Winter Travels

We've had a pretty busy winter. Right after Christmas we has company a couple of times and then traveled up to Arlington at the end of January to visit Candace, Jeff, and Caroline. The little guy got a fever while we were there and was not his happy self the whole time, but we did have times where he was okay. Turned out on Monday that he had an ear infection. :( Other than that, we had a great time visiting! We celebrated Christmas a little late since we weren't together for the holidays. We also got a babysitter one night and went out for drinks and tapas and dinner. Fun times!

Here are the two littles taking a bath together. :) 

And here is Miss Caroline modeling her Christmas present from us. We got her an apron, cookbook, and some bakeware because she likes to help out in the kitchen! 

We were home for a weekend or two before Mike and I took a little "babymoon" to Jamaica. This trip was wonderful! It was my first time away from my little man, so it was a bit hard to leave. Everything turned out great though and it was a nice relaxing week! My mom came and stayed with Jackson for the week and my cousin Mallory joined her for a few days. Although it was great to have some alone time, we sure did miss Jacks and were glad to return home to him.

On our way tot he resort! 

Drinks on the beach....don't worry, virgin for me! 

Gorgeous view every day! 

Little dark, but a beach pic - I will try to upload pictures from the nice camera soon.

We were home for less than a week before making the short trip to Fayetteville, NC to visit our good friends Corey and Claire. Claire is nearing the end of her pregnancy and I was honored to attend a special baby shower brunch for her. We also got to catch up with other good friends, Callie and Justin. Jackson had a fun weekend playing with the dogs and running around outside. The next time we get together with this crew there will be two baby girls in the group. Jacks won't know what to think when all the attention isn't on him anymore!

Jacks swinging on the front porch. 

He had a blast with Corey and daddy. We didn't get a picture of it, but he sat between these two "cheers-ing" their beer glasses for most of the meal! 

This is really blurry and hard to see, but this is Annie and Cooper saying good bye. The pair always gets so sad when it is time for us to leave. When Mike and I were packing up in the bedroom, Cooper went to a back room, curled up in Annie's bed and started whining. Oh my! 

And the following weekend, Mike and I took a quick trip to Asheville. Part of our Christmas gift from his parents was a spa treatment at the Grovepark Inn and for them to come keep the little guy while we got away. I greatly enjoyed my prenantal massage while Mike also got a relaxing massage. We then spent some time in the mineral pool and just relaxing around the spa. We had a nice dinner at the Inn and then headed home early Saturday morning. It was cloudy and rainy most of the day, but Mike did snap this picture below of the mountains from our hotel room. We hope to visit the spa again soon!

We are nearing the end of our "safe" time travel before our little lady arrives. We are making a quick trip to Chapel Hill this weekend to attend a birthday party and see some old friends - we know it will be several months before we will be going anywhere! After this weekend, we plan to stick around Huntersville to catch up on some stuff, pack, and move - have we mentioned that we are moving in 3-4 weeks??? Crazy, I know but that's how we do things! Pray this baby girl does not come anytime soon. :) More on the new house later...

Pregnancy Update: 2nd Trimester

I cannot believe that we are finally to the third trimester! This pregnancy has seemed to go by pretty slow for me, but time has really picked up the last few weeks and I'm sure these next couple of months will fly by! Life has been as normal as it can be at this point - we stay busy and get by the best we can. Unfortunately, I still get sick from to time and I just recently felt like I started to get some energy back. I guess these reasons contribute to why this pregnancy seems so slow for me. I do what I can to keep Jackson entertained and having fun. The house and cooking still struggle a bit (although we are doing better!).

Anyway, here is a little update of all that has gone on the last few months:

• I started feeling little movements around 15 weeks - just flutters at first, but they are much stronger and more frequent now. Little lady is ALWAYS very active as soon as I hit the bed! 
• At 16 weeks I passed my first glucose test, actually my blood sugar was low. The Md wanted to test me early for gestational diabetes in case it was missed with jacks since he was so large, but I was fine. 
• At 17 weeks we found out that this sweet baby is a GIRL! 
• Our ultrasound at 18 weeks revealed a small cyst in her brain. We did additional screening and the cyst was gone at that point. Everything else looks very normal and I'm very low risk for any genetic abnormalities but we continue to pray for a healthy little girl. 
• Since that point I do continue to get sick every 2-3 weeks. I also fight nausea every afternoon/evening. I'm just so hungry all of the time and if I don't eat right away I get nauseous. 
• I have more energy during the day; however, have a very hard time sleeping at night and toss and turn much of it. This makes waking up hard for me. 
• If you've read my other posts, you know how busy Jackson is. I am doing the very best I can to keep up with him but it is becoming increasingly more difficult. I can't tell that soon getting down on the floor to play, giving baths, changing diapers (unless on changing table) and holding him on my lap are going to be too hard. 
• We've had a very busy few months with lots of traveling and friends visiting. We've had company a couple times and traveled to Chapel Hill, Tennessee, DC, Jamaica, Fayetteville, and Asheville. 

