It's that time of year again!

Well... almost! It's no secret that I won't start "Christmas" until December. I'm firmly planted in the - give the turkey time to digest before you put the decorations up - camp! (Which in itself is new to me. After 10 years in Scotland I've gotten, sadly, used to the Christmas decorations going up as soon as the Halloween candy comes off the shelf.) However, there IS one thing I do believe you can pre-prep. Not that I manage to that often because I'm such a slacker I always wait for the perfect find. Christmas Cards! In the past I've always tried to find a box of cards with the cutest animal in a santa hat. Cue many boxes of commical penguins or whimsical mooses. (Look at that, I only wrotes mooses, I totally resisted the urge to write meeses.) Now that I'm a mother though... there's obviously only one Christmas card theme that will do. My daughter... with a cute animal in commical Christmas decor!

Last year was my first Christmas card free year since, well, ever. I'm pretty sure I have a really good excuse though. We left Scotland in a whirlwind of packing and anticipation on December 13th and arrived into the exact same atmosphere at my parents place. It's an odd kind of year when you're all preparing to move somewhere else. (We did, however, manage to convince Dad that we needed to put up the tree!) Honestly though, I worried. Would people think I shunned them because I didn't send a card? Then I took a deep breath and pulled it together. Hopefully everyone on my Christmas card list would know that I was moving. Plus people tend to remember the cards they got and don't tend to dwell on the cards they didn't.

So this year, we're settled. Mostly. We're renting but it's an 18 month lease. After apartment hopping the first half of the year I feel like I can finally take things out of boxes and stay awhile. Our new neighbors have started decorating their homes in a professional fashion that strikes fear into my (keeping up with the Jones) heart and makes the little kid in me go *squeee!* both at the same time. There is ONE thing I can do well though. Cards! I can internet (yup it's a verb now folks, just accept it) and I can internet well!

I knew I wanted to make custom cards this year I just hadn't decided which site I wanted to use. I used vistaprint for Jessica's annoucments but America has such a wealth of choices that I knew I was going to have some searching to do. Enter the blogosphere. What better way to find products, ideas, and oh my gosh the CRAFTS!! (Yes. I'm a bit craft mad at the moment. I don't need a 12 step program just yet, but I'm pretty sure my afflication is getting worse rather than better. )  Hello Tiny Prints!  More than one blogger on my reading list is talking about them so I thought I'd check them out and see what all the fuss is about.

Their selection is HUGE and everything is fully customizable (so I can add in all the melt your heart toddler cuteness and kitty cats playing with santa hats that my heart desires!) So far I'm leaning towards

but I'm me. So it's entirely possible this is not the card that will arrive from us at Christmas... maybe

One thing's for sure. There will be something SUPER adorable heading to my family and friends this year, but it probably will not inculde a penguin on a toboggan. Their economy shipping gets them to you in 8-10 days and they have a 2 day super rush for the procrastinators out there *cough cough* I mean me..... 

I'll let the proof be all tasty in the pudding (sorry it's late and I get my figures of speech all messed up at the best of times, so proof flavoured pudding is indeed the metaphor I will use tonight) and I'll let you know how they look when they arrive. 

Now I just have to arrange to get some card worthy photos!

ps. because you KNOW I'm not a full price retail kinda girl... if you order today you get free shipping using CYBER20 and they look like a site that does run deals. Plus, a custom card site WITH a blog... Tiny Prints well, that's just kinda groovy. (As I tend to say - if a store doesn't have a web pressence they're dead to me! :D)

pps. It's only the 29th so I'm breaking all kinds of rules here, but.... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Thankful.

I hope all you Americans out there had a wonderful Thanksgiving and all my British (and any random readers from the rest of the world who might be passing by) had a generally wonderful November 24th!

This was my first Thanksgiving in America since 1999, my husband's first American Thanksgiving since he was 4 and Jessica's first EVER. We had a lot of catching up to do!!

However, my plans for a giant family gathering in Florida went awry when the doctor decided that my mother needed to have her sinus cavity scraped (yeah shudder - it's okay, I do every time someone says it) and her septum undeviated while he was at it. Thus, instead of trekking down to Florida for the holiday, Mom would have to stay tucked up in her bed in Virginia recooperating. We could still have made the trip down to Florida but then I heard Grandma was headed up to Virginia to help out post-op. Granted we could have gone down and visited my brother, but it seemed like a rather long drive when half the family was going to be up north. (Plans are in motion to figure out a time to visit with the brother or drag him kicking and screaming up here to visit ;) Another 'we could have' involved going to the family in VA, but Mom and Dad's temporary place isn't exactly spacious or toddler friendly so we opted to stay put with promises that Grandma would stop off to visit during her trip and that Mom and Dad would high-tail it to ours as soon as they got off for Christmas break.

Enter Friendsgiving 2011! We had a little bit of experience with the concept since, last year we used Thanksgiving as an excuse to get our friends together before we left Scotland.

You might not believe it but hosting Thanksgiving with 4 toddlers was much easier than hosting with one 9 month old (granted said baby was teething, going through separation anxiety hard, and woke up with a cold the next morning) plus the 3 extra toddlers came with 3 extra awesome mothers, and as everyone knows - watching kids, cooking and cleaning is always smoother with more moms. In such a situation you can't have too many moms. :)

Is it just me or do the Collins (at the bottom) look like they pose for family photos professionally?!

We deep fried a turkey - awesome.

