Christmas Cards

So I got it up my behind to be proactive and get my christmas cards done.  i didn't send any out last year and the year before, they were more like Groundhog day cards.  Brilliant me decided I wanted pictures taken with Santa hats on the children but in individual spaces.  Cheap me only bought 1 hat from the Dollar Tree a few weeks ago before they were sold out this weekend.  Off I go and took the pictures and I got some cute pictures!  I'll give you a preview of one right now.

Look at that face, I know I just want to eat that little guy right up!  Smile and everything for the camera.  Usually by the time the flash goes off so does the smile.  I needed to get out of the house anyways so we pack up the car and off we go to 'ghetto' Walmart.  In the car the kids were getting a little crazy and tired.  I was determined to get these cards done yesterday!  Finally at Walmart we get out of the car and I load the 3 little ones in the basket.  I knew it was going to be rough when Giovanni and Gabriella refused to sit in the basket and almost tipped it over.  Ok, holding on a little tighter to the basket we head on over to the photo department and I hope on one of their machines.  I found THE PERFECT card layout.  It was EVERYTHING I wanted in the layout - enough picture spaces for all the kids individually, religious, cute background, great price (or so I thought), YES!  I preceed to do all the editing, added my own text to the card and hit print.  I spoke to the gentleman in the department and he said 20 minutes and they will be done.  Ok GREAT, even better.  I was feeling great about this.  Off we go wandering around the store and that's when everything went down the drain.  The fighting started happening, things were flying off the shelves, crying.  Ok, I was done.  They were done.  It was way past naptime!  We go back and check to see if the cards were ready and the response I got from the gentleman was 'Oh, I didn't know you were printing cards and we aren't offering the background you wanted either so I fit them into a different background and they will be ready in 2 hours.'  Um, HELLO, don't you have a speaker system to announce my name to come back to photo department?  You took the liberty to just go ahead and pick something I mostly likely didn't want and printed them?  All the while the kids were screaming.  I was like, forget it, stop the print, cancel!  I am NOT buying.  I grabbed some milk there and home we went.  So much for the little bit of grocery shopping we were going to do at Meijer (can't stand their photo department so I didn't even want to try there).  On the way home I'm praying for a great quit naptime when we get there.  No, not gonna happen, they fell asleep in the car!  A 15 minute catnap and they are ready to tear the house apart when we got here.  I gave them a whole bunch of junkfood to load up on and popped in a movie and off I scoured online for cards.  I started at CVS because hey, they are my goto with photos and everything.  I found a couple that I kinda liked, but it they either didn't have enough picture spaces or they had way too many.  Prices were a little bit more expensive then Walmart but I could deal with that.  I saved one card and started looking at Hallmark online.  YAY!  I find SOMETHING I LOVE, then I check the price.  I definately didn't love that.  Something told me to check Walgreens and I'm really glad I did!  I found something that while I didn't completely LOVE LOVE, it was adorable and it fitted my needs - good price, enough spots for the kids only, enough space for me to write in, I could have it sent to the store for pickup AND a DISCOUNT!  At the rest I was only going to get 20 cards now and get the remainder later.  Instead I ordered all 40 cards last night and for less then $20!  I can't wait to pick them up later on this morning!  Ok, one more just because I couldn't resist!