Today is one of my BFF’s birthdays so what better way than to make a post to celebrate! You’ve seen a pic of Chels and I before on here in a Wordless Wednesday post but hey, I know you’ll laugh!

Chelsea, we’ve had our laughs and we’ve definitely had our tears!

For the past month, I’ve dealt with “I need some pictures of the girls!” Well crud, um I have a digital camera and send them out in emails but there’s the people that don’t “do internet”.

I finally gave in and decided I’d try out uploading some pictures. I went with the Walmart Digital Photo Center. I uploaded all the pictures from Christmas I took with my brand new Olympus that Steven bought me.

I paid .09 cents a picture and ordered 32 prints. THEY CAME TODAY! So one, that was way fast. And the quality I am very impressed with. The images I captured are pure and very crisp and Walmart maintained that.

To all the individuals that have demanded pictures, they will be coming! I don’t know why I’m writing it here haha, you wont see it lol!

What do you do with your digital photos?

The Christmas tree is taken apart, the decorations are put away. Thank Goodness! I think today I’m gonna work on cleaning up the living room and moving my desk and everything. I just feel like organizing you know?

Here are some happenings for your Sunday Stroll to relax while I clean!!

MomFuse is having a Piggy Paint giveaway! This is great non-toxic nail polish for little ones and I would love to win some for Kelsie. You can check out the chance to win here

Stephanie at BizzieMommy has a great post “not a new year resolution, a life resolution” which is a great idea of dividing up your goals into five different areas. This is great for those of you trying to decide what things you’d like to accomplish. Check it out!

Go on over to Photo Bug Baby and check out the giveaways she has going on right now! I am definitely entering the Cushy Closer giveaway as Kelsie is at the age she is going crazy shutting doors! She almost locked the bedroom door but luckily Steven was right there!

I know for the New Year, I NEED to get organized! Organizing Your Way just launched and Mandi is going to have lots of great info for all of us!

There are LOTS of great Mom businesses out there and I’m sure if you’ve been on Twitter or around the blogs, you have seen CPSIA. This is an act being passed that will close soo many Mom’s businesses down. I think it is important to Save Handmade. There are lots and lots of great articles out there right now but one I found that stood out you can check out and read here.

I know there are many many more excellent Mom businesses out there but here are some great sites that come to mind worth checking out for your little ones

Bambina Ballerina
Happy Panda
Princess Time Toys
One Stop Boy Shop
Skimbaco
SillyMonkees
My Baby Bump Maternity
Just Add Charm
LittleMissMatched
KidFavors

Do you have another great Mom Business? Or maybe you have one you love shopping at!

Ever since I bought the Toshiba, I’ve been kind of lazy and just stuck with Internet Explorer. I knew Firefox is always quicker and so forth. Talking to Trisha at MomDot, she got me going on downloading Firefox again. Thank GOD I did!

I can definitely tell Firefox is loading faster and have you seen all the Add-Ons? There are some really cool ones and I’ve already added Alexa as well as StumbleUpon. I’ve heard about both programs and played with them a bit before but these are GREAT! I love the Traffic Details I can check out with Alexa and everything.

So, I have to tell you you MUST check out Firefox is you do not have it!

I am hoping everyone is having an incredible holiday, no matter what you might celebrate. We had a great Christmas Celebration yesterday with my Mom, little brothers, and Grandparents.

My Mom and I had a hilarious time cooking and enjoyed every minute of it. The wind was nasty yesterday though!

If you follow me at all on Twitter, I’m sure you saw yesterday I was not too happy to discover my camera had been returned to me broken. Yes, it turns on and acts like it’s going to take a picture but hey, it doesn’t. What a GREAT thing to discover when you are celebrating Christmas.

Steven took advantage of my camera situation and got me a NEW camera for Christmas.

We took LOTS of pictures but the one below is the greatest. I snapped this picture but did not realize what I had caught. It is absolutely precious and an incredible memory.

Baby Aubrey And Great-Grandpa

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS!

I’m sure most will agree, it can be hard to admit when you need some help or that things are not going the way you would like them to turn out.

This year has had its tough moments but it has also had the incredible moments as well.

With Steven’s surgery, it made our financial area very tight (it still is) and we both were afraid of how we were going to provide for our children a great Christmas.

I can not put into words right now how thankful I am for the Ames Police Department for adopting our girls for Christmas. Today we received an unbelievable amount of presents for them that have actually left Mommy here crying. These are good tears. The generosity that we received is incredible and I can not say how thankful I am.

I just had to write out my extreme thankfulness for the Ames Police Department for helping us make our girls Christmas a good one.

So we are doing Christmas at my Moms tomorrow. My grandparents will be there and everything.

As most you know following my blog, my Grandpa is diabetic. Well, Grandma is on him like a hound if he eats ANYTHING sugar in it. Me, of course, being Grandpa’s girl, doesnt want him to be left out. So I bought a No Sugar Added Cherry Pie for him (yummy!) as well as his OWN box of Sugar Free Chocolates.

I just got done making Chocolate Silk Pie.
I still have to make cornbread, corn casserole, possibly some deviled eggs, and some lemon bars.

