Hippity Hoppity... Easter's on it's way!

The birdies are foraging the hill in our backyard and you know what that means.... spring is not that far away!! Forget that groundhog- the birds really know what's up! We went for a long drive over the weekend and though there were still snow patches here and there we saw the first grass buds popping up in the wheat fields! Oh how I'm longing for spring... speaking of spring, there's a new batch of springtime Easter Photo Cards up on My Good Greetings! They're so cute- you must take a peak!

Hello Canada and UK!!

Good News-- I'm so excited to announce that MyGoodGreetings has gone international! Last night we opened up the website to include orders from Canada and the UK. We had a lot of requests from these areas during the holidays so I'm so thrilled to be able to ship to these areas. We will still use the USPS for our international shipping, which takes 6-10 days. Exciting!!!

Ooo Baby Baby! -- Or not!

We have a few new baby birth announcements up at MyGoodGreetings. I love the earthy feeling to these and the fact that they are gender neutral- perfect for mommies who aren't crazy about the traditional pink or blue. You can check them out here- Earth Baby Announcements. Also, did you realize that all of the text on our cards are fully customizable online. So these don't even have to be Baby Announcements necessarily-- How about loading up photos of the new graduate!! Or using one of these gorgeous cards for a 50th Birthday Invitation?! Now that's an Aha moment!!

Feeling good about being a (reusable) Bag Lady!

I'm a little proud of myself today and had to share-- We took the family to Wal-Mart today. When it's 30 degrees again outside, Wal-Mart becomes a family outing- LOL! We had various things in our cart from a new wine opener to hot dogs. We got to the checkout line and I realized I forgot my reusable bags AGAIN! I own the reusable bags- have for a long, long time, but I cannot seem to remember to use them!! Arg!! It think it's because my multi-tasking brain is rarely in the moment. I'm usually thinking four steps ahead while driving to the store, getting the kids out of the car, walking to the store etc. My brain could be anywhere from what are we having for dinner to making a mental note that I need to call the mechanic to get the headlight fixed. My brain is never on the task at hand- ergo my reusable bags always get left behind in the car.

So since we were all together- including hubby- I ran back to the car as fast as I could and got the reusable bag. I say bag because there was only one in the car- the rest were back in the house waiting for the day I would remember to get them into the car. I rushed back with it and asked the checkout lady to stuff it full with as much as she could. So she did, but then she would try to grab a plastic bag and I'd have to tell her to keep stuffing it in. We got it all in exept the large mound of paper towels- which came in there own lovely plastic protector. We went to leave and she handed me one plastic bag- which contained hubby's 6 pack of beer (a must for today's big game). I asked her to remove it from the plastic bag and she couldn't. Did you know that alcohol has to leave the store in a bag? I had no idea. So- not to be dismayed- the second we were out the door I took the beer out of the bag and ran the plastic bag back to the Wal-Mart plastic bag turnabout.

After all that, I'm proud to say that no plastic bags made it home to our house today!! Yahoo!!!

The Sweetest Cards are the Greenest Cards!!

Whew! We made it through our first holiday season at MyGoodGreetings.com! What a rush it was!! It was busy, exciting and so FUN!! I loved seeing everyone's holiday cards. I feel like I "met" so many wonderful families. Our customers are truly wonderful! It's so great to know that so many families out there are choosing to make small green choices where they can.

And now on to one of my favorite holidays-- Valentine's Day! I know that probably most men out there would probably be fine if Valentine's Day somehow just fell off the calendar. But I LOVE it - pardon the pun- I love the flood of pink in the stores. And hey- any excuse for more chocolate is fine by me.

Some of our new Valentine's Cards are shown above. You can check out the rest of the Valentine Collection here.

Happy New Year's Cards!

Feeling a little pressure to get those holiday cards ordered on time in the middle of the holiday craziness? No worries- take a breath, relax and send them a Happy New Year Card instead! Send your heartfelt wishes for a wonderful New Year with a custom photo card from MyGoodGreetings.com while being eco-conscious at the same time. EVERY card, envelope and address label from MyGoodGreetings is printed on 100% recycled, FSC Certified papers. Be sure to check out the newest card designs for the New Year!

