Christmas 2011

So we're a month past Christmas but I figured better late than never!   It was a different Christmas this year, with our being in Alabama we traveled the entire holiday and didn't get to have Christmas morning at our house :( I know other people have done this for years, and that this is just Charlotte's 3rd Christmas so it isn't a long standing tradition, but we missed it this year!  But I think we made the best of it and had a wonderful Christmas!

The Lyons Family Christmas: We traveled up to Bowling Green Kentucky Friday morning to spend some time with Jeff's side of the family.  We hung out on Friday and all the family came to Jim and Jolene's house Saturday for Christmas Eve fun.  We ate a great lunch, hung out with family, and watched all the cousins play together! That's the best part of Christmas to me  - seeing Charlotte enjoy her time with family, especially those that we don't see very often.  That evening we opened presents - it was fun chaos ;)   We had to pack up that night and head back down the Spring Hill, TN, but we had a fantastic Christmas Eve in Bowling Green!  Here are a couple photos from our trip, if you'd like to see more head here to Jeff's photo gallery.











We spent Christmas morning at my parents house in Spring Hill.  While we missed having it at our house, it was great being able to share in the Santa fun with my parents, sister, and Nana. Charlotte loved all her Santa toys!  (yes, it was a lot but they were all consignment sale buys or free from Kohls! Charlotte may be a bit spoiled but my wallet was happy.)







After Santa time, we had a great brunch and set about opening presents!!  We take turns opening presents so it takes a bit to get through them all - Charlotte actually lost interest in opening her gifts!  Regardless, we had a great time enjoying each others company and then playing with all our new toys.











All in all, it was a great Christmas spent with lots of family.  :)

To see more photos you can also visit my Facebook Album.

Shutterfly Cards

So I came across this promotion on Carmen's blog and thought I'd go for it to!  Shutterfly is giving 50 Christmas cards away when bloggers write about their Christmas cards on their personal blog.  I have been looking into getting Christmas cards this year anyway but didn't really have the spare $$$ to spend on them. This way, I get 50 cards and only have to pay shipping at 4.99 - sounds perfect to me!

I have a couple options for pictures. We have some random photos from the past few months that I thought about using.  We also have pictures we had done in September of Charlotte that I could use, but I haven't actually bought them yet - oops!  Or, what we did last year, was get Charlotte's picture taken with Santa at the mall. They actually give you a digital copy of the photo and a $20 gift card for Shutterfly to make prints and we did a great Holiday Photo Card.  This could end up being a great, free Christmas!!

I have a few favorites for the Christmas card, in the end it will come down to what photo we choose to know if we want to go serious or funny and then single or multiple picture.  These are what I'm choosing from: (update: My blog is not letting me upload the screen shots I took of my favorites, so I'm gonna have to link to Shutterfly's site instead.)

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Option 4

Option 5

Last year for Charlotte's first birthday, I made a calender documenting her first year with photos and notations on memorable dates. This calendar hangs in her room now and is a great way of looking back 1 year from today and seeing how much Charlotte has changed!  I am planning on do that again this year and am looking into using Shutterfly's Calendars!