Cora's Collections

If there is any sort of basket or container around, Cora will fill it up with whatever is available.  She likes to go around with a little toy or socks in each hand.  She just likes "things".  This was a perfect example the other day when she had the shopping cart loaded with the funniest assortment of items...

Baby, shoe, toys, bottle, cookie cutters, what else?!!  She'll just push it around until she finds something, then stops and throws it in!

Proud little scavenger:)

Okay, Now It's Christmas Time!

We waited oh so patiently for the day after Thanksgiving to get our Christmas decorations out.  It is getting more and more fun each year the kids get older to do this sort of thing.  We put a little tree in Connor's room and he just loves it and worked so hard to decorate it.  He kept telling us that our big tree had too many ornaments on it so he'd need to take one off and go put it on his tree.  I'll just say our tree looks a little bare now!  But not Connor's! 

Connor decorating his tree.

Cora helping with ours.  Well, actually, she's probably taking that ornament off of the tree:)

Little Maverick

Chris got tickets to some of the Mesa State Maverick's basketball games this weekend.  Friday night he took us along.  It was only slightly enjoyable with Cora there...she just wants to get down and go all of the time!!  Well at half time we let both the kids run free on the court... maybe not OK, but no one said anything;)  The kids were overjoyed to have that open space to run in, but most of the joy was for Chris and I.  You know, there are moments in life that just kind of seem so surreal, and this was one of them.  I'd like to think that when Chris first stepped onto this basketball court for the first time thirteen+ years ago, he NEVER imagined he would one day be letting his precious, tiny children run free on that very same shiny wood he spent so many hours on.  It was exciting and we had to snap a few pics... who could blame us?! 

Cora heading towards center court!

And coming back... Connor's in the white shirt in the background:)

And oh, GO MAVERICKS!!!

Thanksgiving 2010

We decided to stay home for the Holidays this year.  We'll really miss seeing family, but will not miss  traveling with two little ones and all that goes along with that!  We are very fortunate to have some amazing friends, Nicole and Tony, here in grand Junction that also stayed at home with their two little ones, Ella and Owen.  They had us for Thanksgiving dinner, and we'll host them for Christmas.  Our kids love each other, we love their company and we all LOVE good food.  It was a perfect combination of deliciousness,  cozy conversation and even a little RELAXING!!!    

                                                       














Ella and Connor playing in the leaves

Tony carving the turkey!!

Cora having fun bouncing.

Cora's turkey dinner...

Connor and Ella's dinner.  It is no easy feat getting a good shot of these goof-balls!

Connor Loves Salt?

These days, we really try to let Connor do things on his own when he wants to.  We went out to breakfast the other morning and he wanted to put salt on his eggs.  Okay, a few shakes should be fine...  well next thing you know, we look at his plate and there is a PILE of salt on there.  He thought he did a great job so we didn't say anything and waited to see if he would take a bite of it, but he never did.  I guess he just wanted to be a big boy and use the salt.  We'll monitor that a little more closely next time:) 

Just imagine how this bite would taste!!!                                                 

Knee Walking

This is how Cora gets around.  Even though she is technically "walking", she still prefers to glide around upright, but on her knees instead.  It is so funny and unique!  I just had to take a picture of her little knee walking trail that showed up on the tennis court we were playing on the other day.  It doesn't show very well here, but this little dust trail went all over the place! 

Little Piggies!

 It seems like Cora's hair grew overnight and I realized I could probably get some little pigtails in there!  I did and then I couldn't get over how cute and grown up they made her!

Cute and silly!

Fun In The Basket

Who needs toys when you have a laundry basket, right?!  They could play in this for hours!  They fight over who gets to be in it, they love being pushed around in it, and Cora wants us to put her in and take her out over and over!  So fun...for them;) 

Cora is not too pleased to have to share with her brother:)
 



That's better!

Looookkk!!!!

Cora has finally decided to give this whole walking thing a try! Yay Cora!!!

Brought To You By Shutterfly!!!

It is so much fun to send out Christmas Cards now that we have kiddos. I look forward to it so much more than when we would just sign our names to a fifty pack of boxed cards from Walmart. We both LOVE designing photo cards. There are so many fun ideas and editing options you can do these days. One of our favorite photo keepsake sites is Shutterfly. We have made many different photo books for a variety of occasions and we are just addicted now! Not only are they easy to make, but they turn out beautifully and are so much easier to manage than our old, BIG, bulky photo albums. We also love making calendars here... what a great gift they make!

Now, back to Christmas Cards... we have "oohed and ahhed" at their Christmas Card designs in the past, but never went through with designing any. We are so excited to finally get our Christmas Cards through Shutterfly this year!

The card we pick will depend a lot on the pictures we are able to capture of our kids. At this age, they are so wiggly and you never know what you are going to get! I love that Shutterfly has so many different style options. I'm talking HUNDREDS of them! Here are the links to some of my favorites, each a different style...

If we could get a perfect close up of the kids (I know it's possible!), I would pick this card.

I think our overall style as a family is pretty simple, so this card might work out nicely.

It would also be fun do dress up and do a fancy portrait for a card like this. It's just beautiful.

Lastly, if the posing thing just isn't working out, this card might be the one we'll go with. So fun and I love the colors!

We hope this gives you some ideas and inspiration on Holiday Card designing, because we all know that Christmas is right around the corner!!! Look for us in your mailbox soon ;-)

P.S. If you are a blogger like me, you can recieve 50 free cards from Shutterfly! Find out how here.

Cora's One Year Pictures

Check them out here....

http://www.casephotography.smugmug.com/

Click "Galleries"

Click "Children"

Click "Cora"

Halloween 2010

Here is our Halloween this year... we spent it with our friends, the Stocks. Connor was a cowboy, and NOT a farmer...a REAL cowboy like the ones that have a rope and ride the bulls. Cora was a little piggy:) It was a fun night!


Cora and Connor ready to go!


Connor and Ella. She was the cowgirl, Jessie, from Toy Story.


Cowboy Connor!

Cora cozy in the wagon

Happy Halloween!

Connor's Harvest Party

One of the fun things about Connor being in school now are the little parties they will have to celebrate special occasions. This was his Harvest Party and they got to wear their costumes, play games, and of course, have treats!

Playing ring toss

Musical chairs with his friend Henry

Cora was in charge of the candy bowl.

A Little Blue Marker

This is how our day started off... really she'd been awake for less than two minutes and got ahold of a marker Connor was using. I can't help but laugh at this kind of mess!


I'm so funny!


Look at my tongue too Mom!


Hey, what's this on my hand?

Ahhh, this is so much fun I can hardly stand it!

One More Trip To The Pumpkin Patch

We needed a few more pumpkins and it was a nice day, so the kids and I went back out to the pumpkin patch. They really had fun together in the wagon:)


Connor giving Cora a ride


My little pumpkins

These are the fancy ones that Chris worked really hard to carve. Pretty Spooooky!