Christmas Card Out-takes

The other day, I got a Christmas card from my friend Karen. On the card are her entire family (3 kids, herself and her hubby), all of them smiling perfectly and looking fabulous. I don't know how some people manage to do get decent Christmas photos with everyone in the picture smiling beautifully! How do those that have 3 kids do it? or those of you that regularly photograph 6 girls (you know who you are Mrs. beautiful pictures)? I had my work cut out for me last week...and I only have 2 kids to work with.

I dressed the boys up in their "ties" and tried to take pictures of them with several backgrounds and tried to place them in several poses. I took posed shots, candid shots, paparazzi shots and yet that elusive "perfect" (I'll even take decent at this point) Christmas card shot never came out.

What did come out was a whole lot of: blurries, oops he moved, Chris wasn't looking, JJ wasn't looking, no one was looking, you have food on your mouth, the dog got in the way, sit next to your brother, closer, closer, OK, not that close, put your arm around him, no don't choke him, smile Chris, no not like that, a real smile, stop bothering your brother, see now you made him cry, stop watching TV, Hey, the camera's over here, just give him the toy, and can we stop taking pictures now mom?


But don't let me tell you all about it. See for yourself:

Someone left a gift on my desk...

....today.

Woohoo!

This is turning into the the All-Adam-All The Time Blog, thanks to my enabling friend Melanie! Ha ha. I've been a bad fan though because I just found out today that he's going to be in town at the Jingle Ball 2 days from now and I don't have tickets for that. I suck.

I'll be sharing some Christmas photos of the kiddos soon....as soon as I take them.

Oh boy, I'm so behind.

They're purple!

I borrowed some purple nail polish from my friend Melanie and I got the following comments from my family:

Ren: You painted your nails black? OOooh is that for Adam Lambert?

Me: No...and they're purple.

Chris: Mommy, why are you Adam Lambert?

Oh Lord, they know me too well.

The other day...

The other day a guy walked past me wearing that Abercrombie and Fitch cologne and my first thought was not "ooh he smells yummy". My first thought was "that guy smells like a store"; for some reason, I don't think that's the reaction he was aiming for.


The other day Chris and I were watching TV when a commercial for red lipstick came on. A gorgeous supermodel was featured.
Chris: Mommy, I'm going to buy you some red paint (red lipstick) so that you'll look pretty like her.
Me: Thank you sweetie...I think.


The other day, driving past Kmart:
Chris: Mommy, S is for smart, Kmart smart.
Me: Yes, that's right.
Chris: They sell garbage there.
Me: You've been hanging out with Dad I see.

For the shopaholics....

In the spirit of Black Friday/Cyber Monday that just passed, I've got some goodies to share with those of you that enjoy spending quality retail therapy time in front of your computer. You can thank me (and your wallet can hate me) later.

First off is a website that I found through a blog I read. It's The Mini Social, an online sample sale website offering its members (free membership) exclusive access to designer brands for mom, baby and child at up to 60% off. Sign up today and you will be notified by email about their upcoming sales (which are actually good). Invite a friend and receive a $10 credit to your account when they make their first purchase. They have the cutest things going on sale all the time and the items are really unique. It's not the usual stuff you would find at your local baby and kid stores. If you sign up, please remember to put my email address (mountainflowr at hotmail dot com) as the person that referred you.

Here is another of my favorite sites. Ebates! I always go to this site before I shop online because this site gives you money back! Ha ha! It really works folks; I've gotten like 3 checks in the mail -from them already. All you do is sign up (it's free) and check to see if the store you want to shop at is one of their participating partners (and to see if they have any coupons). Use the pull-down menu to find the store you wanted to shop at and this site will take you right to your favorite store and give you a percentage of what you spend there. How much money you get back depends upon how much of a shopping...proble...addicti... obsession you have!

The third site that I love is Retailmenot.com because I am a bargain hunter by nature and I hate paying retail when I don't have to. Use this website to find any online coupons that you can use before you go and shop online at your favorite store. Usually, I go to this website first, get my coupons and then go to Ebates. That way I get cash back AND I get to use my coupons (who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?).

But who has time to be going online to look for sales you say? Well, that's where my final recommendation comes in. ShopItToMe.com is like your personal online shopper. You sign up (for free) and tell it what your favorite stores/brands are, what sizes you wear and they will email you when your favorites (in your size) are on sale. How you like them apples? Oh and if you get your friends to sign up to, you get a free gift card (it's true, I got one!).

This was not a paid blog post by the way, I really do like these sites enough to rave about them for free. Do you know of any cool shopping sites? Any hidden treasures that you'd like to share? Do tell.

Well, that's all folks. Go forth and shop!