Halloween 09

Don't judge me, these 3 pictures are the only ones I took of my kids the whole Halloween night. What the heck is wrong with me!?!?

We had a fun first in our little family this year. Kade and I have been married going on 8 years now, and we have never carved pumpkins together or with Kadence either. We both had done it when we were younger, but never had the desire to do it together. We were always too busy going to haunted houses and other things when we were childless. This year my mom gave us two pumpkins from one of the hunters at Deseret, and then we decided to buy 2 more so that we could all do them as a family. It made for a very enjoyable FHE, and the kids and even Kade and I had a great time. The kids drew all over theirs and that was their funnest part. For Kadences, Kade ended up cutting out some of her actual drawings and it turned out to be a really cute pumpkin. The kids are now very sad that the pumpkins are wilting and needing to go to the garbage.

Kadence's, mine, Kade's, and Kash's.
Wow its great to be able to catch up a little on life for the past couple weeks. We have had a great October.. busy but great. The kids have had an absolute blast this month. We have filled our time lately with, ranch work, butchering beef, Hogle Zoo (went back to see the babies), a visit to Great-Grandma, a visit to the witches at Gardner Village, visits with friends, doctors appts, photography sessions, church callings, lessons, talks in church, pink eye, family picnics, Halloween trunk or treat, cookies, Halloween parties, and Halloween itself. Geez no wonder I was so exhausted all the time!! I was not sad to have Halloween over and get all the decorations put away. I was way burned out this year by the time we finished up with everything.

I have really slacked this month on pictures though.. I have no idea what my problem was. I hardly took any of Halloween night, my sister and mom thank heavens took pics at the trunk or treat, zoo, and Gardner Village. I have vowed to be better for the next upcoming months.

Kash wanted nothing to do with a Halloween costume. He only wanted to wear his regular clothes so he became a "cowboy" pretty easily. He carried his gun, stick horse, and rope around for the first 4 or 5 houses but slowly started leaving his accessories in the car. Kadence wanted to be Sleeping Beauty this year and she was darling. They both got way too much candy and had a great time though and that is all that matters I think.

Finally.... A Photography Blog

Finally I have taken the time to set up what will be my photography blog. You can check it out at http://www.nicolemartinphotography.blogspot.com/.
Warning: It is very generic and boring right now. The blog only has about 30% of the pictures it will have and hopefully by the end of the year it will be full of what I have done.I hope sometime soon to be able to "beautify" it, but I have no idea when that will be. Thanks again or all your love, support, and encouragement.

Favorites: I love FREE print offers!

See Here from Fuji is offering 100 FREE prints to new account holders (pay only shipping and handling.) This will cover all of your summer photos, I am sure! Sign up Here and start uploading those photos! Go to website then click "sign up" at the top and you will see that it will give you 100 prints.


Also there is a FREE 8X10 Canvas OR $55 OFF, offered Here (pay $14.95 for shipping – but that is less than how much a canvas itself would cost – these items are expensive.)

Canvas People allows you to upload your own photos to canvas. Shipping is $14.95 but to me that is totally worth it for a canvas of my little gal – I am so excited about this offer as I just got 3 weeks photos made of my daugther this past week. Once I get them back, I am jumping on this amazing deal! Consider this as a great gift too for the holidays.

With $55 off the current prices is as follows…
8×10 FREE
11×11 $3.99
11×14 $13.99
16×16 $23.99
16×20 $33.99 (Best Value!)
18×24 $43.99.

Also there is a $15 credit offer from Kodak, I just got mine I am going to use it towards a Xmas gift I have been working on. Go HERE to sign up for the credit. They are giving it to the first 100,000 people and then after that you will get a 40% off coupon. If you are the recipient of a 40% off gift code, you may come back to the promotion during the next phase to receive a $15 gift code. It is emailed to you and mine came to my junk/spam folder about 3 minutes after I signed up.

Don't you love all the cool offers that are out there to help you preserve memories!!

Making your blog a little safer

I keep forgetting to share this with you, and while it was fresh on my mind I thought I would hurry and post it. I got this info months ago from Holly, and while it doesn't prevent all predators from your blog it does help that they at least can't save your images to their computer. If you have tried to copy words or pictures from my blog you will get a message that says "copyrighted material" if you want to add this feature to your blog here is how you do it.