New Card Designs!

I've recently added some new Holiday Card designs to mygoodgreetings.com. And now I've officially made it even harder to pick out my own personal holiday card.

And don't forget- you can SAVE 15% on your early holiday card order until Nov. 15th- yikes that's tomorrow! Just enter code: SAVEGREEN at checkout!

New Earth Baby Designs at My Good Greetings

I'm so pleased to announce a new line of birth announcements featured at MyGoodGreetings.com- Earth Baby Announcements. They are a little softer, a little more organic in design, featuring soft greens, and browns with soft pinks and blues. So many parents are looking to make small changes to make the earth a better place for their new little ones. Like all of the cards on MyGoodGreetings.com, the Earth Baby Announcement line is printed on 100% Recycled heavy weight matte FSC Certified paper along with the envelopes. Check them out here.

My Loss is Your Gain!

A couple of months ago I was contracted to design some scrapbooking papers by a woman who claimed to be starting up a new paper scrapbooking line. She sounded legitimate and sent a contract. She said she needed the papers as soon as possible, so I obliged and put aside other work to create the papers quickly. She said she loved them and they were being printed. And then I waited... and waited... and waited for payment. And then I waited some more. After many ignored emails asking for payment, she finally confessed that her "investor" pulled out and she could not pay for the papers. They had been printed though- or so she says. She asked if she could do some sort of payment plan- and I agreed. And guess what-- still NO payment- nada, ziltch, nothing.

So.... since I cannot retract the electronic files that were sent to her, I've decided to give away some of the papers here- to YOU! I hope you enjoy them! and if you ever see these printed anywhere in a scrapbooking store near you, please do not purchase them and feel free to mention to the store owner that you know for a fact that those papers have been printed illegally as the designer had never been paid for the designs.

Here's a link to the papers:
Country Chic Background Papers

This woman did the same thing to my friend and fellow designer Lauren Bavin. She's giving away some of her papers too- you can get hers here on her blog.

Great Mommy Moment

I had one of those mommy moments today- you know the ones that make you cringe with embarrassment at the time, but then later just make you laugh- hard. Today was Jesse's first day of preschool. It was a slow start day, so only 2 hours today. We've chosen a new preschool for Jesse (different from the one Jack went to). He's going to preschool at the First Presbyterian downtown. I'm really excited about this choice. Along with the regular preschool curriculum, he'll be learning a bible scripture each month and a themed life lesson. This month is Kindness. Other months will be Joy, Friendship, Patience etc. All things Jesse needs a little extra help with. So I pick him up after school- he's happy and had a great 2 hours- and we walk down the steps of the large gothic style church and he chooses this moment to scream- at the top of his lungs- his first expletive, "Damn It."

To the best of my knowledge he's never said a "bad" word before, let alone SCREAMED one at the top of his lungs at the front of a church. I could not believe it! I whipped around and said the natural mommy thing, "What did you say?" and he repeated it. I quickly did a look around to see who could have heard him. Luckily no one was around. So he was repremanded and we went to the car.

Of all the places to have his first curse word come out of his mouth!

MyGoodGreetings.com is Up!!

It's official!! My dh and I have launched our Custom Photo Greeting Card website- MyGoodGreetings.com. We've been working on it for months and it's finally completed! Be sure to check it out and let me know what you think! We'd love the feedback. We're really excited about the "green" aspect- All of our cards, envelopes and address labels will be printed on 100% recycled papers. The paper quality is fantastic!

Be sure to tell your friends!!

Two Days to Go!!!

Looks like I'll be able to make my super exciting announcement in just 2 days!!!! Check back soon!!!

More lake fun!

Yesterday we spent the day on Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho with Tom's sister Molly and his brother-in-law Dan. They have a ski boat and it was such a blast to be on it for the day. The boys got to see their Dad wakeboard which they thought was so cool. And they did so great swimming in the lake. Another highlight was seeing the white Rocky Mountain goats traversing the cliffs. I was the first to spot them way up high on the cliffs- they looked like two little white spots walking. But I saw them! Turns out it was a mommy goat and her baby. Those cliffs go straight up so high. It's amazing that they can walk so easily on them. Apparently it's pretty rare to see them as they like to stay hidden. Tom said he felt like he was seeing a Yeti or something! It was pretty exciting!

