Baby bear, baby bear...

Each night before Bryson goes to bed, he asks to read "Baby Bear".  You know:

We love to go thru and talk about the different animals, and Bryson likes to argue that the Blue Heron is not a Blue Heron but a BIRD.  "No mom, das a bird!" He doesn't quite understand that a heron is actually a bird.
Anyways, last night we read the book as usual, and for those of you who are familiar with the book know that on the last page, all the animals are listed out.  Instead of reading them, I pointed to each one so Bryson would name them.  Usually when I do that, he names them by their short name (for example, instead of "striped skunk" he just says "stunk").  Last night, however, my sweet little baby boy named every single animal just like it was written in the book (well in Bryson language anyways). "a wed fox, a prawee gog, blue heron, scweech owl"...etc etc etc.  OMG. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen....and being the sap that I am, I understandably burst into tears afterwards! I can't even explain it, but this overwhelming feeling just came over me that my little boy is growing up so fast! Before I know it, he'll be reading books to ME!  Sigh.  The time passes so quickly when you're a parent.  I learn that more and more each day! I've just got to soak it all in while I still can.
Here's a couple pics from the past week:

Picking out a Toy Story sticker

Sideways cowboy hat

 Also, for those who are interested, I've started a new blog, purely for my crafting stuff.  Check it out!
Crafting My Way

Stamp project

Have you ever inherited something that you just don't know what you're going to do with? When my dad died years ago, I inherited his stamp collection....his very extensive stamp collection. I have spent years trying to figure out what I should do with this thing. He spent so much time collecting and organizing these stamps that I have felt guilty when thoughts of selling them come into my mind. So, I thought I could do something to kind of commemorate how much they meant to him and also make a keepsake for myself at the same time.

I sorted through some of the stamps in the large box I have and picked out some of my favorites. His collection is made up of so many stamps from all over the world and there are all kinds of cool/funky ones. It was hard to choose! I bought a canvas from the craft store, painted it black, and proceded to lay out the stamps to make a collage of sorts. When I was happy with the layout, I used Mod Podge to glue each stamp down. Once that dried, I put a few coats of Mod Podge over the top to seal them.

This picture was taken before I put my final coats of Mod Podge over the top, but you get the idea. I'm still trying to figure out where I will display this in the house. It's not the greatest masterpiece but it will definitely serve its purpose in honoring my dad's hobby.

New Directions

Have you ever been randomly inspired to change things up in your life? This totally happened to me last week. I was at work, surfing the web (on my break of course) for cheap decorating ideas for our church. One thing led to another and I suddenly found myself browsing the blogs of random women who write about crafting, baking, recycling....etc. I found myself amazed because I didn't realize this world of blogs existed! Suddenly I was reading awesome ideas on how to recycle every day products into works of art, how to make every day home items yourself, and how to create amazing crafts using little to no money! I was immediately inspired to start trying these things myself. I love to craft when I have inspiration and time...but it's something I rarely do and it's usually around the holidays when I do it. I like to find an interesting craft/ornament/something to make for others or for myself....but once the holidays pass, so does my crafting time. Reading these various blogs really sparked my passion for making pretty things. I didn't realize how EASY it is to make something beautiful....and I didn't realize how happy it makes me to be productive in that way. Taking time out of my day to do something that really makes me happy and that I completely enjoy (aside from spending time with my family/friends) doesn't happen very often. Crafting is something I've always wanted to do more of but have never taken the time to do it. So here it is--my belated New Years Resolution: to work on a craft at least once a week..(as time permits of course). I hope to keep up this resolution and hopefully will make the time to occasionally blog about my recent projects. I'm excited to start doing something for ME that is not only fun, but also productive.
Yay for positive changes in the Johnson household!! Stay tuned!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year...and all that jazz.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year! We had a great Christmas this year and Bryson really enjoyed himself. He of course got more stuff than he knows what to do with! We made Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve, set out our plate for Santa...and wouldn't you know it, the big fat man came to see us!



As you can see, Bryson's big gift was his kitchen which he absolutely loves. His little imagination is really taking off and he's really starting to "pretend play" which is so fun to watch. The stuff he comes up with just absolutely amazes me. Every day is something new!
We are still struggling a lot with his toddler attitude, but hopefully we'll make it thru this phase soon. Some phrases we hear pretty frequently now are: "I bad boy!" "You don't tell me no!" ----Yeah. Don't really know what to do about that! Sometimes when we are telling him not to do something he even comes back with "Excuse me??" (which is what I say to him when he says something bad) Ohhhh boy oh boy. Oh and did I mention we are now referred to as "Mom and Dad"? Very rarely are we Mama/Mommy and Daddy anymore. I feel like we have a little mini teenager in the house sometimes!

