You've got a Friend in Me...

We've been doing some major Toy Story watching around here lately!  And now thanks to Uncle Joey we don't have to just watch it on tv anymore!  Instead we can have "reenactments" right here in our very own living room!  Now to introduce the cast of characters

Buzz Lightyear!

He's known as one of the coolest toys ever and best friend to our second major character.

Woody!

He's the rootinist' tootinist' cowboy in the wild, wild west!

See what good friends they are!

Oh, no!  It looks like Buzz has caught wind of some danger!

Look at Woody go!  The Evil Genius isn't going to get him this time!



I'm proud to say they both lived to fight another day and remain friends til the end!

Christmas Portraits

When I do a planned portrait session with the boys I really try to be very easy going about the whole thing which I must confess is rather difficult for me.  I keep telling myself sometimes the silliness in the pictures at this age will only help me remember later in life what they're little personalities were really like.

I even got Callie in on the Christmas portrait action!  She's so good about letting me do anything to her.   I think she's quickly beginning to be my favorite subject!

The pictures of her were taken with my Christmas present from Bobby and the boys!!! I can't say enough about how great it is! I loved my old camera and it was perfect for getting started in the digital SLR world but I think the canon 60D is going to be just what I need to take my photography to the next level!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Parade

When I lived in Auburn we went to the City's Christmas Parade every year. I was even in it a time or two if I remember correctly. Anyway, since being in Mobile I'd hadn't made it to a single Christmas Parade. That is until this weekend! I loaded up the boys and we made our way downtown despite the rather chilly temperatures. Here's a peak at what we saw!

Enjoying a little lunch before the parade started rolling.

If you're wondering why Parker has such a concerned look on his face its because he didn't like that I was standing in the street while taking the picture. The whole time he was telling me "Mommy you not soppse to be in da road. A car might hit you!" My sweet cautious boy!

I think Carter was a little overwhelmed by everything. He kept a very straight face most of the time but I did see him bouncing a little to the beat as the marching bands passed by.

To say the boys loved the parade is an understatement! We will definitely be adding Mobile's Christmas parade to the list of our yearly Christmas traditions!

Our Newest Member, Thanksgiving and Dylan

I'd planned on doing a post for each of these but as its almost Christmas and I'm just now getting around to recapping our Thanksgiving it'll be July before all our Christmas is up so hence the all encompassing post :)

I'll start with Thanksgiving. We went home for the entire week and it was nice having the time to really relax and enjoy our family. The boys had a great time soaking up all the grandparents spoiling ;)

While we were home I wanted to take some fall pictures of the boys for our Christmas card so we took them to the train station in Opelika. They were not super cooperative and it was pretty cold but I managed to get a few keepers!

One of my favorite parts of the entire trip was meeting my newest nephew Dylan Alan Baker! He is such a cutie pie and a very sweet baby! Well, just see for yourself!

And last but not least I'd like to introduce the newest member to the Stinson household....

CALLIE!!!

All Parker asked for for his birthday was a dog. We kept telling him we can't have a dog right now being that the house is on the market but when we move we'd talk about getting one. Weeellll...my sister decided that she wouldn't be able to keep their dog after she had Dylan so Bobby and I discussed and thought we could take her even though we're in crazy circumstances right now. I'm SO glad we did. She is the best dog and the boys are HEAD OVER HEELS in love with her. Carter gives her about 20 hugs a day and Parker tells her all kinds of things as if she's human and knows exactly what he's talking about. They're really so sweet with her and I think the feelings pretty mutual!

Cookies with Mrs. Claus

A friend of mine took her little boy to make cookies with Mrs. Claus last year and ever since I saw the pictures and heard her talk about how much fun it was I was DYING to take the boys!  I knew Parker would love it but I wasn't quite sure how Carter would do.  We had a great time but I think I may have overestimated Carter a bit, well just take a look for yourselves.

They were decorating the boxes! Can you see Carter about to get into his cookies? I had to quickly stop him only to have him act like...

...this for the majority of our visit ;)



All was well again when Mrs. Claus came around and said he eat the frosting off his cookies with his finger.







I'm not sure Parker knew what to think about Mrs. Claus :)

But what I do know is he had a blast decorating and...



...eating his cookies!

I'm so thankful for my sweet friend Julie who to took/let me take the pictures in this post!  I'm not sure how it happened but when I got to the shop the battery in my camera was completely dead.

Even though the cookie making was a little harry, we'll definitely be making this a yearly tradition!

Washington Square

I've been looking for a new place to take picture of the boys so a friend told me about Washington Square. I was looking for a park or something that had some of those beautiful fall trees I've been seeing around town and while the square didn't have any trees like that in it, there were a couple in the yards surrounding the park. The houses lining the park's boarders were beautiful. I just LOVE old southern homes and this square was in no shortage of them. It also had some beautiful oak trees with low swinging branches that Parker had a blast hanging from. I really didn't even plan on taking any pictures while we were there but I grabbed my camera on the way out just in case! Take a look at some of my just in case shots! Although I love the way Parker looks in these pictures I must confess, I tried something new with my camera when I took these pictures and I'm not really sure why but they came out a little grainy. Needless to say I won't be using that setting again ;)