Another Christmas come and gone

We had a great time spending this Christmas with family. Me my Mom and sister spent the entire day Friday before Christmas Eve baking cookies, a sort of tradition we have started.

 Action shot of my Mom, Lol.

Two cooks posing for the camera.

We know where to find Tonya when there is work to be done, HA! ...and she has taught the little one where to hide out too!

We made a LOT of goodies.  Too many actually.

We had Christmas Eve dinner at red Lobster.  My Grandma even joined us for the celebration.

Tonya, Seth, and Cooper

My Grandma and Mom.

Papa and Coop.

Mom and Dad, what a cute couple!

Me and John.

Karen and Jennifer.

and of course the little rugrat himself!

Christmas Morning was a lot of fun this year, way better than last.  Cooper actually enjoyed opening up his gifts.  Here are some photos from Christmas morning.

I'll post the videos of Cooper opening up his favorite present, his Cars racetrack.  Of Course it had to be Cars he is obsessed with them right now.

And some more shots from our family Christmas...

Passing out the presents from under the tree.

Mater's Buck teeth, Dad-Gum.

John-Paul and Jennifer

Family around the tree.

Coop's present from Aunt T, a GIANT Mater.

He loves reading books with his Grammie and Grandma.

 Just chillen' after Christmas dinner.

Well there it is.  Another Christmas come and gone.  I hope everyone had a special holiday with family and friends this Christmas! May you have a blessed New Year.

Ho, ho, ho...Merry Christmas!

I took Cooper to Rustic Hutch before Christmas to get his picture taken with Santa.  He was great! As soon as Cooper saw him he said, "Sit on Santa's lap?" It was the cutest!  And now every time someone mentions Santa or Cooper sees him he says "candy cane", because Santa gave him one that day. Ha ha. This Santa was great, no fake beard here.

I haven't had time yet to get the pictures from Christmas on the computer.  That might be my project while Cooper is napping today.  Hope everyone had a blessed Christmas! 

Fall, already???

I can't believe I haven't blogged since July. I guess I took a blog vacation, but I am back.  The beginning of this school year has been crazy to say the least.  I inherited another school, which means three schools this year total, but you know what I still love teaching Art.  I don't think I can picture myself doing anything else.  Yes in a perfect world I would have my own classroom, at ONE school, and have unlimited resources for any kind of project my imagination could create...but that's just not LIFE right now.  God has given me this opportunity, and this is what I have so I am going to make the best of it.  It could be worse, I could be teaching something I hate...like MATH. Ughhh.  At least I have a passion for what I teach.

Both John and I have been on retreats with our church this month, which has been much needed and invigorating.  It's nice to get away once in a while, and makes us in a better mood.  We're still going through Financial Peace on Wednesdays.  Talk about a Debbie downer, the information we are learning is very useful, if we would actually apply all of it.  I feel like it's exhausting writing up budgets, creating envelopes, I just feel like I don't have time for all that.  We are applying the practical stuff though, like cutting down on impulse purchases and we are learning to save, which will help us out on a rainy day.

We figured out our Halloween costumes for this year. I spent most of the day Friday, FWCS had fall break (No, I didn't skip school. Lol), shopping Goodwill.  They have 1/2 off weekends once a month and I have kinda made a tradition out of it.  I bought Cooper's purple Dragon costume for 5 bucks, what a steal! So the Wall's are kickin' it old school, we're going way back to Medevil Times.  John's the knight, aka "Dragon Slayer", I'm the beautiful princess (of course) and Cooper will be the vicious Dragon.  We should be a sight for sore eyes, but I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun.

No pictures with this post, sorry.  I'll get on that.  Lot's of fall festivities to come...

How to take a two year old's portrait: based on a true story

This morning I attempted to take Cooper's 2 year portraits. Phew, yah right! Have you ever tried to take a picture of a 2 year old.  It's absolutely ridiculous! No one in their right mind should attempt this impossible feat, I wanted to pull my hair out!

So here is how the session started. "Cooper, Do you want to blow some bubbles with Mommy?" Cause you know you always have to have some kind of distraction available at all times.  The camera is too tempting for curious fingers.

"Hey you're not blowing bubbles", he's thinking and then he decided to attack the camera saying "Mommy, sit here!", pushing his elbows into my chest.

Yah, such a great angle.  On to the second distraction.  Why don't we stand by the fence? Cooper says, "Is there a doggie in there?", as he peaks through the crack.

After he finds no reason to stay by the boring fence he spots a stick in the midst of the brown sunburned grass and decides to hit things with it.  I think to myself "I can make this work, he loves drumming!"

I coerce him over to our neighbors fence and finally get him to sit down for a second or two.  He drums on everything the fence, his legs, and the ground. All while making his famous drum noises. "Boom, tsh...boom, tsh."

I start feeling pretty good about the shots I'm getting and then an airplane flies by.  

Cooper drops his sticks immediately and runs to the grassy area to get a better look, yelling 

"Ugh, Airpane!" (as he calls it)

He was a goner from there on out.

I was craving the perfect shot, I know I'm crazy.  So when worse comes to worse, bribery is the key.  And with my kid that always involves food.  In this case fruit snacks.  I know what you're thinking, how horrible.  Trust me every Mom does it, even if they don't admit to it.

This series of photos will show you exactly how getting the best shot works.

He smiles over fruit snacks but not his wonderful, generous, unselfish, artistic Mother.  Shame on him!

Finally a good headshot, he's actually smiling at the camera.

Oh so ornery, he takes after his father.

and here is my favorite shot.  Drumroll please.............

It's not the best shot I have ever taken of him, but it was definitely the one I had to work the hardest for. This summer has been such a great time to bond with Cooper and just get to be silly and hang out together.  I'm sure going to miss being with my little buddy once school starts up again. God has truly blessed me with a wonderful son!

So to reward my little guy for a job well done, a car ride in the convertible.

Thanks for joining me in my insanity. I will have more DIY projects posted later on this week.  Once I get done editing all of these stinkin' photos.  

Have a great week everyone!