It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

I absolutely love this time of year! The decorations, the music, the cheerfulness! We love visiting with family and celebrating the reason for the season most of all. I can't wait until Jackson is a little older so we can share with him the Christmas story. For now, we just let him enjoy the lights, tree, and ornaments. He did get a picture taken with Santa and he loves chewing on the nativity figures (so we moved it to the mantle). We've been busy traveling, making some Christmas crafts, and making treats for parties. We leave Friday for TN for a week and will be spending Christmas with the Sunday side of the family this year. Below are a few pictures of our Christmas festivities so far. We will have another update or two after our trip.

To kick off the holiday, I was invited to a cookie exchange at my friend Tracy's house. It was a fun party - she had it set up as a tea for the guests. We had finger sandwiches, fruit, scones, tea, and exchanged our cookies. We also had an apron exchange and a friendly competition to judge the most creative/best cookie packages. I went home with several delicious cookies and an adorable apron! Above are apricot and fig jam cookies. I packaged them in zip lock bags and used a free printable I found online to staple over the top.

It's been a couple months since I got crafty, so as we started to set up a few of our Christmas decorations I decided to revamp one of my previous craft projects. These Christmas tree cones were all glittery before like the red one in the center. They make a big mess every year and I was over the shine. I wrapped them with burlap ribbon and decorated them with additional ribbon and buttons. I still plan to redo the red one in the center but left it for this year. 

I also made a new card display out of burlap ribbon, decorative ribbon, and mini clothes pins. I was really happy with how this turned out. It was even cuter when full of cards - sorry I don't have a picture of that. I also hung additional cards on the photo frame display I made for Jackson's birthday. Basically it is a frame with strands of ribbon hanging across it. I then used mini clothes pins again to hang the cards from the ribbons (check out his bday post for pics). 

My next project served as gifts for the Kiser family (Mike's mom's side) Christmas. I made peppermint brownies in a jar and printed out this adorable labels and decorated with some ribbon. You can find the recipe and printables from here.

Unfortunately I did not take many pictures from Christmas with the Modlin's on my cell phone. We may have more pictures on our camera, but I cannot upload those at this time (read below). Here are two pictures of Jackson opening a very soft, fuzzy blanket from his great aunt and uncle, Becky and Brad. He just loved it - you can tell by how fuzzy the pictures are. He kept rubbing it against his face and shrieking! It was too cute. 

While we were in Chapel Hill celebrating Christmas with the Modlins, they offered to watch Jackson and let us use their basketball tickets for the UNC/KY game. This was a huge win for the heels and Mike and I had a lot of fun attending. 

And before heading west for Christmas, I took Jackson to have his picture taken with Santa. He did a great job! I really expected crying and him trying to climb off Santa's lap. We did not get a smile - just the deer in the head lights look, but at least he wasn't scared! It will be interested to see how he does next year...

Okay, and now a little disclaimer about this post - I actually wrote it before we ever even left for TN and was just too lazy to upload pics at the time. I thought I would blog while were were gone and didn't. Things have been pretty hectic around here since we got back. We immediately had company, then a little sickness hit our house, more company, a surprise birthday party, and now I'm playing catch up as we get ready to travel for the weekend. PLUS, I am still experiencing some pregnancy sickness and am tired ALL of the time. I do what I need to to ensure that Jackson is happy and taken care of, and then all extras (like this blog) get put on the back burner. I am going to do my best to catch up in the next week and hope to do a better job keeping up with it. No promises though because we have a busy couple of months coming up. :)

And I apologize in advance because we left our nice camera in TN, so any photos from the holidays will not be posted for at least another month.

Posts to look forward to:

Christmas in TN

Gender Reveal

Mike's Surprise 30th

Jackson Update

Pregnancy Update

Trip to Arlington

I will get to these all slowly, but surely. Love to all! 

Baby #2: First Trimester

I'm almost 16 weeks now, so this is a bit late but considering we just announced the pregnancy in the last couple of weeks I think that's okay. :) So, for those of you who know what my first (and part of second) trimester was like with Jackson and are curious if this was similar - the answer is YES. I'm one of those really lucky ladies that gets to experience pregnancy nausea and vomiting to its fullest! I didn't end up in urgent care this time, but I did have to have my mom come take care of Jackson for a week. I was more prepared with medication from the beginning; however, I still felt pretty awful. It was all I could do to get the sweet boy fed, clothed, and diapered on a daily basis. We spent several weeks inside the house with me mostly laying on the couch. Thank God for a newer medication that has made a world of a difference for me this time around. I still get sick periodically, but this medicine has made it much easier for me to function and get Jackson out of the house daily. Even though I am a few weeks past the first trimester now, I still don't feel the greatest and am still pretty tired. I'm hopeful it will end soon! I also try not to complain too much because I know that we are extremely blessed and that the little gift at the end is worth every second of this!

