Spoiler Alert!

Check it out! This was the free Christmas Card I was able to make thanks to Shutterfly! They are amazing!

Snowflake Bliss Christmas Card

Turn your pictures into personalized Christmas cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0BZOWLRq3csXGw

Flutterby???? No! It's SHUTTERFLY!

 I first found out about Shutterfly back in 2006 after my wedding. I wanted to create a photo wedding album and looked around for ones that were decently priced but look had a high quality look to them…enter Shutterfly! I was so impressed with the quality that when my sister got married a yearl later, my mom asked me to make a wedding album for her. Not a problem at all! They make it so easy! Even with a demanding full time job and the fact that I am a perfectionist, I was able to have that album complete in no time! Since that time, I have used Shutterfly for many of my personalized print jobs. I have definitely taken advantage of their photo cards. There is just something special about giving someone a card that was personalized specifically for them. The fact that they know you took the time to make something extra special for them shows that you care all the more. Since my husband and I decided to expand our family, the whole Christmas card scene has become a little more important to us than we ever would have previously thought! It is so nice to show family and friends a little slice of the joy in your life at such a joyful time of year. Shutterfly gives you many choices to share your joy! Look here at their Christmas card selection…over 800 different choices! With that many choices, you will have a snowball’s chance in you-know-where of making the same card as someone on your correspondence list.  There are so many stylish options, but I think I am leaning toward this one or this one.  But above the quality, selection, and great prices, I probably love the excellent no-hassle customer service! There was one time I made some photo cards for Father’s Day. When I received my order, I didn’t get the correct amount of a certain print. At most places the customer would be blamed for the mistake (maybe you didn’t hit “print” on the correct project, etc.), but not at Shutterfly! All I did was call them up and explain my issue and they sent me the correct project, no questions asked! It was great..and timely! But anyway, we are talking Christmas here…I was thinking it would be great to make some special photo gifts for our extended, out-of-town family.  Now, let’s be honest, now that we have a baby, no one really cares about me and the Mr. anymore – it’s all about the little man! I am really liking these little snap books! What a great way to carry your most recent pictures in tidy and compact, yet professional –looking book! Ok, enough of that.  It’s time to get on shutterfly.com and make some great photo projects! 

Wyatt turns 1 year old!

I am not going to dwell on why I haven't posted anything in over 6 months...I just didn't. Lot's of life changes.  Here's to becoming better!

Our sweet little bubba turned one on October 29th! We had a birthday party for him at my parent's house on the 30th...yes, there was a Halloween theme. The guests were allowed to wear costumes, but many did not. Wyatt was a ferocious dragon, but those pics are on my other camera, so I will get those on here one day. He didn't really know what was going on at the party other than there were a lot of people there and he liked that! This boy loves to be social. He never really got any stranger anxiety, which could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. He wasn't really into his presents, but he sure did like the tissue paper - that was his favorite part! The cake was interesting too...He took a few finger swipes and tasted the frosting. I don't think he really knew what to do. I took matters into my own hands and smashed his hand into the cake...and it was all downhill from there. I think he thought the cake was something to destroy more than something to eat. It was a great day and we were so glad that so many family friends were able to make it - especially his Nammy, Grandpa, and Great Granny all the way from Bishop!

And here are a few pics from the party:

I WANT TO WIN!

I want to win more than I want you to win, but just for the "thrill of the chase," as it were, head on over to http://www.cjaneanswers.com/p/mix-this.html and try to win this awesome mixer!

I don't have one of these, but would sure like this one! then, maybe, my hands wouldn't get so tired when i bake. good luck to all!

Well, hello mighty blogosphere!

You wanna know why I never kept a journal?  Because I can not consistently update it!  Alas, here is my "every-two-month- update.  Scroll down and you will find two separate posts.  See what we've been up to!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was nice.  Very low-key.  We started celebrating on Saturday because on Sunday we had a nurse coming to our house to take blood and do physical's on us for our life insurance policies.  Giving blood and urine does not make for a pleasant Mother's Day. 

On Saturday Cameron let me sleep in.  He fed Wyatt and took care of him.  I slept in until 10am!  Wow!  I woke up and Cam was making breakfast and there were some lovely lilies in a vase waiting for me.  So pretty.  I really didn't want to do much that day other than take it easy.  On Sunday, we had our physicals and went to church.  Cam gave me my gift.  He enlisted the help of our friend Lorie to do some hand and footprints of Wyatt and put them in some frames.  Very cute!

Wyatt is 6 months old!

So, that is totally, like, half of a year!  I know, right?  Weird! 

We are a little sad that 6 months has flown by as fast as it has.  We try so very hard to soak up every moment...but it's hard when our full-time job can't be playing with our son.  Wouldn't that be great, though?  I would love to be paid to take care of my kid(s)...or if someone wanted to pay me...but I digress...

