The Twelve Days of Shutterfly

If you're like us, you're starting to think about getting those Christmas cards out. If you're smart like us, you'll want to use Shutterfly for all your Christmas card printing needs. Allow us to share our appreciation for Shutterfly through a song.

The Twelve Days of Shutterfly

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Shutterfly gave to me…

A blonde boy playing Tarzan


A bow-tied, bearded man


A snow-faced, little redhead


The bottom half of mommy


A multiethnic family


Free Babies from the Sky


Sally strangling Daddy


IN-APPRO-PRIATE SHIRT


The other half of mommy


Free-range kids


Unabomber’s daughter


AND a bunny in a baby mask!


I love Christmas songs almost as much as I love Shutterfly. And I love Shutterfly almost as much as I love getting free Christmas cards from Shutterfly… just for blogging about their Christmas cards! Actually, we did use Shutterfly last year to print the most amazing Christmas card you’ve ever stuck on your fridge. Remember it?


Shutterfly offers a lot of great products including Calendars, Canvas Wall Art, and Personalized Thank You Cards. Most importantly, they are offering free Christmas Cards to anyone willing to hawk Shutterfly products on their blog. Victoria and I are above that sort of thing, but if you know anyone who might be interested, tell them to check out the details at: http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/

"Customizable" and "quick" are two words I’d used to describe Shutterfly’s printing services. "Sell" and "out" are the two I'd use to describe us.

She's 2- it's true!

Our little lady turned two years old last week. We celebrated by taking her to the Marbles Children Museum in Raleigh. She also had a Minnie Mouse party with some friends.

At 2, she LOVES to sing (itsy bitsy spider is her favorite), knows her ABC's, counts to 13, recognizes a few colors, and loves to snuggle. She has a very silly personality, and she can be a little bossy (kinda like her Mommy, I guess). :)

More pictures are in the photo galleries.

Trick or Treat!

Elaina had her first experience Trick or Treating last night. Halloween fell on our normal church small group night, so Elaina went Trick or Treating in our friends' neighborhood along with their little girl. I think the girls were a little confused about the whole process, but they definitely loved the candy at the end of the evening. More photos have been added to the October album in the Photo Galleries.


P.S. A special little lady around here turns 2 years old next week!

Fall 2010

It's hard to believe we live 630 miles away from our families considering how often Elaina gets to see all of her grandarents. This month she got to see both sets of grandparents over two consecutive weekends.

Grandma and Grandpa Rust were here for the weekend of the 16th, so we checked out a Durham farm with a real pumpkin patch (i.e., we pulled them off the vines and couldn't find any walmart stickers on them). Elaina loved the corn crib.

While they were here, Grandma and Grandpa gave Elaina an early birthday present: an activity table that she can sit at to color and play with her animals. Here's a collage of some of the fun.

Last weekend it was Grammy's and Papaw's turn for a visit. They were driving up from Orlando where they had been visiting Victoria's brother, Jordan. We met up with them in the Boone, NC area (Fleetwood--same place we went with some friends back in September).

We had a very cozy cabin in the mountains and felt especially safe at night because Papaw Jim kept a large stick strategically hidden between him and the front door. On Saturday we drove up to Damascus, VA to do a 17 mile bike ride... all downhill! We had been to this trail (the Virginia Creeper Trail) back in 2006 and had assured Papaw and Grammy it would be more relaxing than one would expect a 17 mile bike ride to be. The weather and the leaves were beautiful.

More photos of all the fun are in the photo gallery.

Ruts and the Rusts

If you take the 'S' out of Rust you get 'rut,' which describes our recent slowdown of blog updates.

