Day 343 - Sirius New Employee Orientation

My company, MSI was recently acquired by another company, Sirius Computer Solutions. So officially on January 1, 2011 I will be a Sirius employee. This still seems strange to me, but it is what it is and to make it really start sinking in, today the entire Kansas City office had our new Sirius employee orientation. It went well and I am very curious to see what the changes the coming weeks bring. I guess we will just continue to stay positive and take it one day at a time.

Day 337 - Christmas Cards

Today I got everything figured out for our 2010 Christmas Cards.

First for the cards, I am going to work with a fellow blogger. Her name is Molly and she is so creative. She has become good blogging friends with my dear real life friend Lindsey and she has an Etsy sight where she designs cards - Here it is. So I am going to pick some pictures from our little Thanksgiving day photo shoot and have Molly work her magic. ($20)

I then found some great deal on envelopes. I know most places you print cards from provide envelopes, but I love colorful ones. So I will be ordering from Envelope Mall. ($19)

Lastly I had to decide where to have the cards printed - SO MANY options! I think I will try out this one, Winkflash, they have the best prices - so I can justify a little extra for fancy envelopes. ($33.50)

Total for 100 Christmas cards = 72.50 (plus postage and lots of time)

Now that I have done all of this research it will hopefully be much easier next year!

***Update: here's how our Christmas Cards turned out***

Day 334 - Dinner for Neighbors (Chicken Parmesan)

Our neighbors recently had their first baby, a sweet little girl named Lucy :)

Tonight was the night I signed up to make them dinner. First, the sight they used was a new one, called meal train and it worked great. The site was easy to use and it sent me email reminders before my day.

I was feeling pretty tired today and had a long day at work, so I found a simple recipe for Parmesan chicken on the food network and served it with some pasta, garlic bread and apples with caramel sauce.

Since I was short on time, I didn't take a ton of pictures, but here is one I snapped to show the assembly line I did to bread the chicken, flour, egg then bread crumb/Parmesan mixture

Everything turned out great and it was so easy to make extra for our dinner too.

Day 325 - A New Way to Make Some Money (we hope)

Tonight Quinn and I posted our first ever item on Craig's list. It's a large ladder that is just too heavy duty for anything we need. We have been talking about selling this and several other items for far too long now. Hopefully this first experience goes well so we can get the rest of the stuff cleared out and make some extra $$$ in the process!

Wish us luck!!

***Update: Ladder Sold in about a week!***

Day 317 - DrawNames.com

Today I came across a great website I am going to use for a gift exchange with my siblings and in-laws called drawnames.com

You have the option to keep everyones selection secret or they can be shared. Also, in the settings you are able to make restrictions, such as spouses can't draw each other which is exactly what we needed. There are some other neat features too that allow you you to share wish lists.

**UPDATE: this site worked great!**

Day 306 - 3D Ultrasound, Take 2

This afternoon we went to have our 3D ultrasound redone. The guy doing everything was pretty strange BUT when all was said and done we got some much better pictures this time around so I am really happy we had the chance for a redo. Here's some of the images that turned out best

The arm, body and leg of baby A all curled up

Here's another one of baby A flexing is muscles for us

This next one is a little tougher to see, but it's baby A on the left and baby B on the right (I am not convinced the labels on the image are correct, again the guy was pretty strange, but either way you can get a sense from this one just how packed in our little duo is)

Here are a couple pretty good face shots of B


And A decided to keep us in suspense until his birthday and not show us his face, but we did get this one of his profile
Good work today babes! We love you so much already and are getting so excited about meeting you in a few more weeks.

Day 302 - 3D Ultrasound

This afternoon Quinn and I headed to our 3D ultrasound. I was planning on this being my something new today - but we hardly got any pictures, I think there were maybe 1 or 2 of a leg or a foot, which were so awesome to see, but since we got the option to come back for a complimentary re-do we didn't have get any pictures to take home today, instead we will be back next Tuesday and hopefully have a more trained person to do our ultrasound and that the boys will be on their best behavior :)

Day 300 - A Video Post!