I had a little photo shoot the day he turned six months (April 29).  We went to the doctor for his check up at 6.5 months.  He is about 27.5 inches long in the 75th percentile.  His head is also in the 75th percentile, but I forget how many inches.  His weight, however, is somewhat puzzling - he weighed 15 lbs. 12 oz. and was in the 10th percentile.  The chart showed that he actually lost 2 ounces since his last visit.  Totally wierd.  But he DOES eat, that much I can tell you.

Wyatt has started eating more and more solid foods.  He loves rice cereal.  He likes carrots, green beans, mango, sweet potato, peas, and berries.  He dislikes banana and pureed meats (ham, so far).  We also started feeding him in his booster seat rather than his bumbo.  He is too strong to eat from the bumbo, he can scoot it all around the table - not safe! 

Wyatt can also sit up pretty well on his own without falling over too much.  If he does fall, it's backwards and he lands on his head.  We just put a pillow behind him to brace the fall.  We introduced the ball to him recently.  We couldn't believe that we waited this long to do so!  He LOVED it!  Of course, that means that Cameron was loving it too.  In Cam's mind the fact that Wyatt loved the ball means he will automatically be the best basketball player ever!  Yeah, we'll see.

Wyatt also said "mama" the day he turned 6 months.  I have 2 witnesses!  I told him to say "mama" and right after that, sure enough, he said mama!  However, he hasn't said it since.  So it was probably a fluke.  I am still going to claim it :)

Wyatt also cut his first tooth at 6.5 months!  It is his lower front left tooth.  Man those suckers are sharp!  The right one isn't far behind.  I give it 3 weeks, tops.

Pretty much the month of March

Let's start out with a silly pic, shall we?  Well, one evening Cameron was feeding Wyatt a bottle of the good stuff before bed.  We usually stop and burp Wyatt half-way through the bottle so that he does not puke the entire thing up (something we learned when he was only about 2 weeks old).  Well, Wyatt just wasn't wanting to burp, so we went ahead and fed him the entire bottle.  This was a mistake.  The moment Cameron went to brup Wyatt, a MASSIVE roar emerged from his belly which was followed by a fountain of frothy white liquid spewing from his mouth, down cameron's shirt, and all over Wyatt's clothes.  The above picture is a gem we captured after incident.  The picture doesn't do the situation justice. 

Can we say satisfied?

Cameron recently put together wyatt's stand and play activity center.  wyatt really seems to like it.  this picture displays wyatt's concentration face when figuring out how to work those toys.

happy st. patrick's day!  on this day wyatt had to get his 4 month shots.  this time i chose to break them up and not do so many in one visit. (his first visit was followed by too much crying!!!)  he did really well this time and you never would have known that he got shots that day.  he weighed in at 14 lbs. 9 oz. and was around 26 inches long.  needless to say, he's long and skinny.

we've taken to going on walks most evening that we aren't busy when cameron gets home from work since we have more saylight these days.  on thos particular evening it was rather cold and i wanted wyatt to wear this awesome beanie that someone from bishop made.  doesn't he look cute?

the ever-awesome bathtime.  do pick, or not pick my nose?  that is the question...

and probably the biggest news of all is that wyatt tried his first solid foods recently.  this picture is of rice cereal we gave him.  but his first real solids were eaten one night when cam and i were eating dinner.  we were eating some sweet potato bisque and wyatt looked so very interested.  so, i gave him a few bites.  he seemed to like it and was so proud of himself.  so, the next day we went out and got him some rice cereal.  the first few bites were funny because he attempted to gag himself, but after a few more tries we were actually able to get some down his gullett.  all in all, it was a success and very, very messy.  it's time to go buy a few plastic bibs because this is going to be a messy stage!

Presidential Weekend and then some...

over the long presidential weekend we took the opportunity to check something off our excursion list.  we headed out to the santa ynez catholic mission.  i have learned, since moving to california, that the coast is speckled with historic catholic missions.  cameron and i have made it one of our goals to see all of them together.  there are 21 total.  we have seen 7.  the distance was just long enough that a meal would need to be eaten, so we did what anyone trying to save a buck would - we packed a lovely picnic lunch!  we were glad we did.  the mission overlooked a small valley.  we had gotten a lot of rain in the last few weeks and the hills were so very green!  it was a great day and a nice view, to say the least!

while we are not catholic, we find the adoration of the virgin mary always very interesting.

cameron getting ready to made some delicious egg salad sandwiches! 

this is what wyatt ate pretty much the entire day.  he always goes back for more...

mama can always get a smile out of wyatt.

the pics below are just some randoms from lately...

look dad!  no hands!

this is actually from the super bowl.  wyatt disapproves of all the "superbowl commercial hype"

"heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!"

