Oh Hello 2012!

Well, after re-visiting this site following a brief quite long hiatus, I am officially proclaiming myself  "Worst Blogger of 2011". In short, I think what happened can be tied to one techological advancement in the Mullinax family-- iPhone. As soon as I had my hands on that sweet little smart phone, the dust began to slowly collect on my laptop.  Then, there was the discovery of Pinterest, and let's just face it-- there's no coming back from that.

I realized today once I kept getting the "insufficient space" memo on my camera that I really needed to dump some pictures and seeing as how my last blog post was about a zoo trip over the summer-- it's time to give an update on the fam. Rather than rake through the entire last six months, let's just start with the most recent.

The holiday season began with annual family pictures, taken by Betsy Booten. This was the first time we've had photos done at Maclay Gardens, and I have to say, we couldn't have asked for more beautiful scenery. Peyton did pretty well this year and only needed moderate amounts of dancing, yelling, clapping, and bribery to get a few smiles. Here are a few of my favorites.

Christmas time is always my favorite time of year. As soon as Thanksgiving is over I am usually chomping at the bit for a tree scented candle or a good holiday wreath.  This year was a lot of fun.  As Peyton grows, sharing all of the traditions and magic of Christmas gets so much more special each year. We talked about Santa for weeks, tried to explain the concept of presents under the tree, and sang Christmas carols each night at bedtime. As we approached the days before Christmas, she was excited about all of the lights outside, so we took a family trip to Dorothy Oven Park. While I didn't get many pictures of the actual lights, I did snap some of the cousins together.



9:00- officially over the lights.

As Christmas Eve came, we visited Santa in the mall (no crying this year!), and put cookies out for him as well.  Peyton was not too pleased with the fact that she did not get to partake in the eating of said cookies. So, instead of a sweet smiling photo in front of the tree, I got this-



Yep- that's my kid.

Instead of describing each moment of Christmas, I will just end this post with a few pictures I took throughout the day.  It was full of joy, love, and laughter-- couldn't have asked for more!
 

Peyton's favorite present- her new mini trampoline!

She is a jumping machine.

Riding horses with her cousin Nathan.

Well, that's all for now.  I promise to blog more than five or six times this year... :-)