Happy Birthday!!!

July 9th is a GREAT day! Not only is it my amazing daddy's birthday.... but it's also Ryan's amazing grandpa's birthday! Happy Birthday to both of you!!!! We love you!!!

37 Week Appt Update

Well, I went to the doc today... Sadly, I have no real interesting news to report. I'm still dilated to 2 cm and Ethan is still high... I have thinned out a little - cervix is now 80% effaced, so that's improvement. I have been up the last 2 nights just SURE I was going to have to wake up Ryan... The contractions are definitely getting more intense but still not painful and still not consistent... Looks like Ethan is doing just fine where he is for now. That's ok - I know he'll come when he's ready to! :) I just hope it's soon. haha.

Ethan's Room!

I think Ryan did an AMAZING job painting this room! It took him 2 full days - literally 14 hour days to complete it within a weekend. I couldn't be happier w/ how it turned out! Since I didn't really get to get the nursery ready for Jackson, this has been a fun process putting Ethan's room together! Fortunately, we didn't need to buy anything really! I used Jackson's crib and glider. I took off the handles from my old dresser and chest and used the little shelf that my brother made in his high school class! The chandelier was one that my friend Emily used in her son's room and didn't want anymore. So, when our friends got us the "Ethan" letters and lamp for our shower, we were DONE! :) I'm super excited about how it turned out!

37 Weeks!

I have finally made it to FULL TERM! I am super excited about this... I do know that every day that Ethan stays in there, his little lungs are developing even more so I'm not in a super big hurry but at the same time, I'm SO ready to not be pregnant any more and have my body back!

Update from Friday: I went back to the doc unexpectantly on Friday because I was just sure I was leaking amniotic fluid. Turns out, I haven't but from Monday to Friday, I had progressed.. we went from dilated to a 1 to dilated to a 2 and from a thick cervix to 70% effaced. So tons of progress over 4 days - which explains all the contractions! Doc said I was safe to assume I'd be pregnant at least 10 more days.... so Ryan was relieved since he was in Michigan when I went in to the doc!

New update tomorrow - so hopefully we will have even more progression! But now that Ryan is home, the walking, walking, walking is ON! I have been taking it really easy knowing I don't want to go into labor while Ryan was gone, but now - bring on the spicy foods!! :-)

Grandma's 80th Birthday!

Yesterday, my family and a bunch of friends got together at my great - grandma's OLD house (sold now) to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday! She was surprised! The weather couldn't have been better and Jackson had so much fun with his family and friends! I didn't take too many pictures because our friend Rosa Lea took tons and so there will be more later when I get my hands on hers! :-)

Jackson and Mason - cousins! They are only 2 months apart!





This is the original sign up in front of the house where my grandma was born and my great-grandparents lived for many many years! When my great grandma passed, the house was sold to some good friends who allow us to use it for our family get-togethers! I'm so glad they kept that sign out because it's very special to us!


The birthday girl!

Jackson and Poppie - who the other day, he said "Bye bye poo-poo" instead of poppie... pretty funny!

Jackson was having a blast popping the balloons!!! When they popped, he let out the biggest laugh - like this.

Yum - chocolate cake!

Jackson and Uncle Ray!


By the end of the party (time flies when you're having fun) - Jackson was hungry so his Mimi just gave him a cold hot dog and he went to town.


My amazing beautiful grandma, age 15


Still beautiful now!!!

The Most Amazing Baby Shower EVER

On Saturday, June 23rd - my AWESOME neighbors Jim and Emily threw me and Ryan a baby shower at their home. It was a family event, with Jim's famous grilling (chicken and hamburgers) and Emily's should-be-in-a-cookbook stuffed jalapeno peppers, guacamole, bean salad, and of course - key lime pie!!!! It was a PERFECT DAY and everyone had so much fun! I am soooooo thankful and blessed to have such generous and loving friends and family members. I didn't bring my camera, but my friend Darcy and her husband Eugene drove up from Little Rock and Darcy took some photos for us!

Here's the pony keg that we can happily say was completely finished by the end of the night (which was at 200am - thanks mom for keeping Jackson!) and homemade lemonade and water for those of us just wishing we could taste the beer. :)


We were definitely "showered" with gifts!!

YUM YUM!

I like that Ryan was able to open the gifts w/ me cuz I don't really like being the center of attention -it makes me too nervous!




Ryan trying to take a peek at the new nursing cover that Jim/Emily got me! LOVE IT!

Jackson even got gifts too!!

I forgot to ask Darcy to get a picture of Emily and I but I'm really glad Derek captured this picture of Kacie and I! Kacie is having twin boys and is at 26 weeks right now! I am so excited that our little boys will be only 10 weeks apart!!!