We are scheduled for another glucose test this week. Other than that it's just routine care until the last month. At that point we will do a weight check to see if baby girl is as big as her big brother was! Fingers crossed she is a little smaller and that we can avoid induction/c-section. 

As for the next couple of months we may take one quick trip to Chapel Hill and then plan to stick around home, spend time together as a family of 3 while we can, and just relax!

Guess I didn't plan my outfits very well - in my defense, there were 3 other pictures in between these two and this really shows how much my belly grew in the 4 weeks!

About 12 more weeks to go! I will update as it gets closer. Can't wait to meet our sweet little lady! 

18 Months

Our sweet little man turned one and a half already! I cannot believe how much time has passed since we celebrated his first birthday - he's going to be two before we know it! Jackson continues to be such a delight. He is full of personality and 100% all boy. As I've said before, he goes from the minute he wakes up until he goes to bed at night (he rarely ever seems to get tired!!). Although it is draining at times, and being pregnant does not help, I would not have him any other way!

Jackson has more interest in actually playing with toys at this time. He can sit and stack his mega blocks or work on a puzzle for a few minutes at a time. He of course still loves bowls and spoons and many non-toy objects, but we love the fact that he is developing an attention span for playing and that he is more engaging in his play. He stills LOVES books and reading. His most recent obsession (and I don't see this changing anytime soon) is cars/trucks. He talks about them ALL day long and loves to point them out as we are driving or when in a parking lot. He has a couple of books with trucks in them and he gravitates toward these books the most.

He is still talking quite a bit and is a little parrot these days. He tries to repeat many words and names and is doing a better job communicating with us. Most words he says really well, but he still has a couple that do not make any sense to us. For example, he says "dookoo" for goldfish. All other developmental milestones seem to be going really well.

We did have a big schedule change recently. The little guy dropped his morning nap about a month ago or so. We now nap mid day around 12:30. Some days he will nap for 2.5-3 hours and it is great! But most days it only lasts about 1.5 hours. His wake up time has been fluctuating a lot too and I think this has to do with the nap change and also the sun rising earlier. We sure do love the days when he sleeps till 8:00 though!!

Here is a little summary of Jacks at 18 months:

• He is talking a ton - knows several animals names and sounds, talks about cars, can say most family members names, repeats everything, knows the name of many food items. He does speak some in 2-3 word phrases. 
• Eating is going pretty well. He is a toddler so you never know what you will get from one day to the next. He almost always likes fruit and dairy but is hit or miss with certain veggies and meats. We continue to try and offer these healthy foods and try not to fill him up on junk. He can feed himself some foods with a spoon but mostly prefers to hold the spoon and eat with the other hand. We are still working on this. 
• He has grown a ton in the last 6 months! He grew over 3 inches and over 4 pounds. He is now 35 inches tall and over 25 pounds. As expected, he continues to be off the charts in height!
• He still sleeps well at night and takes one good nap a day. 
• The boy is never still - he loves walking, running, climbing, jumping, bouncing - you name it! 
• Socially he is still more interested in older kids or bigger toddlers. He is interacting more with some kids his age or size. He calls everyone a baby though! 
• His current interests are cars, trucks, planes, trains, boats - anything that goes! He also likes books, animals, balls, and blocks. He loves to be outdoors and just runs as far and fast as he can if he gets the chance. (Mommy prefers parks that are fenced for this reason). 
• Jackson remembers everything - it is amazing how early those little brains can retain so much information. He sees something once and then tries to do it. He is also starting to correlate like objects.
• I know we are far from potty training, but he does almost always tells us when he has pooped. He says "I poo-poo," and then usually runs from me when I go to change his diaper. Crazy boy! Baby steps I guess. :) 
• Jacks is still a mommy's boy but he has gotten a lot more into daddy these past few months. He asks about him a lot during the day and thinks about him pretty much every time he sees a truck. I'm sure by two, this will change even more. 

That pretty much sums up any changes over the last few months. I did have my first trip away from the little guy a couple of weeks ago. I was nervous and said before my trip, but I can say that we both did great! Mike and I definitely had a harder time than him - he seemed to not even skip a beat. He had a great week with Grandma while we were gone and they kept in touch with pictures, videos, and facetime. Now we just plan to soak up our last few months alone with Jacks before his sister arrives. His life (and ours) will be changing a ton after that! 

A few recent pictures:

Just reading one of his favorite books.

Jackson got to play in his first snow in January. We've had two pretty good snows and the kid loves it. The cold didn't phase him and he did not mind that it was difficult to walk in. Mommy made him his first snow man. :)

The day after Mike and I got back from our trip to Jamaica was Jackson's 18 month birthday. We celebrated by a fun day together and spent some time outdoors at the park. 

