Who doesn't love free stuff?!

As a mom who always likes to save a buck or two I was overjoyed when I stumbled upon this number from Shutterfly!

50 Free Christmas Cards to Bloggers!

Really? How awesome!!! That just isn't saving you a buck...but a lot of bucks!

I had just finished creating some of our Christmas cards so I am stoked to get them made! Now just to pick the final one!!!!!! Ekk!

That is what happens when you love design & you are a photographer! There are always too many things to choose from! But, Thanks to Shutterfly, it makes it a lot easier when the price tag for them is $0!

Now blog about it to get your own! GO!

Oreo Turkey Cookies

 If you Google, Oreo Turkey Cookies. My Flickr  is the 1st link that pops up. These sucks have been made by me for so many years & within the last couple of years has been a huge internet hit! Everyone just loves them! How could you not?!

I am starting this years batch on Sunday. I plan to make a picture by picture on how to make these! It's a lot easier than just the text!

Watch out you cute little devils! Little hungry kids are coming to snack on you! hehe

Seriously! Aren't they the cutest!?

Honestly...I have no idea how I get any work done with these two cuties running around everywhere!

September & October...I failed you too!

Apparently I am not a good blogger when it comes to my personal blog. I can keep up with my private one & my photography blog...just not this one.

I swear I will make a change to update this more. I swear. Maybe not this year...but for 2011 for sure! ;)

For now...a few updated pictures!

The house is coming along. It is pretty much done besides the kitchen & main floor bathroom. Our basement is of course not done, besides the bathroom, but we aren't sure if we really plan to finish it. At least not right now. Maybe just make it look a little better. Putting tile down (or something on the floor) and painting all the brick down there. We want to set up the basement furniture & have a play room for the kids somewhere down there. They have big toys that will only fit in the basement. Toys like a princess castle and a dinosaur tent that the kids can crawl inside of. That will only work in the basement for sure!

Oh July! I forgot about you too!!!

Well, we are this close > < to being in the house. We had to rip out the floors...more of them...and kind of start over so that pushed us back. We painted the house again. Yup. It looks 454543546 times better! So, until I get a good update...pictures!!!

We also added a new member to the family!

His name is Kooper. Yup. Kooper Coopet. lol He came with the name & we kept it because it's oh so funny!

Kegan turned 4!!! OMG 4! I have a 4 year old!!!! Wow! He is getting so big now! It is just crazy!!!!

Of course we can't forgot Miss Crazy Karie who we all love & is also getting really big!

Oh yea...there is a month called "May"

I totally skipped blogging...all of May. My attempt to blog more totally failed! I do have to say though that May was insane. 7 weddings & countless photoshoots. It was pretty much all work & no play. But, that is what summer aka wedding season is all about right?

The house is coming along nicely. We are ready for paint in the kids rooms. We are completely sheet rocked in the entire house too. Floor tile is in & now we need wall & ceiling tile in too. Hopefully the kitchen can be started too. I am oh so excited for that...and the main floor bathroom. Both of those were pretty much 100% me & I can't wait to see my vision come to life!

Kids, hubby & I are all well. Hawk isn't. He is in tons of pain & not sure what we are going to do. He has an appointment early tomorrow morning so hopefully we will know more then. Speaking of Hawk, he turned 8 yesterday. I gave him lots of treats in the morning before I left for my wedding. <3 Poor little guy.

My hair is now blonde which I love by the way. I totally missed my blonde hair & for the past 6 months I never felt like myself. I do now. I love it.

And just for fun, a few pictures.

None with Daddy. He fails at pictures lately. Maybe, since he is off today, I can force him to take a couple of pictures with us...maybe. lol

The house the house the lovely house!

I stopped by the house today to take a few new pictures. Not only for myself but also to blog about too. lol I like to share. So lets begin shall we!

The 1st picture was taken about a month ago. The second one was taken today. Not a ton has changed but you can see we have a "new" screen door (as in the one from the side door) & new landscaping around the trees. You can kind of see the new fence on the right side too. Also the grass is a heck of a lot greener now too. lol It is getting there. The front tree on the left is dying so it needs to come down before it comes down on the house. Yikes! You can also see my two little peanuts sitting on the front steps of the house. Too cute!

This is the new front walk way. It looks SO much better than before. I just wish those stupid orange rocks weren't there. Have I mentioned just how much I HATE the orange rock?! I also need to figure out what to do on the other side where all the dirt is. Maybe plant some plants or something. I need something pretty even it's just some boring green plant. Better than boring grass. lol

 That awesomely ugly plastic is whats keeping my basement from flooding. I can't wait for it to be covered up. But for now, I will settle with ugly.

This is a nice sight to see. I hated the orange rocks. lol I can't say that enough. The fence is coming out & being replaced. More stones are going down too. These stones are all wet so this isn't the true color. They are lighter like the front walk way. We got a really good deal on these giant things. We also have ugly gray ones. Kyle buys ugly things sometimes. Like white rock? Um no. That is going bye bye for sure!

This is the start of our fence. It will be so nice to have a fence here considering there was nothing here when we moved in.

This is the current sate of Karie's room. Kegan's looks the same but his room is filled with stuff so it was hard to take a picture of. All the sheetrock is down & all the insulation has been replaced. All the windows have been taken out & got all new casings. All the trim will be replaced & the carpet too. Along with a new door. Of course new sheetrock too. lol

This room has changed a lot too. We actually have some walls up! OMG! We have a new window & the two others we taken out & all the casings replaced here too. We will be getting a new floor which I admit I am sad about. I love the old hardwood but it was put in really badly & it will be impossible to save. So new floors it is.

