose a card layout that I like best! It's perfect, fast, and so inexpensive!!!! Who wouldn't want to use this incredible site??? It would be a shame if you didn't use Shutterfly!!!! Even better, Shutterfly doesn't charge a photo upload fee like Vistaprint! Now that is a great deal!!!!
Shutterfly is a company that we have used for several years. From printing photos (and having them delivered straight to our home!), designing calendars for family gifts, printing Christmas cards, and photo gifts-they have it all! I've used Shutterfly to send out Barrett's birthday invitations year after year, and they do an amazing job! Here are two of my favorite Christmas card designs available this season...
There are endless amounts of ideas with Shutterfly!
Isn't this a funny birthday invitation picture?!

Wouldn't this be a cute Valentine Day card picture?!

You can have access to all of this by clicking here! Shutterfly is also offering FREE shipping right now on orders $30+ with the promo code SHIP30 and 30% off of photo books! Lovely!
The BEST Part...
If you blog about all of the amazing cards and Christmas photo gifts from Shutterfly you can receive 50 free cards to send out this holiday season! Click here or go to http://bit.ly/sfly2010 to get your cards ordered to be able to share with your friends and family!

A Day with the Big Bad Wolf

We had lots of fun today, just Barrett and I! Our morning started out with fresh donuts from our nearest "drive through" bakery! You've gotta love that at 6:30 in the morning!!!! Once the sun came out, we headed to the mall to ride the train and play on the playground equipment. Yes, it was also an excuse for me to do a little shopping.
After seeing a recent post (Jennifer Gray's), I fell in love with some cute winter caps that her children were wearing. Guess what...I found some similar at Macys! Of course, I had to buy one. It's super cute, and Barrett loves wearing it (even though it is currently 80 degrees in Texas right now).

We also dropped in at the Nestle Cookie place for our favorite chocolate cookies. Barrett enjoyed every single bite and hogged my water bottle at the same time.
I have to admit, I've been playing photographer lately! Since I'm on the yearbook committee at my school, I brought home the school's camera to practice! Keep in mind though, I have a BOY! A two and a half year old B O Y at that. He is more interested in running and playing, and not posing for the camera. There is not telling how many times I begged him to smile, say cheese, and look at the camera!!! Finally, I just gave up and called it a day! I think I'll stick to capturing natural, random expressions. Those always seem to be the best anyway, right?

This is Barrett's new FACE lately. Believe it or not, you are looking into the face of the Big Bad Wolf!!! Barrett has been impersonating the Big Bad Wolf all day and after displaying his BBW look, he will ask random strangers, "You scared?"

Unfortunately, his smile turns into the BBW face 99% of the time! He pulls his upper lip over his teeth and growls!

Barrett Update and Arboretum in the Fall

As I'm sitting here trying to catch up on my blog posts...Barrett is singing his alphabet (frequent song that I'm use to hearing). But on top of that...he's doing sign language with each letter (or trying to...). It's amazing! He also can name the sound of each letter and tell you an object that begins with that letter. I'm impressed! Yes...I bragging, but proud of how much he is learning (and remembering).
More updates...

• He is 39" tall (can you imagine that?)
• Potty trained
• Getting better and better at taking off his clothes. Putting them on is hilarious to watch...but he tries.
• Still into cars, trucks, trailers, tractors, animal figures, puzzles, books, and running (everywhere he goes).
• Brushing teeth has improved with the help of a fancy red race car toothbrush!
• Has memorized his favorite bedtime stories.
• Worries about the big, bad wolf.
• Knows about Santa Claus, what he brings, and how he sounds...but hasn't quiet met him yet! (Last year was a disaster).
• Sleeps in a big boy bed, but yells out in the morning for Matt and I to, "Waaaakkke up!!!!" (This I really don't like)
• He's drinks from a regular cup almost all of the time.
• Loves Team Umizoomi
• Frequently says, "I can't believe it" / "You so proud?" / "I love you"/ "All aboard"
• Says some funny, funny, things that crack me up! I can't even list them all.

My sister recently paid us a visit. We took the kids out to the Arboretum and took some cute pictures. I love my sister! We have so much fun together. I truly wish that we lived closer to one another so that we could spend more time together.
Holidays are coming up soon, so that means I'll be seeing a lot her! I'm excited about that.

Choo-Choo and Happy Birthday

T R A I N S...especially those you can ride. Wow!!! So much fun.

