Woah....what a holiday it has been. I guess the only way I can explain the holidays is through photos...so follow me here....

Christmas Eve was filled with lots of "Peno" playing with Cameron. I think I have my own little protege on my hands :-) The boy LOVES to play the Piano with mommy!

Christmas Eve night was at the Krauss House2 (Mom and Dad2) with lots of family. Cameron had a blast showing off his cuteness and awesome little kissy lips. The kid seriously has an awesome pucker...its like little fishy lips...its just so darn cute.

After the Christmas Eve celebration at Krauss House2, we came home, put the little dude to bed and got ready for Santa Claus to make his appearance. Look at all the loot the big man in red left!

See all those presents....whats the ONE big hit? Oh no...not the train table, not the Cam sized Elmo or Tigger, not the Elmo DVD's, not the Mr.Potato Heads....oh no...the dumb bubble popper! Yes...the bubble popper was the hit of the morning. Keep in mind I just said "of the morning"...My sister made his day...but more about that later.

After opening all presents Santa left at our house. We went back to Krauss House2 and opened up MORE presents for the little dude. We were nervous to be honest. When you get a phone call that says "You understand that we reserve the right to annoy you", well...you get kinda scared to see what they get your child. Mom-mom & Pop-pop really spoiled Cameron. He loved everything he got.

"What?! We have to leave Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop's?! But I am having fun here!"

So after a morning at Krauss House2 and breakfast with the family, we headed over to the Christie house hold for major craziness. Let me tell you...when you get Cameron and Madeline together, you are asking for a loud, crazy afternoon. The 2 of them together is trouble. You know something is going on when you hear the two of them hiding in the laundry room with the door closed and giggling going on behind the door, you know your in more trouble when every time you go to open the door, they close it on you immediately and laugh! Look at these 2...you can't tell me those faces don't mean trouble!

Cameron and Madeline had a blast together playing. Maddie wanted to open every ones presents and Cameron...well Cameron was doing his own thing the whole day. See...his lovely Aunt B gave him a new vacuum for Christmas. A little dinky little red dirt devil vacuum. Surprisingly, I don't have any photos of him playing with it on Christmas day...I think that was because I was trying to get him to play with the other plethora of toys he had gotten. So anytime he even touched a different toy other than the vacuum, I took a photo of it. Don't worry though, I am sure that a photo will be plopped on this blog soon of my cleaning machine in action. But needless to say, the vacuum was a huge hit for him, but he got tons of other cool toys too! Oh...and Madeline has a new best friend....a life size Sleeping Beauty. Except, if I heard her right...we have named her Merry.

So Christmas night excitement ended around 7:30pm ish for us. The little dude was WIPED OUT. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO tired. Of course, he wanted to go to bed with his vacuum, but that just wasn't happening. So we wake up the next morning and want to watch Barney on DVD...nope not one of his NEW DVD's that we got him...no he wanted to boring same old Barney DVD, but hey, whatever makes him happy right. So we pulled out his new "Anywhere Chair" from pottery barn kids that Nan and Poppop got him and he sat there for the entire video drinking juice and eating cereal.

BUT! As soon as that video was done, what did we do?! Run for the toy room to get...wait for it....THE VACUUM! SURPRISE SURPRISE. Now he did play with all the other toys that his Mommom and Poppop and Nan and Poppop got...especially the ones that were meant to annoy us...like the drums, the pizza Elmo, tool benches. Oh the list goes on...but the dumb vacuum had to be in hand and worse yet...ON the ENTIRE TIME! If you turned it off, he went right back over and turned the darn thing right back on. Ugh!

So we went to bed last night with another fight about the vacuum coming to bed and at 3am (yes...3am) we hear "Barney...I yuv you...Barney Barney....I yuv you"....He was having a blast in there at 3am...so much fun in fact that this morning, he didn't want to get up for daycare!

So yes...all in all...Christmas was huge blast and resulted in the above...a whooped little dude who was exhausted from all that vacuum play :-) Hope everyone had a great Christmas. What did you get?!

Wow...so back in November I entered a contest to win a free http://www.portfoliositez.com website. Never thinking I would win of course...Well this morning I got an email stating I WON! I am still in absolute complete shock. Portfoliositez.com has beautiful photography portfolio websites for photographers. I've already purchased a domain name but sad to announce its not Sweet Pea Photography. It was already taken and after much research, its already VERY widely used so I went with my own name. So...coming soon people http://www.sandrakraussphotography.com will be up and running! Portofliositez thank you SO much, you gave me an AWESOME Christmas present and I am still pretty much speechless and in shock!

Check out their blog...it has me on it now! http://portfoliositez.com/blog/

Yummy weekend for this family. It was our annual cookie bake-a-thon at my parents house. The night always ends with us baking sugar cookies and making cookies in the shape of our own hands and decorating them with way to many sprinkles. Just tons of fun and one of my favorite childhood memories.

Our favorite sugar cookie recipie...except...no shorting...yuk...butter only!

Of course a weekend with baking and all the kids together means absolutely craziness. Cameron and Madeline have their wonderful love hate relationship, just like my sister and I when we were little. Just look at the love....




I've been meaning to share this. My niece Madeline looks JUST like her mommy and Cameron looks like me when I was a baby too...Anyone agree with me??

Now of course...a blog entry can not be complete without a new picture of the newest little dude in our family, Mason :)

My baby boy amazes me. He's such a smart little bugger. He has learned SOOOO much lately. He is all about independence on certain things. Like when we get to daycare in the morning.

Cam: I walk!
Mom: Okay (As I undo his buckles from the car seat)
Cam: Waaaaiiitttt
Mom: Okay
Cam: Okay...Ready!

So cute...we used to have a bad bad habit of running away from me in the daycare parking lot and me running after him screaming, but after weeks and weeks of asking him to wait for mommy, he finally listens and takes my hand now.

Newest thing? We LOVE to sing. Oh we LOVE the barney I LOVE YOU song, we boogie on down to that song while singing I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU. He loves Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and sings "Upabove worl so igh".

We enjoy singing our ABC's....we sing EFG...P!...S, T, V, Zeeeee!!!!! Counting is another new favorite too....1, 2, 3, 4(sometimes), 6, 8, 10 YAYYYY!!!!!

I am just amazed at how much he knows. He is such a smart little bugger and I am so proud of him. We learn something new everyday and its so much fun to watch him grow and learn. Even with all the temper tantrums, I am LOVING this stage in his life. Its just absolutely amazing.

This years tree....so pretty...1000 little lights...but wait....do you see something odd? Oh that's right....No ornaments on the bottom half...hmmmm...A house of a toddler?!?

One of my favorite ornaments...Music notes

Ooooooo you can't tell me this is a face of a little devil that wants to pull EVERY ornament off the tree....