Thank you to everyone who came and shared in this exciting occasion with us! Our biggest thank you is to Jim and Emily who worked so hard to put this shower on for us. We truly love you guys. :) We had the BEST time ever. Also, big thanks to my mom who kept Jackson ALL WEEKEND at her house so Ryan and I could enjoy some adult time with our friends!
We are very very blessed!!!
xoxoxoxo!!!

Name That Train!

You guys thought we were kidding about Jackson and his train addiction? Take a peek!

36 Weeks!

We made it to 36 Weeks!!! Whoa, what an adventure this pregnancy has been! My 2 pregnancies have been so different from each other - it's not beneficial to try to compare anymore! Anyway, on Saturday - I was having some SERIOUS contractions! They were on top of each other but lasting for all different times. Doc said if they are more than 4 in an hour that last more than 40 seconds each, I need to call him. Well, a couple of them were over a minute long but then there would be random ones that would be 10 seconds long.... not really painful, just uncomfortable.

This morning I went in for my checkup. I'm dilated to a 1 - which is also very different than w/ jackson - where I didn't dilate until I was 38 weeks. But, the baby is still very high and my cervix is still thick, so he gave Ryan the "ok" to go to Michigan this weekend for his annual golf trip, but the doc added that he doesn't approve of it. haha. He feels comfortable that I'll definitely still be pregnant next week, so this is a big sigh of relief for Ryan - who cringes at the thought of having to miss his golf trip! Doc said I need to take it really easy this weekend with Ryan being gone though so I guess I'll try to take it easy while taking care of a toddler. Should be interesting.

36 Weeks with JACKSON (4/24/08)
(a little swollen, ya think?)


36 Weeks with ETHAN (6/27/10)

Living Room Train Table

As I mentioned in previous posts, Jackson just cannot live with his trains these days. So since his train table is upstairs in his playroom, we have to improvise downstairs just to "get by." Well, how cute is it when he's perfectly happy going round and round and round on the same track over and over again. That's train dedication. :)

Jackson, 25 Months!

Jackson has been up to a lot lately! He's gotten SO vocal and his speaking has gotten so much better! He's so excited about trains - it consumes him! He wakes up saying "choo choo" every morning and has to have ample train playing time before nap and before bed...

Yesterday, I took Jackson to his very first movie in the theater. We saw "Madagascar 2" and since Jackson wasn't interested in the first one, I wasn't sure how it was going to go! Fortunately, this is a kid friendly theater packed full of a bunch of kids and toddlers and moms. Megan, Emily and I showed up w/ the kids at 945am and at 1000am, we had a spot picked close to the aisle... We put Jackson in the middle, knowing that Ali, Bella and Ben have a little more experience in theaters than he does and hoping they would wear off on him. So I set him in the chair and it immediately popped back up since he doesn't weigh enough to keep him down - now, I have this adorable little man sandwiched in between the seat and the back of the seat. So I had to prop my leg up on the end of the seat to keep him down. :) When the movie started, we discovered POPCORN! Jackson and I shared a small popcorn and that kept him occupied for about 45 minutes. Then, he started getting restless. He started saying over and over "bye bye animals" - so I tried distracting him but that didn't work either, so I decided (since he was getting louder and louder) that I would step out into the lobby w/ him and let him run around for a few minutes and then try again. So we did that for about 15 minutes and then went back in. At first, he didn't want to go back into the seat but when I put him on my lap (just barely, there isn't much room on my lap!), he started chilling out and watched the rest of the movie! Overall a GREAT experience!!!

Jackson is also starting to enjoy his new Mother's Day Out location! I'm stoked about this because I just found out he got accepted into the MDO at that location for the fall too!!! It's a relief for me cuz of where it's located AND cuz it lasts until 2p!!! That will prove to be very helpful when I have Ethan here and trying to run errands, etc.... I remember back when Jackson was smaller, shopping and errands were SO much easier!!!!! But I had no idea how I was going to do it w/ an infant AND a hyper 2 year old - so I'm thankful for MDO! Plus, Jackson enjoys it. It's good for him to be around other kids his age and being supervised by people that aren't his parents. His speaking has also gotten so much better since MDO started in January!

The pool - Well, my sweet boy HATES the water. I mean, he doesn't even like to take a bath. He has this fear of water in his eyes and just goes into panic mode when you put him in the water. So we've been working on it. For many reasons - but most importantly because it's 99 degrees outside and I'm almost 9 months pregnant w/ a toddler ... nothing to do outside except occupy my neighbors' pools! So today, we went to the pool again. He did MUCH better. Unfortunately, he IS very interested in throwing anything and everything, all the time. He picks up any object and immediately throws it. So our neighbor Lisa's pool -has tons of these nice rocks everywhere - they end up at the bottom of the pool, all the time. And I'm just not fast enough to stop him. He doesn't care if I spank him, put him in Time Out, yell - nothing works. If I can keep enough balls and toys in front of him, he'll throw those for awhile but as soon as I take too long getting them back up on the ledge for him, rock goes in. Dang it. Thank God for my friends who don't mind swimming to the bottom and collecting the rocks for me. Today was better than usual - I think he only threw 4 rocks but that's probably because every single time he threw a rock in, I grabbed him, spanked him and made him go sit in the pool w/ me.

