greatest thing in the world!!

what is the greatest thing in the world do you ask??

SHUTTERFLY!!!!

So as many of you know (or are about to find out) Ben and I ordered our guest book for our wedding from Shutterfly and we absolutely loved it. It's got all the photos that we love and it's hardbound so it will last a long time. We're also looking to order our wedding albums from them as well and we can't wait to see how they turn out! Which brings me to the purpose of this post...
HOLIDAY CARDS!!!
So we ordered our thank you cards from Costco and now that I think about it, I wish I would have remembered to order them from Shutterfly. They have so many great cards and designs for all times of the year! Especially Christmas/New Years! Here are some of my favorite designs that i made up with the pictures we took at ben's house during thanksgiving break...
They have tons more designs, but I have only played around with the two. And! By posting about these awesome cards I'm hoping to get 50 free holiday cards for my family's holiday pictures so we can send out an awesome card to our friends and family!

To find out how to be a part of this offer, click HERE!

Also, shutterfly ALWAYS is having deals and emailing you codes for free shipping or discounted prints.. it's the greatest website for ordering photos from (FOR ALL OCCASIONS). I'd recommend it to ANYONE AND EVERYONE. but hurry!!! ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE MADE BY THIS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10TH, 2010!!

p.s. a calendar is my next adventure.. see them HERE.

anyway, that's it for now.. i'll post again soon!
love, natalie and ben.. and SHUTTERFLY!

brief update.

I'm pretty sure my life is great (because i have an amazing husband who smiles and loves me all day) and yet i still pout about the littlest things. i've definitely hated christmas for the last few years and this year i was trying to love it and be festive, (especially b/c ben's family is super festive) and i wanted to be a precious married couple that has a precious christmas tree and all that crap, but every time i tried, i failed.


guess i'll have to start liking christmas NEXT YEAR..

Promise i'll blog more after finals.. when we clean our house i'll take a picture of it and post it.. sorry i'm lame. :/

at least my blog is precious and festive right??

oh man! i almost forgot!

and a very happy 3 months to my wonderful ben and i!i think it's awesome that our birthdays will fall on different anniversary months. it just gives us a double excuse to celebrate our special day! (the bday that is..)

this is the love of my life after he let me give him a haircut!! looks pretty good for my first hair cut on a guy, right? (I'm still trying to figure out what to do with that little hair flip in the front.)

and this is two Sundays ago.. we were looking pretty good, so i made ben take a pic.
He's such a good husband and I am so happy we are married till foreva-eva. and eternity.. :)

uh.. tuh-tuh-

guess what...


it's birthday month in the Foell Family!
I'm hoping Ethan had a very happy birthday on the 12th.
I'm hoping to have a very happy birthday tomorrow!! (on the 18th)
and I'm hoping Riley has a happy birthday on the 21st (even though the whole family will be in utah) :( here's for hoping.

so. uh tuh tuh... HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brothers and myself. I'm excited to see what awaits me tomorrow (after i get over the bitterness of an 8am class).

Also.. just so you all know. the new RASCAL FLATTS CD came out on the 16th and Harry Potter 7.1 comes out at midnight on the 19th, which is kinda the 18th.... because you probably wont go to bed before you see the movie, so it feels like the same day. :) and as my friend carmen pointed out to me... YES. It was all meant for me. (just let me think this... even if it's not true... but it is, so i don't know why i'm even saying this.) ;) I'll try to clean my house and put up pictures of it.. sorry it's taken me 3 months to get them up.

I want my...

baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back....

So last wednesday (over a week ago) what i thought was my computer screen, finally went out. I wanted to cry.. i was in the middle of a 10-15 page paper that is already a week late (now 2 1/2 weeks late) and i couldn't even get to my files or anything because when i turned my computer on.. it still looked like this:

