Decisons, Decisions...

It's that time of year again to start thinking about Christmas cards.  I contemplated making my own cards this year but in an effort to simplify our holiday season I settled on the ever popular photo card.  Now comes the hard part...Shutterfly has so many new and wonderful cards this year, I'm having a hard time choosing a design!  Ususally I pick out a card and make sure to take pictures of Milo that complement the style and colors.  So off I went to choose a card (click here to see the many choices) do I want folded cards, flat cards printed on heavy cardstock, cards printed on photo paper, 4x8, 5x5 or 5x7 and then there is the style; traditional, religious, contemporary, full of color, few colors, oh and how many pictures, they have styles to accomodate between 1 and 6 photos.  After a long debate with myself I have decied on this style, but who knows, we'll see after I take the Christmas pictures of Milo :0)  One of my favorite things about the cardstock is that it is made from sustainably forested trees.

Why Shutterly you might ask?  I have always recieved wonderful quality in a timely fashion from them.  My favorite Shutterfly project was a photo book I made about Milo's medical story.  I wanted to remember the whole story and be able to share it with others.  The book I recieved was wonderful!  So professionally printed and bound.  So far I have ordered 3 hard back copies, one for Milo, one for me and one for my mom.  I am contemplating making another one that is geared toward preschool/Kindergarden age for Milo.  I also made some small soft back photo albums for my nephews and niece of their vacation time with us.  They were a hit!  Shutterfly makes it easy, choose simple path and they will do most of the work for you or fully customize the book yourself (my choice because I'm a bit of a control freak).  I have also made calendars and photo mugs for Christmas presents that have turned out beautiful.  They also have greeting cards for about any occasion.  I especially love the cards who's proceedes benefit the American Lung Association, Heifer International, and LIVESTRONG.  I just saw graduation announcements too, for everyone from preschool graduation to college graduation!

Oh and if you have a blog and would like to earn free holiday cards from Shutterly click here to learn how.  Even though I wrote this post to earn some fabulous free cards, everything I have said is absolutely true :0)  I really do love Shutterfly!

Trick-Or-Treat!

For Halloween this year Milo had laryngitis, his poor little voice was hoarse and squeaky.  Since he seemed to be getting sick we didn't venture down to Alamosa as we had planned.  Airway swelling + higher altitute = nervous mommy.  For two years in a row now we had planned on trick-or-treating with his cousins but again our plans didn't quite pan out.  The good news though is that Milo never got horribly sick, no fever just some extra chest junk but he handled it quite well.  We ended up going to Boo at the Zoo on Sunday for some trick-or-treating and that was more than enough for Milo.  He was nervous about all the people in costume at first but by halfway though the zoo he felt better about the whole situation.




Milo's Loot



Eeyore at the Zoo



 

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Noel (Elmo), Faith (Snow White) & Milo playing in the corn

The middle of October we had a Trach(less) Kids Halloween Party...we only had one kiddo with a trach but 3 that used to have trachs.  We had a great time, the kids were super cute in their costumes.  I put dried corn in Milo's water table and it was the hit of the party.  The kids loved digging in it, filling containers & finding spiders, bats & skeletons that were hidden.  Not long after everyone left Milo had the whole thing emptied on the ground...we will have the fattest squirles in the city :0)

Jen & Faith (Snow White), Janay & Milo (Eeyore), Tina holding Noel (Elmo), Lily (mailbox), Dustin holding Landen (horse) & Marissa (Minnie Mouse) and Jeremy

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Owen, Milo, Brett & Dylan



The beginning of October Milo's cousins came to visit.  We went to the circus which Milo didn't like all that much, it was crazy LOUD.  The next day we went to Nick's Garden Center for their Fall Festivel.  It was the first weekend so there were not many people which worked out great.  The kids played in a hay maze, jumped in the inflatables, played bean bag games, rode a train & had their faces painted.  It was a great time!







Milo the kitty