Lopez Family Christmas Card

Simply Love Holiday Card

holiday party invitations and thank you cards by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

I finally got around to ordering our Christmas cards. I LOVE them! Hopefully I'll be on the ball enough next week to get them mailed out in time. If you are on our Christmas list, you can expect our card a couple of days before or after Christmas. For all others, enjoy our online card!

It's Almost the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

It’s that time of year again! I am planning our Christmas card photo! Ryan and I have been married for 4 1/2 years now, so this will be our fifth family Christmas card. I love photo cards. I love looking through the pages of options online and choosing the perfect card! This year I think I’m going to plan our photo around the card!

Shutterfly has their beautiful line of holiday cards out to peruse and order in time to get cards out! I love Shutterfly! I use their website throughout the year for printing pictures, ordering birthday cards, birth announcements, etc. I especially love playing around with the different options they have for Christmas cards and gifts! Last year I ordered acrylic prints of Tessa for my mom and mom-in-law for Christmas. They turned out beautifully! They have so many gift options and trinkets available to order, you could almost complete your Christmas shopping on their website!

Another very popular gift with my family is the photo calendar. At Shutterfly.com, you have so many choices between wall calendars, desk calendars, and year-at-a-glance poster calendars! What I love about this gift is once the year ends, you now have 12 prints of your photos! My sister still has her 2006 calendar hanging on her wall because she loves the December photo I put in! It’s fun to look through it from time to time and remember what my nephews were up to back then!

If you’re curious about our cards this year, I’m leaning towards the Sparkle Joy or the Blossoming Joy (both found here). I was toying with a black, white, and red theme for our family photo, and the Blossoming Joy card would work perfectly with that color choice!

FYI, Shutterfly provided my high-quality photo Christmas cards last year, and is giving our family (and other qualified bloggers!) 25 complementary cards this year! Whoo Hoo!

Media Socialite

My Uncle Mark is visiting this week! I love when he comes out to Southern California for a visit. The last time he was out, Tessa was still in my belly, so she finally got to meet him. My Uncle Mark is a neat man. When we were little, we called him Crazy Uncle Mark because he was young and fun. He is always learning new things and expanding his horizons.

My sisters, Uncle Mark, and me. 3 weeks before Tessa was born!
His latest adventure is in the social media arena. We spent several hours together, teaching me about HootSuite, helping me learn how to use my twitter account, and finding topics of interest for me to start some daily e-newspapers. I now am the editor of two e-newspapers: Do It Yourself Daily and Sew What's New? I'm excited about my new adventure in social media and to see where it will take me. I'm thinking of topics for other potential newspapers. Maybe SAHM, crafting, repurposing... who knows what else is out there! Click on over to one (or both) of my e-newspapers and check them out! There are some pretty cool articles!

Welcome Autumn!

Autumn is my favorite season (along with spring and summer!) I love the cooler weather, the warm colors, pumpkin and cinnamon scented EVERYTHING, my birthday, Halloween and Thanksgiving, so many great things to look forward to in the fall!
Last year I really wanted to make a fall onesie for Tessa. I never got around to it, so that was one of the first projects on my autumn to-craft list this year!

I love how this shirt turned out! I just sewed on a few silk leaves along the veins so most of the leaf is loose. The buttons are added just for extra cuteness! My favorite part is the plaid ruffle along the bottom! My mom found this adorable ribbon at JoAnn's. I just pulled out the wires, sewed it into a ruffle, and sewed it onto the tee! I can't wait for it to fit Tessa! Hopefully it will fit before we go to the pumpkin patch for pictures!

I'm linking up to Craftaholics Anonymous' Fall Frenzy Link Party!

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First Sale!

I just completed my first Etsy sale! Of course when I opened my store, I had these big dreams of items flying off the shelf, but as it turns out, almost a year and a half have gone by and I've just now sold my first item! I think it is really cute! It's a personalized diaper wipes case with a ruffled pocket on the front for diapers. My customer wanted something bright, sophisticated, yet still girlie. I think she's going to love this! I sure do!

Seventeen Months!

Tessa, this has been such a big month for you! I think you learn something new every single day!

• You are constantly signing “cracker.” I almost regret teaching you that sign! You really love to eat crackers! You are a really good eater, actually. You prefer fruit, but on most days, you’ll eat almost anything we give you!
• You are now singing, or doing the motions to “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” “Mr. Sun,” Patty Cake,” “Riding in the Car,” "Where is Thumbkin," “Five Little Monkeys,” “Butterfly Floating By,” and you do the “Hokey Pokey!” I really need to get you on video! You are just too cute!

• You love to point at people as they come through the door. Anytime someone leaves, you have to run and wave bye-bye and blow kisses!

• You have two new teeth! Your front teeth have finally popped through! And the two next to them are working their way in!
• We had you dedicated to the church this month. It was a very special ceremony and a great time to celebrate with family and friends!

• You are still a great sleeper and take really good naps pretty much every day! We are sooooo lucky!
• You HATE the car almost always. I can’t wait to turn your car seat around. I know you’ll be so much happier!

• You are so social! You love going to Sunday School to play with the other kids. You love to play with other kids at the park. When we go out to restaurants, you love to look around and talk to other tables.
• Your favorite word is “Hey!” You use that expression all the time, when something unexpected has happened, when you want us to turn the TV on, when trying to get somebody’s attention. It is so cute, and you always get a laugh when you say “hey” to a stranger in public!

• You had a photo shoot for a Halloween Costume company. You were the cutest little ladybug and bumble bee! Unfortunately, the pictures won’t be published until next Halloween, so we have a long time to wait before we get to see the final product. But you were awfully cute in the digital images I got to preview!
• You love the water! We put you in your pool all the time. We went to the water park a couple of times, and even though you are too small for the water slides, you love wading around in the kids’ lagoon and floating in the lazy river!

• You love to laugh and are absolutely delightful! Tessa, every day I am more and more amazed with you and cannot believe how blessed I am to be your mom. I look forward to each new experience with you and miss you so much when you are napping or sleeping! I love you more and more every day!

This is Tessa last year at this time:

I can't believe how much you've grown!

Tessa's One Year Photo Book

I finally got around to putting together a photo book for Tessa's first year. I wish I had started earlier. I know I could have made it even better, but Shutterfly had a free offer that ends tonight, so here's what I made! Enjoy!

Click here to view this photo book larger