In our defense, though, this is a crazy semester. Here's proof:

Mid-Late August:

• I started my last year of law school (woohoo!)
• Victoria started her last year of being a part-time single parent
• Elaina mastered "Jesus Loves Me" and sang it to her daycare friends at lunch
• I started a new area of responsibility at work (assessment of student learning outcomes)
• I took a volleyball to the face and wound up with some broken glasses and and a sliced face (I now have a scar on my upper lip)

September:

• We took our second annual trip to the mountains with some friends (a few pictures below). We had an amazing cabin with a huge covered back porch, complete with a view and a hottub. We did a lot of hiking and the only baby carriers we took with us were named Matt and Ben.
• We hosted some Butler friends who were down from Indianapolis for a wedding. We enjoyed getting to see them and their 10 month-old boy who has grown a lot since Christmas and whom Elaina liked trying to imitate by making a weird screeching sound. I thought she sounded more like a pterodactyl than a baby.
• Speaking of dinosaurs, Elaina has become obsessed with her wooden puzzle book of animals. I mean sits-and-plays-with-it-for-hours-each-night-obsessed. She even woke up this morning and--for a first in her life--turned down my offer to go eat some bities. She said, "No. No Bities. Animals."
• Tomorrow we have some formerly North Carolinian friends coming to visit for a few days

October will continue the busy-ness with me in Orlando for a conference (and hopefully seeing Victoria's brother Jordan), Victoria in Asheville, NC for a conference, a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Rust, and a trip to meet up with Grammy and Papaw Wade in the mountains. Oh, and I need to be studying for the professional ethics exam I will be taking in early November (step 1 of the Bar Exam/Attorney licensing process which happens to be almost as expensive as a semester of law school.)

Family Picture in front of one of the falls we hiked to.
Family picture on the awesome back porch of our awesome cabin.

Elaina's favorite parts of the hikes were the times she could play with water, mud, or acorns. She carried two particular acorns for about half a mile, dropping and picking them up, until finally we reached the waterfall where she decided it was time to throw them away.

"Bu-bye, balls!" she said as they rushed away with the stream.

This close-up is to confess that we had a bad parenting moment in the cabin. If you look closely at the right side of Elaina's forehead, her right eyelid, and the corner of that right eye, you'll see the injuries she sustained when she slipped in her socks and fell down the flight of slippery, uncarpeted, wooden stairs in the cabin. She forgave us but still talks about her "Ouchie Downstairs. Careful."
Elaina and Ally (daughter of our friends Ben and Beth). These two had a lot of fun screaming each other's name and running around the cabin. Ally's about 6 months younger and lighter than Elaina which means Ben didn't have to work quite as hard as I did when the girls had to be carried over rough or rocky terrain. Not that it was a competition. Speaking of competitions, though, our cabin had a ping pong table and I beat Ben about 7 times on that.

Family Visit

We took a trip to Indiana a couple of weeks ago to visit our families. We started off the week with Matt's family. Elaina and her cousin Jacoby had a lot of fun giving each other hugs and kisses.

They also enjoyed a ride around the yard from Grandpa.

While the adults tried to enjoy a game of corn hole, Elaina and Jacoby turned the game into a jungle gym. Thankfully, no babies were harmed from flying bean bags during the game.

A few days later, we headed to Marengo Cave to meet my family. The 52 degree cave was a nice refuge from the warm temps outside. Elaina had a lot of fun running through the cave with her cousins Sydney and Addison.

No visit with my family is complete without a picture of the girls in matching shirts. Thanks, Grammy. :)

Elaina wrapped up her trip with her very first ride on a 4-wheeler. She really enjoyed it!

We had a really nice time seeing everyone. It will be no time at all before we visit again at Christmas (gasp! -it's right around the corner!)

Grammy/Papaw Detox

We were excited to have my parents visit this past week. They arrived on the 4th, and we all headed out in the evening to watch the fireworks display at the state fairgrounds. Elaina didn't cry, but she definitely held on TIGHTLY. During any sort of pause in the show she would say, "All done!".

By the end of the show, she was asleep. Who falls asleep during fireworks?!

On Monday, we headed out to Jordan Lake for a picnic dinner. You'll notice that I'm sitting on top of the picnic table with Elaina. This is to avoid the GIANT spiders (as big as my face!) that were lurking under the table.

After dinner, we headed to the lake. A trip to the water just isn't complete for Elaina unless she gets her clothes wet an INSTANT after we say it is time to go.

It took three of us to change her clothes and get the sand off her legs.

Later in the week, we went to a local dairy for some homemade ice cream. They have a giant front porch with rocking chairs where you can watch the sunset.

