Christmas Break

The presents are bought and wrapped. The cookies are baked. The cameras are charged. Let Christmas begin!!!
We made a gingerbread house today. Which was a ton of fun. Wyatt was very meticulous about where he put his pieces. He kept asking "Momma, where this go?" Here's the before shot....



Evidently gingerbread house icing has to set for 15 minutes before you decorate the house. So.....we went outside to rake a.k.a. play in the leaves.
Wyatt was cracking me up. I had my back to him bending down and next thing I know I hear this giggle and he's running up to me and.....throws handfuls of leaves on me and runs away. He was laughing so hard. It was so cute to see how proud he was of himself. So of course I had to go grab my camera and takes some pictures. This picture is so adorable. But a little concerning. He looks a little too excited to throw leaves all over Mommy.



I raked a big pile and he had the best time running and jumping in it.

Back to the gingerbread house.

Final Prouduct....

Wyatt is watching his very special email from Santa. I had no idea 2 year olds got the concept of Santa. But this boy totally gets it. Makes Christmas all the more exciting this year!

Whitney ate her dinner in Wyatt's old high chair for the first time tonight. Wyatt was a little reserved about it but once we put her in he was great. I love how much he loves his little sister and how she looks at him with such adoring eyes.

She looks like she's saying "Ok mom, enough with the pictures. Where's my dinner?"

I day till Christmas! So exciting!!!

Christmas Time

So it seems like just yesterday my daughter was born and now she's 6 months old and it's Christmas! Where did the time go?!? The last couple of weeks have been very busy around our house. Wish I had pictures to capture them all...but I don't. The flash bulb on our camera just bit the dust. Evidently the only way to fix it, is to mail it off and it could take up to 6 weeks to get it back. Who's not a happy camper....ME!!! It's Whitney's first christmas and I need to take atleast 200 pictures. She only has about 10 different Christmas outfits that she needs her pictures taken in. Argh!! Some of these pictures are not the best because they were either from my phone or an old camera. We did buy a fancy new flash to put on top of the camera that only weighs about 10 pounds. And I have no earthly idea how to use it. It came with a manual that looks like it's in English but I don't understand a thing it says. So Santa, can you please mysteriously return the flash and bring me a new camera. Nothing fancy just something to get the job done. As close to professional as possibly though. Thanks. Now onto the pictures...

This is the last picture I took before the bulb went out. So it's also the only picture I have of us decorating the tree. Wyatt was a GREAT helper (for about 10 seconds). I'm hoping next year he'll help for atleast 20 seconds.



Last Saturday we had our first christmas gathering at my moms. Didn't get alot of pictures, cuz we couldn't figure out the new flash. Those pictures turned out very scary. Here's a few that turned out.
Whitney enjoying the bag NOT the gift.


Look who got a buzz lightyear backpack!!! He was so excited. Christmas will be soooo fun this year with him. Can't wait to see his reactions to opening the gifts.



Chilling out last sunday after his bath.

Wyatt took his shopping at Market Days at the school very seriously! Alex did such a great job helping Wyatt pick out the perfect ornament. You might think we put this very valuable, time consuming ornament on our tree....Nope, I have no idea where it is.

These pics were from Wyatt's Christmas party at school. He totally has the "cheese" thing down. If we could get him to look at the camera while he's saying Cheese. Now THAT would be an accomplishment.

This is not a great picture but I had to post it. Wyatt was so excited about the book he got at their book exchange. Look at the vein poking out of his neck. He wanted to tell everyone!

Taking his gingerbread house craft very seriously.

Oh look, he is looking at the camera saying cheese.

My little ham.

I get to see Wyatt pretty much all day since I work there, but I never get to spend time with him in the class. He's figured out that party days I get to sit down with him and he gets SUPER pumped about it. We had soo much fun.

Do you see the awesome shirt I'm wearing. My kiddos teachers surprised me with this t-shirt. It's a wreath with the hand prints being wyatt's and the footprints Whitneys. Thank you so much girls. That is a gift I will treasure forever!

Whitney loves Santa Claus.

This picture has quite the story to go with it. I got off early one afternoon and left the kiddos at school. I received a text with this picture and got so excited and a little teary eyed. What a surprise my children are with Santa and smiling! Whitney will smile at just about anything or anyone. Wyatt on the other hand is more cautious with his smiles. And Santa right now your not on the list to receive smiles (unless your at a distance). Well, Ms. Ashley Norris had mistakeningly walked into the office with her plate of cake. Wyatt got excited when he saw cake. They couldn't get him to smile so Ashley put her cake on her head and stood behind Lizz, while Lori was making Whitney smile. How many Sloan teachers does it take to get my kids pictures with Santa? Evidently 3. Thank you so much for capturing this memory for me. Love it!

Last tuesday we went to basspro for pics with Santa. Here's Whitney being such a trooper hanging out in her stroller. It was her naptime but she did great.