One thing that has been different so far with this pregnancy is my uncontrollable hunger. At least once a day I get so hungry that nothing will satisfy my hunger. I feel like I eat for hours sometimes - so much for controlling the weight gain... :) It's also a lot more tiring the second time around when you have a very young, energetic toddler to keep up with. I'm not sure my energy will every return at this point! haha My house is a disaster at all times and we never cook, but my boy is healthy and the new little one is healthy so far so the rest of that does not matter! 

I wrote this in my last post, but we are beyond thrilled to be welcoming another sweet baby into our family. We are interested to see how Jackson reacts - there may be some jealousy but he will be a good big brother (eventually). I go for my 16 week appointment this week and then in about two and a half weeks we have our ultrasound. We cannot wait to find out whether we will be adding another little man or a little lady to our family! 

Here are a few pics of my baby bump growth so far:

Thanks for checking in! Hugs to all! 

Thankful Hearts

Thanksgiving - I just love this time of year. I really enjoy the time spent with family and good food, and of course the reason for the holiday. Thanksgiving is always a reminder to be thankful for all that we have, but I do try to be thankful not just in November but all year long. This year we spent the holiday with Mike's side of the family. We spent Tuesday-Sunday in Chapel Hill with his parents, and Thanksgiving day was spent in Raleigh at his Aunt Rosanne's and Uncle Ron's house. His grandmother, cousins Joe and Jennifer, and Jennifer's husband Derek were all there. We went over mid morning and hung out until Thanksgiving lunch was ready. We enjoyed a delicious lunch of turkey, ham, dressing, green beans, deviled eggs, potato salad, and sweet potatoes. We waited a couple of hours for pie and then dug into some chocolate bourbon pecan pie - yum! The rest of the afternoon was spent being pretty lazy, laying around watching football and laughing at little Jackson. We got all the food out again for dinner before heading back to Chapel Hill.

We enjoyed the rest of the trip. Mike and I got to go to a movie one afternoon, which was my first movie in over 15 months! That means the last time I went to a movie was BEFORE Jackson was born. We also got to eat at a couple of our favorite restaurants while in town, visit with a few friends, and attend the last football game. It was a nice trip.

Our little turkey! I tried taking about 100 pictures of him to get a cute one in his Thanksgiving shirt - this is the best I could get. So hard with an energetic little toddler. Love that little turkey though! 

Cooper snuggled up on Joe - his post turkey nap.

Daddy had to have a little post turkey nap of his own....haha

This little boy was such a ham at dinner - he put on a show for the entire table. He loves the attention! 

Jennifer took these adorable pics for us. Joe was playing peek-a-boo behind a chair to get the little man to laugh. I just love how they turned out! 

Jackson crawled up in this chair numerous times on Thanksgiving. He would rock back and forth saying "gock, gock, gock" (rock, rock, rock). So cute. 

Thanks for the fabulous pictures Jenn! 

Family pic at dinner!

Now with the Modlins.

At the last football game, unfortunately it did not end well for the tar heels. Still a nice day to be outside! 

Even though we only have one day declared as "Thanksgiving," I try to remember to be thankful for all of God's many blessings each and every day. We are truly blessed with so many things: gods eternal love, forgiveness for our sins, our health, home, businesses, and our precious little boy...just to name a few of the many things we have to be thankful for. Well, this year Mike and I have another big reason to be grateful; We have been blessed with another sweet baby! I am 14 weeks pregnant and the baby is due to arrive June 3. We are ecstatic and cannot wait to be parents for the second time. We truly enjoy being parents and love our first little blessing more than words can say. I cannot even begin to imagine how full our hearts will be when the second little bundle of joy arrives!

The most recent "bump" picture. I feel like I'm showing a ton already - you always hear that you show earlier with the second and this has definitely been true for me! More of a pregnancy update to come soon! 

We hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families and friends and wish you a Merry Christmas as the season quickly approaches. Love to all! 

Bananas!

Jackson started saying bananas last weekend. Before he said the full words he could say nanas though. I love hearing him say it - it is the cutest word ever! Sometimes he says bananas and other times it comes out "nananas." Watch the little video below and you can hear him say it each way:

The boy loves his bananas and we love our little monkey! 

Our Little Talker

Boy has Jackson really taken off verbally this month. He has several words and maybe even two-word phrases that you can make out clearly, and other times he just babbles nonstop about something...he just has so much to say! I love that he is able to say new words almost every day. You can really tell that he understands a lot too. I'm guessing he says about 25 words right now but the list is constantly growing! Here is a list of his current vocabulary:

Dada, mama, hi, buh-bye, bubbles, baby, ball, basketball, football, bananas, bite, milk, car, cat, kitty, dog (gog), duck, pig, turkey, cheese, poo-poo, Ky-ky (Kylie), Cor-Cor (Corey), Gigi (his great-grandma), Bampa (grandpa), something that resembles graham cracker, pumpkin, meow, moo, baa, and he can snort like a pig! He also points to one of us our pictures and says something that sounds like "that's mama" or "there's dada!"

