Thanksgiving

Mason spent Thanksgiving with Tage and his family. I spent the holiday at my Aunt Stacey's with my mom and brothers.

Grandma Shepard with all of her grandkids.

Hope you had a nice holiday too! Now to tackle that Christmas list...

2010 Christmas Card

Modern Family Holiday Card

Get custom holiday cards online at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

A little more professional looking than my DIY version last year, don't you think?

Apparently I'm starting a tradition of including a Christmas picture of Mason with drool on his shirt. 2 years in a row now.

Making its way to a mailbox near you in the next couple of weeks!

Our newest baby!

Everyone's baby is "our" baby in my incredible group of friends.

Meet Anna Mary, born November 19, 6 lb. 7 oz.

Nothing short of perfect, if you ask me.

Congratulations L. Shanna and family!

Happy Friday!

This is the description of tomorrow night.

Pictures to come next week.

Hope you have a great weekend!

(Image from HERE)

Parenting Lessons Learned the Hard Way #4

Mason is gradually getting out of the habit of following me around everywhere and is becoming a bit more independent. I try to leave the room and let him play on his own as much as possible.

Yesterday morning before leaving for work I sneaked back into bed for a few minutes while he played in his bedroom.

Five minutes later, this...

 was filled with this...

Mason had walked into the office, which is adjacent to his bedroom, and started throwing everything in sight into the fish tank.

Parenting Lesson Learned the Hard Way: Always keep a lid on your fish tank, or keep the door to the spare bedroom closed.

Saturday Smile

A few pictures from the harvest festival "photo booth" last weekend...

Say 'hoo'!

I am totally my mom in this picture.

"Look this way! Sit there! Don't move! Smile! Let me fix your mask!"

And my favorite one. Me and my little owl.

Halloween

My little owl!

Mason's costume this year was made entirely of things we already owned-- a brown t-shirt and an abundance of felt. (Is there anything you can't do with felt?)

It probably took me an hour and a half to make the whole costume. Cutting out the felt feathers was the most time consuming part. I sewed them onto Mase's shirt and cut out some shapes for the mask. The best part was, he didn't really even know he was wearing a costume-- and even though the elastic on the mask was a little snug, he still wanted to wear it. What a trooper!

We didn't actually go trick-or-treating this year. Our neighborhood church hosted a harvest festival with carnival games. As you can see, they let Mase cheat a little bit. Maybe it was okay since we weren't playing for candy...

He looks like such a big boy in that bounce house!

Here it is: PROOF that I don't always deprive my poor child of sugar. (Insert sarcasm and eye-rolling here.)

Rookie parent mistake: Giving your toddler sticky candy while in the car because you think the fact that it's on a stick will deter him from touching the sticky candy part.