**** UPDATE: OK this won't let me post the link for some reason, so here is what I will do. Its just a simple HTML code you add to your layout. If you want this code email me at sammi_nickel@yahoo.com Subject: Blog Code, I will reply back to you with the code. Then copy and paste the code after going to layout, add gadget, html, then paste, save and voila. Also it will leave a black space with a line on your blog like you have added something there, I added it to the bottom of my layout so there isn't a line just hanging out there.

Finally 1 project finished

Last night I finally got to sit down and sew this skirt, that the material has been sitting out for over a week now. Its nothing fancy but it turned out pretty, darn cute. I love that I can go buy fabric and elastic, and sew something cute for like $3 you really can't beat that. Anyway its nothing fancy, but my 4 year old loves it, so thats all that matters to me. For my 3rd sewing project 3 hrs wasn't too shabby for this one compared to the stupid 4th of July one that took me like 8. I have a little bit of material left over; I might try and whip out another one for like a 6 mo. old. Anyway, its been fun to be home and relax with my kids... enjoy their company and not have a million things going on. However that ends next week. :(

I took these pics quickly of my kids this morning as we rushed out the door to (gasp) get the flu and swine flu shots. I know there is a lot of controversy over the sf shot and all I can say is make a decision you think is right and pray hard for confirmation it is right for your family. It has weighed heavily on Kade and I for a good 3 weeks now as we have 2 high risk individuals in our household. Me being pregnant, and Kash with his immune deficiency, are both prime candidates for the virus to effect us harshly. Poor Kadence has had to suffer and miss pre-school for 2 weeks now and primary, because we can't have her bringing anything home to us until we are all protected. A week ago I had decided we would not be getting it, that I would rather take our chances on getting sick than take chances on the vaccine. That is plain silly. There is a lot of information being passed around some of it is very scary. I think its good to stop and think about things before you do them. However, with some effort and research and prayer I found 95% of the info to be incorrect, blown out of proportion, and down right not true. I encourage you all to do your own studying and not believe everything media and even some health officials are saying. Dig deep and study what the CDC says as they have the accurate information and then you decide if the risks are worth taking. I know my decision is my decision and may not be right for you and your family. All I know is I will be sleeping better tonight than I have for weeks, and will be rejoicing in 2 weeks when all the shots are actually effective. Now to just stay healthy until then. :)

*** Here is a link off of my OB's website that has tons of links of good, accurate info. if you are interested in looking into it further. http://www.colwc.com/swineflu.asp. I trust my OB with all my heart, and he is one of the people that turned my opinion around because he was very concerned with his pregnant patients getting the shot. Good luck and I hope you all stay healthy!!

Kash wanted his pics taken too since I was taking Kadence's.

He is such a stinker. :)

Kadence started a dance/gymnastics class

What can I say... she has my coordination. :)

This is my big handsome boy being so good while

we wait for sissy. He was way bummed he couldn't

dance with them. You have to be 3, so he watched

from the door.

She also started violin lessons today, and it is the cutest thing ever.

She loves it!! I will take some pics of her practicing and post them.

Dinosaur bedding set for $11 shipped!!!

I just found this awesome sale!! If you know a boy that loves dinosaurs this would make a great Xmas present and its cheap!

Seventh Avenue has this Dinoland bedding set for $17.99. Includes sheet set, comforter, skirt and pillow sham. Bring your total up to $20 and use code: sa20 (lower case) to get $20 off a $20+ purchase. Shipping is $10!

Hurry while supplies last!!

UPDATE:

I just placed this order for me, I thought this would be a great gift for a little boy at Xmas when we do our secret santa presents this year. We always choose a family and buy gifts for them, it is the highlight of our season.

You have to have your order over $20 for the code to work and the bedding is $17.99 so I bought some cookie sticks for $2.99 (I will use the for marshmellow suckers) http://www.seventhavenue.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=44390&categoryId=1426&pCategoryId=3918&gpCategoryId=481&productVariantId=127454&prefixCode=EB

That put my order at $30.98 and after the coupon code was entered at the end of checkout (it wouldn't work out at the beginning of checkout before shipping was added) the total order with shipping came to $10.93. NOT TOO SHABBY!! An$89.95 bedding set for Free. Pretty darn great.