My Once Upon a Time...

One day after work last week, we visited the Fairmont Princess Resort here in Scottsdale for their Christmas Display.  I didn't take pictures of all of the activities there, but they had little camp fires set up where you could make smores, they had a train ride to see all of their lights (which was really cool), character meetings, Pictures with Santa Claus, an Ice Skating Ring, a carousel and a Light Show, which was amazing.  We even met our friends and their daughter Harper there! We had a fun evening and I can see this becoming a Family Tradition for years to come!

I’ve always been very open on this blog. I wasn’t going to share this, simply because it’s been weeks and I’m still mad beyond belief, but a lot of people have asked me what happened with Matthias, so here is the (long) story. And maybe one day I’ll be able to look back on this and laugh about it, although I highly doubt it. We terminated Matthias’ contract at the end of November. While it all happened very sudden, there was a long built up to all of this. We almost terminated Matthias’ contract in early June. We had recently gotten security cameras in the house, which Matthias was aware of, but it was shocking to see that he ignored Fox for three straight days. We got the cameras because we had a feeling that something was going on while we were at work and it was sad to see that we were right. Back then, we had a meeting with our community counselor, where he told us that he was not acting himself and he will do better, so we gave him another chance. He was also takin...

Fox has been obsessed with Santa since November. In every store we would go, he would point out if there was a Santa on anything. We go to Hobby Lobby quite often and there are always tons of Santa items there, so one day I drove by the store with him and he pointed to the store and yelled "Santa". He is truly my child!  I was pretty confident that seeing him in person would go pretty well, although I secretly hoped that he would lose his shit, because let's face it, those pictures are always the best! #MeanMom One week earlier we had missed a huge lunch with our friends, followed my Santa Pictures, because Fox was sick, so we decided to go to Bass Pro Shops, since they offered free pictures. When we got there, we found out that you had to get a ticket to see Santa and that the next available spot was seven hours later, at 5pm. What in the world? I thought it would be crowded, but a 7 hour line? We grabbed a pass to come back later, rode the carrousel and looked ar...

In early November, our photographer took our Family Pictures. I truly dread taking Family Pictures, it is so much work. From finding a location, to outfits and props, getting ready and the stress of getting Fox to smile...it's not a fun experience for me. But I love having these pictures, so of course, it's all worth it in the end.  We had the hardest time coming up with a location. Katie wanted to do it in the studio, I wanted to do it outside. I wanted to go to a park, she did not. Ideally, I wanted to take picture in the woods or snow, but we have neither in Phoenix, so that was out. When my friend showed me pictures on a pecan grove that she took pictures at, I was in love and so happy when Katie loved it as well. Unfortunately, our photographer was not willing to drive there (it's an hour from her house) and we weren't able to switch photographers, because 1 - it was too short notice and 2 - we did a trade out with our photographer and didn't have to pay for...

These have to be my favorite pictures to date! I love them so much, I want to blow all of them up into canvases and hang them all over my house.