It was a Bieber Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!  Hope it was a happy one!  Many blog posts to catch up on!

Laney Faith gets baptized

We started our Christmas midwest tour last Friday afternoon, leaving Keller about 3:30pm and pulled into my parents driveway at 12:30.  9 hours...not our best time, but we made it safely!

We thought since we were coming in for Christmas, might as well squeeze in baptism with all the Christmas festivities!  We baptized Laney at the same church and with the same priest as Cooper-which is also the where Adam and I got married.  Laney's Godparents were her Uncle Bryson and Aunt Tanya.  We felt very blessed to have lots of family there for it!

 Laney was all good with baptism until Father started pouring the water-didn't help she was hungry!

 The Godparents

 Laney's baptism gown had special meaning-Adam's mom had her wedding gown made into a baptismal gown for all the granddaughters to wear.  

 The 3 Stooges

The lady for the day, in her first set of pearls and cross from her Great Mama Kelly!

It was the perfect way to kick off our couple weeks of Christmas fun!

Four Generations

So happy we finally did this picture, have been thinking about it every time we are in town visiting!

Santa visits Preschool

Can you believe it...Santa made a special visit to Cooper's preschool! :)  He was pretty excited and told me he was asking for diggers and trucks.  I told him maybe he should ask for a bike...hint, hint! 

 Whatcha got there Santa Claus?

 Probably thinking, I have no idea what this striped thing is!

Another successful visit to Santa!  In the car ride home, he told me that he asked Santa for a green trash truck...luckily Santa picked up one of those at a Just Between Friends sale months ago!

 How cute is this? I have spotted it on Pinterest...so glad I have it for memories and that I didn't have to tackle it, ha!  And, how cute is the simple wrapping and name tag...his teachers really are the best!  They gave the kids homemade peppermint glitter playdoh in red/white, so fun!

Have I mentioned how much we love Cooper's preschool? :)

Funny story from school that his teachers told me.  They had a holiday party and decorated Gingerbread men cookies.  The teachers said all the students took a few bites of theirs and then went off to play, all except for Cooper.  He sat at the table alone and ate every last bite, he loves his sweets and takes advantage when he gets them!

24 hour visitor!

Mamaw was sent to Dallas for work on a last minute trip last Sunday, so she got to stay overnight with us and hang out most of Monday...it was a nice surprise!  We took her to Safari Park in the morning and to Chick-Fil-A for lunch, who could ask for more! ;)

 They call it Safari Park for a reason ;) 

Laney's getting so big!

Laney Faith was totally alert and loving all the action and bright colors!

A fort built for a king

Have I mentioned before that Adam is the master tent builder?  This past weekend was rainy and gross out, we mainly hung out around the house.  So, Adam became the best dad in the whole world and turned our upstairs loft area into one big tent.  He used every blanket that wasn't on a bed, 3 kitchen chairs, 2 different sizes of binder clips and 8 rubber bands...it was awesome!  They played together and Cooper played alone in it for hours!  Here's a little peek!

 The boys were calling me up once it was completely built, this was the view from the entrance. 

 This was around the corner

 Here is the tent constructor, tent user and their shih tzu.  Of course a flashlight is a necessity in a tent!  And again, our son is not wearing pants.

A semi-birdseye view, it was pretty amazing!

Saturday night at Southlake Town Square

Earlier this month I read that at Southlake Town Square, they bring in snow...doesn't that sound like fun? Well, the magazine lied!  We ventured there with the Fimmens to be greatly disappointed :(.  Good news...we hadn't told the kids!  We checked out Santa, had ice cream (Dad and Coop), hot chocolate (me), and hit up the kid section of Barnes and Noble.  I mean, where else would you want to be on Saturday night?!  The kids had fun and really, that is all that matters, right?  Maybe we will get some real snow for them to play in this year...but my feelings wouldn't be hurt if we didn't :).

 Brrr!  Who eats ice cream when it's 40 degrees out?? 

 Laney thinking, why in the h&%!  do they have me out in this?  

These 3 had so much fun chasing each other on the sidewalk and taking almost every book off the shelf at Barnes and Noble to read!

Best $5

I bought this car/bouncy seat attachment at a Just Between Friends sale in a bag with a few other girlie toys.  This is definitely her current fave, she usually smiles as soon as she sees it.  At first she would just watch and I would pull the middle to make music, now she totally interacts with it all by herself!