I didn't take this pic- it's from google. But this is the kind of goats we saw.

Super Bonus Bingo PRIZE!!

Come play Super Bonus Bingo in the DSP chatroom this Friday, Aug. 15th at 10PM EST and if you get a B-I-N-G-O, you'll win my newest kit- First of September!!

Can't make it to Bingo, no worries, this kit will be in the DSP store soon!

Get this kit for FREE!

Join in my Bittersweet Challenge and you'll get my new kit- Summer Delight for FREE! If you miss the challenge (deadline is Aug. 15), no worries, it will be in the DSP store soon!

The Perfect Storm

Friday night we had a lightning storm like none I've ever seen before. You literally couldn't count 3 seconds between lightning bolt that lit up the entire sky and it went on for well over an hour- bam, bam, bam... it was AMAZING! I've never seen anything like it before. You just don't get that kind of amazing weather in California (where I'm from and moved from about 1.5 years ago). Here's the best pic I could get with my little camera. We sat on our front porch, which has a view of the whole sky over Spokane and watched nature's fireworks.

Gone Fishin'

Last week we went to Loon Lake for 2 nights. Loon Lake is about 30 minutes from our house, which makes it a very easy drive. We rented a very small apartment/cabin on the beach and the boys were in hog-heaven. They swam and "fished" (no hooks on their polls, just little plastic fish) all day long from 7am to 7pm or later. We had to drag them in when it got dark. Oh how I would love to have a lake house of our own! We also brought our new inflatable kayak, which was perfect for us. Tom and I took turns taking the boys out in it. And every time they had to bring their fishing polls to practice their casting. I was bound and determined to show them I could catch a real fish, so I fished off the dock until I caught one! See the pic... It's a whopper I know!

Up Up and Away... NOT!

Have you ever gotten one of those "free companion Air Certificate" promotions. What a scam this is. This is the second one I've gotten and it is so annoying! They say that you have to buy one full price airfare to receive the free companion fare. But you have to buy your airfare from this special online portal where the airfares are jacked up to the maximum price. And on top of that they don't even offer the promotion out of Spokane International Airport. So I would have to fly myself and my companion to Seattle first before even taking advantage of the "free" offer. I priced it out - imagining that I would fly to CA first to see family on my own dime and then fly to So. Cal from there using their promotion ticket. Based on their super expensive flights, I would save a whopping $30. That's not equal to any standard airfare price in my opinion. And definitely not worth hassling all those security checkpoints. This promotion came from Wells Fargo too. You would think they wouldn't align them selves with such a deceiving promotion. Arg.

Gearing up for some fun!

Today is Sunday and Tom took the boys out for a while, they are going on a little hike to see some authentic Indian painted rocks. Last time we tried to do this hike, we were attacked by viscous moquitos. It was awful. So I made sure to put the mosquito repellent in Tom's backpack. Of course, he said that he didn't think they needed it. I said, "WHAT?!" Don't you remember the last time and he said, "yeah, but I don't think we need it now." Maybe mosquito spray is for whimps- dunno. But I threw it in the bag anyway.

Tomorrow we are headed to Loon Lake, WA. We've rented a little- very rustic (cute charming word for borderline dump) cabin on the lake. I can't wait. Tom bought me my own fishing pole and tackle box so I can teach the boys how to fish. Notice that I'm teaching the boys how to fish- not Tom. What's wrong with this picture?! LOL! Actually, I love to fish, it's the gutting of the fish I hate. But Tom says he's ok with that part. I'm sure we won't catch anything anyway. Oh and the mosquito spray will be the first thing I'm packing!

Feedburner Fun!

I'm getting a little more advanced here... all this blog stuff is so much fun! I just set up a way for you all to subscribe via email. Now my latest posts and kit previews can go directly to your email address! how cool is that?! Just enter your email address in the box in the upper left side- where it says "subscribe via email" and that's it! all my new posts here will arrive in your email box. And when I make my special announcement, you'll get news of that too! I love technology, don't you?!