MUR-MAN'S BIRTHDAY INVITE

Posted by Lori~

Honestly, I cannot believe that Mur-man will be turning four in less than one month.  Right now, Mur-Man is really into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  We've decided to rent out a movie theater for the party!  SHOULD BE FUN!

Here's some out-takes of the photo shoot.  We put my Mickey ears on his head (they were mine as a kid) and used a white sheet as the back-drop (I'm behind the sheet holding it up).

And, here's the invite...courtesy of my hubby Steve!

My Monopoly Photo Book is Here!

Posted by Ethne~

I was waiting for my Shutterfly Photo Book to arrive to do this post – I hoped it would be in time for a Friday post, but nope, you get a Saturday post instead.

Remember a few days ago when you got a random Photo Book album from me (here)?  Well, you probably guessed it was done by me since it was all pictures of KD and Easy Mac.  Anyway, I was able to do that directly from Shutterfly (the blog posting) when I ordered that Photo Book.  I just told them what my blog URL is and they posted it just like that – okee-dokey.  (Blogger-hosted blogs only.)

Well, I wanted to wait till the Photo Book came to tell about it.  It was ANOTHER FREE 8x8 Shutterfly album!  Shaun got this one from McDonald’s Monopoly, y’all!  That makes my 4^th free Photo Book using Target catalina coupons, Coke Rewards points and other freebies!

The Photo Books are super easy to make.  You can load pictures from Facebook, Instagram and your computer.

Best of all, while I was waiting for my McDonald’s free album to come in the mail this week, I got a catalina coupon at Target checkout for ANOTHER FREE 8x8 Shutterfly album.  What luck!  I did contact customer service at Shutterfly and asked – they will extend my coupon expiration date since I just made a Photo Book last week.  I might not do that, though, and just make a summer album.

Photo Book + new coupon!

PS – a lot of these coupons say “for first-time Shutterfly account-holders only” or something similar – but try the codes anyway.  I betcha they’ll still work.

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Start your own Shutterfly Photo Book today.

IMPROMPTU PHOTO SESSION!

Posted by Lori~

I am always looking for ways to save money and one GREAT way to save is to ask a friend to take your photos!

And that’s what I did.  My girlfriend Holly is an awesome photographer and here is a sneak peak.

 

I am TOTALLY IN LOVE!

On a side-note, one of the BEST purchases we made soon after Mur-Man’s birth was a GOOD DSLR CAMERA!  And, I love my CANON REBEL!  IT IS AWESOME!

Cousin Picture!

Posted by Ethne~

Thrifty Nana (my mom) has always been a photo-taker.  People tell me that I take good photos (as in I look decent in them).  I think it’s more along the lines that I have been raised to smile for the camera since TN always had one pointed at me.  If I didn’t smile on all those occasions, I’d look dorky in every shot.  If you pause and smile, instead, there is a decent chance that some pictures turn out ok.  At least less dorky.  HELPFUL TIP, my Friends.

Not posed: DORKY

Smiling with Aunt Pam: MUCH BETTER

Of course the photo mania didn’t end with me.  TN had her camera at the ready on all occasions, including family get-togethers, like the one we just had in Michigan for my cousin, ZW’s, wedding.  We would go visit our family in MI around once per summer when I was growing up, and each time, TN and the other aunts and uncles would line us kids up in birth order for a picture.  No one really complained about it.  It was just something we had to do when we were together.

TN was behind this picture, of course

This continues into adulthood.  At all my cousins’ weddings, we line up for the cousin picture.  The last time I was in MI, we took the cousin picture, but we were missing a lot of cousins.  This time, almost all of us were together, including spouses.

Grandma, my cousin JW, his gorgeous daughter K and me

With my cousin MN - I missed out on the family curls - isn't
her hair amazing?

With no argument and full cooperation, all the cousins lined up in birth order.  The professional photographer’s wide-angle lens will give us better results, but for now, check out our picture.  Isn’t it cool?  I’ll have TN track down a few of the old cousin pictures and I will post them in the future.  It’s amazing to see all of our transformations.  One of the craziest things this time is that ZW, the groom, is the youngest of all of us cousins, and he’s now the tallest of all!!

The cousin picture - several of us missing - but still a long line!

