The One Where I Tell YOU About AWESOME Christmas Cards and a GIVEAWAY

Make sure you make it to the bottom of this post for an EXCITING GIVEAWAY!!

Every year about this time we are bombarded with everything Christmas, if you are like me you soak up every minute of the holiday season! I love everything about the holidays, the lights, the colors, the warm fuzzy feeling buying gifts for those you love just knowing that it is the perfect item for them!!

Then there are the goodies!  The cookies and egg nog and wonderfully made Christmas dinners that consists of all of your favorites that are reserved for Christmas time even though they could be made throughout the year!  Every year I make these really amazing Cherry Chocolate kiss cookies that I only make during the holiday season! We also always head up to Whistler for a family vacation full of skiing and family fun and now with the twins the holidays have only gotten better!

And don't even get me started on Christmas cards, O how I love Christmas cards! The time where my fridge plays host to all of my family and friends and pictures of their families!  I love displaying Christmas cards throughout my home, I read every card and letter that come in the mail come Christmas time! They make me feel warm and fuzzy inside seeing everyone I love in my home, albeit in photos!

When I discovered that Tiny Prints was going to be offering a Christmas card deal for bloggers I got very excited! I sat down at my computer and started browsing their collections, just imagining every card with my babies faces smiling on them.  Would I chose a single family picture card or a card where I could put 3,4 or even more pictures on it since we all know I love photos of my kids!

Like this one with bright happy colors!



or this more traditional card

this one is really fun to me

or you can showcase your furbaby

Right now I think the top one if the front runner for my top pick! I can put a picture of Landon and Ava and then a family picture as well! But with sooooo many to choose from it's hard to make up my mind!

Now those are only a few of the 100's they have available HERE!

If you are a blogger and you too are interested in taking part of Tiny Prints 50 free Christmas or Holiday cards head right over HERE and sign up to take part in the fun!!

Also if you do sign up leave me a comment letting me know you did, so I can hopefully get a few amazing address labels this year too!

Also if you have kids, Tiny Prints is offering a one day only promotion on November 9th where you can receive a FREE card to your kids from Santa! Visit the Tiny Prints Facebook page to find out how to personalize one of the following greeting cards FREE:Checking It Twice or Santa’s Scroll. Hurry! This offer ends 11/9/11 at 11:59 pm (PT).

Tiny Prints would also like to offer the chance for one of my readers to win 50 Tiny Print Christmas cards of their own! So you too can choose a wonderful card from their site!

To enter this giveaway:
(Leave one comment for each entry)

Required:
- You must be a public follower of my blog and let me know by leaving a comment (1 entry)
- Visit Tiny Prints and tell me what Christmas card you would choose if you won (1 entry)

Extra Chance:
- Tweet about this giveaway "I entered @mama2twinsies @Tinyprints Christmas card giveaway and you can too http://theecholsfour.blogspot.com/2011/11/one-where-i-tell-you-about-awesome.html"(1 entry)

I will draw the winner and announce them on Monday November 14th!!
*In exchange for this post Tiny Prints is offering me 50 free Christmas/holiday cards.  All opinions are my own and I have purchased from Tiny Prints in the past and have been extremely pleased with their quality and style.

The Twins 1st Trip to the Zoo

On Saturday July 3rd we took the twins to the zoo for the 1st time.  We also brought my cousin Hannah and my sister with us, it's always nice to have a couple of extra hands when taking the twins out.  I have been waiting for them to be at an age that it would be fun for them and by was it.  The loved the animals and pointed at everything.  Landon's favorite word right now is "dog" which sounds more like "daw" so every animal from the Lions to the penguins were "daw" to him.  Ava loved the trees and loved trying to reach up and grab leaves from them. 

They were in love with the goats...yeah weird I know, I think they liked them since they were able to be face to face with them unlike some of the larger animals that were off doing their thing.  They also loved the Family Farm area of the zoo where they had a "worm crawl" play area and an old tractor they could play on.  All in all it was a fun day and they did so well all day, they even took a little nap in their stroller.  O the funniest thing was while they were laying down in their stroller Ava would reach her hand through an opening over to her brother and he would grab her hand and laugh, then she would laugh, I wish I would have had my video camera because it was soooooo cute and sooooo funny to watch. 

I can't wait to take more family trips to the zoo.  Here are some pictures from our fun day!

A Graduation, a Roadtrip and a Set of Twins...

On Memorial Day weekend we loaded the babes up and headed to Oregon for my "little" sister's graduation from Linfield college.  She is one smart cookie, she got a degree in Math and Accounting with a minor in Religion.  She already has a new fancy schmancy job all lined up in Portland that she will be starting on July 11th.  We are all super proud of her!

We decided it would be easier on the babies (and us) if we left Saturday and headed down to shop at the outlet mall in Woodburn, then head over to our hotel where we would play in the pool until it was time for bed for the twins.  O how silly are we...

The Twins did so well the whole car ride, through shopping, loved the pool, but falling asleep in a hotel...not gonna happen.  They whined and stood up in their pack and plays until 9:30 when they caved to their sleepiness.  But that only lasted a couple of hours.  Right around 1:30 Ava decided it was playtime, and since I didn't want to be "that" person I just let her play in our bed in hopes that she wouldn't cry.  She poked us, bit us, crawled around until o 4:30 am.  when she gave out, Landon did the same but started at 3:30.  She wiggled and squirmed from 4:30 until 6 when we needed to get up and head to the graduation.  We were E.X.A.H.A.U.S.T.E.D...Like the newborn days with twins exhausted.  It was a total bust.