His new thing is when he falls, (which is REALLY often - he's clumsy!) he goes "ok!" - letting me know that he's ok! I guess cuz everytime he used to fall I would ask "are you ok?" so now he just goes "OK!" when he falls... which is actually really cute!!

Development stuff: Jackson is 28 pounds - 58th percentile and his height (which I can't remember) is in the 67th percentile. He has all of his teeth except the very back 4 molars. He's finally started eating pretty well - which is so nice. He is NO WHERE NEAR potty training yet. He does tell me when he goes #2 about half of the time. But he has NO problem staying in his diaper w/ it that way. We talk about the potty all the time and I explain everything when he sees me going (which is also a LOT) but he just doesn't care. He's just not ready yet and that's ok. I'm a firm believer that I'll know when he's ready and that's when we'll do it. It's a waste of time to try to force him before he is really ready....not to mention frustrating for me... which I also don't need right now. So I'm fine with just talking about it as much as possible for now and when he's ready - we have all the tools we need to make it happen! He takes a great nap almost every day... anywhere from 1.5 hrs to 3 hours! He lays down at night around 815p and up until the time change, he would sleep until 700am but lately, it's been 615am or so.

Funny things about Jackson: He does NOT like his hands or feet to be dirty. He also doesn't like when things spill into the floor or if he sees something that doesn't belong. He can't stand it when the kitties "throw up" on the floor. He will stand at the spot saying "uh-oh" over and over until I clean it up. He LOVES animals - all animals. He is not afraid whatsoever from any dog he's been in contact with... even if they jump on him... he just laughs. Which brings me to the next thing - he LOVES to laugh. He loves to make funny sounds to get your reaction and he loves when you do it back to him. His favorite food is fruit snacks - to which he says "nick nack" and points w/ his up w/ his finger when he asks for them... i'll try to get that on video cuz it's funny! He has discovered cookies, thanks to my mom - and asks for those often too. He won't drink milk anymore... he only wants juice. He does have a girlfriend - her name is Anna Kate and her daddy doesn't know it yet, but they ARE getting married someday. :) He is incredibly smart (every mom thinks that about their kid though right) - I found out this week that he could count to 5 if only he could get the "3" down!! He says 1, 2 and then stops... so I'll say 3... then he says 4, 5. YAY! He knows yellow and blue colors but that's about all of those.. we're working on that. He loves to sing songs and gives lots of hugs and kisses! He loves to be helpful so lately, I've been letting him help me... mostly just picking up something I've dropped and can't bend down to get, etc, but he really likes to be mommy's helper!

And bottom line: Jackson loves trains. He loves Thomas and anything and everything related to Thomas. Watching, reading, playing or just talking about Thomas and the trains makes him happy. :)

I'm leaving you w/ a video of Jackson's new sound from earlier today. :)

35 Weeks!

35 Week Update:
Nothing new to report. lol. I'm still pregnant. I'm still uncomfortable. I'm still huge-monsterous. I've had some seriously crappy heartburn lately - doesn't really matter what I eat but nothing sounds good to eat - which is SO opposite of how I normally am. :) I'm just WAY over being pregnant and WAY ready to meet this little man inside me!
Good news is that Jackson is starting to really show some interest in my belly and who is in there. I changed his diaper in Ethan's room the other day and asked him whose room we were in and he said "E-ten" - which is how he says Ethan. :) He also talked to Ethan yesterday which was quite adorable! I keep telling him that Ethan is hiding and he's going to come out to play soon!

35 Weeks with JACKSON (4/16/08)

35 Weeks with ETHAN (6/22/10)

Playing with Daddy

Jackson has gotten MUCH more vocal lately... He will finally repeat what you say and he has a certain way of getting what he wants across to you! Well, he, like his mommy and daddy, LOVES animals! So when he got a new animal puzzle from Ms. Tina he decided he needed to go through each animal and make the animal sound with it. I wish I would have gotten it all on video. But he put the whole puzzle together on his first try!! Thanks Tina!!

Yes, my son is chilling in a shirt and diaper. Our playroom is HOT.

Happy Father's Day!

Hero Dad

You are my hero, Dad
You're my secure foundation.
When I think of you, I'm filled with love
And fond appreciation. You make me feel protected;
I'm sheltered by your care.
You're always my true friend; and Dad,
When I need you, you're always there. You have a place of honor
Deep within my heart.
You've been my superhero, Dad,
Right from the very start.
By Joanna Fuchs


OUR HERO
From when you first became a dad on May 23, 2008....

Until Now...











Happy Father's Day!
We love you!