Well, Uncle B and Aunt S had everyone over to their place on Sunday for the gift opening.  When I wasn’t watching the gift opening…

Didn't K and Z get a nice platter?  I should've asked where they got it

Aunt Ethne wrangling Sam for a pic

…sneaking off to get cake…

Let's face it: you'd run off and sneak some
of this cake too

…or playing bocci ball with my cousins…

Cousin JW getting ready to throw - bocci is
also called lawn bowling - he let me wipe my muddy
hands on his pant legs.  You'd love him too if he were your cousin.

See the bowling technique?  I was horrible

…I was certainly taking in the mania of all of the younger generation of cousins running around all over the place.  You know how I like to delegate chores.  In this case, I was able to delegate the caretaking of KD and Easy Mac to some older cousins – and I didn’t even have to ask!  They all just had a blast playing together.

Check out KD's face (R) with Easy Mac and cousin N - classic sassy

This photo was taken with a zoom lens, which means I
wasn't doing much direct supervision - ROCK ON!

Of course, Thrifty Nana was thinking pictures (I’ll admit I took plenty of my own, being my mother’s daughter) and she determined that we needed to take a cousin picture of the new generation of kids since all of my cousins now have children of our own.  We lined them all right up, oldest to youngest.  I think we were only missing two – the oldest (BPY) and youngest (CW).  We’ll just have to photo shop them in.

Organizing the chaos.

Nicole tried to hold the youngest 3 and fell over

Nicole sat down with the three youngest so they would hold still; but the rest of the kids cooperated pretty well.  Except when Nicole fell backwards with the weight of the 3 kids she was trying to wrangle, and that caused a bit of gawking by KD, Easy Mac and RW.  The next generation is started.  Yeah TN for thinking of it!

We got them all: K, N, A, K, K, B, B, M, M, R, KD, Easy Mac, DB, L & Sam

Hopefully next time I get to MI with the monsters, everyone can be there and then we can have the whole lot – including the adopted cousins, you know who you are – in one long family line-up.

Picture Book is Here!

Posted by Ethne~

My photo book from Shutterfly arrived today.  Remember how I got it free from a Target check-out coupon (a/k/a ‘catalina’)?  Well, I made it last Monday and it’s here this Monday!

What a nice complement to my bowl of apples and oranges!

And what they turned over in 1 week’s time is superb.  It’s a glossy hardcover book with cardstock thickness pages – not wimpy (ie, will hold up to 4-year-old flip-throughs even tho I think I’ll still supervise).  The picture quality on each page is nice too – not grainy at all.

The price is $29.99 which isn’t ridiculous for a 20 page 8”x8” album chock full of pictures.  Mine was free (tho I had to pay 8 clams for shipping), but 30 bucks isn’t a bad price.  Shutterfly has sales and free shipping for some purchases, too.  I’ll definitely keep this in mind for next year and gifts.

One thing I am for sure doing is a book for each of the girls of their first year.  I really tried to keep up with a photo album of them from when they were born, but I didn’t quite make it.

I definitely don’t have time or full-on interest in scrapbooking – plus that costs way more than $30 this album.  This photo book has a scrapbook look, but took way less time and cost a lot less money.

Totally WOM-worthy!

Unexpected Savings = Photo Album!

Posted by Ethne~

You know when you check out at the grocery store and a bunch of strips of coupons or ads pop out of the machine along with your receipt?  Well, according to Extreme Couponing, those are called ‘catalinas’.  I think that’s the dumbest, least-indicative-of-what-it-is name.  If only Lori and I ran the world…

But I take a look through my catalinas anyway, and sometimes you get good stuff, like $5 off your next purchase at Cub, or $2 of your purchase of 3 greeting cards.  Lately I’ve been getting $1 off coupons for Target’s produce and bakery section.  Fine by me.

But I was thrilled the other day when I checked out my latest catalina stash from the checkout.  1 FREE 8x8 Shutterfly Photo Book (worth $29.99).

Naturally I re-read it several times because it seemed too good to be true.  Waaaay too good.  But it is true indeed.  SHOCKINGLY WONDERFUL.

The coupon expires at the end of March, but I wasn’t going to let this $30 goodie be forgotten at the bottom of my purse.  I ordered it stat.