Sorry the pic is sideways, I made him a little cake to celebrate. 

He loved his treat! 

Just a little fun time in the ball pit! 

Swinging at Uncle Corey's and Aunt Claire's! 

We love this little guy so much! He brings so much happiness and Joy to our lives and we are forever grateful that God chose us to be his parents. We just feel so blessed every day that we get to spend with him. We are looking forward to all of the upcoming changes for our little family! 

DIY Birthday Projects

I'm a WAY behind on writing this post, but time really got away from me after Jackson's birthday. Life was busy for a few weeks and then I started getting sick from this pregnancy - as you know, I am constantly playing catch up now! I still wanted to post some of the DIY projects I did for J's birthday. Below are pictures, links, and instructions to a lot of the things I made/assembled:

 

Door Wreath 

here

High Chair banner here and here

I've seen this photo display a few times on pinterest. Here was my original inspiration and then I tweaked it some. 

I love the look of the chalkboard signs with all of the baby's stats from their first year; however, to have one made on etsy seemed a little expensive and I don't have fun handwriting to make things like this on a real chalkboard myself, so I searched for a DIY version and found a downloadable chalkboard print (sorry, I don't have a link saved for this) and then went to picmonkey.com and created the sign using their fonts and graphics. It took a little time but I was happy with my free result! 

Although my party pack came with an editable sign, I wanted a photo booth sign with more detail. I saw this one on this blog along with the "Real Men Eat Cupcakes" sign below. I then went to picmonkey.com and created very similar ones myself. 

I also use picmonkey for the thank you sign - I did not get this sign idea from some other blog. Just used a play on words with the mustache party theme. And you guessed it, the "Wet Your Whiskers" sign was also created on picmonkey. I've seen similar signs to all of these on etsy, but since I already paid for the party pack, I did not want to spend extra money on these signs. I'm so glad I found picmonkey.com and was able to create them myself! 

I saw numerous examples of photo booths when using pinterest to come up with a party theme. I decided to just hang this piece of burlap fabric that I already had. we added a few decorations to the corner and kept it simple. I do wish I had made it a bit wider, but it was still fun. The party pack I purchased on Etsy came with mustaches and bow ties to cute out and use as photo props. I also purchased some sticky mustaches and a few pairs of those party glasses with the attached nose and mustaches for additional props. 

I used the photo props from the party package to make other decorations. I made a mustache and bowtie garland to hang on the cake table. I also taped them to straws and sticks to make the table decor and fill vases. The thank you tags and toppers for the cookies were also from the party package. 

The "J" frame is decor from his room. I also used some picture frames that had already been spray painted int he turquoise from his room. 

I purchased the Little Man Party Pack from Sour Punch Studios and can be found here. 

I had such a fun time planning, decorating, and cooking for this party! I know it was a lot of work but it is fun for me to see it all come together. I love the adorable packages that you can get on etsy now and they look much more custom than things you can buy in store. I plan to reuse some of the items I made (you will see I did for Mikes birthday). Thanks for checking out the party details!! 

Weekend with Mommy

Daddy went out of town for work this past weekend so it was just Jacks and mommy for three whole days! I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous about no help for a few days. Jackson is a good boy, he's just physically exhausting since he is so busy and I am still fairly tired a lot of the time. Plus, the night before mike left he had an hour or so where he was extremely fussy. Mike looked at me and said I am so sorry that in leaving you now! However, Jackson has been in an incredible mood the last couple of days - just so happy and energetic! My plan was just to do as much as I could to keep us busy and help time pass.

Friday we got up and went to my stroller strides class. From there we did a little playtime, lunch and facetimed with Grandma. After nap we went to Gymboree for play gym. He ran around crazy just laughing , jumping, and flopping around for an hour. We came home to make dinner then went and grabbed some ice cream. After his treat we did bath, milk, and our bed time routine.

We started Saturday morning off with sweet potato pancakes followed by a trip to Discovery Place Kids. Although Jackson doesn't really participate at a lot of the stations, he sure does love running around the museum and climbing into the vehicles. He also likes to splash around in the water areas. We left after I was tired of chasing him and came home to play. We had lunch and facetimed aunt "Babbey" this time. After nap I took my boys ( jacks and cooper) for a nice walk. It was so much warmer and I really wanted to spend some time outside. Plus they both love it! He played a little more then facetimed daddy. We then ran to target and to chickfila for dinner. Jackson was sooo good and got compliments from both tables beside us about how cute and well behaved he is. He is always good there and will actually eat their chicken so I thought it would be a good easy dinner choice. Plus, he has a little obsession with cows right now and enjoys pointing out all of the cows all over the restaurant. From there we came home to play, have milk, and get ready for bed. Jackson ran around wild right up until time to go to his room - I do just love how silly he gets. This kid has the best personality!

