The rest of 2010...

The day after Christmas I was supposed to go shopping with some neighborhood friends to look for discounted Christmas decorations, but when we woke up it was snowing! I decided it wasn't worth risking my life to buy decorations, so we didn't go. Instead, we spent the day playing with new toys, cleaning up our Christmas mess and putting our gifts away. We had cardboard boxes and bags of torn up wrapping paper stacked to the ceiling!

It snowed on and off all day long! And we staying in our house all warm and cozy all day long! One of the projects on my to do list was to clean out Cooper's closet. There were so many boxes of clothes in her closet that there was no room for much else. She has also decided that she doesn't want to sit on her changing table anymore, so we were going to move all the boxes of baby clothes and baby supplies out of her closet and move the changing table in so that we could use it for storage. We are also in the process of updating Cooper's room from a nursery to a toddler room. I'm so excited to see what Michelle is putting together!

Since we had a few days at home to play, we decided to put together the tent Cooper got for her birthday. She had fun playing in the tent with Daddy and even ate her afternoon snack in there.

Wes and I both had the rest of the week off work and we spent most of that time going back and forth to Tuscaloosa visiting family. Here is a recap of the rest of the week...

Monday we went to Tuscaloosa to take some updated family pictures. Thanks Barefeet Photography!

Tuesday night we went to the Alabama basketball game courtsey of Santa!

I thought the game would be pretty boring, but turns out it wasn't! We had a lot of fun! Wes & I both agreed that season tickets to the basketball games would be something fun to do. 

Wednesday morning we went over to my parents house to bake cookies. Cooper & Griffin had fun with the colored cookie dough!

Thursday was the "sprinkle" for Talon. We had SO much fun at Downtown Baby making custom outfits for Talon. He is going to be one stylish baby boy!!

Downtown Baby is by far the best baby store in Tuscaloosa and Crystal, the store owner, is so sweet! I would love to own a store like that one day!

Friday was New Year's Eve. We spent the morning at the Stripling's and then went by Nanny & Papa's on our way home.

Nanny had a haircut appointment that afternoon, so Cooper & I took her to the beauty salon. She was so proud to show Cooper off...she is the sweetest lady there ever was! Here is Cooper and Nanny playing the piano.

I think this wraps up 2010! We are looking forward to what 2011 brings!

Christmas Day 2010

Christmas day went by so fast! We had a lot to do in a very short amount of time! This year, we stayed at our house on Christmas Eve. Since Cooper is starting to understand about Santa, we wanted to be at our house and it got to be somewhat cumbersome last year taking all our gifts down to Tuscaloosa and then bringing them back plus all the gifts we got from our family. There just wouldn't be room in the car!

We got up Christmas morning about 7:30 and got Cooper out of bed. We walked into the den and Cooper was in just awe of all the wrapped presents! Wes & I pointed out the half eaten cookies and empty milk glass. Santa & the reindeer enjoyed their snacks!

Cooper could recognize Santa this year and knew who he was, but I don't think she got the whole Santa comes to my house and brings me toys thing. And, I don't think she really cared how they got there at that point, all she wanted to do was rip open the packaging! She had so much fun tearing off the paper and didn't really want to stop to see what was actually inside the boxes.

Santa brought Cooper an Elmo, finger paint, coloring book and cute coloring case that was painted with her name, a Fur Real kitty cat (that i thought she would LOVE, but she hasn't played with at all), Elmo DVDs, medical kit, a big girl potty book, pearl bracelet and bug glove puppets. Mommy & Daddy gave her some play makeup from Mini Play Makeup that she absolutely loves!

I had high hopes of making a big breakfast on Christmas morning, but there was no time for that. Luckily, I had made some sausage balls earlier in the week, so we warmed those in the microwave and ate them in the car on the way down to Tuscaloosa! We had to be at Grandma's by 10:00! The Thomas family has gotten so big over the last several years, we barely fit in Grandma's living room!

Showing Papa John her bracelet

Cooper, David & Griffin

Brian & Cooper



Playing with her favorite toy

 After opening presents and eating Amish pastries at Grandmas, we rushed over to Nanny & Papa's house. Again, the family has gotten so big over the last several years, we really don't fit in Nanny's house! And, the whole family wasn't even there. Cooper loves her cousins Summer, Anna & Erin and had so much fun playing with them on Christmas Day. Mostly is was a lot of squealing!