That is really all that is anything "exciting". I just can't wait until it's all done. All the walls are painted. All the pictures on hung & we are living there. That will be an exciting blog post for sure!

Getting into the swing of things...

I said I would get back into blogging. So, here is my 1st attempt in that. We'll start this post, with talking about the house. The biggest project we have ever taken on & hopefully, we will never have to do this again. I thought "This will be so much fun!" when we 1st started. I thought it would be awesome being able to design our entire house. I did go to school for Interior Design. But no, it's not. At least not this stage. It's so slow!!! I can't even describe how slow this part it. All the tiny little things that need to get done before the big, noticeable stuff can even be touched. Plus, if you don't know, all of this is being done ourselves which takes even longer. But, we save money. We get more bang for our buck this way.

BUT, once it's all done, it will rock! There are some things that are slowly coming along. Of course I have taken pictures of all of these things! Duh! lol

If you don't remember, this is what our house looks like. the only thing that has really changed from this picture (I need to update) is that we have a front screen door & part of a new fence on the right side.

This is what the house looked like when we 1st bought it. We had to paint the house because FHA wouldn't approve it otherwise. The paint colors didn't come out like we had in our minds but we didn't have time to change it. We plan to get new siding but that stuff isn't cheap so in the mean time we just might paint the green either a dark color, or a different color all together. We'll see.

This is my favorite thing about the house so far. This amazing door! I wish this was our front door but it couldn't be. Not only does it swing the wrong way, but it is also too big. It's 36 inches. This doorway was originally 32 inches like the front door. Someone returned this door. $1,500 door. How much did we get it for? No joke, $150. Not even lying. It's stupid the price that we got it for. It was well worth the half of a day it took to put it in considering we had to cut a big hole in the house to fit it. Now everyone stops to look at it when they drive/walk past. I can honestly say, it is the best door in the neighborhood, by far.

Today, if it stops raining for a few minutes, I plan to take more pictures. We have a new front walkway. It's not 100% done but it's better than it was before. Before it was ugly cement blocks. Some were broken. Instead of fixing them, they put down fish tank rock. Yes. Fish tank rock. Red, blue & I think if I remember right there were some green in there too. While pretty in a fish tank, it's not so pretty in front of a house. It was pretty trashy which is the last thing I am going for with our cute little house.

We found out from our neighbors (who all seem to be awesome BTW) that the houses leak when it rains. We have no drainage system in the neighborhood & no sump pump. Grrrrreeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaatttttttt! So, they laid down plastic all around the house to hopefully prevent the basement from leaking. Lets hope. It worked the past rain so lets hope it works this time around. Then I will feel more confident. It looks rather ugly right now but we plan to cover it with rocks & put big planters over it. We can't plant anything there like we planned so pots of plants it is. I would rather have a dry basement than plants planted in the ground.

We took up some of the ugly orange rock & started to build a little patio.

See behind the steps where the hose is laying over the rocks? They are no longer there & a patio stones are there. I want to do the same thing with all the other orange rocks you see. I HATE them. They are ugly as sin! If we have to keep rock, I want to get rid of that rock & get something else. One I hate the orange & two they are so dirty & nasty. Not even something you could clean or want to clean.

There has been more work done on the inside too. Work that you can actually see. Both more tear down and more put up. I will try to get pictures of that today too.

I am starting to think our June move in just isn't going to happen!

What is going on there?

Let's do an update shall we?

Everyone is getting bigger...well, I say, the kids are. Us adults are pretty much staying the same!

Kegan is no longer a toddler...or even a preschooler, he looks like a little man!

That face is impossible to get mad at! lol He gets away with a lot! The kid is smart as one can be. He is a little shy at first but seems to warm up after a while. He loves to give us & I could spend the day tickling him because he laugh cure the worlds sadness! Aww

Now Miss Karie? Girl is CRAZY! She is really coming into her own & her personality is the funniest thing around. She loves to make people laugh & isn't very shy. She says hi to everyone & loves to run around. She is our danger dog & I know she will have some broken bones in her lifetime. But if that is the worst of it, we will be happy!

Kyle got a promotion & is working close to home! We love that! It is so nice to spend more time with him. Although all that extra time is being spent working at the house...which we will get to later! He is still a great dad & I swear the kids love him more than they love me! But I love him the most ;)

This was us on Valentine's Day. Kyle had to work so I surprised him with dinner at Chipolte. Sounds silly hun? Well, he gets an hour for lunch. Not long enough for a sit down place...especially on Vday. So I talked to the manager at Chipolte & asked if I could decorate a table for us & surprise him. They were more than willing and I did it. Kyle was SO surprised. It was a great night!


As far as I go, not much has changed....besides my hair color. lol I am still working doing photography, been a lot busier which is great. That is honestly all. I am boring.

The house is coming along. We have some walls, new electrical, plumbing, hot water heater, furnace, some windows....it is moving along. Slowly but surely we will get there!

The blog will have a new look soon. I am working on it & hope to have it up this week! I also hope to start posting more. I post more in my photography blog, but I feel like I have more to "say" there. lol

So far behind...

I really need to update this thing!

Watch for a bunch of new things for this blog!!! Coming soon!!!!