Tis the Season to be busy!

Could I be more absent from this blog?  I have such good intentions for all the projects I can do (Susie Homemaker, if you please), the books I can read, and the general up-keep of my family.  But you know the drill -- those often stay as intentions. 

Things are pretty busy around here these days.  Kate is a do-it-herself kind of girl.  Sometimes that has mixed results.  Today she helped me put away the laundry by grabbing one article of clothing from the laundry basket in the kitchen and dragging it across the house to the appropriate bedroom.  In her room, articles of clothing were deposited in her laundry basket (which I had to retrieve promptly to remember which were clean and which were dirty) and in my room they were piled on the closet floor. 


She sleeps in a big girl bed now and happily helped Daddy take down her little bed. She sleeps on the trundle bed under this one and LOVES it!

James Cooper Seefeldt (our baby boy) is growing and active.  He already kicks his mama hard enough to hurt.  Other than that, everything is running smoothly with the pregnancy.  His room is still a disaster zone as we are using it as a storage and holding tank right now.  But he's comfortable enough for now.

Kate knows her baby brother's name and has gotten to feel him kick.  What all that possibly means to her, I have no idea.  But so far she's on board. 

We have some other interesting developments which I will share later.

Oh, and I got to do a 6 month photo shoot for a friend and her daughter.  So fun!  Hop over to my photography blog to check those out!

thank you red card

Pictures In Red Holiday Thank You 3x5 folded card

Turn your holiday photos into holiday cards with Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Yes, we did have a Thanksgiving

 I realize I still have not posted from Thanksgiving.  Here is a short and sweet version just so it doesn't get left out.  We traveled to Santa Fe to see my grandmother.  My aunt, uncle, and cousins from Denver also came down and so we had a wonderful full house for Thanksgiving.  The first couple days were COLD!  It even snowed the first night just enough to put a small layer of snow along the ground and top of the wall.  Beautiful!

 We tried to go on a walk and the wind was so cold we were miserable!  But later in the weekend it warmed up enough for Josh and me to walk into town and look around a bit. 

 Kate did lots of "cooking."  She is very good about not opening the packages and pretended to make many coffee, candy corn, peanut butter creations.

 We loved getting to see my cousins!  They are great kids and we don't get to see them very often.  They are so great with Kate and she just loved them!

Kate liked being with her Dewey (what she calls my grandmother).  She's very adaptable to new situations.  We talked all about Dewey's house and who would be there so she was excited and ready once we got there.  

We drove to and from Santa Fe and are happy to say we survived.  Kate did well, all things considered, and it was an easy, but extremely boring drive.  I have to say that New Mexico south of Santa Fe made even West Texas look interesting. 

And finally, just because I haven't posted one in a while...

Big baby boy!

Deck the Mantle with Christmas Cards!

Happy December!


I guess it's time to start thinking about Christmas cards.  Yeah, don't tell me you already have yours done and in the mail.  Figures.  Overachievers!  We still need to get our Christmas decorations out of the attic.  I didn't think I was behind until I saw houses already decorated.  Traveling for Thanksgiving apparently puts you behind in the "decorating in Christmas" festivities.

I was just looking on Shutterfly and they have lots of new cards this year.   I like the folded ones where you can write a story inside about your family and share multiple pictures there.
Click here for an example
Or this one, where you have lots of pictures on the front and a big one inside with your story.
Click here
I think the story idea is such a nice touch.  Josh and I always try to cram in as much as we can because we love to share life and the Good News of the season with those we send our cards to. 

Usually I have gotten the flat ones from Shutterfly with one or a few pictures and just enough room to write something small.  They have always turned out really nicely.  There are new designs this year that are really cute. I love how many different designs they have!  Check them out!

I'm looking forward to trying something new.  Ambitious, I know.  But I've had good results in the past - from ease of creating the card, to fast delivery, to great end product. 

Now I just need to get a nice picture of the family.

And maybe in 2011 I'll get my act together enough to get some birth announcements for our little guy. Shutterfly has some pretty options and I'm sure that would make it easy for a newly mom of two to handle.