Cooper & Summer

All the family

Nanny & Papa

We stayed and visited at Nanny & Papa's a few hours, but by 3:00, Cooper was getting very ill. It was 3 hours past her regular nap time. After Cooper threw a nice fit for everyone, we decided it was time to go! We still had to go back to my Mom & Dads to do our Christmas together. Cooper fell asleep in the car and we tried to get her to go back to sleep at Bebe & Papa Johns, but we had no luck. So, she ended up napping for a whole 15 minutes on Christmas day! After laying in the bed with me and just resting for a while, we got up and opened more presents! She did really well the rest of the day considering she had basically no nap.

Although Cooper was behaving well, we couldn't get her to take a picture with her grandparents. About 7:00 we packed up Wes's truck and headed back to Birmingham. We had such a fun Christmas! On the way home, Wes made the comment that he felt like we spent more time in the car driving from house to house than we did actually being with our families. We may need to revisit our Christmas routine and find a way to slow down and be able to spend more time with our families. Maybe we need to stretch out Christmas for a whole week!

Christmas with the Striplings

Since Wes & I married, 5 years ago, our Christmas routine has been to spend Christmas Eve with his family and then Christmas day with mine. It really worked out well how we were able to blend both our family traditions into one! This year Brian, Barbara, Evan & Meredith stayed in Dothan, so it was just us, Jack & Diane. Since it was just the 5 of us, we invited Jack & Diane up to our house for dinner.

Cooper was just waking up from her nap when they got to our house, but when she saw all the presents, so couldn't wait to open them...literally! I was in the kitchen finishing dinner and Wes was outside with the fryer and Nanna & Papa Jack could not keep her from opening presents. So, before we ate dinner, we opened our gifts!

Notice Cooper is not in her Christmas outfit, but she wanted to pick out her clothes that day and this is what she picked! I decided this was not a battle worth fighting! Anyway, she is cute in whatever she wears!! Nanna & Papa Jack were way to generous as they usually are! Cooper got blocks, pjs, cute pink outfit with her monogram, beautiful pearl necklace, sock monkey, baby doll and movies for the portable DVD player that Wes got! I think that Cooper opened every present that night! I got some great makeup that Cooper & I had fun with!

Our dinner was thrown together relatively quickly, but it was still good! Wes fried a whole chicken in the fryer he got for his birthday. Personally, I like the fried chicken better than the fried turkey. I got to use my Christmas china for the first time and I was super pumped about it!

We had a Santa birthday cake for dessert and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. Cooper got to blow the candles out and she got a kick out of singing! I liked the idea of making a birthday cake for Jesus and thought it was a fun tradition that I wanted to start for our family. I think it is a great way to remind us the Reason for the Season!

After dinner we all went outside to spread our reindeer food! Cooper & Papa Jack had fun throwing out the reindeer food.

It was getting late so Nanna & Papa Jack needed to get back to Tuscaloosa. Cooper put on her Christmas pjs and then set out some milk & cookies for Santa!

Zoo Light Safari

On the Thursday night before Christmas, we met some of our extended family at the Birmingham Zoo to see the Zoo Light Safari and it was FREEZING. The temperature was forcasted to be in the mid 40s, which I didn't think was that cold, but I was wrong! Here is how we kept Cooper warm...

She stayed zipped in Wes's jacket most of the night! OK, complaining about the cold aside, we really did have fun! There were tons of lights, lights everywhere! We found Santa and attempted a group picture.

They also had an Alabama and an Auburn backdrop for photos, so we had to stop there too! Alabama of course!



While Griffin & David were riding the carousel, we took Cooper to the barn to see the animals. There were sheep, pigs, chickens, and a lama. She loved seeing them! Griffin rode the roller racers so Cooper wanted to do it too! She really did good wiggling back and forth! And Brian, Mom & I reminisced about how we had one as kids.

Afterwards, Mom, Brian, Wes, Cooper, & I took Alan and Martha to eat at Pablo's. It was delicious! Martha brought Cooper a late birthday gift...the Little People's Nativity. We had a good time at the dinner table teaching Cooper the names of all the nativity characters. Another fun night with family!