We ate a ton of yummy food - awesome.

We played board games / video games - still awesome.

We did a turkey craft with the kiddos that was less messy than expected and turned out.... awesome! (pictures to come)

and on that note...

Just a handful of things I'm thankful for

• My amazing husband, who's a wonderful father and the best friend I could ever want.
• My beautiful, sweet daughter who (you'll never believe me) is asleep IN a pack n' play. That has NEVER before happened. EVER.  
• My parents. I love being able to see them on a regular basis! For the last decade I saw my parents maybe once every other year and since we moved back to America I've seen them at least once every month! They drove four hours fighting holiday traffic just so Mark and I could spend the entire day together for our anniversary.
• My new friends. I've never been quick to make new friends but having a little one has thrown me out into the world of people and I've met some great Moms in the process. 
• Mark's job. He enjoys what he does AND he still has time for his family. 
• That our house has SOLD!!!!!!!

10 years and counting!

Dear Mark,

Thanks for being such a wonderful husband, father and friend. I don't even want to imagine what the last 10 years would have been like without you and I can't wait to spend the next 10 with you. I LOVE YOU!

Dating - Our first Valentine's! 

Recently engaged - 2001

MARRIED! - November 10th 2001

5th Anniversary - York

7th Anniversary - Isle of Skye (chilly!)

8th Anniversary - The Lake District (heavily pregnant!)

9th Anniversary - The Crieff Hydro (with baby in tow!)

If you noticed, it took us a few years to get the hang of this anniversary malarky! We'll be celebrating with our little one tonight but my amazing parents are driving down from VA this weekend for the sole purpose of watching Jessica so Mark and I can escape and celebrate properly! 

MO-WATCH DAY 11

Movember

This year Movember has replaced November in the Smith household.

You can read all about Movember here: What is Movember?

The short explanation - It's a charity supporting men's health, specifically prostate and other cancers that affect men as well as raising awareness of men's health in general. November 1st all participants start their day cleanly shaven and wait for nature to take over. The catch? No hair may grow below the bottom lip. No sexy scruff, no socially acceptable goatees. Just the MOUSTACHE. Someone's knocking at the door and it's 1970.

Mark wanted to participate last year but was in the middle of a series of interviews with his current employer. We jointly agreed that it was perhaps not the best time to have an unpredicable 'stache in the works. (He's never grown one before so the list of unknowns was not something we were prepared to deal with.) 6 days into Movember 2011 and it's a slow and steady progression of... RED hair. Mark doesn't want to admit it but it's kinda staring him straight in the face now. ;) Perhaps our little red head did get a few of her hair color genes from Daddy rather than just Grandma Tina! I'll add a Mo-Watch photo at the bottom of all my posts this month and we'd really appreciate anything you feel like donating to the cause.

My sacrifice? As many of you know, this November we celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary...

 MO-WATCH DAY 6

(picture to be added when the mo'bro gets home)

Super Doubles

I like to pretend I can coupon. (Yes. I used coupon as a verb.) However, I don't buy more than one paper and I very rarely print coupons have you seen how expensive printer ink is?! Before I left for Scotland I always had a blast helping my Mom clip coupons and I'd clip coupons with her every time I came home to visit but Scotland doesn't do coupons. Very occasionally Tesco (the big supermarket) would send out something like 5 coupons and I'd get all excited, buy some stupid type of cracker that we didn't actually eat, just because I had a coupon for it. When we first moved back and were living in the apartment I got free coupons. You know those coupons they put in the Sunday paper? Yes those. They magically appeared in my post box every Wednesday. To make matters more awesome, most of my neighbors didn't want their coupons and would leave them laying on the counter. I hit coupon overload. Scraps of paper were taking over my apartment. I had no system, no idea which was way up, and kinda drowning in advertisements! It took a few months but I finally got the knack of it. I don't need every coupon and I probably don't need to clip every coupon I think my mother might like and mail them up to her (she does get a Sunday paper every week after all.) Doesn't mean I won't occasionally clip every coupon in there and then play coupon fairy at the grocery store, or send my relatives coupons I think they'll enjoy but most of the time I just clip the ones I know I'll use and move on with my life. Once every few weeks or so the local grocery store here, Harris Teeter, will have something they call Super Triples or Super Doubles. On a normal day at Harris Teeter they will double any coupon with a face value less than a dollar. On super triples they will triple any coupon with a face value less than a dollar. On super doubles they will double any coupon with a face value less than $2. Yesterday was the first day of Super Doubles not Tuesday like I stupidly thought. Since Jessica's grandparents have been in town I was able to pull together my coupons which had been lamenting in a box in no particular order, match them up with Harris Teeter's online coupons and figure out what was on sale this week. So yesterday afternoon Jessica and I headed off to HT with coupons in hand. (Jessica only tore up one and it turns out they didn't even carry the product to start with so no big loss!) I got almost everything on my list except for two items, but I was able to get rainchecks for them but unless new coupons come out for them to coincide with the next super doubles they won't be as great a deal but all in all I was happy. In past attempts at super doubles the store had been raided by crazy coupon ladies and none of the great deals were in stock anymore. (Seriously, they form little gangs, block aisles and clear shelves! They're insane!) All in all I spent about $35 for $117 worth of product. Not too shabby! I got a couple freebies and few really good deals.

From 365:2011

I counted it up and I bought 25 items so basically everything in the picture was $1.40 each. Awesome huh? :) I'm pretty pleased.