I'm High on Shutterfly!!!

Hello everyone! I just have to spread the holiday cheer about the holiday specials going on at my favorite online photo shop! They have a great selection of photo cards this year to spread the Christmas cheer with friends and family.

My husband and I have great news this year, We’re PREGNANT!! It will be our first baby and first Christmas as 2.5!! So we thought there is no better way to pass on our news then using a Shutterfly Christmas card! There are over 500 Holiday card options at Shutterfly (http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards)! I’m still deciding on the final version but for this one I picked a Christmas card below that has a classic modern look with our red and green outfits on too! The quality image on the card looks tremendous and I know will always turn out exactly the way I see it on the screen. No guessing if it will look ok, which is great! We order our Christmas cards from Shutterfly EVERY year!

AJ and I have about 8 different Shutterfly photo books (http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-books) over the last 4.5 years of our marriage. We get one for EVERY vacation we take. They are a great product that we get to add caption to all the pages so we so we can remember the order and fun events and memories we created! And the whole family enjoys reading them without us having to tell the story over and over again!
The third product I have ordered from Shutterfly are their calendars (http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars). It’s perfect for my large extended family! There are 5 siblings, all are married and there are 9 grand children as a result and 2 on the way! So capturing the best family pictures into a yearly calendar makes all of my sisters and brothers smile every time they look at it! It’s perfect since we’re all kind of far away from each other.

Thank you shutterfly! You’ve made a lasting impression on our family life!

DC BBQ Fun!

After watching food network and perfecting his ribs recipe, AJ just had to go to the National BBQ Battle in Washington, DC!

We took the metro, spoke to some contestants about their smokers and rib rubs and stood in a hot, long line for 30 free samples (again frugel Bachmann's of course) as our lunch!

Oh, AJ got to stand with a few pigs too!

Free Meal Once Again

And the Bachmann's do the frugel move once again! We dress up like cows (2nd annual family thing... ) and get a WHOLE free meal, not just a sandwich but any full meal we want! We went on the way to work. Awesome!

YIKES It's Been a While...

Sorry everyone... so busy and then getting the pictures from the camera to the computer, then to the blog... anyway, most recent thing I'd like to share! My new found spare time fun... saving a BOAT LOAD on groceries! Yes, that's right, I'm slow converting to a coupon krazy woman, thanks to the encouragement of my sister-in-law, JEN!

I actually did my first sucessful trip to Safeway doing the coupon thing! See picture...

I got $106.81 worth of stuff, but I only paid $36.31 for it! It was so much fun! This first time did take me A LOT of prep time in and out of the store. But now I know how it works at the store so I will have things more organized and set up better.

I'm going to try CVS tomorrow where I should barely pay anything at all for a lot of items!

Now it's a contest to see how much better I can get at this! What fun!

I encourage all of you to be good stewards of the money God's blessed you with! It's a great feeling!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AJ!!!!

Happy 27th Birthday My Darling Husband!

You're just as young, even more wise, and 10x more handsome as the first day I barrowed your perfect solids lab exam Junior year!

I thank God every day I get to wake up with the "snuggle king!" You have been nothing short of an adventure since the day I met you! Always challenging, always giggling, always making sense of every situation you're in, and every situation I'm in... even when you weren't even there! God has really blessed you with success, happiness, a good job, a new car, a beautiful house, and much, much more! What is your secret to deserving so much of God's favor??!

I want you to know I'm praying for you every moment you cross my mind, that God would give you the patience in your every day life, the strength to endure the frustrations of this world (mainly traffic ;o), and the will to always do your best! Where ever you are, whatever you're doing, however you're feeling, God is with you and I'm thinking of you always!

I look forward to many more birthdays with you as I watch you get more gray hairs, pickup more words of wisdom, and expand your heart as God works in only His mysterious ways!

Have a great day my Love! Remember you have a loving Proverbs 31 woman behind you at all times!

Love,
Your Own Personal Cheerleader,
~cw girl

The Famous Cow

We finally got out of the snow and decided to go to Chick-Fil-A since I had cooked for like 12 meals straight! The Cow happened to be out and about cheering people up who actually made it out of their homes.