I had to create an account on shutterfly.com.  No prob.  It took 30 seconds tops.  The site is really easy to navigate, so I found out where to enter my promo code from the catalina coupon and it immediately registered that I had a credit of an 8x8 photo book.  Easy peasy.

All I had to pay was $8 for shipping and tax.

It took a little while to make the book, maybe 3 hours.  You can select a pre-built theme – mine was a tangerine ‘this is our life’ type of format, which was just right.  You have a lot of flexibility to work within the format, if you don’t want their pre-made stickers in certain spots or want to change backgrounds.

I'll take some good shots when it arrives.

In my 20 free pages, I covered all of 2011 for the D family!  So don’t forget to check those catalinas at the check-out, and keep these online scrapbooks in mind for future use.  They’re way more economical than buying a lot of scrapbooking items from stores like Archiver’s.

PS, remember when Lori talked about her Target RedCard savings?  Well, I’ve saved almost $30 so far this year.  CRAZY!

MOUSTACHE VALENTINE!

Posted by Lori~

First up, Steve and I checked and there are 2 spellings for the word moustache (or mustache).  Either works!

I realize that our 10 days of wuv (aka LOVE) is complete, but of course…I have one final post featuring my Mur-Man.

We need Valentine’s Day cards and ended up going for a moustache theme.  We had a hard time getting Mur-Man to stand still and “wear” the moustache.  But it worked.

And Steve did GREAT!  (And of course I “borrowed” this idea from Pinterest!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

3-D VALENTINE

Day 5

Posted by Lori~

Yes, Super Bowl Sunday just happened and guess what I did?  I CRAFTED!  NO JOKE!  MORE ON THIS LATER...

But first, I have to show you what WOM-MOM FOLLOWER AND FRIEND HOLLY whipped up for V-Day!  A-DORABLE!

And super easy to make!  First up, were CUPID’S ARROWS!  All you need are stick pretzels and heart gummy candy (Holly opted for the cinnamon flavor, but you can also find cherry). 

Simply put one heart candy on the end of the pretzel and cut a chunk out of another heart to create the end of the arrow.  Holly packaged them into packs of three with a label.  EASY!  THRIFTY!  AWESOME!

Next up, is Holly’s adorable Valentines featuring SUPER E AND SUPER F!  Holly of course pulled out her Canon Camera and used her awesome camera skills to take a GREAT shot.  She used a piece of PVC pipe to create the “stick of the sucker”.

Check it out!  3-D and AWESOME!

As far Mur-Man this year, his valentine will feature Iron-Man (purchased at a thrift store for 75 cents!)  I know not original, but THRIFTY!  Next year this WOM will need to step it up!

Thanks Holly for all the inspiration!

MUR-MAN COMIC BOOK PAGE (YEAR 2)

Posted by Lori~

Mur-Man turned two just over a month ago and we celebrated (Check out his party here).  And we also created comic book page number 2. 

You see…Mur-Man has a super hero themed room and so for his first birthday party—Steve created Mur-Man and the wonder-dog (Roger) comic book page.

This year he had to do it again!  I guess we plan to do it through high school (not sure what he will think then).  But so far so good (PLUS…WE USE IT AS OUR THANK YOU CARD FOR THE PARTY…and of course, we throw in a special note.)

CHRISTMAS PHOTO REVEALED

Posted by Lori~

SPOILER ALERT:  DO NO READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU ARE ON OUR CHRISTMAS LIST AND WANT TO BE SURPRISED BY THE MAILING! 

OK…I know it is way past Christmas and way past Christmas photo reveal time, but you need to know that Steve and I ALWAYS (ALWAYS) get a Christmas photo out (but always late). Or call it the New Years card…or better yet, the Valentine’s Day card.  But, we never miss a year and Steve never disappoints with his creativity.

This year, we were headed to Walt Disney World for Christmas and we knew that we wanted the card to highlight the trip.  And so….here it goes.

Our Christmas card 2011! 

We used to do a full letter, but last year we opted for a top 10 list for the year and I am digging it!  For us, it is the way to go. 

Stay tuned this week for Mur-Man’s super-powered/angry bird thank you comic book card!  I LOVE IT!