Plans for Buddy after Shelby's arrival and a Free Greeting Card!!

After much debate we've decided that the best plan for Mr. Buddy after Shelby's arrival is to go to stay with his Grammy and Papa at the lake for one week.

We were both really torn about whether or not this was the right decision but after talking to a lot of people(including some of your comments), we decided that it's best for us to get one week of parenting under our belt then bring Buddy back into the mix.

As I've mentioned here before, Buddy tends to get stressed during major life changes.

When I have moved in the past and even the week before our wedding he has quit eating and gets  what is called 'stress colitis', which is just a nice term for diarrhea every hour on the hour.

We live in a 3-story town home and I just have this vision of having that happen along with a new baby and it makes me really worried about our sanity.

We figured after 1-week we'll be more equipped to handle that if and when it does happen.

My in-laws are AWESOME with a capital 'A' when it comes to keeping Buddy!!!

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Which leads me into the part of this post where you can get something for FREE!!

A free greeting card!!

Shutterfly has just launched a new brand of cards called Treat.

It makes it easy for people to create and send one of a kind greeting cards to loved ones and friends.

Perfect for those who have a holiday birthday coming up, or in our case, a card thanking Brad's parents for keeping Buddy.

They have all sorts of categories of cards to choose from.

So, here's the deal.

Today and tomorrow(November 19th and 20th) only, you can create and get one card from Treat for free.

All you have to do is go on and create your card and enter in the code: TREATBLOGR 

at the checkout.

 What's not to like about that??

I just started perusing Treat over the weekend and love.love.love everything about it.

Enjoy!!

Already Thinking about Christmas....

I know, we barely have the pumpkins on the porch and the turkey is far from the oven but I'm already thinking about Christmas!!

Well, this year I have a REAL good excuse!

Giving that our due date is December 5th, I've got shopping lists on my mind and big plans on how I'm going to get my house decorated for baby Shelby to have a proper first Christmas.

What else am I thinking about?

Cards!!

I've already decided that we will combine Shelby's birth announcement with our Christmas cards.

We have some friends who did this last year and it was super cute so I've already started looking around.

Tiny Prints has a TON of choices for photo Christmas Cards

 many of which are brand new this year!

I really like the feel of this merry spot design, it just seems cheery to me!

 But, I have to say I'm partial to the custom collection.

OMG!!

How cute is this?

You could even hang it on the tree!

Some friends of ours did this tri-fold selection last year and I voted it the best card of the entire holiday season!!

What I love about this one the most is -- how it gives you space to write an update on each family member.

This card also gives you room to give a short synopsis on each family member.

I love them all!!

I know it may still be early for some of you, but why procrastinate?

Go and check out Tiny Prints special offers page by clicking here.

There are a lot of great deals.

Just 72 days until Christmas!!

This is a sponsored post but all opinions are my own and for real.

Stephens Christmas Card!!

I think everyone on my address list has received our card this year!

I was prepared and had a plan so we were able to get them in the mail semi-early.

I created half of them with Tiny Prints .

Here's what I came up with.

I'm so glad we got a single family picture this year.

While I enjoyed the picture montage the past couple of years, I was ready for something new.

I really like the monogrammed wreath on this one and the card stock was heavy.

This one is very elegant and very much my style!

The other half of my cards were created using Shutterfly .
I think these turned out just as cute but much more festive!
The colors are bright and cheery.
The card stock is heavy and on the back is a picture of Buddy kissing Santa.

Is it obvious that I heart the holidays?

Hope you guys are enjoying them.

Do you send out Christmas cards?
Do you put pictures on them?

Christmas Card Time

I don't know about you but I love the holiday season!!

While I'm a huge stickler on waiting to put on Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, but I have started thinking about what type of cards I want to send out.
This year I'm using Tiny Prints and they have some great selections.

In the past couple of years I have sent out cards that included several pictures from our entire year.

Sort of like this one.

I'm on the fence if I'm going to do that again or not though.

If, I do decide to go that route this picture will totally be included.
Cute or what?

One of my goals this weekend is to get someone to take a picture of me, Brad and Buddy somewhere that we can use.

Sort of like this but without Buddy's shining eyes or my bad hair day.

Here's to hoping we get that snapshot so I can have a choice to possibly using this Tiny Print card.

What do you think?

Several pictures or just one?

An added bonus, Tiny Prints is offering up 50 free holiday cards of your choice to ANY blogger that writes about Tiny Prints cards on their blog this week!

A win.. win.. if you ask me!

TGIF~

Christmas Card Question

Even though I'm in Thanksgiving mode I am thinking about Christmas cards. I didn't send any out last year because of all the chaos with the economy and giving that I work at a bank I was SUPER nervous about losing my job and didn't want to spend the money.

So the last time I sent them out was 2-years ago and before the Bradster. It was back then that I sent holiday greetings from me and The Buddy. Here's the card I sent in 2007 made on Shutterfly.

I was debating on not sending any out this year giving wedding expense and all the mailing I'm doing for that already. BUT...after thinking about it I've decided to send some out.

The thing is - I'm not big on plain cards. I love getting family pictures on the cards I receive and I think most people are the same?

The question is -- what picture do I put on the card? Brad and I aren't married yet so is it weird to send out cards with us on the front with Buddy like we're already a family? Or does it matter?

I also am thinking about just taking a cute Christmas picture of Buddy and let him be the subject on the front.

What do you guys think?