Miss Riley (our girlfriend down the street) had her 2nd birthday this weekend. She had a bounce house, lots of new toys to play with, and yummy birthday snacks for us.

After Riley's party...the girls thought it would be fun to come to our house. They literally chased Barrett out of the door and followed us home. They first started chasing Barrett. He stopped to see what all the commotion was about, and they literally passed him by and kept running to our house! ha

Barrett teaching Riley that the fun doesn't have to stop after Halloween! You can have lots of fun ringing the doorbell.

Checking out what is inside the pumpkin. Barrett knows we're suppose to leave the pumpkin alone!

Conversations

As the days fly by, I notice little things that make me giggle about Barrett. I don't want to forget them. Here are a few...

Both boys in my house have been sick lately, so soup is a frequent meal. I made Barrett some chicken-noodle Os soup one night. At first, he didn't want anything to do with it. So, being a mom, I tried to gain his interest by showing him the can the soup came in (Lighting McQueen) and then showed him all the Os in the soup. He looked right back at me and said, "I see Os Mom, but where did all the A's go?"

Last week, we were walking out to the mailbox and noticed all the leaves on the ground. Barrett said, "Yook Mom, all the leaves fall off the tree. We need to get them and put them back on."

One night, Matt and I were trying to finish our dinner and Barrett continued to whine about leaving the table. We kept telling him that he needed to finish his meal. Well, he didn't stop whining. Matt and I began to have our own little side conversation about how to handle the situation (or at least we thought we were having our own conversation).
I told Matt, "He's about to get his hiney spanked".
Barrett grabbed his spoon and said, "I don't want my hiney spanked".
Well, as bad as I felt, at least he got the point.

Barrett plays with his little cars and trucks, and talks to them too. I'll have to catch him on film soon. He sometimes pretends that there is a mommy car, daddy truck, and "Barrett / little boy" car.
This morning, we heard him using a stern voice towards one of the cars. Sure enough...it was the mommy car!!!! He was actually putting her in time out! Can you believe that????
I asked him, "Barrett what are you saying to those cars".
He said, "Mommy car go to time out!!!"
I didn't even ask why. I was afraid to.

Favorite new bed time ritual. We love to read and sing. Most of the time it's a Mama Llama book, but occasionally, we switch it up. I question the Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretal more and more. Why again are these such "children's favorites". Hmmmm The more I read them, the more they creep me out.

Favorite words/phrases:
"Mommy, this lemonade juice is deeee-licious"
"Mommy, what you doing?"
"This is yummy to my tummy"
"I can't believe it"
"Mommy, is that the cookie man over there? We need to go get him."
"Daddy, you not feel good?"
"I'm sorry Mommy"
I can't even write how he says pistachios...but he does TRY to pronounce it.
I absolutely love our conversations.

Halloween 2010

Du na nna nna nna..BATMAN!!!!

Batman and Elvis are ready to hit the streets!

We stopped in at our friend Riley's house just down the sidewalk. We love Miss Riley. Isn't she beautiful. No, she wasn't even dressed up, but she looks like a little Barbie doll!

Knock, knock...

Yep, it's Mrs. Lisa and our babysitter Miss Lindsee!

Neighbor (that we don't know), but grabbed onto Barrett for a picture. I think she liked my little Batman.

Barrett and Wyatt giving one another a "high-five" for a job well done!

Way to score some C A N D Y!!!!

You can bet that I've already hidden the candy from Barrett (and myself). I'm using the candy as a way to bribe Barrett to eat all of his dinner before getting a peice of Halloween candy.

Herd Museum

You would think that being a teacher, I would be the one organizing all of the educational events that take place in our family, right?

Believe it or not, Matt planned this one. He sent me a link to the Herd Museum early last week and insisted we take Barrett. The museum was featuring a DINOSAUR exhibit with life-size robotic dinosaurs. How awesome it that? Each one even had sound effects sounding like a dinosaur roar. One even sprayed you with a mist (poisonous defense mechanism). Crazy, but so, so cool!

We both know how much Barrett loves dinosaurs. It's been his latest big interest. You should hear him try to pronounce individual dinosaur names. Matt's much better at teaching him about dinos. I don't know much about dinos, (my childhood consisted of Barbie dolls, baby dolls, and Little People), but I'm learning about them...right alongside of Barrett.

I AM DINOSAUR...HEAR ME ROAR!