(Blurry pic of Mr. Attitude himself sitting in time out)
One new thing that we did this Christmas season was we took our first family trip to the movies! We went and saw:

Bryson did SO good and sat thru the entire movie! He loves movies so I was pretty confident he would do great. We all really enjoyed the movie...it was so cute! ....and yes...I even shed a few tears at the end. I'm such a sucker for Disney movies. Anyways, we will definitely have to purchase this one when it comes out on DVD. It's a keeper! Such a cute twist on an old fairy tale.
Here's Bryson watching the big screen while enjoying his bag of popcorn:

And of course, last but not least:
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Fall portraits

I hope everyone had a great Turkey Day! I know we sure did! It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving has come and gone and fall has almost left us! Although, for those of us here in SC, I think it's safe to say that we haven't had much of a fall this year. We've gone back and forth between hot and cold weather for all of October/November, so much so that the leaves barely even changed color this year! They just died and fell off the trees. I think they just got so fed up with the weather they didn't know what else to do. Ahhh, how I miss fall. Anywho..

This past weekend we had the pleasure of having a photo shoot with the very talented Kellen, of Third Eye Wide Photography. We wanted some fall shots of the 3 of us and some good pics of Bryson for our Christmas card. We got some great shots and I was so excited to see how well they turned out! Here are a few of our favorites:





Thanks Kellen! :)

FREE Christmas Cards!

Yes, I said FREE! Shutterfly is doing a special promotion for bloggers where you have the opportunity to get 50 FREE Christmas cards! Interested? Keep on reading.

For those of you who are not familiar with Shutterfly, it's a wonderful website where you can upload and print all your pictures, create holiday greeting cards, calendars, mugs, etc. You name it, Shutterfly does it. I personally do all of my uploading, printing through them and have always been thoroughly pleased with the speed of processing, as well as the quality of the pictures/products I receive.

One of my favorite things about Shutterfly is their huge selection of Holiday Greeting Cards. You can choose from folded greeting cards, flat stationary cards or flat photo cards.

I personally love the flat photo cards the best, because not only do they look great and have a huge selection to choose from, they are EXTREMELY affordable, much more so than most store bought cards that I've seen (and much cuter!). I know that last year I was able to buy all of my Christmas cards from Shutterfly for less than $20. That's INSANE! For less money, you can get CUTER cards that are of HIGHER quality. Once I received my order, I knew I would never buy store bought Christmas cards again.

I also love that, depending on the layout you choose, you can put several pictures or just one picture on your card, whatever you choose. Shutterfly makes it easy for you to design your card the way YOU want it to look. You're not limited to just one style/template. Some of my favorites this year are:

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There are SO many cute ones to choose from!! It will take me hours to decide which one I want to use for our Christmas card this year!

Another great product that Shutterfly offers are Personalized Wall Calendars.

These make a wonderful Christmas gift! I made one last year for all the grandparents, and everyone absolutely loved it. It's a great way to show off how your kids have grown throughout the year, or just a cute way to display family photos. Here's what mine looked like last year:


Another gift idea are the photo books Shutterfly offers. This is a great way to document the first year of your child's life, a wedding, a special vacation.....really anything! I made one shortly after Jeffrey and I were married for our parents/grandparents. It was a great way to compile all of our photographs from the wedding into a nice little keepsake book that they can keep forever. They look so professional once they are all finished. I HIGHLY recommend making one!

So take some time to check out Shutterfly this holiday season! I promise you wont be disappointed!

For all you fellow bloggers, sign up to get your 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly here: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

And a big thank you to Melissa for posting about this on her blog!!

Trick or Treat!

Howdy Partners! This year for Halloween we had a little cowboy in our midst. We celebrated by briefly visiting a church carnival and then some good old fashioned trick or treating with his very best friends Haileigh and Grayson.
Bryson had a great time and got so much candy he could barely lift his little pumpkin by the end of the night. Candy is a rare treat for him so he has really enjoyed being able to have 1 piece of candy at the end of the day. He usually chooses a Dumdum and says "YUMMY!!!" over and over while eating it!


Reading his Bible he received at the church carnival

Checkin out the goats

Still hangin on to the Bible

Best friends