Tarheels

We celebrated Chad's belated birthday last night at the Carolina v. State basketball game.  Who's the wife mostly likely to deliver on her husband's gift 3 weeks after his birthday best wife ever? 

It was his first time at the RBC Center.  My sister and her boyfriend also went.  Can you spot them? 

She has better connections than I do and her tickets were in the lower level.  I call this picture, "Where's Waldo?"

We were pulling for the Tarheels and were pumped that they got the win!  (And Chad was too I think even though he would probably never admit it.)

Here are a few pictures I snapped from the game.  I didn't have my new baby with me but I did have my trusty Samsung (which I finally found about a month ago!)

And Zeller making a free throw.

All in all a fun night! {But next year we are going to the Dean Dome.}

Disney Pictures

I am finally getting around to posting a few pictures from our Disney trip.  Better late than never, right?  While we are on that subject...it is tax season.  My free time is at an all time low.  So I probably won't be able to post as frequently until after April 15th.

This was one of the last pictures we had made when we were on our way out of the park on the way home.  It is one of my favorites.

All these are actually from our Disney PhotoPass.  If you are not familiar with the PhotoPass, here is the 411.  Disney mails you a little card that you register ahead of time. If you don't, the photographers there have extras they can give you.

Whenever you see a Disney Photographer, you get your picture made and then hand them the card.  They scan it with a little scanner and all of the photos are uploaded to a website where you can order them individually or a cd with all of the photos from your trip.  It is kind of expensive especially if you only order one.  I think ordering a single picture download is between $15 or $20 per picture. The cd of all the pictures from your trip is $149 and includes a limited license to reproduce them (i.e. you can print them at Walgreens or wherever you want).  They run promotions frequently. Before our trip, I received an email from Disney offering $50 off if I ordered my photopass before we left for our trip.  I was on that like white on rice. 

Their website lets you edit the photos and add little borders.
















{with Tinkerbell}

I tried to make sure I added the year to a lot of them.  I hope we get to visit frequently enough so that it will help me keep track of which trip the picture was made. 

{with Rapunzel - Miss Averycakes' favorite}

You can also email a link to the pictures while they are active.  They expire after a month.  This was a neat way to connect with our families while we were gone.   They could at least see what we were up to even if they couldn't be there with us.

{at Chef Mickey's}

{at the entrace to Epcot- another one of my favorites}
{at the entrace to Hollywood Studios}

Here are a few hints to getting the most out of your photopass.

• Take a picture of your photopass.  That way if you lose it, you can still get the pictures on the website.  If you do happen to lose your photopass, just ask a Disney Photographer for another one.
• Shop around.  Look for Disney discounts (like the $50 off one I used for pre-ordering.)  You can also find coupon codes from time to time as well.
• Even if the cd is out of your budget, you can still get the same pictures.  After the Disney Photographer takes your picture, simply ask if they will take one with your camera.  They are happy to do so!
• Email the link to your pictures to family members so that they can see what you're up to!  This is completely free and the pictures are available online for a month!
• Be consistent.  Each morning as soon as we walked into the park, we had a family picture made in front of the landmark for that park (see the pictures from the entraces to Hollywood and Epcot above).  When I scrapbook the trip, I'll have an anchor picture for the first page of each day of the trip.
• The autograph books for the characters are horizontal.  If you're taking your own pictures or editing the ones for your photopass, make sure you get at least one horizontal picture of each character to go in the photoslot in the autograph book.  That way you won't have to keep turning the book to the side when you look at it.  I am a little OCD when it comes to pictures.  (If you could see the inside of my car you would know that would be about the only thing I am OCD about.  I digress.)
• There is a little portrait studio inside the Castle Couture Shop (behind the castle) in the Magic Kingdom.  After our trip to the Bibbidi Bobbiti Boutique we headed over there and had portraits made of the girls in their princess costumes.  Since we already had the photopass all of these pictures were uploaded onto our cd!  So it was like a free portrait session since I would have bought the cd anyway.  Also, I read online that you can get Disney Photographers to do a photo session with your family at the Grand Floridian Resort and those pictures are also uploaded onto your photopass.  I didn't actually try this but it might be worth investigating on our next trip.  The hubs isn't really keen on getting his picture made so I have to sneak it in from time to time.
• If you go to any of the character dinings, the pictures that they take there do not go on the photopass automatically since they give you the actual prints during the meal.  But if you take the picture out of the holder and look in the top left corner, there is a code for that picture.  Key that code in as a photopass number on the website and it will be loaded onto the website (and cd) as well.  Then, if you happen to lose the prints or they are accidently thrown away or vomited on (true story) etc. you can still get copies printed when you get home.
• Our CD included "bonus" material.  These are stock pictures of different characters set throughout the parks.  I assume they include it on all the CDs.

These were made in the Castle Couture Portrait Studio.  The photographer in there was awesome and she got Miss A to smile so big!


We ended up with over 300 pictures on our cd!  Do you have any other Disney PhotoPass tips?  Feel free to add them in the comments below!

{I'm linking up to Serenity Now, It's Overflowing, I heart Naptime, Serendipity and Spice and Tatertots & Jello!}

Most Beautiful Diaper Cake EVER

We had a little shower at work for a co-worker with a little bundle of joy on the way!  We knew we wanted to make a diaper cake to use as a centerpiece.  So, naturally, I went to first place a girl thinks of...Pinterest!

I found this beauty...

Source: reallyquitelucky.blogspot.com via Amanda on Pinterest

I checked out her tutorial here.

So, I totally cannot take credit for the idea. I mean, it is genius. The receiving blankets covering the diapers look like a fondant cake.  Also, I had two of the sweetest co-workers ever helping me. So it was a group effort. But it turned out too cute not to share!

Here's what you need. (We got everything from Wal-Mart and my co-worker did an awesome job buying everything to color coordinate.)

4 pack of receiving blankets
4 pack of spoons
3 pack of teething rings
2 pack of wrist rattles
6 pack of baby socks
1 little plush stuffed animal
1 large box of newborn diapers
pins (we used pretty ones with pink heads)
polka dot ribbon (2 colors)
1 safety pin

The receiving blankets came folded the long way so I just left them that way and pinned them together to make a big circle.  To make the bottom layer as wide as I wanted it I pinned two receiving blankets together end to end.

Then you fill the circle in with diapers laying on their side.  Here is a picture of the bottom of one of the layers so you can see how the diapers are just swirled around in there.


After you have filled the diaper inside the receiving blanket, fold and pin the excess blanket over the top of the diapers.  This picture also shows how we used the ribbon to hang the teething rings from the side of the diaper cake.

One of the blankets had a butterfly embroidered on it so we made sure it was in the center just for the cuteness factor.  We also pinned individual socks to the sides of the diaper cake.  The spoons are attached using a safety pin.  Genius - but I can't take credit.  It was in the tutorial linked above.
We embellished each layer of the "cake" with polka dot ribbon that was I just pinned on there at the back.

They didn't have wash clothes that matched our color scheme (like in the tutorial) so we put a little stuffed animal on the top to hide the diapers on the top.



You may want to consider using size 1 or 2 diapers so that the parents can display the diaper cake longer without the baby outgrowing the diapers.  Just a thought!

I am so smitten with the way it turned out!

p.s. I'm linking up to It's Overflowing, Tatertots & Jello, Sugar Bee Crafts, I Heart Naptime, Serenity Now, Family Ever After, No Minimalist Here, Serendipity and Spice & Home Stories A to Z!