Christmas Cards!!

There are 4 places I have used in the past to make Xmas photo cards, and one is Shutterfly! I always go back.

Last year I used  2 holiday cards made up in Shutterfly. To look at all of their holiday and Christmas cards, click on the links.

Last year:

I always make a few variations, and Shutterfly offers many choices. I can have one photo or Several photos on one card!
I might also get some Photo Christmas Cards that have an inside so I can write longer messages to people.

I have had great experiences with Shuttefly in the past, so I know I will be getting great quality cards.
We have not taken our pictures this year yet, but I am thinking about it. I think I know what  I want to do...and if someone wants to take the pictures (cough, cough- Kate), lets make it happen! :) I know with Anika, I will want to include more than one photo!!
I am planning on going with this card!

There are so many options though!

SO, As you may have guessed- 3 lucky readers get to win 25 free cards. You do NOT have to have a blog to win- Just leave a comment! I am talking to YOU real life friends who never comment but would like 25 FREE cards!  I will pick a winner by my next post...whenever that may be. I have a million in my head of course- just need to find time!! But, the winner will be picked before Monday.

And...now I give you Xmas cards from years past.....

(These may look familiar to old readers :)

Next to the house I was born in. I am 2 years old (Nov. 1985)

I also lived in that same house/shack (with few improvements) for a year after Andrew and I got married. When I moved back from Boston to live with Andrew full time, we stayed there until we bought our house. Right after we moved out (Like, seriously a day after) my dad was tearing it down, and has now built a new house as a "real rental". It was a one room house when I was born, and my dad had put on an addition to get by until the "new house" was built and ready to move into.
The new house was built on the same property up a long driveway.

(Nov. 1986)
Next to our "new house". I don't think we were living in the house YET that year. My parents spent 6 years building this house from scratch with their own 2 hands (and some hands of friends and family). My dad literally cut down many of the trees and milled many of them himself-especially the beams on the inside. There are 2 pictures and I cant remember which one my mom ended up using- Us on the sled, or us with my pony named Stormy. All sweaters we have on were knit by my mom of course. When we moved in, it was still a work in progress.

This one is also 1986 at my Gram and Grampa's farm. My brother is pushing the sleigh (I am in it- duh) and my cousins are pulling. I am the youngest cousin on that side of the family. I have my little rabbit fur jacket on.

This is 1987. I think this is front of the fire place in my parent's room, but it doesn't look finished on the right side, as most things were not finished in the new house at that time. Please don't be jealous of my dad's stache!

Cutting down our Xmas tree in 1989. This was also the year my dad started his own Xmas tree farm near the house (I think). Look at my pose in the picture! ha

Not sure of the year in this one. I was in Elementary school and judging by those bright colors, it was the early 90's, late 80's? We were skiing at Cannon Mountain.
As you can see, there were not a lot of pretty options for photo cards back then, like shuttefly offers now!

And then sometimes, my mom got busy and didnt plan ahead, so she would just tell my brother and I to go otuside in the snow and look like nice chilrden. I am in 3rd grade here I THINK. Andrew laughed out loud when he saw this picture of my brother and asked what my mom was thinking because he looks like a girl. ha I am holding my guinea pig Friskey in the picture. Ursala in the sleigh.

4th or 5th grade here I think.

7th grade I think. We went down to the timeshare in Orlando for Thanksgiving that year. This was taken at Universal Studios. I remember my mom made us take a zillion photos all around the park in front of all the holiday decorations.

8th Grade. That is me on my horse Rex with our little malti poo Baby Bug.

This is my freshmen year of high school. I put both because I am not sure which one she used. The skis because I made the state ski team that year, and we spent every single winter weekend at Mountains.

I cant find ANY from My sophomore year to Sr. year of high school for some reason. Great, I was skinny those years too, so go figure!

Freshmen year of college, so 2001. Um, not sure which one she used. But, this one was one of our comical photos. My dad likes to ham up the fact that we live in the country- remember- they send this to their friends ALL OVER the place, so he likes to get a laugh from his "city slicker" friends.
Red Arrows above. 1. Since I had just come home on break from "the big city" I have my big block cell phone, fur coat and Gucci sunglasses on. While Arrow number 2 shows my dad looking like Cletus with a Raccoon on his head (yes, one he really trapped and made into a hat) and he is in overalls and pretending to fish. Arrow # 3 points to an old moonshine bottle.
The arrow on the 2nd picture is pointing to my American Flag Belt buckle! ha. I actually got that Gap because Madonna had an American flag belt! haha
Oh, and notice DAD has no Stache!! HE got rid of it when I was in HS.

ANd, there is that red sleigh again in 2003. This is the year my niece Kaelyn came into the picture, so she got to be the subject of xmas pictures most years after! I know there were a couple more of the whole family, but I could not find them.

Kaelyn again with her dolls-actually those are MY old dolls!

I started doing my own Christmas photo cards in 2007. I was so excited I did quite a few different ones with our wedding photos. I included photos of just Andrew and myself AND of the whole families. Unfortunately, I did not order extras that year, and I Have NONE to show you now. I cant find my parent's card from that year either but they used wedding pictures from my wedding too.

My parent's card in 2008. The lower left picture is of my mom and me in NZ in April, 2008.

In 2008, we went back to NZ and to Fiji so I used pictures from that trip in our photo card. We went back for Andrew's sisters wedding, but we also did a Road trip all over the South Island with my parents.

This is a card I only had a few made of for Andrew's friends who we spent a lot of time with during our 2008 trip over. I put a little collage together for them!! I do some specialty cards for a few people since the minimum of photo cards to be ordered is ONE! Works great to make personalized cards if I choose to!

My parent's card 2009- the year Riley was born.

2 Versions of Our card from 2009.

this was an actual card so I could write on the inside from 2009, but it was blurry and I didn't use many of them.

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