"duuuuuurrrrr"

the cute & clean baby after bath-time.  hooded towels are the cutest invention.

Last week photos...

in these pictures, wyatt is 13 weeks old.  cameron and i...we are 26 and 27 respectively.

this is wyatt during bath time.  he really enjoys it now!  he has found the "baby in mirror" now and last night just stared at himself the entire time.

wyatt just got done eating in this picture.  i am attempting to burp him by patting his back.  yes, he is sound asleep.  this happens often.

this is just to prove that cameron and i still exist.  and yes, that beard DID exist, but has since seen its demise

(i.e. he shaved it this weekend)

reading books before bedtime.  wyatt now is able to focus on the pictures on the pages.  it is obvious which books catch his attention more than other.

this is merely for your viewing pleasure.  i just think he looks so relaxed with spit-up all over his face.  i, myself, would not be able to handle that type of mess on me!

hopefully i will become better at posting each week with some of our highlights. 

stay tuned for more!

3 months

I will admit it...this blog will probably turn into Wyatts blog with little to nothing about Cam or myself...but that's okay - Wyatt is way more interesting than we are!

So, it's official...Wyatt is 3 months old and no longer a newborn (sniff, sniff)

But he sure is cute and keeps us smiling every day!

In the last 2 weeks Wyatt has had a verbal explosion (as much as a little baby can at this stage).  He "talked" quite a bit when he was 8-10 weeks old, but then seemed to taper off and not say much.  We think he was just listening intensely.  Then all of asudden, bam! He started talking  again - and even more so! I tried to upload a video of it on here, but it appears that blogger no longer offers that option.

Here Wyatt is laughing while playing a game I made up (no those are not my legs - they are Cameron's.  I taught him the game).  Wyatt loves it and it was while playing this game that he shared his first real laugh!

Here his is doing what he loves to do - suck on his hands. 

 i swear he is going to suck them raw one of these days!

just a cute pic of wyatt.  forgive me, i was headed to the gym.

wyatt has finally let us do more than 5 seconds of tummy time with him.  look how strong he is! he's getting better and better about sitting like that each time he does it! 

we recently attempted to transition wyatt to his crib.  he has been sleeping in the pack n' play in our room since birth.  the first night was very rough.  we thought he would sleep just fine on the flat surface of the mattress without the use of the sleep postioner.  boy, were we wrong! not 1 hour into sleep did i hear a strange muffled noise on the baby monitor.  i woke up cameron (who didn't hear a thing!) and told him to come with me to check on wyatt.  the sound was so odd that i thought someone was in the room with him.  we charged into his room and saw that wyatt had scooted all the way to the corner of his crib and had his face smashed in the corner.  he wasn't crying or anything but i dread to think of what could have happened if he slept like that!  back to our room he went to sleep, but this time we took off the newborn napper attachment.  still no sleep positioner was used and he woke up every 1-2 hours.  after that night we decided that we would use the sleep positioner.  the positioner worked and he was able to sleep for 5-6 hours straight (nothing compared to his 8-9 he slept in the napper!) and didn't wiggle off into the corner of the pack n' play.  i think we will try in a week or so to get him into his crib.  hopefully he will go back to sleeping 8-9 hours, but who knows!

The new year...

So, we brought in the new year as hard as any parents of a 2 month old could...i don't think i need go into any detail as to how we did that.  wyatt brought in the new year as he came into the last one: a bit of crying and a lot of sleeping.

Wyatt is now 11 weeks old and such a little cutie.  He's as calm as can be unless he is hungry or tired.  He is also sleeping like a champ - around 8 hours a night!  The pictures below are from his 10th week of life.

Our future NBA star: the next white Michael Jordan

Helping daddy on the computer while we were visiting friends and family in Bishop.

Matching Dodger hats...I am sure Cameron would tattoo this picture on the inside of his eyelids if he

had the money or a high enough pain tolerance.

Cute, happy Wyatt.  We wanted to get a picture of him in this warm bear outfit before he grows out of it. 

This is his blizzard outfit.  He actually didn't mind being in this. anyone getting flashes of "The Christmas Story" in their head?

I was trying to make the same face as him by sticking my tongue out.  no such luck.

Wyatt had to get his first round of shots to bring in the new year.  boy, that was not fun.  but the good part is that he got over it and was back to normal in no time.  He weighed in at 12 ish pounds and is in the 94th percentile for height.  I wonder where he got that from???

All is well in our house.  I am still on maternity leave and we are wrestling with when i will return to work and in what capacity.  So, any prayers for us are welcome!