Getting Ready for the Boys . . .

Tonight Quinn helped me upload a video we made on Sunday night, after we finished putting the cribs together (I never intended to post this to our blog, but I wanted to do something fun for DAY 300!! - but didn't have much energy, so making a new, more planed video was out of the question) so without further ado . . .

(please pause my music player)



I must admit, even though this was a pretty low-key & unplanned video, I can't help but smile every time I watch. I think I have Todd the Tortoise to thank for that!

Day 294 - Q & C's babes

This past weekend Quinn's sister Hope asked if Quinn and I had morphed our faces together on oany website to see what our kids will look like - I hadn't, but I thought it sounded fun so tonight I found this website, morphthing

Not so sure how accurate it is, but it was simple and good for a quick laugh - good thing I am not having a baby with Brad Pitt!

Or Quinn with Brittany Spears

Of the 3 baby morphs I did, I must say Quinn and my baby turned out the least strange looking :)

You can also morph 2 picures to make one person . . .

super weird! ah ha ha!!

Day 258 - Glee from iTunes to Our TV

HDMI cables are pretty sweet. Quinn and I used the summer reruns of Glee to watch the series (we didn't get into it last fall, but now love it) but last nights 2 episodes skipped one in between, so we paid the $2.99 to iTunes to watch it. Rather than watching it on our computer Quinn hooked up our laptop to the TV and we had HD-quality viewing - at first I thought it was a hassle, but it actually was really simple, took no time and was a great picture.

Good work Quinn!

Day 249 - Video Camera

Today we celebrated Quinn and my 28th Birthdays with my family. We grilled out cheese burgers and had my favorite cake from Wheatfields, strawberry wedding cake and we even got gifts!

It was a fun little celebration and Quinn and I are REALLY excited about our new video camera.

Check this out, the Full HD 120GB HDD Camcorder

Thanks Mom & Dad, we LOVE it!!

Day 244 - Gift Certificates.com

For my 3-year anniversary at work, I was given a code to redeem a gift certificate of my choice at gift certificates.com . The site was really easy to use and there a good selection of stores & restaurants to choose from. Once you choose your selection you complete a basic order form and then a regular gift card is mailed to your home.

Anyone can use this site to give gifts to family & friends and its a sure way to know the recipient will get something they would like ;)

Day 224 - Canvas Prints - Take 2

Tonight I ordered canvas prints (this time I am certain it worked) for our friends the Arther's. I attempted ordering them from Cosco a while back, but the layout of the pictures wasn't working plus there were a few other glitches. The Canvas4Life site was so user friendly and I just felt more confident ordering from here. Plus they have a 100% gaurentee - for any reason :)

I will try to remember to come back and update this post once the final product arrives!

Day 218 - Playlist

Tonight I had fun exploring a new site, playlist.com. My friend Lindsey and a few other blogs I like to read always have great music on their sites so tonight I thought it would be fun to add some beats to my own.

You can search by an artist or a song title and you can make as many play lists as you want. Plus, once you have a play list created you can easily link it to your blog AND if you make any changes they will automatically be updated on the blog - awesome. Of course if you don't have a blog, you can create a play list and log in to the site directly and play your tunes any time.

Love this site & that I now have music on my blog!

Day 216 - Berry Tracker

Quinn and I had such a nice day! We were still on our vacation, but got to spend the day at home, which we pretty much NEVER do when we have time off and it was great! (even with this headache that I can't seem shake)

We slept in, went to the pool, hung out on the couch and ate yummy food . . . including some delicious raspberries.

While we were snacking away, I remembered my neighbor had told me a while back that Driscoll berries now had a feature on their website where you can track the berries back to the farm they came from. How neat is that?

So today, I went to this site and entered the details from our raspberry package: code: 2833 7213 2583 DSA2 (organic raspberries from Whole Foods).

Unfortunately, the site isn't completely ready yet and the code from our raspberries didn't work, but I plan to check back with future berries and think it will be fun to see what I find out.

Check it out, maybe yours will work.

Day 194 - New Laptop!!

This was a long time coming and far over due!

