Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Shutterfly Does It Again: Free Christmas Cards!



It’s that time of year- Christmas Card time! Don’t you love getting them? I do… We normally display them on our fridge… but this year I have a special wall holder for them (thanks to a gift from my mom…)


While looking around on various websites for Christmas card options for this year... I came across two friends' blogs who posted about Shutterfly giving away fifty holiday cards to bloggers... just for blogging about it! This was great news to me, seeing as how I already had my eye on a few of their designs for our card this year! We already have our Christmas picture taken for this year, so all I need to do now is get on Shutterfly to pick out our card.

They've got TONS of options, and lots of great choices! I'm always wondering, when making purchases online, how something will actually look when it arrives... "Will I really like it, or will I be disappointed?" Well, today I actually saw these products live and in person at the mall, and I thought they looked great! We have never used Shutterfly for Christmas cards before, but we have heard lots of great things about them. I have used them in the past to print photos I have taken, and their quality is always great.

And, they’ve got some other great things for gift ideas, too… Calendars, photobooks… See the links below for card and gift ideas:

• Christmas photo cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards


• calendars for 2011 http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

• holiday cards http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

• holiday photo cards http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery


And here’s the link to the details about how to get the 50 FREE CARDS: (Thanks Shutterfly!):

http://bit.ly/sfly2010

(No, neither of the ones pictured here are our card, just a few samples from the website to spark your interest... Did it work?)

Friday, August 27, 2010

Changes

Since the last time I posted, so much has happened. Everything I'm going to talk about deserves its own post, but I don't have that much time, so I will abbreviate our last few months. April and May were consumed with trying to wrap things up in Memphis as it became closer to Brandon's graduation. My last day of work was May 7th, which just happened to be Brandon's 27th birthday. That was a very hard day for me. I had worked for the Gillespie family for two years and had grown to love them like my own family. I called them "my family away from home". I had a wonderful last day with my two precious boys. Saying goodbye was the hardest part. Carter walked me to the car, as he usually did, and then he wanted to ride with me while I backed out of the driveway. As I was backing out of the driveway, I couldn't help but think this was the last time. I started tearing up and he looked at me and asked, "why you crying, Meaghan?". Talk about breaking my heart. Since then, I have gotten to see them a few times. They are such sweet, loving little boys and I can't wait to see what the future has in store for them.
As I just said, it was the same day as Brandon's birthday. We went to Nashville to celebrate. As you can see from this picture he was a very happy boy!




The following day, we boarded a plane and headed to Cancun!! We took this trip as a birthday/graduation/anniversary gift to ourselves. It was very much needed! We had the best time relaxing by the pool everyday and just being together. We already want to go back.

Eating dinner at a restaurant on the beach.

My favorite place

Before dinner one night

Relaxing by the pool under a cabana

Once we got back in town, it was time for Connor's first birthday. I cannot believe the little guy is already one. It feels like just yesterday I brought Carter to the hospital to meet his baby brother.


Look at those big blue eyes!

The following week, on May 28th, Brandon graduated. I am incredibly proud of all the hard work and dedication that he put into these past five years. (I say five because he took a year off so that I could graduate.) We had all of our family in town to help us celebrate this huge accomplishment. Here are a few pictures of the big day.
Hooding Ceremony
Brandon being hooded

James, Jason, Craig, and Brandon

Brothers: Bryce, Brandon, and Brooks

The graduation ceremony
Brandon receiving his diploma

My and my doctor!
So proud of him!

Brandon graduated on Friday and we had a bright idea to move the next day. The main reason was that all our family would be in town and could help out. Talk about stressful, but we got it done thanks to our wonderful families. We could not have done it without you! Here is a picture of our moving crew on a lunch break. *Notice Bailey in the center of the picture. You would have thought she was exhausted from helping us.


On the way to Alabama

Home Sweet Home

Pretty soon after we moved in, we headed back to Memphis for Carter's 4th Birthday. I began taking care of him when he was 22 months old, so it is hard for me to believe he's four!

Carter with his singing Cars balloon

The birthday boy at his party at Pump it Up

Connor and I coming down the slide

I think we had just as much fun as the kids did.

Carter and his awesome cake


Before moving to Birmingham, I had already accepted a new nanny position. My first day was on June 28th. I am nannying for a one year old little boy named Perron. He is a sweet, laid back, and happy little boy. Here is Perron swinging in his swing.

Brandon started at UAB on July 1st. He began his first month in the Emergency Department. This month he's been in the MICU. He moves back to the ED on Tuesday. I think this month in the MICU has been challenging, so I think he is counting down the days until he gets back to the ED. I know I am!

A few weeks ago, the Gillespie's took a road trip to Birmingham to visit us. We were so excited that they got to come see our new house and visit with us the entire weekend. Here are the boys eating breakfast before our big day at the McWane Science Center.


