43 of 52 - Christmas Eve

My boys and I in our new pjs before bed on Christmas Eve. Zander picked mine out with his Daddy and had me open them that night. I had bought matching ones for the boys, but Zander insisted on wearing the ones he got from his Grammy earlier that evening. So, no matching :( Oh well. They both looked cute anyway.

Christams Lights

This year, Zander has been really excited about Christmas. He couldn't wait to see Santa, he really enjoyed putting up the tree, wrapping presents, and seeing the Christmas lights. I took him out to see the houses that had won our annual City Christmas Light contest and this one really impressed us all. Zander was enthralled as you can see.


Here is a video of it. It was set to music that you could tune into on the radio. As we were watching it here, the Grinch started to inflate. When this song/video was over, the theme song from the Grinch came on. I don't know how they did this, but it was great!

Christmas Eve Cookies & Snow

It's a Christmas tradition for the boys to decorate sugar cookies at Mimi's. This year Zander insisted on having blue frosting, so of course Mimi made some. He picked the color of frosting for each cookie and put lots and lots of sprinkles on them.

A master at work.

Mason had to make sure they tasted good.

Zander and all his cookies.

Yummy!!

&

then it snowed, in Texas, on Christmas Eve!! Crazy, but true. I was excited to see it, but sad that it came while Zander was sleeping and was all gone before he woke up. :( I did get pictures of it, though. See.....

All Dressed Up

My cute little boys, all dressed up for Church the Sunday before Christmas.

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While at our cookie/gift exchange, the kids decorated gingerbread cookies. I had my friend take a couple of pictures with me and my boys. The last one is a little blurry, but I liked it anyway. Zander really enjoyed decorating his cookies, Mason just loved eating them!

Gift Exchange

We went to a friends house for lunch and a cookie/gift exchange. The adults, well Mommys, exchanged cookies and the kids exchanged presents. Zander and Mason had a great time and really enjoyed opening gifts with their friends. I love the last picture where they are all helping to open the one gift, our kids are so cute! :)

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

December 2009
Hello, family & friends!!

We started off this year with a new baby and a lot of adjusting for the whole family. Little Mason is now a year old and we love him to pieces. He is walking and chatting and getting bigger and cuter everyday! He loves music and is very good at playing patty cake and doing the chicken dance. Zander loves his little brother lots and lots … sometimes a little too much. But Mason loves to follow him around and do everything he does; he wants to be just like his big brother.

Zander will be turning 4 this coming year. He had a great time playing kick ball for the City Recreation Department. It was fun to see all those little 4 year olds run around trying to play a team sport. Recently he has learned his last name and loves to play Knock Knock and say “It’s Zander, Zander Woolverton.” For having such a difficult last name, he says it very well. Some of the other things he is now doing is answering the phone and carrying on a conversation with whomever is on the other line, making up words to a book as he looks at the pictures and singing songs, such as ABCs, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star & more.

I spend my days laughing and learning as I raise 2 rambunctious boys. In my spare time, which is limited, I have been learning to use my photo editing software and having fun scrapbooking all my photos. I also try to keep up with my blog.

Jason is currently working closer to home again. Earlier in the year, he finished his job in Austin and has been doing the service work for his company which keeps him pretty close to home most of the time. This has been good for his side work as he is trying to establish a company of his own. It would be nice to have him work solely for himself one day. He has slowed down his work on our property, but hopefully will pick back up on that this New Year. He did have a building put up out there like we had planned. It is coming along, slowly, but surely.

We have had a lot of fun as a family this year fishing and playing out on the lake. Jason fixed up his Dad’s old boat and we were able to take it out and go tubing and water skiing on it. We all really enjoyed that! The kids and I took a trip to Utah and Idaho over the summer for Steven’s graduation. It was a nice trip and we had a great time visiting with family and friends. Maybe next time we can take Daddy with us! In April, I was able to attend the San Antonio Temple and take out my endowments. It was a spiritual and humbling experience for me. I will never forget the deep feeling of gratefulness that I felt for my Heavenly Father and my family that day.

You all are in our thoughts and prayers
& we hope you have a very Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year.

Love, Jason, Vanessa, Zander, & Mason

41 of 52 - '09 Christmas Parade

Sorry, this is a few days late, my laptop is currently not working.