Quinn and I have been using my college laptop (that is nearly 10 years old) as our home computer and basically it is done. The main thing we use it for is pictures & music - which is a terrible combination for the low memory, very full hard drive.

So tonight we first went to Nebraska Furniture Mart to check out our options. While there I called my dad (technically guru) and by the time we got off the phone and had finished perusing the isles of the store decided the best option was to buy online (especially since we decided on an HP and my company offers an additional discount).

I knew my dad was smart, but I must admit I was very impressed with all of his knowledge of processors, memory, graphics cards and the list goes on.

Once back home my dad and I got back on the phone and ordered the perfect laptop for Quinn and I. Whahoo! So excited for it to get here!! We haven't been able to add new music to our iPods for months and every time I upload new pictures I have to delete others to make room - so frustrating.

Happy day.

Day 160 - Canvas Wrap Photos

A long awaited wedding gift for our dear friends Anne & Andy

Their 1 year anniversary was 3 days ago, so I thought I should finally get this gift taken care of!! (I did try to get these done several months ago, but the source I was using suddenly stopped making the canvas wrapped prints. This distracted me and I was unsure how to proceed.)

I finally turned to the Internet and I checked out several options on line. I decided to go with Costco. I have never used any of their photo services, but have heard good things and decided to give them a shot.

Originally we were going to have 3 - 11x14 prints made, but the cost was so much better at Costco than our original plan and there was a wide variety of sizes available so we got 3 - 12x16 prints (upgrade for having to wait so long!)

The should arrive soon and I can't wait to get these to Dr. & Mrs. Arther!!

The process was so simple and Quinn and I have a few prints we have thought about doing for our home - now that I know how easy it is and reasonably affordable we will be getting some done for our house soon!

Day 140 - New Fonts & Peach Pie/Cake

A while ago, on another blog I like to check in on, Joy's Hope I learned that you do not have to live with the fonts that are preloaded to your computer - you can upload new ones - FOR FREE ;) So tonight, after book club - that is just what I did.

All of these fun new fonts are not available to me to use on blogger, so I did a few screen prints and added them as images . . . they are a little difficult to read, but you get the idea.

I downloaded all of these fonts from Dafont . It is a great site with TONS of fonts. Once downloaded you just move the file to your fonts folder (I used the help info from dafont.com to do this) and then you are all set. Now all of these fonts are available on any of my Windows based applications, including Microsoft Word & my Outlook Email.




Other Firsts: Tonight at book club, my good friend Katie made this peach-pie-cake yumminess . . . I didn't have my camera but Katie did (she took a couple pictures - send them over Katie) so check back for more on that to come!

Good night!

Day 125 - Local Produce, Delivered

Tonight I signed up to start receiving fresh, organic produce straight to my front door at I ordered the 'bitty box' of both fruit & veggies. My first shipment is scheduled for May 18 and I am really looking forward to it.

I also found a code online for $10 off your first shipment. If you decided to sign up enter this code when prompted: dtdtb11.

Once my first box arrives, it will be another first and I will be sure to blog about it and let you know what I think.

Day 124 - Happy Birthday Dad! My first Jib-Jab Card

Today is my Dad's birthday. This is one of the things I like least about living in KC; I rarely get to see my family on their actual birthdays. Thanks to some great modern technology I did, at least, get to send him a fun birthday message.

I decided to send my dad an e-card (his gift is scheduled to arrive in Omaha on Thursday, and I still wanted him to have something from me today.) As I was searching for a good card, I ended up on the Jib-Jab website, which is actually something my dad has used in the past - so I knew he would like it. To send a card you have to be a member, which costs $12/year but their unique cards, where you put people's faces on animated clips, seemed worth it. So I am now a member of Jib-Jab and am looking forward to creating some more fun e-cards in the coming months.

You can Click Here to see the entire card I sent to my dad.

The site was really easy to use and directly from the site I was able to link to his Facebook wall and email him the card. Even if you don't want to get the membership you should still check out the Jib-Jab site. There are some really funny videos that you can make - but you will need to join to send anything. Enjoy!