Family Photos and some great promos at Sears #SearsBabysRoom (Giveaway!)

Growing up, my family never had professional portraits taken (other than school photos for me). My mum was the family photographer, and thus was rarely in the pictures. I don't miss having stilted photos with fake backdrops (though those do get funnier as the years go by) - I loved her candid shots of our family. However, I do dearly wish we had a few of us all together.

Fast forward to now, and I am the family photographer, and thus am rarely in the pictures. I think I need to make more of an effort to get other hands on the camera, so that I can be in pictures with the kids (other than selfies!) - and maybe a few studio portraits are in our future.

Sears has an upcoming special in the portrait studio - from October 25th to November 7th, when you spend $50 or more on kids' fashions, you get a FREE photo shoot at Sears Portrait Studio and 10 FREE personalized photo greeting cards! You can book your session any time between October 25th to December 13th to have it done! So, pick out your photo-ready outfits for the kids and get to posing! I love it... I'm thinking family Christmas cards!

Lucky us, Sears is giving one of my readers one of these photo sessions and the greeting cards! Enter using the Rafflecopter form below. Then keep reading to find out about KidsBucks!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

As you may know, Baby Days is also coming up at Sears from October 11-31 - that's 20% off everything baby! And there's a fabulous KidsBucks promotion going on as well. For every $40 you spend on kids' clothing, toys, children's furniture - basically any kids' stuff (except Carters/Osh Kosh, footwear and things with a price ending in .97) - you get $10 in KidsBucks which you can spend between November 1-12. This is good in stores and online, too! Hello, Christmas shopping!

I'm a bigger and bigger fan of Sears the more I learn about it... I always knew about the store, but I am realizing more and more they have great promotions and great brands. It's now one of my go-to stores for sure! I hope you are able to take advantage of some of these offers!

Disclosure: I am part of the SearsThe Baby’s Room Ambassador program with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Surprise!

I've been a little quiet lately, keeping some BIG news to myself. We were waiting and waiting and waiting until our trip home over the holidays to let our family know that....

Mia's going to be a big sister!

I'm 16 weeks pregnant today! Baby's due in June.

The first trimester was really difficult this time. I was much more nauseous than with Mia, and so, so tired - no full night sleeps and first trimester exhaustion really wear on a mama. I'm a little less sleepy now, but I still need an afternoon nap when Mia naps to keep from becoming a cranky monster. 

I'll admit, I've had more than a few "what were we thinking?!" moments, as Mia at 23 months is still (yes, still!)  not sleeping through the night. She did SO well on our trip, with three nights in a row of 8 hours of sleep straight - which makes six nights in her entire life where she has slept 6+ hours in a row.

But, she is back to her old habits now that we are home. Last night she was up four times, at midnight, 3, 3:40 and 5:45am... I will say that I am used to it, but that doesn't really make it any easier.

And she's such a busy toddler, I have no idea how I'm going to manage the constant needs of a newborn with the constant needs of Mia! But I tell myself women have been doing this for thousands of years... I'm sure I'll get by. The hardest part is that I have no support system out here in Calgary. All our family is back in Ontario, and while I have friends here, they are busy with their own kids and won't exactly be able to drop everything to help me out when the baby's born.

Mia's also still breastfeeding about 2-4 times a day, which is actually way down from three months ago, when she was still nursing between 10-15 times a day(!). I don't mind nursing her at all, but I know that she won't be thrilled about sharing Mummy's "milks" with a baby.

Anyway, we'll be finding out what the gender is in early February. Any guesses? I can post a nub shot if anyone's into that, but I warn you, it's the most ambiguous nub shot I've ever seen :) Tricky little one!

It's been a little quiet...

...because we've just come back from a family camping trip to Yellowstone National Park!

It was our first time RV camping (we rented one for the week) and what a great experience that was. SO much easier and more convenient than tent camping, especially with a toddler!

After all those geysers, mud pots, fumaroles and springs, we are a little "geo-thermaled out", as my husband puts it. I think a week was about right.

Mia had a fantastic time spotting "animohs" like bison, elk, deer, pronghorn, wolves and bears (at a rehab centre for those - we only saw two black bears in the wild), coyotes, bald eagles, hawks, grouse, mountain bluebirds, and ravens (everywhere). There were NO bugs at all and the weather was just about perfect - sunny and 22 degrees or thereabouts each day, but for one cloudy day. The nights were cold, but the RV kept us fairly snug.

I definitely recommend RV camping for families. It was so nice to be able to come back from a hike and cook a hot meal right there in the parking lot if we wanted - or stop at a pull-out beside a beautiful outlook for a snack.

Here are some of my favourite pictures from our trip: 

There is never a bad place to nurse, according to bison.

This was a common sight. It looks like a postcard, doesn't it?!

We hiked, Mia rode in the carrier. I loved the contrast of her sparkly shoes to our dusty hiking boots!

Having a meal by the lake - watching Daddy feed the dog after our dinner.

A beautiful spot for me to breastfeed - watching Old Faithful erupt!

Our family at one of the most beautiful of the geysers, Imperial Geyser. Worth the 6 mile (9.7 km) round trip hike!

While we were away, the contractors have nearly completed the drywall sanding, and installed hardwood in the office, living and dining rooms, feathering it into the existing hardwood in the rest of the main floor. There is still much to be done, but it's starting to seem possible that we will be able to live in a real house again rather than a construction site. They've threatened me with the prospect of moving the fridge onto the back upstairs deck (even more inconvenient than now, upstairs in the office while our kitchen and eating area are in the basement), and the washer and dryer into the garage, where they will be unuseable. I sure hope we can work around that.