We went to our annual Christmas Parade last weekend. Here are some pictures from that.



My sister, Mom, and I

Our favorite little train that is at every parade in Killeen.

Zander watching the parade and eating some M&Ms that were thrown into the crowd.

All the kids sitting, watching the parade after about an hour of standing. (It was a loooong parade!)

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Zander has been wanting to go to a carnival for a looooong time. So, when we went to the Krist Kindle Market over the weekend, he was really excited to see that they had a mini carnival. He had a great time on all the rides. He rode the carousel, the high swings, and the spinning strawberries. He and Mason also jumped in the inflatable jump house. He had a great time!

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Are you the Mom who's always taking pictures and look back only to realize you aren't IN any of them? Do your kids look through photo albums and ask "Where were you Mommy?" Well, Carin over at Forever in Blue Jeans decided to change all that and challenges any one who's interested to do the same. So hand over the camera, or at least figure out the self-timer and get on the other side of the lens more often. Post your photos of you enjoying time with your family every Thursday and share the link with other Mom's by posting it on Carin's blog. You can start any time with week 1 of 52, don't worry about being "behind" just jump on in.

Zander's "Friends"

I found this cute little craft on Disney's Family Fun website. Zander had a great time putting them together, and they are just adorable, aren't they?!?!! He was so proud of them. In Zander's mind, all people are friends, so these are "friends" according to him. They are really supposed to be a Christmas Choir or Carolers. These were a gift for Mimi & she loved them too! Here is the link to the direction if you would like to make some too.

The Best Toy EVER!

Every kid that comes to our house loves this toy. It's the Playskool Busy Ball Popper. Santa brought one to Zander for his 1st Christmas and we recently got a new one for Mason. The old one was used so much, the motor was getting slow. Of course he loves it! So, if you need to buy a Christmas gift for a little one (6 months to about 24 months) this is the best toy!! I made a video so you could see him play with it. He gets more excited than this most of the time, I think he just got a little camera shy :)

Santa is coming to Town!

Last night, we went to Nature in the Lights. It's a drive thru Christmas light show with a little shop at the end where you can see Santa. Zander was really excited to see Santa Clause. He can't wait for Santa to bring him some Thomas toys. He walked so bravely up to him all by himself, sat next to him on his chair, and told him all the Thomas toys that he wants. I tried to get a picture of both the boys with Santa, but Mason did not want anything to do with Santa. As soon as he got close to him, he curled his lip under and started crying. So we just got one really cute one of Zander. We all enjoyed the lights, they are always beautiful. This really is my favorite time of year.

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My whole family was able to come to Mason's birthday party, so of course we had to take a family picture. The first one is of Jason, Mason & I (The Birthday Boy and his Mommy & Daddy) and the second one is my family, Sarah (sister-in-law), Sean (brother), Troy (nephew), Paul (nephew), Steve (brother), Mom (Mom :)), Zander (son), Jason (husband), Me (me), Mason (son), and Taylor (sister)

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Are you the Mom who's always taking pictures and look back only to realize you aren't IN any of them? Do your kids look through photo albums and ask "Where were you Mommy?" Well, Carin over at Forever in Blue Jeans decided to change all that and challenges any one who's interested to do the same. So hand over the camera, or at least figure out the self-timer and get on the other side of the lens more often. Post your photos of you enjoying time with your family every Thursday and share the link with other Mom's by posting it on Carin's blog. You can start any time with week 1 of 52, don't worry about being "behind" just jump on in.

Trimming the Tree

Last night, we all had a great time putting ornaments on the tree. It was really fun this year because I had a little helper, that really helped!! I usually put up the tree and decorate it all on my own. But, this year Zander was REALLY excited to help and he did a great job. I put some chairs next to the tree and he was able to put ornaments on the top and bottom and on all sides. I didn't move very many of them because he did a great job keeping them evenly distributed. We did have a heck of a time trying to keep Mason from yanking them down as fast as we were putting them up. Daddy did a good job helping with that so Zander and I could get the tree all decorated. It was a fun activity to start the holiday season!

Mason was fascinated with these little toy soldier ornaments.

What, What did I do?? (He looks so innocent, doesn't he!)

"Look, Mommy I put it right there."

Such a cute little helper!!

My little daredevil, acting up while we were decorating the tree.

The silly picture......

The cute one

Our Tree