2 photo books ordered... woo hoo!

Sitting for Sesame St Show

Happy 6 months Jillie! Wow time flies! In honor of this major milestone I took the girls to Busch Gardens for the day (ok, so it wasn't REALLY for her 6 month, it just happened to coincide with when our friends could go... but still...). A fun time was had by all; we saw Elmo, Abby Cadabby, and the Sesame Street gang, checked out orangutangs and tigers, went on the merry-go-round, played in the sand (yes... we drove 25min just to play in a LARGE sandbox), went on the swings, and played in the spray park.  This afternoon it was so nice to come home and sit down and relax... until the little ones awoke from their naps. Oh well.
We try to go to Busch Gardens every few weeks or so; last April I got the annual pass for myself and paid $100, which isn't cheap. BUT it includes parking, at $10 a pop, and I've been probably 10 times in the past year. Also, I spent $7 on a souvenier cup which I bring back every time and I can get free ice water or $1 refills, so that's awesome. Plus, I pack Charlotte a lunch... so it's a pretty cheap outting.

I'm happy to announce that Project #2 on my monthly goals list is halfway complete. I finished off one more book and ordered 2 (the new one plus one that I finished a little while ago and was saving for a sale) yesterday before their sale ended. It was a pretty sweet deal... $10 off any 8.5x11 photobook plus free shipping (which is another $7.99), so that ended up being $29.99 instead of $47.98 (it would be cheaper in canvas... but I like leather). Seriously, I kind of hate that photo books are such a big thing now. I had (leather) photo books made 5 years ago for our parents and us with wedding pictures that friends and family took and I KNOW I didn't pay $50 per book. That's just insane, I think maybe I paid $20 -- and that was through mypublisher, which is NOW $29.80(linen) - $49.75 (leather)... and that's only the "classic hardcover".  Walmart is at least reasonable with $22.96 for a leather book... but the website isn't super user-friendly, so I think I'll stick with Picaboo and wait for the sales.

But enough of my ramblings... here are a few sample pages of the books I just ordered:

I love the different layouts they have, the straight and ordered layout (left) versus the "thrown on page" look (right).

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Plus, I LOVE how the page can reformat everytime you add a new picture and you don't have to manually adjust all the pictures (although you can)

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Also, I REALLY like this layout with the one picture going to the edges of the page top and bottom. I think it looks neat. ... obviously, since I used it on 2 pages facing each other... woops.

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On a side note, I finished printing and punching out all the favor tags for my girlfriends bridal shower (in total I ended up doing 100). They will be in the mail tomorrow, I can cross that off my to-do list. Woo hoo!