Isn't he the cutest?!

Adorable!

I hope I haven't lost anyone yet. Sorry this post has been so random, I wanted to get in the main things that have gone on with us these past few months. We are still trying to figure out our new city. I had the hardest time at first trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B. The layout of the city is confusing. It's slowly coming together. I love the fact that I'm five minutes from a grocery store! In Memphis, we were about twenty minutes from one.

We are enjoying our new house, although we have had a few surprises along the way. For example, our AC went out upstairs and was 95 degrees in our house. We've had giant cockroaches. I could handle to AC going out, but not the cockroaches. Apparently they are a problem in Alabama. They are so gross, so fast, and so big. We've already had Terminix come out twice. They seem to have gone away. Other than that, we love our house! I will make a post soon of some before and after pictures of the house.

Lately, Brandon has been working so much that any time he has off we try to make the best of it. He had last Saturday off, so we went to Oak Mountain to go hiking.

Thanks for tuning in and reading about our life. Hopefully, it won't be another four months until the next post.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

One Busy Month

Since Match Day, life for us has been just as expected....CRAZY BUSY! The weekend following the Caduceus Ball, we made a trip down to Birmingham to look at houses. I think we looked at about twelve houses in one day, which was extremely overwhelming. We actually found one we liked and made an offer, however someone else had already made an offer. Long story short, we ended up not getting the house. In the meantime, our Realtor, Leda, emailed us a few houses to look through. There was one in particular that we fell in love with. We told Lida to keep an eye on it because we weren't able to go down the following weekend, since it was Easter and had planned on being in Nashville. She watched it and even walked through it for us. Easter weekend went by and we hadn't heard anything, which was good news! We planned on going down the following Friday to walk through and maybe look at a few other houses, but I had a feeling that this was the house, even though we had not actually seen it in person. Well, that Tuesday we get a call from Leda saying someone had made an offer on the house, and if we want the house, we need to make an offer....THAT DAY! Now let me remind you, we still had not even walked through this house. We had only seen pictures. After talking through this with a few different people, we made an offer, and they accepted!! We went down that Friday to see our house for the first time and we both just fell in love with it! The home inspection was also that day. It went very well. Everything seems to be falling into place. We close on the house June 1st and will move in June 7th! Here is a picture of our first home!!!!!!
I mentioned above that we went to Nashville for Easter weekend. Saturday, Phi Sigma hosted an Alumni Breakfast at Lipscomb that I was finally able to go to. I believe the last Alumni Breakfast I went to, I was actually still in school. It was so good to see girls that I hadn't seen in a while. After breakfast, some of us girls went to lunch at Five Guys in Green Hills. Later that afternoon, I helped host a baby shower for Jenny and baby Mayzie. Here are just a few pictures from her shower.
Jenny and her hosts


Modeling her MRS mommy and me aprons!
Sarah, her sisters, and mother make these aprons.
You can buy them at Hot Pink in Brentwood!


Love you girls a whole lot!


Dying eggs for Easter


This is the only Easter picture we took this year :(

Life has started slowing down lately. Thank Goodness! The Gillespies are out of town this week, so I have the entire week off! I am using this week to catch up on things. I have started packing. Brandon says it's a little early, but he will be thanking me when we really start packing. I have cooked some pretty awesome dinners--boiled shrimp on Monday and grilled tilapia on Tuesday. I'm thinking grilled burgers tonight! Yesterday, we went to the zoo for free Tuesday. Brandon brought his nice camera and took over 300 pictures while we were there. Here are just a few...


This is my favorite guy. Although right here, he was picking his nose and then eating it. Gross!


This is the new Teton Trek exhibit with three grizzly bear cubs


Looking straight at us through the glass



HIPPO



After this week, I have only two more weeks of work left. I cannot think about it without becoming emotional. Carter has been my little buddy for the last two years and Connor for the last eleven months. They have brought such happiness into my life. I was going to say more, but I can't start crying right now. Anyways, here is a picture of each. I am going to miss them so incredibly much.



I am going to leave you with a picture Brandon took at the zoo that I absolutely love!


Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Caduceus Ball

Last Saturday night, Brandon and I went to the Caduceus Ball at the Cadre Building downtown. It is a way for the school to honor the M4 class with a wonderful dinner, awards, and a lot of dancing (which was extremely entertaining)!

Lokeys & Parnells
Lokeys & Bootons

The theme of the night was the "Roaring 20's"

I love this picture of Brandon's cousin Adrienne

Cousins

??

Brandon, Jason, James, Gavin, Jay

We enjoyed spending time with all our friends. I can't believe this year is finally coming to an end. We are going to miss everyone so much.

Last, but not least, let me just tell you....I have to best husband ever!! I bought this dress the day of the Ball and the clasp on the back was falling off. While I was getting ready, he sewed it back on for me! Isn't this the cutest picture? Well, I think so!