As we were in line AJ kept saying "go get your picture taken,... go stand next to him!" I was so embarressed and just tried to laugh him off... and said "no, it's ok, save it for the kids." He kept pushing me over to him and I was so mad and embarressed but I couldn't stop laughing... so he thought I wouldn't be mad.... so finally AJ walks up to the cow and says, "Can she have her picture taken with you?" AH! He tricked me so now I HAD to stand next to this stupid teenage boy dressed up in a cow costume. I was so mad... but I smiled...

So to include him in the fun, here is a picture of him from the time we dressed up as cows ourselves to get a free meal! Doesn't he looked cute with a snout?!

Next time we're at Hershey park I will make sure to get AJ's picture with EVERY dressed up Candy bar I see!!!!

Football Play-Offs!

The Ravens made it to the play offs! We were so excited for a long Saturday of football starting at 3pm and ending around 11pm! To celebrate and have an excuse to party, Melissa and Bob came up to visit.

The Ravens lost, but we still had fun watching funny things on YouTube, eating buffalo chicken dip and of course trying some drinks the boys experimented with. Thanks for coming up you guys!

New Years 2010!

So we went to go visit Melissa and Bob in California, MD for New years fun! We watched the ball drop and enjoyed a delicious steak on Bob's new grill! The next day we got breakfast at Denny's and then Melissa gave us a personalized photoshoot! It was so cold but still fun! We're hoping to get some of our favroite out for Valentine's Day to all our friends and family since we missed doing Christmas or New Years cards.

See more of my little sisters amazing talent here. Thank you Miss!

The Wise Family Christmas

Well, the Wise Christmas was at our house this year! That's right.... not any of the other bigger homes of my siblings, they all came to our townhome in Piney Orchard! So I had big plans, as AJ and I are such big planners and without kids, we had plenty of time to set up and plan the menu, decorate, etc.

First step was to shimmy the Christmas tree down the basement. Mainly we had to do this because our floors were being done but we kept it down there because that is our biggest open space to have 11 adults and 7 kids open LOTS of presents!

It was such a blessing this year to really fellowship with everyone in our family. We made it a 2 day ordeal with a girl movie night for Holly's birthday and a suprise (sort of) baby shower for Jen (due April 1st). We ate TONS of cookies as all of my sisters made at least 2 different types of big batches of cookies! I think when it was all done, we had about 15 different types of cookies to snack on all weekend!

Here are some pictures... notice, I'm in sweats and a t-shirt because all my sisters asked if they could come in sweats or yoga pants to relax while we spend hours of gift opening and a big meal. I said sure, so to make my guests comfortable I, the hostess, also wore comfy clothes... to my suprise they all showed up dressed up, not in dresses but definitely not in sweats. Oh well, at least I was super comfy!

Here is the second day, pizza was for dinner and smores at the fire pitt on the deck was for dessert! Here are 5 of the 7 nieces and newphews.
Here is the 12 seater (we now know it seats 14) table that AJ not only built, but set with our china for Christmas dinner. He was so proud!
Our kitchen clean and ready for LOTs of cooks and good food!

We had to deal with 14 boxes of hardwood sitting around our house because the installers couldn't finish the floor in time for our party. SO... I put a table cloth over the boxes and a centerpiece and it became the cookie table, appitizer table, and the kid table for them to eat dinner! You could never tell!

Here is our Wise Family Clan!Aunt Melissa gave the kids some disposable cameras, here is Mary Clarie taking our picture during gift opening!

Here are the only two couples left without kids in this family, during gift opening!

Here is some of the action!

As tradition, everyone picks a seat and gifts are sorted into piles. The kids did such a good job waiting for their piles to be complete!

The Bachmann Family Christmas

This year, we spent Christmas Night at AJ's parents house. We were blessed with many gifts and sharing of family heirlooms, not to mention the feast for dinner! Our little neice, Alexa, got a new dog for Christmas and named him Sugar Cookie. So that was quite an event for all the kids to see the little puppy running around! Here are some pictures from the evening.

Here is Matt playing with "Sugar Cookie" in a pink t-shirt... hehe!

Here is Stephanie and Alexa. This is probably the best picture we have of Stephanie since her wedding. AJ tricked her into getting at least half her face. Good memories! ;o)
AJ, my handsome hubby, and his parents, the wonderful host and hostess!