My Mom has a turkey, pumpkin pie, stuffing, rolls, heck-the woman even got Plums (who knows what will happen to them!)

So what final strings are you doing as the countdown to Christmas comes to an end? I’m ready to fall over.

Are you ready for Christmas?? Our shopping is pretty much done except for the small little things you might pick up as you go.

So are you ready for the Sunday Stroll??

The girls of The Classy Closet Show are having the “Road to 1000″ as they try to gear up for their January 9th broadcast! There will be lots of giveaways and surprises in store!

Susan at Life in A House of Blue has ALOT of stuff going on at her blog right now! A giveaway I’m for sure checking out is the Hip Hop Baby Giveaway! Kelsie would love it soo much. She is my dancing queen If you are a music lover like me, you will love ChicBuds! You can win your own pair over at Life in A House of Blue right HERE! There are alot more giveaways over there as well so go check it out!

Now if you are a blogger that wants to get what you are saying out to individuals, Matt “The MomDot Man” wrote an excellent post. Yes it was back in November, but I’m doing alot of things to my blog and had to go back and check some of this out “Easy SEO Tips to Optimize Your Blog” There is alot of great information for bloggers, experienced or not.

Pamela at PMKU has another great contest going on right now to win a $50.00 Gift Certificate to Ooh LaLa Mama. It ends TONIGHT (Sunday) so get over there and enter right NOW!

I’m just testing out Mr. Linky right now so I can have some fun in upcoming posts for you!

If you’d like to leave your link, feel free to! And of course, go check out some of the fun sites!

So I got another conversation going on Twitter that I have to say, I’m very proud of. Too often do you see people go to a blog and not leave a comment. Think about how many followers you have on Twitter. How awesome would it be if ALL of those followers came to check out your blog? Even if not ALL but you knew more people were going to check out your post and actually leave a COMMENT?

I threw out a hashtag. I’m sure you’ve all seen them. #CommentLuv. Simply post your fave post you have written for others to see and check out. Don’t be afraid to #CommentLuv another blogger’s post-It’s all about having fun and showing other people some “luv”!

Want to follow some of the posts right now? Check out the Twitter Search for #CommentLuv

I know I know, I disappeared the past few days!!

I have officially finished my first semester at Iowa State University with all Bs!!!!WooHoo! It was tough and I had to completely focus but thank goodness I’m done! I’m sure though next semester will be another crazy one.

I promise I’ll be back! I’ve been working on some new items and products for you all to check out for the New Year!

I have a baby that needs my attention but I’m back!

I’m doing it next year. It’s going to be my New Year’s Resolution or “Goal” for the New Year.

I’m going to open an online boutique/store. I have so much to learn and decide upon but I’m starting already. I need to learn about wholesale, dropshipping, Tax IDs, making a site, EVERYTHING.

I found a pretty cool wholesale site that I’m liking. Now I need to make out more steps and get this ball rolling!

If you have any experience, I’m ALL EARS!!!!

I’m doing it next year. It’s going to be my New Year’s Resolution or “Goal” for the New Year.

I’m going to open an online boutique/store. I have so much to learn and decide upon but I’m starting already. I need to learn about wholesale, dropshipping, Tax IDs, making a site, EVERYTHING.

I found a pretty cool wholesale site that I’m liking. Now I need to make out more steps and get this ball rolling!

If you have any experience, I’m ALL EARS!!!!

Hey everyone-So the Sunday Stroll is belated! But if you’ve had anything like the Monday I’ve had, you can use this post to relax a bit after a long day.

Today the temp with wind chill is making it feel well below zero degrees. I had a dr appt this morning and THE CAR WOULDN’T START. It was that flipping cold. We had to jump start the car for a half hour from my neighbor’s car before we got it going. What a GREAT start haha.

We have QWEST Broadband Service. Our landlord says internet is included with rent. That’s a joke. So we added Broadband to our service a few months ago. Well I get home and Steven tells me the net is not working. GREAT. Not like it’s finals week and I need my internet or anything. So right now I’m on the landlord’s “internet” All QWEST can tell me is there’s an outage in the area (after he asked me if I was in Seattle, Minnepolis, and Minnesota-did you not look at your screen when I gave you my contact info??) So if this post takes me 50 times to write and publish thats why.

Head over to Gina’s at A Wrestling Addicted Mommy and check out her Daily Freebies post! She also has some great giveaways going on right now that are worth checking out!

Cheryl is someone I’ve had fun watching on Twitter. Go check her out at The Daily Blonde. She has a really great post “Get Your Sexy Back” that’s perfect for all us Mamas and also pays tribute to Bettie Page, who just passed away. I’m sure if you know me, you know I’m a fan of Bettie.

Chalsey is a friend I’ve known online since I was pregnant with Kelsie. We also just had September babies together! We actually found out we were pregnant the same day this time around!! She’s got two lil cutie pies you’ll love! Go check out her blog at Champagne SuperNeva

Susan is one of the lovely ladies I’ve met over at MomDot who has fun enjoying my insanity and antics (Hey I like making you guys laugh when I can!) Over at her blog, Life In A House of Blue! Watch her “My 3 Elves!”