We finished our time off together Sunday morning with breakfast and play time around the house. Daddy got home around 11:00 and Jacks was excited to see him! Here are a few pictures from our weekend and time at the museum.

Having some ice cream....you better believe he licked that spoon clean! 

Sweet potato pancakes for breakfast!

Just doing a little yard work, no big deal.

He likes the water areas a lot. I was smart enough to put short sleeves on him this time and bring an extra shirt just in case!

Little an loved climbing up in the boat this visit!

He also really likes "driving" the race car!

Fireman Jacks....busy watching some other kiddos.

And my favorite cool little dude chillin in the stang... :)

Tennessee Christmas

We spent Christmas in Tennessee this year with my family. Besides the drive to and from, we had a pretty nice trip. We got to stay for a week which was great! This gave us time to visit with family and several friends, of course there is never enough time to see everyone that we'd like to visit. We left on a Friday when mike got home from work. The first few hours of the trip were rough - Jackson completely skipped his nap and cried on and off for two hours. We got stuck in traffic/ road construction 3 times. And our dinner stop seemed to take forever - gone are the days of quick stops and eating in the car. Finally, Jackson fell asleep and slept the last couple of hours.

The days leading up to Christmas were spent hanging out with family, baking cookies, and finishing last minute Christmas Day preparations. Mike and I got to meet Dan, Jenny, and Hayden for lunch and then Mike got to go hang out in Nashville with his old Belmont crew that night. Unfortunately, some sickness hit the house right before Christmas. Abbey woke up sick early Monday morning and then Mike and Corey got it on Tuesday and Gigi a few days later. Luckily the bug only lasted about 24 hours and the whole house did not catch it and everyone was feeling better by Christmas.

Kylie returned home from her dad's on Christmas Eve and boy was Jackson excited to see his Kylie! The boy could not stop hugging her. It was so sweet! We had some finger foods for dinner that night followed by our gender revealing cake pops for dessert. Christmas morning started fairly early. We thought it would be best to let the kiddos do their stockings and presents early before Jackson's nap. We then had breakfast and after Jacks laid down, the rest of us opened presents. He was most into opening his stocking and loved the toothbrush he found in it! Of course he didn't care much for sitting still and opening presents - he just kept wanting to run into the kitchen to find the cat. The boy is busy. He was most excited about putting on at shirt that Gigi gave him. He had to wear it over his pajamas. It will be fun to see him progress the next year or two though. I'm sure he will get much more excited about toys then. We had a pretty relaxed afternoon. I even took a little nap. Abbey, Galen, and Kylie left to visit his family for the evening. The rest of us enjoyed a nice dinner of prime rib, broccoli casserole, sweet potatoes, rolls and coffee ice cream cake. We followed dinner with a movie and more relaxing.

Thursday mike and I met two friends, Erin and Brett, in Nashville for lunch. Friday we got to visit Brittany and Steve's new house and she cooked brunch for us along with Kellie, Adam, and Kyle. It was cute to see the boys together again now that they are both walking. However, they kept fighting over the same basketball and whichever kid did not have the ball was in hysterics (there were like 10 other basketballs but they only wanted one). This was a bit comical. Maybe they will know how to share by the next play date! Speaking of the next play date, Brittany's little one will be able to join us then (she is due with baby in February).

We hung around the house on Saturday. We got to visit with Jeff, Denise, and the kids before packing up for he trip home. We decided to leave Saturday evening with the hopes that jacks would sleep and not cry as much. That part of the plan worked; however, before he fell asleep he vomited all over himself and the car seat. Poor guy was so upset! This was the first time he has ever thrown up. We made a pit stop and threw away the pjs he was wearing. After getting him changed and the car seat cleaned up the best we could we were back on the road. He fell asleep shortly after, and the rest of the drive went smoothly (except for the nauseating smell....). Anyway, we had a great trip and enjoyed our time celebrating the Christmas holiday with family!

Cheesin with Uncle Galen!

This was one of his presents from Grandma and Grandpa. He got it early so he could play with it. 

Giving cousin Kylie some hugs! 

Christmas tree and presents on Christmas morning! 

I know this isn't a great pic, but I was trying to get a picture of his Christmas jammies from Grandma. He wouldn't stand still though - I had a very similar pair when I was his age! I'll post a pic later...

Table on Christmas night!

Family pic - last Christmas as a family of 3!

Trying to take a pic with Gigi, but the little guy did not want to cooperate. 

Right after getting sick in the car. As soon as we got him changed, he was ready to go!

Again, sorry the pictures are not great. I will post more next month when we get our camera back. Thanks for hanging in there with me in the meantime!