Here is the happy Thuman Family, Joe, Angie, Kayla and Matt!

Here is a shot from the kitchen to the front of the house of me and AJ's Dad. AJ was trying out our new camera, that we actually returned.

Anyone Else Miss Getting Snow?

This was truely amazing to get this much snow in Maryland in December too! Crazy! Thank you Lord for the blessing of slowing everyone down for the week before Christmas with 20" of snow!


AJ felt the need to completely bury me in the snow, so I relaxed and enjoyed a few snow flakes on my tounge!

Christmas #1 - Just Us

Since we got new floors in the entire house, we decided to set a $40 limit on spending with eachother this year. There was no need to out spend each other when if we really needed or wanted something big we'd just go buy it any other time. So it forced us to be creative.

My big gift to AJ was ruined by the ACE Hardware people who decided to call our house and leave a voicemail about what exact items had arrived at their store for me... AH! Of course AJ listened to that voice mail first and ran upstairs giggling at me, since my gift was spoiled! If you don't know us, EVERYTHING is a compitition!! Especially Christmas gifts, and the tags on the gifts are probably the biggest competition yet! It has to be creative, funny, whitty, and have a double meaning or inside joke to us... AH! AJ prides himself in trying to out-do me every year. But this year I had the best tags, even if his gift was the best suprise (thanks, Ace Hardware).

I got AJ a log grabber (his 10" log poker that came with the fire pit has effective allow ALL of AJ's knuckle hair to be singed off during our many fire pitts in the fall and winter evenings). I also got him the small fire shoovel to easily get out the burned ash and logs from hours of burning. I got him 2 lighters since someone broke ours at the Halloween party... weird toy to play with... and I got him the movie "The Hangover" which was sadly not all it was hyped up to be. If you saw the previews that's about as funny as it gets.

AJ got me something I've been wanting my whole life, a beautiful real, nice, snow globe. I didn't want a tacky santa one or something but he had it engraved saying "Our Blessings" and it plays "What a wonderful world" and has a picture frame in it where we can always update it as we add family members! ;o) It was seriously a great gift and so thoughtful! We also got me a Chick-fil-A calender which I get every year because they are SOOOOOO funny and have a ton of coupons! Lastly, he got me our yearly tradition of a personalized tree ornament. We have one for every year we've been married. I love that almost all of our Christmas tree ornaments are personalized! It's a fun tradition we have this time of year! AJ always gets excited to pick it out on his own to suprise me too! It's his one time of year to shine and show his romantic, thoughtfulness to prove he's studied me all year and knew exactly what I'd love.

Here are some pictures from our quiet morning together!

Finally NEW Floors... almost

We decided to get new floors before Christmas this year! We new we were going to get it done this Christmas time, since we did the kitchen last Christmas. But we weren't expecting to have it done with only 3 days until Christmas!!!!

Obviously, it didn't get finished. Still isn't finished... but new hardwood in the whole first floor, and new carpet for both flights of steps and the entire second floor! I can't wait for super soft squishy carpet when I get out of bed in the morning!

I'll show more when it's all done, but so far, one room down,.... 5 to go...

Our Yearly Donations...

Every year, usually twice a year, we give donations. Not just to charities, and our regular church tithe, but all our unwanted clothes! After both of us growing up with Mother's who like to keep almost everything... we make sure to never let things get that way in our home.

So, if you haven't seen it or wore it or used it in a year and a half, most likely you don't need it and it's a waste of your space!

AJ wanted to take a picture of the pile that came out of his closet. But we didn't take one of the 6 bags of trash and 4 bags of clothes we weeded through that morning. 'Tis the season to start new!

GO RAVENS!

So the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we had some friends with season tickets invite us for a day full of tailgating and viewing the Ravens play the Colts from great seats! I was the ONLY person not wearing purple or black or something... AJ got to barrow a jersey from his friend. Thankfully, I wasn't wearing the colors of the other team! ;o)

We've never tailgated before and it was SO much fun! The food was great and the game ws exciting until the very end, when Flaco blew it...


Either way it was a great time!

Late on getting this in...

Here are some of the haloween treats I made!