A New Year....New Possibilities!

It's amazing how someone can take a camera to an event and yet never pull it out to take any pictures......go figure? What I'm getting at is that I took absolutely no pictures for New Year's. We spent the evening this year at our friends Tawny & Paxton's house. It was a really nice relaxing evening and it felt so great to be out of the house. We had a wonderful time eating lots of goodies everyone brought and playing Taboo....such a great game! I still can't believe Cooper stayed up until midnight! His first time to watch the ball drop....not that he knew anything exciting was happening but I'd like to think maybe he did. I had such a great time that when Daniel decided Cooper had had enough I stayed.....until 4 am! They live right around the corner from us and I knew if I got tired that I could practically walk home. I still can't believe I stayed up that late.......

Christmas Day at home & Lunch at Amy & Cliftons!

We woke up early on Christmas morning and I have to say that I was a little bit stressed at how we were going to get all the food cooked for lunch that we had to take and how we were going to enjoy our time with Cooper opening gifts. OH and I forgot to mention this in the last post......my only request for Christmas this year was a Nikon D90....it's a top of the line DSLR camera and I've had so much fun playing with my father-in-law's D70 that I decided it should definitely be my next big purchase.....especially before the new baby gets here! I was so thankful to have the money I needed to purchase the camera and I even convinced Daniel to let me go Christmas Eve afternoon and buy it! All the pictures you see posted from Christmas Eve on our with my new toy! Back to Christmas Day........we somehow got all the food cooked and were able to spend quality time as a family opening gifts. We went to Amy & Clifton's for lunch with the rest of the fam minus Carter and Laura and even got to enjoy the meal with Deborah, Clifton's mom and his sister Leslie, her husband John Paul, and their son Mason. It was a lot of fun but I was exhausted by the time we got home and took a much needed LONG nap.....along with the rest of my family!

Christmas Eve with Papa, Nana, and the whole Hindes Clan!

On Christmas Eve, we went over to Papa & Nana's house to join the whole family for Christmas. It was so much fun having everyone home for Christmas....Carter & Laura and Jerrod & Amanda came in on Wednesday evening so we really enjoyed getting to spend a couple of days with them. We actually broke tradition this year and instead of eating tamales we had the wonderful leftover lasagna & chicken alfredo from Amanda & Jerrod's wedding. After dinner we opened gifts and I must say the highlight of the night was when we decided to pull out the Wii and have some good 'ol sword fighting competition. I know I know....I should say that the highlight was watching Cooper and Layton open gifts because really Christmas is so much more fun now with some little ones in the mix but it was just too priceless to watch the adults have some good 'ol fashioned gaming. I must say that Amy was by far the winner.....she even had the sore arms on Christmas Day to prove it! Please enjoy the pictures.....sorry everyone for the lovely faces made in these priceless pictures!

Christmas with MiMi & Pop!

As I mentioned earlier, I've had a few speed bumps with this second pregnancy. Those "speed bumps" included modified bedrest which has been going on since the 12th week. We're still going now at 19 weeks but I'm really hoping at my next dr.'s appt that she will give me the OK to resume normal activity. Because of this modified bedrest, my parents and my brother decided to bring Christmas to us! They came down the weekend before Christmas and spent the weekend with us. We had a wonderful time and Santa was EXTREMELY generous!

18 months!

I can't believe 18 months has passed since our baby boy joined our crazy life. It still seems like yesterday he could barely hold his head up and now he's running in circles around me! Here are the stats from his checkup:

Weight: 27 lbs

Height: 33 in"

Cooper seems so much like a sponge right now learning all new things and really taking it all in. His absolute favorite thing to do right now is read! He loves to go into his closet and grab several different books to bring to me and read. He loves to point out his two favorite things which, funny enough, seem to be in almost every book he has..."ball" and "dog". He even calls Maggie Mae, our boston terrier, "dog". I've tried to teach him to call her Maggie but he hasn't quite caught on yet. I am posting a photo from just a year ago at 6 months and now at 18 months so you can see how fast he has grown from baby to little boy!

Thanksgiving!

I'm sorry to say I have no pictures from Thanksgiving............We have spent Thanksgiving in Pleasanton for the past couple of years and decided this year we would change it up and go to Winnsboro to spend it with my family. I have to add in that as a child we ate Thanksgiving food (i.e. turkey, ham, dressing, cranberry sauce, etc) 4 times a year during the holidays....twice for Thanksgiving and twice for Christmas. Because of this traumatic experience....lol no really I'm just not a big fan of the traditional feast anymore. My mom is so great to recognize this in me before I say anything (even though I usually say something anyways) and so she so graciously fixed chicken fried steak with all the good trimmings....yum! We actually had a mixture of the traditional in with it because my Aunt Ann, her husband David, and cousin Sherri joined us for lunch. We had such a great time while being there and I forget how much I really love to go home for the holidays!

The morning after......

I had to add this one in............Our fall festival was on Saturday evening and so the next morning we had to get up early and get ready for church. These photos will show you exactly what we were dealing with in terms of...well, just take a look!

Halloween!

It's unbelievable how far behind I am.......on to Halloween! Cooper dressed up as "Ricky Bobby" this year...no really he just dressed up as a race car driver. Dan and I have become a tad bit obsessed with Nascar lately so it seemed fitting. We went to our church's fall festival and had a fabulous time where we learned that Cooper's newest obsession would be the steering wheel in a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe.

A New Baby???

Ok....we've established that I am not the best at keeping up with this thing. I have decided to ATTEMPT to make it my new goal to do so. So I must regress.....back to October. We found out that we are having another baby!!! This little one is due on May 31, 2010. Hard to believe now that so much time has passed and we are almost halfway there! I have had a few bumps in the road (i.e. a COMPLETE placenta previa) but things look like they are on the up and up! Here are a few photos of the newest member of our family! In order....the photos are from 15 weeks, 12 weeks, and 7 weeks, respectfully.