It is so much fun to watch him learn and take in new words. He can follow some simple commands and tries to repeat so much right now. Of course, he still does not understand no, or chooses not to listen to us. We try not to overuse "no," but he loves to open the trash can and sometimes pull stuff out and he NEVER listens when we tell him to stop. He will look at us and shake his head no but keep on what he is doing. So frustrating! Other than that, he is a pretty good boy!

He remains a sweet, happy, caring, curious little guy. He's still climbing and getting into everything. He loves to be outside and to run around like a big boy. Jackson seems to be a little tender-hearted and gets upset when other kids get upset. He is also unsure of other kids touching him. We continue to go to Gymboree classes weekly and try to go as often as we can to play in their gym or get together with friends for play dates. He loves his mama dearly and still climbs on me several times a day to give hugs. We are practicing giving kisses - he will kiss his toys some, has kissed Max once, and every once and a while gives me one. :) Love it! He continues to sleep great at night and for most naps. Food has been a bit of a struggle this past month - some days he doesn't eat much at all and other days he eats well. He is much pickier about what he eats though. We miss our boy who ate anything and everything! Jackson greatly enjoyed the fall time with all of the pumpkins. I'm looking forward to the holidays and seeing his reaction to all of the decorations.

We love this boy more every day and cannot believe it has been 3 months since we celebrated his first birthday. His personality gets more fun every day and we truly just have the best time with him. Thanks for all of the joy that you bring to our lives little man!

Jackson and I went to our friend Merrick's 4th birthday party - it was held at Monkey Jo's, one of the bounce house places. All he cared about was climbing on this Bob the Builder ride and running around. He did not want to be on the bounce houses at all! 

A cold day at the park but still loved being outside! 

Playing with daddy at the park. 

Jackson loves to use his basketball goal as a chair and then pulls this toy up to him so he doesn't have to stand! haha

Judging from this picture, you'd think Max actually liked the boy. Nope, still hates him. 

Our cool little man in his shades! 

Found these two best buddies playing in the play room before bed a couple of nights ago. The dog loves his boy. :) 

Thanks for reading - love to all! 

Halloween

Our little man dressed up as a police officer for Halloween. I didn't think he would enjoy a big costume, and considering he wouldn't even wear his police hat, I'm glad we went with a simple costume. He got to dress up a couple of times. The first time we joined the Lake Norman Mommies play group at the tot lot in Davidson for a play date and snacks - all the kiddos wore their costumes. He ran around and played in the sandbox. It was pretty day to be outside!

The only shot I could get before he ripped his hat off. Isn't he cute though? The tot lot was great - it is a park designed for toddler aged children. It has a big sandbox and tons of ride on/push toys for the kids to move about in a safe environment. 

And here is the little officer digging in the sand. He had a fun time!

On Halloween we went over to our friends house, the Rigneys, and joined them and some other friends for tick or treating. Since Jackson had know idea what was happening, we just pushed him in the stroller and he watched the bigger kids run around. He still received a couple of pieces of candy and some gold fish. Mommy enjoyed the candy! :)

Our crew: Lauren and Elliott, me and Jackson, Tracy and Merrick, and Ashley with Luke and Emma. 

Jackson out trick or treating! He was happy just to hold his pumpkin. :) 

Fall fun

I'm a bit behind on this, but we took Jackson to his first pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. Grandma brought him his first pumpkin about a month ago, and ever since the boy has been obsessed with pumpkins! He loves to point out pumpkins on our walks and he notices pumpkin decor everywhere we go. So we took a family trip back to the farm that we picked apples to get some pumpkins. Our friends the Weeks joined us with their two kids, Christian and Peyton. It was a gorgeous fall day and we had a great time. We took a hayride out to the petting zoo area and looked at the animals for a while. Jackson loved this as much or more than last time! We then got back on the wagon to go pick our pumpkins. We got two which Jackson approved of. Then we let the kiddos run around for a bit before heading home. He loved seeing the pumpkins on our porch and even helped daddy carve one for Halloween. Since Jackson also loves cats, we decided on a kitty pumpkin. He was thrilled with the outcome! Here are a few pics from the farm and pumpkin carving:

Jackson was in pumpkin heaven with this giant pile of pumpkins!

Petting the animals - he has no fear.

A couple family pics :)

Precious boy and his pumpkin.

Daddy and Jackson working hard on the pumpkin.

The finished product! Meow! It's so cute how he knows that it is both a pumpkin and a cat. He will look out the door and "pukin! meow meow!"

We also took Jackson to the state fair for the first time a couple weekends ago. We were in chapel hill for a football game and made it to the fair in Raleigh on the last day. We walked around and ate while he took a nap in his stroller. When he awoke, we showed him the giant pumpkins and all of the animals. He loved both! We then got some ice cream and let him run a bit before heading back home.

Checking out the award winning giant pumpkins!

A little ride on daddy's shoulders to check out the cows, goats, and pigs! 

Up next, Halloween!