Christmas Decor

Much like last year, we continue with the less is more theme with our Christmas decorations.  Really, I would love a house decked out in red/green/sparkle, but I am definitely not a decorator and we are gone for 2 weeks out of the season visiting family.  We do have the most perfect staircase for garland/lights, I think that thought at least 10 times a day...maybe someday.

It was cold here last weekend, you know rainy and 50's :), so we started a fire for fun.  The kids were hypnotized by it.

Stockings are my favorite Christmas decoration!

It's sad to me that we get our Christmas tree from the attic and bring it downstairs as some of my best Christmas memories are going to the tree farm and bringing home a real tree- we will do it at some point with the kids...feel like I am depriving them of the full experience!  However, my sadness diminished a little when Adam had the pre-lit tree together and up in about 5 minutes.  Coop helped me decorate and we only shattered 2 ornaments on the wood floor-haven't had to deal with that in the past  as we have always had the tree in a carpeted room.  The tree fills up that empty corner perfectly-I love it!  

music man

Cooper loves, loves, loves music.  In the car, I try to talk with him, ask questions and usually this is what I hear, "Turn the music on, mom."  Yes, it's a demand, not a question...we are working on that!  Or if the music is on it's either, "turn it up," or "i don't like this song."  What does he like you ask?  Well, he seems to love the music that is totally inappropriate for his age...Lady Gaga, Katy Perry (yes, he can pick these 2 out on the radio), Justin Bieber, Usher ("that's justin bieber's friend mom"), and most other pop songs.  Yes, completely Adam and I's fault, but there is something pretty funny about him rocking out and busting out a couple words to Usher in the backseat ;).  We do balance this out now by playing his preschool CD which is all Christian music and he enjoys just as much these days!

Whenever we (ok, Adam) go to workout, he wants the ipod to listen to music

Don't let that shirt fool you...his naughty/nice status changes hourly some days.

Playroom

We used to have toys on both levels of our house, upstairs in the loft area and downstairs in the playroom.  This meant the downstairs was usually littered with a thousand toys and they were quickly taking over the house!  We decided that Cooper is finally at an age where we can play up there alone while I am making meals or busy elsewhere.  It has worked out great!  He is very content up there to play alone-in fact I think he really likes it!  So, most of our toys are contained to the loft area until little Miss Laney Faith gets old enough to play and be mobile!

This is my view from downstairs...it's great because even though he's up there alone, I can hear everything and see him most of the time too!

Story Time

Coop continues to be our book worm and we read countless books everyday.  The current fave is Otis, a sweet book about a tractor from my bff Julie...it's a-dorable!  It makes my heart melt every time we read it!  We wonder if Laney will love books as much as her big brother?  

The 3 of us were squeezed on Cooper's little chair here...how tired do I look?

Bath Time!

Adam grabbed the camera the other night while I was giving Laney a bath and I am so glad he did, because I feel she is growing up so fast that I want to capture it all!  Laney is quite content during bath time, just lays there and takes it all in.  This being said, she doesn't get bathed that often...babies don't get that dirty, right?

Oh, look at those blue eyes and sweet lips...don't you just want to kiss them??!!

Santa

We made our first trip to see Santa Claus this year.  Another reason we love our neighborhood...Santa visits!  It was a great setup, there was a brunch buffett, cookie decorating station, balloon making lady, pictures with a fabulous Santa (they even let you use your own camera!) that they email to you and it was all for $10!  How great is that??  

 aww, Laney's first Christmas!

 Yay!  A successful-no tears/screaming- Santa visit!  We weren't really sure how Cooper was going to react.  We have talked about Santa a lot, but he wasn't in the best of moods after we made him wear jeans (they're too hard mom), a button up shirt and fixed his hair...oh my!  We were so proud of our Coopster, he told us that he asked Santa for trucks and diggers...shocker.  

 Isn't this a great Santa?  Love the look Laney Faith is giving the camera, ha!

 Since we had him dressed nice, we attempted to take a few pics.  Don't you love the hand in the pocket?  And yes, our thumb sucking son is job security for orthodontists! 

 "Seriously, I am not laughing at Dad anymore, you both are crazy."  Pretty sure this was Cooper's exact thought as we were doing just about anything to pry a good smile out of the kid!

Our little Laney Bug was a much easier subject to please. 

Lola jumped right up and posed...think she feels just a little left out?