Cinco De Mayo Pool Party!

Today, after school - we were invited to come over to Ben's house for a little pool party!!! Our other neighbor - Lisa and her little girl Holiday came over too! Holiday is 3 years old - and she's SUCH a great balance for Ben and Jackson! They all had SO much fun! Emily had 2 pools and a baby pool set up and they all just went crazy!

My precious baby boy! He was hesitant at first, but it didn't take him too long to jump right in!!

Holiday jumps in!!!

I called Ben "Little Jim" cuz he looks EXACTLY like his daddy!!!

Pretty girl!!!











Then, Ms. Emily brought out the popsicles!!!

Jackson looks like he belongs on a horror film w/ his raspberry popsicle!





Jackson kept going to the door cuz he knows that inside that door is a train table and lots of "choo-choos."





Daddy came home in time to jet over really quick to get some play time out by the pool w/ the boys!


Jackson LOVES Ben - he always wants to hug him and tickle him... it's pretty cute.

Ben loved to get sprayed!!

After we drained the pools, there were big mud puddles and those were fun to jump in too!


Gangsta J - his pants kept falling off!

GOOD TIMES!!!!!!!!!

Big Buddies!!

Last week, we were hoping to take the boys to the Botanical Gardens, but the wind was SUPER strong and we decided to keep the boys in and play at Ben's house!! So Cole's mommy Jenny and I took our boys over and we had so much fun! They played "choo-choo's" and had pizza... among other things!!

Ben has lots of fun bath toys - so they jumped in (w/o water, of course) and started playing! Jackson didn't stay long in here - he realized that w/ his two friends in the tub - that meant no one was playing w/ the train set - so he took full advantage!!


Emily also has this really fun machine that the boys wanted to climb all over!!!
Ben is a pro - he's mastered it!


Great climb Cole!

Jackson waited on his turn....

Here we go!!!


Jackson has a little bit of a "mommy crush" on Emily... He'll ask for her by name... which is SOOO cute - I will get a video of it because the way he says it is SOOOOOO adorable!

Benjamin!

Cutie-Pie Cole!!

Katie's Bridal Shower

In less than 2 weeks, my baby brother (who is 24 years old!) is getting married!!! My future sister-in-law Katie is such an awesome addition to our family! We all just LOVE her and her family so much! On Sunday, my aunt threw a bridal shower for her and I took a few pictures...

This is Katie and her sister Nicki who is equally adorable. :)


Katie, her mom Cheryl and sister Nicki

Katie and Aunt Janet

Katie and the mom's!

The sisters! :)

My mom now has 2 girls (.... and Ethan sticking his nose in the picture, lol!!) :)

28 Weeks!

OK so keep in mind - this pic from 2008 is at a different angle!!! I DEFINITELY look a lot bigger but I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to just be "that" size when I'm pregnant - whatever that may be. I am going to gain probably about the same amount w/ every pregnancy and it's just going to be about the same... So w/ that being said, I've still gained less weight so that makes me happy!!!

28 Weeks with JACKSON (2/28/08)

28 Weeks with ETHAN (5/2/10)

Big Boy Bed, Day 1

So last night was a BIG night!! After a lot of encouragement from my friend Emily, I decided to give the "big boy bed" a try! We were going to start tonight instead of last night but Ryan has other plans and I had Bunco last night - so Ryan said he would take on the challenge. I have not been this nervous about anything w/ Jackson since he was a baby and I laid him down on his belly to sleep. So my mom let us borrow her twin mattress as a test run.... Ryan took the crib out of his room and put it in Ethan's room. He put the mattress in the same place in his room where the crib WAS and we put a baby gate on the outside of the door - just in case - since Jackson is upstairs. I'd hate for him to wander around the house - especially the stairs when we're sleeping. So I left for Bunco warning Ryan that I will be checking on Jackson's progress. We had the plan: Supernanny style with walking him back in the bed and telling him to stay in bed and leaving the room, again and again..... until he got it. So around 830p, I texted Ryan - how was it?
His response verbatim: Perfect. He went straight to sleep. I am the greatest.

I thought - he's so lying. He just wants me to stop worrying and have fun while I'm here but Jackson is probably screaming his head off in the background.... at the gate, yanking and tugging the gate.... it must be bad based on this over-the-top response. So I asked if he was serious and to tell me the truth.

His response verbatim: I took the crib out and put the mattress where the crib was so everything was like it usually is. We read and I laid him down, just like usual. He laid awake for about 10 minutes, then fell asleep.

WHAT!? Are you serious!? My crazy rambunctious child who moves ALL over the crib to sleep and stands there waiting on us when we get him in the morning? What!?

So when I got in - around 11pm - Ryan was still awake. Said Jackson did perfect. He did have to go up there once but not because Jackson got out of bed, but because he was coughing so much it was upsetting him and he was crying and coughing so Ry checked on him. We did that again around 230am but again, only because he was coughing - I guess he's getting sick w/ all the hacking but he never got out of bed! This morning, when J woke up - almost 8am (an hour later than normal!) - he sat there, Thomas in hand of course, waiting on the bed for us to come get him. He still didn't get out of the bed until we got in the room! Unbelievable!!! I can't believe I doubted him so much! He did AMAZING!

Jackson's New Obsession

So this is how it began: Jackson was first introduced to Thomas the Train from a VHS tape that my mom had at her house that he got to watch while I was in Brazil. Then, we have been going over to Ben's house to play a lot lately and Ben has a super cool train set with lots and lots of trains and Jackson has been playing with him... THEN, Ben's mommy Emily bought Jackson a set of matching PJ's for Ben and Jackson... well that put him over the deep end. He wanted to look at the PJ's constantly - he wanted to carry them around everywhere and he started playing w/ his "faux" trains saying "Choo-Choo" constantly... well, so I decided I would surrender to this and go to Toys R Us and see what this train stuff is all about... OMG! It's way bigger than I imagined! I bought Jackson this "starter" kit which is just the few tracks you see and a "Thomas" and a "Percy." I decided that if I'm going to be giving in to this new obsession, we're going to go FOR REAL and we'll start collecting the nice, all wood ones. I was tempted by the much cheaper prices of the metal ones, but I figure for his birthday, I'll buy him a train table and then he can use the nice, all wood ones to use on the wooden tracks that come w/ each of the collections...

So when I gave it to him - it was after a nap that he woke up hysterical - I think maybe a night terror or something cuz I couldn't calm him down as you can see from his little eyes... I wasn't going to give it to him til the next morning but I couldn't get him to stop screaming so I said "Jackson - do you want to go downstairs and open your THOMAS!?" Well, that did it! He calmed right down and away we went. I did realize later on that these 2 extra pieces in the middle actually can go w/ these and make the track a little bigger...


This is from this morning - let's just say that for 3 FULL DAYS, Jackson has not let go of this Thomas train for more than 10 minutes. Seriously. He eats w/ him, he sleeps w/ him, he wants to take a bath w/ him (he settled for Thomas sitting on the toilet where he can have full view of him)... I have to admit that it's pretty adorable! Ryan is excited because this is the first thing that Jackson has really shown a lot of interest in. He doesn't have a "lovie" or anything - so this is his first "thing" and it's ok w/ me! I just have to budget for this stuff - it's not cheap!