After a long and hard investigation, i finally discovered THIS. and guess what? before my screen went out it had "Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen" and after it went out it had "No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on." needless to say, i was so worried that my computer would cost money to get fixed.. Then i saw this at the bottom: "These computers were manufactured between approximately May 2007 and September 2008" guess when my computer was manufactured???? JUNE 16 2007!! Then i re-read this: If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within four years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

guess when my four years gets up?? JUNE 16, 2011. and my warranty has been up for probably 2 years. so my baby (Ben) took me to the apple store so i could have them diagnose my other baby (Mr. Macbook Pro) and let me know if that's really what the problem was... turns out it was. THANK HEAVENS! guess how much the fix was if there hadn't been a recall???? ___? nope. HIGHER. ___? nope EVEN HIGHER! ____? nope... ok ok i'll tell you. $1, (yes, i just put a comma)... &1,187.50!! and i am paying $0.00! sweet right?!?! Apparently they have to replace the WHOLE MOTHERBOARD when this happens... (whatever that means--ben can explain it if you ask him) So yesterday i got a voicemail from the wonderful people at the apple store (they weren't so wonderful when they made me wait a 1/2 hour to be helped) that said my baby #2 was ready to be picked up.. it's just too bad the store is in salt lake because otherwise i'd have it back right now. but hey, at least he's safe. and now, probably looks like this:

(insert precious picture of ben and i on the desktop background) ;) and get this? before they took my baby (#2) away... they were able to magically turn the computer into a (very expensive) external hard drive so i could get my files off the computer and get this paper done.. but have i started? no. that's why ben is doing the dishes and i'm supposed to be doing my paper... (what a GREAT husband)--i'd better hop to it then. Next blog will include pictures of our home and will be done from by baby #2--Mr. Macbook Pro. :)

funny stuff.

So yesterday ben made us blue-blueberry pancakes they looked more blue than these, and there were tons of blueberries.. (we were finishing off a bag of frozen blueberries).
after we ate, we had two pancakes left.. so we decided to put them in a ziploc and freeze them for when we need a snack. (re-heating in the toaster oven is amazing.) right when ben put them in the freezer he says, "someone is going to look in our freezer and be like.. 'eww--gross! what is that?" then i thought to myself, "who would be looking in our freezer--and what do they need that is in there?"
then, when i went to get some meat out of the freezer so we could make rachel ray's sloppy lasagna for dinner... and i said, "eww what is that??!" ben said, "what?" then i held it up in disgust... he starts laughing so hard and before he could say anything, i realized that i was holding our blueberry pancakes... it was great. hahaha lasagna was good.. needed LESS noodles... but that's ok. :)
that's all for now.. no real pictures of our life until my computer gets fixed.. :( sad day. happy NOVEMBER!! b-day in t-minus 18 days!

I know that my Savior Loves Me.

Heavenly Father sure does have a sense of humor, because guess what? Brother and Sister Chambers got called to PRIMARY. Now, anyone who knows me knows that i really struggle with large groups of kids that are all the same age. They feed off of each other for entertainment and they love making adults mad! :) Well, three weeks ago we substituted the 9 year old girls--kill me now (that's my little sister's age and there were TWO of them) they were super giggly and wanted to play hangman (ben's idea) and of course, they wanted to think of the words instead of guess the letters. So Ben and I guessed letters for 30 minutes while the girls tried to spell "Nehemiah" and "Ecclesiastes." It was bearable--but the giggles were what almost killed me. (they're really high pitched too) Anyway, the next week when we got a call to come meet with the 2nd counselor, we knew it was going to be a call to primary... after Ben accepted (I just smiled and nodded, which apparently is saying yes..) ;) my first thought was, for real? are you kidding me? are you trying to kill these kids by putting them in my care? I'm going inactive... but after that first Sunday i thought, ok... 7 & 8 year olds wont be too bad.. And the primary program is in a few weeks so we wont have to prepare a lesson for about a month (sweet!).. then today, i realized we have the 6 & 7 year olds and that the counselor told us the wrong thing.. So, after getting really excited to have all these well-behaved 8 year olds (b/c it's the end of the year and everyone is almost 8) I was a little worried about having 6/7 year olds.. I soon realized that because our ward struggles with inactivity, we only had three little boys (who were really calm after they got separated from their 8 year old friends.. (but they don't sing at all..) So i thought, ok.. i can handle this... Then as we started to practice for the primary program, the kids sang this song and my heart just melted. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm still not a huge fan of certain kids because their parents are not able to (or just don't care to) dicipline them so they actually are able to learn in primary... but when the kids sing this song. AHH. I love them and want them to learn and grow so much. And when I tear up every time they sing it i realize that it's because I know that My Savior really does love me and he has put me and my children-hating self in this calling for a reason. Ben is really out of his element as well, but it's good for both of us.

this little kid is super precious singing this song. (i found him on YouTube) Just picture about 40 kids singing this song of all ages. They make this whole Primary business not so bad afterall... (when we have to teach lessons i might change my mind.. but for now--while it's ALL singing--I'll have a smile ON and tissue READY. :)