During the days while Matt and I were working, Grammy and Papaw filled part of the time by letting Elaina swim in her pool. They took the opportunity to teach her how to splash, dump water on people, and squirt them with the hose. Thanks, Grammy and Papaw.

They started their trip back to Indiana this morning. Elaina is quickly realizing that Mommy and Daddy don't respond to her whimpering and fussy whining like Grammy and Papaw do. We'll get her back in line just before we go visit with them again in August. :) Thanks for a great week, Grammy and Papaw. Elaina says, "I miss you!".

Elaina's First Trip to the Beach

For the second year in a row, we took advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend to take a family vacation. This year we extended it to a week-long trip to celebrate (a little early) our five year wedding anniversary.

We spent the weekend in Savannah, GA touring throughout the town all day Saturday and learning--the hard way--that you should never get sunscreen in the eyes of an 18 month old. We took the recommendations of one of Victoria's colleagues and had two excellent meals. If you're ever in Savannah, check out the Gryphon Tea Room in the historic district for neat atmosphere and snotty service (it's owned by the artsy-fartsy folks at SCAD--Savannah College of Art and Design--as are many of the buildings in the historic district). If you'd like some Cuban cuisine (this was my first experience, and I was impressed) check out Rancho Alegre--Elaina highly recommends the fried plantains.

We left Sunday for our real destination: Hilton Head Island in SC. We had enough day left by the time we arrived and checked in to hit the beach. That afternoon we learned--the hard way--that the only thing worse than sunscreen in the eyes of an 18 month old is sunscreen AND sand in the eyes of an 18 month old.

Elaina was a little timid at first about the ocean, requiring much coaxing to get near the water. By the third day, though, she would start pacing by the door to our room saying, "Ah-Water," "Less-Go." and "Ready?" (Picture a dog trying to get out of the house to relieve himself--she was that anxious).

More fun still for Elaina was the sand. She used her toy buckets and shovels to play with it. She ran her hands through it and rubbed it all over her legs, belly and face (she managed to avoid her eyes after that first day, fortunately). And she ate it--she seemed to forget every few hours that the sand tasted like dirt and would try it again just to make sure it hadn't become sugar. She was always disappointed with the taste and would let it show in the expression on her face. Beach erosion is a serious issue in coastal states and I was half-worried that we would be stopped at the border if the officials found out how much sand Elaina had passing through her system.

Here are a few of our favorite pictures from the week:

Animal Sounds

Pollen and Karate Kicks

Thought I'd share a few photos from our weekend. We took advantage of the cooler evening on Sunday to clean our deck. The lingering coat of pollen was no match for Elaina's water bucket.


She also started practicing her newest trick: a flying karate kick.

Our little shopper

We made a trip to Lowe's this weekend after church to pick up some flowers for our landscaping. We arrived in the parking lot right at Elaina's normal naptime, and she was already asleep in her carseat. We took her out of her seat and carried her in the store- she was still sleeping. She gets heavy very quickly so we put her in the shopping cart- she was still sleeping. She slept like that for the next hour while we did our shopping. This girl spoils us.

Kisses from Laina

Easter Festivities

We had a wonderful Easter weekend. We kicked things off by trying out Elaina's new sidewalk chalk from my sister and her family. Elaina enjoyed drawing the letter "E". (It doesn't look like much of an "E", but this is what she calls it.)

She also tried out a Peep from Grammy and Papaw. She was only able to take a few bites before she handed it to me and said "all done".

Of course, we had to dye a few Easter eggs. Unfortunately, eggs slightly resemble a ball, and Elaina is pretty good at throwing a ball. Needless to say, we had a few casualties.

We did end up with a few colored eggs.

On Sunday morning, Elaina was excited to see her Easter basket filled up with goodies. In an attempt to get her to look at the camera, we were singing "If you're happy and you know it". This is the "and your face will surely show it" part. (I think they work on these movements at daycare- I didn't even know she knew this song until it came on one of her CDs and she started clapping- too cute!)

After the church service, we snapped a few pictures of a pretty girl in her pretty Easter dress.

She also enjoyed an Easter egg hunt. She kept handing them to me so I would get the candy out for her- we gave her way too much sugar throughout the day.

Happy Easter from the Rusts!