once upon a time.

once upon a time ... i was able to get things done.

i may have even been able to send out a christmas letter detailing the events of our not-yet-married life with two cats and one bird. 

oh yes.  i was *that* person.

if you were lucky?
i included a photo.
uh.huh.

and then ... oh ... about ... seven years, one month and 11 days ago ... something changed.
i had a baby.  (hi stella!) and ever since then ... i cannot for the life of me get anything done early. 
on time?  yes.  sometimes.  early?  rarely.

and so that is why, my friends ... we have resorted to sending out valentines day cards.  they pretty much look like i'm trying to be quirky and different and fun!  we are fun!!  no!  really!! we are!!!
but honestly ... i'm pretty much too busy scrambling to purchase gifts and shove the kids in front of santa to be worrying about sending you a christmas card.

my friends over at shutterfly have generously offered to give a few of us the opportunity to get christmas cards.  on time. 
like ... if you are one of the winners ... you'll pretty much be able to go ahead and order your cards ... and send them out and be the first person on the block to send out christmas cards.

or?

you can be like me and just order your valentine's day cards all early like ... and give yourself a few months of sitting around and doing absolutely nothing (ha!) before you actually have to lick the envelopes and slap a stamp on them. 

look!

now ... if you pretty much FORCED me to make a decision for a card to get out by christmas ... and you promised to come over to my house with wine and maybe a spiked punch drink that i had all warm and christmasy like the other day ... and you vowed to write all of my addresses and lick all of my envelopes and place all of my stamps in the upper right hand corner ... i might just pick this as my favorite.

(it's the confetti jacks christmas card.  super adorable.  plus not TOO christmasy.)

then again ... i just spent the last 25 minutes looking at all the super cute and adorable and lovely options over there ... take a look over here ...

and then ... i'm probably going to spend another few hours pouring over all of these cute gift ideas. 

or ... OR!  these calendars.

note to any family members reading this post ... you might just want to put your gift requests in the comments section ... it will be so much easier for me to find prior to december 24th when i would usually scramble to put together something for you.  and honestly ... if you want to just go ahead and order your own present, slap my name on it and send me a bill ... i'll take that option too.
i'm kidding.  seriously.
but it's really not a bad idea.
i'm kidding, though.  i totally love shopping.  especially at christmas time.
ok.  now i'm having heart palpatations.
remember my last christmasy shopping trip?

at this point ... we're all just going to go ahead and assume that shutterfly will never again ask me to be a spokesperson for them because i'm rambling about gifts and shopping and breastfeeding babies.  yes.  those things are all related.

and on a sidenote?  i'm fairly certain that this is going to be my card this year. 

it's the 'love and whimsy' card.

but probably with pictures of my family.  unless they won't sit still. 

THE BEST THING EVER?

shutterfly has given me the chance to give three (3!) of you a set of 25 of *your very own* cards to hand out this holiday season ... so ... go ahead and leave me a comment after you go and visit over at shutterfly to pick our your most favorite card ...

it's gonna be a hard decision ... you might want to put the kids to bed first ...

i'm going to close this contest on ... sunday 11-13-11 at 11:59 pm.  pretty much because i don't work on monday so i can find some random number picker thingy and have it pick three numbers from the probably really high number of comments that i'm going to get ... (ha!) ... because shutterfly mentioned something about my "influential blog" and that kinda makes me giggle.  (do i really influence you?  that seems a bit crazy to me.)

got that?
shutterfly.
cute cards.
christmas?
valentine's day?
win 25!
send them!
best holiday season ever.

whew. 

** obviously ... this post is sponsored by shutterfly.  they were generous enough to give me a few cards to hand out this year.  and super nice enough to give me a few to give to you ... and even though they were kind enough to do all of that ... the opinions of how cute their cards are ... are actually mine.   

** “Are you a blogger? Want a chance at 25 free cards this holiday season? Register here: http://goo.gl/DDw7Q”