Graduation went well and the twins spent it in their Auntie's apartment since it was a little too chilly, once graduation was over they came down and socialized.  After all was said and done, we packed it up and headed home, luckily they slept the whole way home...thank goodness.  Needless to say we probably won't reattempt the whole hotel thing for a little while.

Here are my favorite Pictures from the weekend.

Weekend Re-cap

This weekend we headed to the Eastern side of our state to celebrate my cousin's little girl's 3rd Birthday.  Now after our fiasco over Memorial Day weekend with the twins in a hotel room, I was a little hesitant of how they would fare at my Grandma's, but luckily they did great this time around.  We decided to only spend 1 night so we wouldn't be pushing our luck with the twins.  We left Saturday morning after Hub's passed his insurance test! YAY! We played, ate cake, and partied...ok well it was a 3 year old's party, so imagine lots of toys and Tangled playing in the backound type of partying.

The weather was GORGEOUS, the sun in Eastern Washington is so different then over here in the PNW, its dry, so you don't end up all sticky! The twins played in the kiddie pool and we spent time enjoying the sunshine.

My Grandma always spoils us with great homemade food while we visit, hubs loves it. Saturday night we just relaxed and then Sunday morning we headed down to the local fruit stand to grab fresh asparagus and then headed home.  It was a fun quick visit and we can't wait to head back over soon!

That sums up last weekend.  I have our Memorial Day weekend re-cap but there are way more pics for that one, so I will save that for later.

Hope ya'll had a great weekend!!

Off To McMinville...say where...McMinville...It's in Oregon

We are off to see my sister do this

From Here

Be back soon!! I hope you all have a safe and wonderful Memorial Day weekend!! Its raining here...go figure...

March of Dimes

On Saturday we walked for March of Dimes "March for Babies", this cause is close to our hearts since the twins were born early for no apparent reason other then they simply ran out of room and my body could no longer support them. 

We were so lucky and the rain here in the PNW held off until the walk was finished.  It was perfect, it was cool so we didn't get too hot either! Thankfully the weather gods were looking out for us.  Our walk was 6 miles and well guys I don't work out, as in I mean I DO NOT WORK OUT, the last time I walked 6 miles was probably sometime in High School and well that was 6 years ago, and since then I went through IVF, twin pregnancy, givng birth, well you get the picture...OUT of SHAPE!

I am proud to say I made it, surprisingly wasn't really even that sore the next day! Only my shins! My hubby and mom and dad came out to support the cause as well. 

I raised $350!! I have awesome friends and family! AWESOME! All I did was send out a cause letter and published on facebook and BOOM !!!$350!!! was raised like that {snaps fingers}!

I had a lot of fun and it made me proud to walk with my healthy happy twins! Thank the lord that they are healthy and happy and are developing at their actual age rather then their adjusted age.  They rode in the stroller the entire time and did so wonderfully! We did have to bribe them in the end with some animal crackers and puffs but they did it!

Here is a couple of pics from our walk! I can't wait to do it again next year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and Mother's Day! My hubby didn't dissapoint and I got a new lens for my camera, just in time for the Twins Birthday this Friday!!

I will be back soon with a series of flashbacks and updates and soon a PARTY!!

I'm ready for some sunshine...Weather Gods....

Here in Washington Spring seems to be a no show right now, we had a teaser about a week ago where it was clear blue skies but only wait for it......54 degrees.  Now if you know anything about Washingtonians you know that when that thermometer hits anything over 50 some break out the birkenstocks and shorts....I personally think those people are crazy, I mean sure its sunny....but it is still FREEZING! I am patiently waiting for some spring weather around these parts....hear me Weather Gods...patiently waiting...


Last summer was kind of a bust, the twins were born at 32 weeks in May so we kept them away from larger groups of people most of the summer, other then a family reunion for a day in July.  We stayed holed up in our house to make sure that they stayed healthy.  Well I'm ready to get outside with them, go to the zoo, the beach, Seattle....pretty much anything you can think of to do outside...I'm ready...bring it on!


These are my summer ideas as of now:

Take these two little cuties to:

Woodland Park Zoo

Check out the animals at Point Defiance Zoo

Maybe take a stroll around Pike Place

On a day like this!

And probably go here as well!

I am sure I will come up with many more ideas on what to do this summer.  But right now with all this rain it sure doesn't seem like its anywhere close to coming.   What are your plans for the summer...or your favorite activity to do with your little ones???

Bullet Points

So I have seen some blogs do a bullet point format for a quick update...here we go.

- The twins are almost 8 months old (HOLY COW 8 MONTHS OLD) time to start party planning
-We accomplished traveling in the car for 7 hours for our annual vacation to Whistler for Christmas
-Traveling with twins is....HARD
- Landon is about 21 lbs and Ava about 16.5
-They are crazy cute and funny all day long...They are such HAPPY babies
- I have been making my own baby food (post being planned on it)
- Christmas was amazing with babies in our lives!
-Christmas also brought the need to organize my family room (que JcPenney storage solutions)
-I may have possibly gone overboard on Christmas present...oops
-The twins can roll everywhere they want and I have a feeling crawling is not too far off

Ok well I feel bad for not posting like ever so I think maybe one of my new year resolutions will be to be better about that!

I hope everyone's Christmas/New Year and Holiday season was AWESOME!!!