Here's the pic. Notice, I'm in it :( We were the 4th family in line and all the kids before us did great. Wyatt was even waving to santa while in line. But as soon as we got up there everything changed. I handed Whitney to Santa and turned around to get Wyatt. He came very easily to me but preceded to clinch his knees for dear life. That boy has some serious strength in his knees. So needless to say I stayed in the picture because by that point the line was really long and I didn't want Wyatt screaming to freak out all the other kids. Oh well, maybe next year will be better. Dont' know why the pic is turned the wrong way. Sorry.

Christmas Card Pics

We had our Christmas Pictures taken last weekend. Or really I should say the kids did. I opted us out of the picture (my excuse anyway because I still have baby weight to lose).

I was a little skeptical about the pictures because Wyatt is very stubborn and if he doesn't want to do something he DOESN'T DO IT. So all day I worried how was Wyatt going to do. I knew Whitney would do great. Well, much to my surprise Wyatt did amazing (thanks to Mandy) and Whitney was in a bit of a mood. Regardless, she still captured some amazing pics. It was very hard to choose the final picture for the card. Here are a few...



This picture cracks me up. We could never get the kids to look at us at the same time. Everytime we were trying to get Whitney to smile Wyatt would always look to see if she was smiling. In this picture, he was very concerned with her drool.




Girls eat your heart out.

This card was the winner. I felt it captured both of them so well. Wyatt trying to hold his sister up,but looking at her with loving eyes as well. And Whitney, well she's just as happy as can be. She's like that all the time!

Happy Girl!

Crockpot Thanksgiving

I was very worried about having Thanksgiving at our house this year. We had only been in the house for a little over a month. The house was a wreck and for the last 2 weeks our children have split that time being very sick. Wyatt didn't break his fever until the night before thanksgiving. This is where my amazing Mother steps in. She said don't worry about a thing. I will take care of everything. She wasn't kidding. The night before I realized I didn't even have any drinks for everyone. She said no problem, she assigned that job to my sister. So the day of, my mom came over with all the food to prepare and put the majority of everything in crockpots to cook and warm. I really didn't have to do a thing but clean (a.k.a. throw everything that was laying around, in the garage). I will say, I was a little leary of the crockpot thing but the food this year was THE BEST!!!!! So Mom, thank you very much for EVERYTHING for being there for me when i had a breakdown, and cooking and cleaning up after the best thanksgiving meal. It meant the world to me!!! By the way, can you do the same thing at Christmas? Just kidding, I'll take care of that one.

Our little Thanksgiving Princess!



2 peas in a pod


This was the only smile I could get out of Wyatt for "posed" pictures. He just wasn't into it.


Whitney cracks me up in these pictures. She was smiling like crazy at her Great Grandad. Notice her outfit change. She had 4 outfit changes that day. She had some spitting up issues. This Mommy had no problems changing her though. LOVE all the girly outfits.

Here she is cracking up at her Great Grandad again!

My little photographer. I've trained him well.

My Grandparents with their grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Their telling Whitney about taking her to the beach.

I think she's excited about the beach!! Me too! Do they make waterproof bows?

Wyatt and his Uncle John playing the drums on my mom's ipad.

The last 2 weeks in our household have been to say the least exhausting. Weekend before last Whitney was sick with a high fever for 4 days and the croup (again)! Right as she was feeling better Wyatt went home on Thursday afternoon with the stomach bug and woke up with a fever on friday am. He's been running a 102 fever for 5 days. He finally broke his fever last night at about 3 am. Poor baby woke up drenched in sweat with no idea what was going on. He's about 70% better. He still ran a 99.6 today, so hopefully by tomorrow it will be completely gone. This has led to SEVERAL sleepless nights for the entire family. We are soooo looking forward to a long and lazy weekend.

Whitney is 5 months old now. She amazes us everyday. She is a completely different baby than Wyatt. He was a happy baby but Whitney is a VERY HAPPY baby. She is the best baby to wake up from a nap. She wakes up and stretches real big then looks for you and smiles her biggest smile ever! Wyatt would wake up crying, and demanding his bottle immediately. She is very patient. She smiles ALL the time. I just love it. I don't know if it's the girl thing or not but I just LOVE HER TO PIECES! Here are some pics of her from this evening.....

Oh those baby blues.

Smiling at her Daddy!



Happy Girl!

MS. Amber snapped these pics of Wyatt. Love them so much! Thanks Ms. "Mammer"

Wyatt and his best bud Van.

Daredevil Wyatt jumping OFF the playground set.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The rest of Whitney's Pics

I received the rest of Whitney's 4 month old pics within a week of her getting her pictures made. I ABSOLUTELY LOOOVVVEEEE them. I have been asked over and over for the photographer so here you go....also to see the rest of Whitney's pics go to www.mlapuma.zenfolio.com/whitney. Password is Whitney. After you see her pics check out Mandy's portfolio. She is an amazing photographer discovering her new hidden talent. I am anxiously waiting for Whitney to start sitting up so we can get the kids Christmas pics made.