Shutterfly: sweet Christmas deal!

Hey everyone,

So excited to mention to you all about Shutterfly's current Christmas card promotion. The selection is fantastic and this is about a million times easier than trying to craft 50 cute cards for all your friends.

My favorite card this year might be the classic red with multiple photos. Especially since we will PROBABLY never get the entire family in ONE picture, this could allow for various shots of individuals in the family.

I have been a Shutterfly fan for a long time, mostly because of their photo books. Talk about EASY Christmas presents. The photobooks have been the gift of choice around our house lately for grandparents, godparents, extended family. This will be our third year in a row to make the photo books, and besides turning out SO great, they are also fun to make.

Need more reasons to choose Shutterfly? If quality prints, quick service, and super-easy website doesn't do it for you, I don't know what will!

Check out these other ideas from Shutterfly:

1. Holiday Cards

2. Calendars

3. Canvas wall art


I haven't decided what pictures to use yet, the picture above is one that is cute from the last few months, but I still have time to get a few "Christmas" ones to try and use. I hope you all will check out this promotion from Shutterfly to get 50 FREE Christmas Cards, because if the crisis has affected you like it has us - there would be NO other way to get these done. Yahoo for Shutterfly.

Also see my Facebook for more info.

Buona Notizia!

The big news of the week is the announcement that Pres. Monson and other church leaders broke ground at the Rome Temple site on Saturday. EVVIVA! The Italian-Mildenhall delegation will most DEFINITELY be attending!

Check out the awesome plans here:

Rome Temple

Routines: I love them!

It has been very nice to get back into our normal routine. After almost 2 months of trips and events, we are finally settling back into our normal schedule. R. has started dance and Italian class again, and although she cried for about 30 seconds the first time at each activity, she now happily attends.

N. cries for her the whole time. I am boring and old compared to big sis.....but there are some tricks for consoling her. Walks with Pasha, a visit to a park with swings, and of course, graham crackers. She definitely says those two words more than any others during the course of the day. Not Momma. Not Babbo. Graham crackers.

Fall Apple Trip

Had a great time at B.J. Reece Apple Orchard with girls and friends. Rosie and L. (the 4-year old boy) actually shared their first kiss at age 1 on an apple trip together! How fitting that they are back together at age 4 to harvest apples. There was no kissing this time around!



Rosie shows off a tiny apple that she found.
Everyone chowed down on some fresh apples. Straight from the tree - pesticides included.

Italy Trip: 2010

Happy Birthday to Briant! This post actually has very little to do with his recent birthday, but the reason that I am able to blog about a fantastic trip to Italy is because B. is a great hubby and friend. Spent 8 days in Italy at the beginning of September. I spent a week with family in Padova and two days in Fucecchio doing family history research. The highlight was definitely my visit to the emergency room in a foreign country! Ha! Actually, I can't decide whether my favorite part was being in Italy or if the break from my daily worries and trials (ie, the children!) was the best part!

At top are Irene and Gianni, my hosts for the week. Irene is my grandmother's cousin, and is in fine form for being 76 years old. Below you see me standing in front of the Emergency Room sign the night of my visit to the ER. For a first time experience with socialized medicine, I was relatively pleased. Maybe Europeans aren't crazy after all.




This is the view from St. Mark's Bell Tower in Venice. Nino and Lorenza even payed for me to ride on a gondola - that was a first for me.

Some Cool Links

I highly recommend taking 7 minutes to watch the trailer for the upcoming PBS documentary, "The Mormons." You can view it at http://www.pbs.org/mormons/ .

Also, for all the latest news on Mitt Romney, check out mittreport.com.

ramblings on march madness

for as long as i can remember (probably 1993), i have loved march madness and college basketball. i was an avid ACC fan growing up. i attended numerous BYU basketball games my freshman year. i watched march madness in lieu of attending class. things have changed. maybe it's just me, but college basketball isn't as interesting as it used to be. i have two theories, and i would love to hear if anyone else's interest has waned over the last few years.

theory one: the quality of college basketball has declined, due mainly to players' early exit into the NBA (i have never liked the NBA). players no longer develop as much as they used playing four years, so teams have less chemistry and players who are selfishly trying to get their draft stock to increase. when was the last time a group of seniors led their team to the NCAA championship? probably the terps in '02.

theory 2: the game hasn't changed, i have. i watch a lot of soccer lately. i am so desperate to watch it that i have started following the mexican league (thanks to the latino channels we get, i can also watch a big european club game almost every saturday). the flow of soccer is pretty slow at times, and only a few goals are scored. basketball on the other hand is up and down all of the time, and players almost score at will. another thing i can't stand is all the commercials, but any sport but soccer has that problem.

anywho, i still love playing basketball, but things just haven't been the same this year for me and march madness. then again, i am in last place in a pool with my friends.

Spring in Our Step

temps and spirits are high in east georgia. winter (all two weeks of it) has gone and we have been enjoying seemingly perfect weather for the lat few weeks. this means more walks and time outside with Pasha and Rosie, something they are both happy about.

besides class, i am planning some activities at the law school on study abroad programs and careers in international law. i am also playing with some guys on an indoor soccer team.





katie has kept busy with genealogy and organizing the names she has amassed over the last few years. part of the difficulty is due to the fact that many of her ancestors from the 1800's had 12-13 children. yikes. katie has also enjoyed participating in a few book clubs this semester. one is through the church, and the other is with some friends we have at law school. i am humbled on a daily basis with many things katie does, and reading is no exception. i think she has read more in a month than i have read in a lifetime. yikes again.


since the last blog, things besides temperatures have also changed. the biggest news is that i found a great job working for a firm in buckhead. we are really happy about the changes that await in the coming months. we have been busy looking into buying a house and finding other ways to divulge our newly found income. it looks like we will settle down in alpharetta or roswell, but we have yet to find a home we really like.









Rosie is growing like crazy. she has so much energy. she kicks all of the time; grunts, moans, and coos as well. she is still entertained by pasha, and pasha is now resigned to being the jester of the house. rosie is also mad about food. we are experimenting with various vegetables and fruit, and all the things you would think she would like, she doesn.t and vice versa. she loves sweet potatoes, squash, and the like. she has problems with apples and bananas. go figure. katie continues to speak to her in italian, and that makes things really fun (e.g., it took me a while to think of the word for squash as the only word that came to mind was zucca). katie told me of one mom who voiced some concern that her communication skills have gone to pot since she had her baby since all she says is goo goo ga ga. katie has had the exact opposite effect and has improved her communication since Rosie's birth. again, how does such a woman put up with me?

we are looking forward to visiting grandparents in the coming weeks, as well as a trip to DC for Taylor's wedding. School is almost over. Just two months until graduation. yikes #3.