Thursday, November 29, 2012

Jackson is 6 months

My baby is 6 months old! Jackson is as cute as ever. He is such a happy boy. I wish I could freeze him at this age.

He still loves to cuddle and be held and he is grabbing anything and everything his hands can get a hold of. He loves when his sisters talk to him and play with him. He rolls from his back to his front more often than front to back. He isn't sitting up yet, but hopefully soon. He loves his baby food and recently we have started to puree some of our food for him to eat. No teeth yet, but the doctor thought his bottom left tooth would be first.

Here are his stats at 6 months.
Length: 27 inches; 71%
Weight: 16 lbs. 2 oz.; 23%
Head: 69% (can't remember the actual measurement...oops!)


It is so fun to have a little boy. The girls just adore him and so do Justin and I. He seems like he is just calm and not as much drama as the girls, even at this age. He is happy to be held or playing with toys. He eats a ton too. That must be a boy thing! But he sure is cute and we love seeing his smiling face.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Thanksgiving 2012

We had a great Thanksgiving with my side of the family (at least those who live in the state). We had the kids in one room at 2 little tables and the adults in the dining room. It was quite pleasant!


After our delicious feast, the kids made some candy necklaces. They all really enjoyed it!


Showing off their necklaces!

Justin decided to take on some pumpkin souffles for his contribution to our dinner. We had been watching a show earlier in the week and he thought he could take it on. They were yummy!

I think it's so neat and important that we celebrate Thanksgiving. We are so so blessed and we should definitely take time to think and be grateful for all of our blessings. Hope you had a wonderful holiday too!

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Long time, no blogging


I was going to write a post about some changes that have been happening at our place, but then I decided a post without pictures can be pretty boring, so now we have something to look at.

First off, I have a new (to me) iPhone (Justin's old one). If you know me, you know I'm not really the techy type. And I really haven't been interested in an iPhone except for a few very convenient things that come with one. But mainly because I liked my keyboard phone (and who wants to pay another $30 a month? Not me)! That being said, I have enjoyed the new phone more than I thought and since we jumped on a huge family share plan, we are actually saving money with our upgraded phones. I have even been able to figure out most of it all on my own.

So hence, this not so great picture! I have instagram on my phone, but I have no clue how to connect it to my blog. If you know, do enlighten me please!!

And don't be alarmed, this was the only time Molly has held Jackson while standing!!


We also went to Disney on Ice last week. We had a lot of fun and the girls really enjoyed it. And as you can see, we had pretty great seats too!

If you haven't been to Scheels, you need to check it out!! The picture of the moose is Molly with her cousin Laney. We checked it out a couple weekends ago with Justin's brother's family and we are glad we did. The girls and their dads rode the ferris wheel (a deal at $1 per person) and there were all sorts of fun things to do in addition to the merchandise (mini bowling alley, gun shooting game, etc.). There was even a BYU tailgate party going on by the front doors that we didn't know about, so lucky us, free hot dogs and drinks! And BYU chapstick :)

 "...The plates were set on the table with care..."

Today we have been helping grandma clean up and prepare for Thanksgiving at the house tomorrow. It will be a nice time with about 10 adults and 6 kids.

 Molly had so much fun setting the table with the turkey plates and cups for the kids tables.


And because I can, here is our cute, happy boy!

He gave us a scare last week. He was fussy with a low grade fever for 3 days, so we headed to the doctor. She didn't know (this wasn't my normal doctor btw) what was wrong and he was SO fussy that she sent us to the hospital. Cue the tears! No one wants to hear that their baby might have meningitis or a blood infection and it was so dejavu (remember when Ali got rsv? Same place.).

Long story short, he was acting much happier at Primary's and they sent us home saying it was kind of a mystery, but nothing severe, probably just a virus. Well 2 days later we had our answer. A rash showed up and of course it was roseola. Yep, just a virus. Thanks for giving me a heart attack! He is back to normal now and we are all grateful for that.

And then a couple other things...my mom found this blog with a tutorial to make these darling banners. The blog is Lark and Lola. I am going to make a couple of these as ornaments and give them as gifts.

And back to Thanksgiving, you knew it was coming! I've been working on rainbow jello today. If I don't make it, no one will, so I make it!

After watching a recent Iron Chef episode on the Food Network, Justin has decided to make pumpkin soufflés for tomorrow. Last night we tested a chocolate soufflé and well, it was delicious! Hopefully the pumpkin will be a big hit as well.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Chicago!

I am EXTREMELY overdue posting these, but we have been without a computer! So here I finally am sharing my girls trip with you that happened Oct. 25-28th! It was a blast. Natalie, Jackson and myself flew to Milwaukee where my sister Emily picked us up. She is living there while her hubby is in med school. My mom was already there visiting. We had a fun night checking out her cute place, had some ok chinese take out and tried some frozen custard. Yum!

The next morning we drove to Chicago, which is only an hour and a half away. We picked up my SIL, Becky, from the airport and headed to drop off our bags at our hotel. Then we became official tourists and begun our adventures! We had lunch first and then went on a boat tour.

 
Me and Jacks, Emily, my mom, Becky and Natalie

Here we are on the boat tour. Don't make me tell you any of these buildings now because I might not remember them anymore!! The weather was cold and windy, but it was nice having the sun out at least.


 The skyline.
We got tickets to ride the trolley and took a few tours around on them. While waiting to go to China Town, we went and saw the Bean.

 
Here we are riding the trolley to head to China Town. Jackson was THE BEST BABY! Honestly, he couldn't have been better. He was the perfect age to come on a trip like this.

We went into the Hancock Tower, which isn't quite as tall as the Sears Tower, but we were on the 95th floor here. That's pretty tall if you ask me!! This picture was taken in the bathroom. Yep, floor to ceiling windows!!

Pretty cool view from there.

We had lunch at the lounge and enjoyed the view while we shared several appetizers.

We did some shopping on Madison Avenue and we had to check out the American Girl Store. I have Molly, which yes, is where I first came to love the name!! I still have my doll but she's put away in storage. When Molly is a couple of years older I will probably let her play with her, but not until I think she won't lose things and she can take good care of her. I used to save up my money to buy things for her, so I want everything to stay in good shape!

 Wow, the American Girls have come a long way and there is so much cool stuff for them!! Here we are standing by the little treat shop. They have a place for you to eat lunch with them, have their hair done, and even a hospital. It was so fun to kind of re-live those days!!

I found out that they had a Sprinkles Cupcake shop in Chicago, so we headed over one afternoon to have a sample! Yum! If you watch Cupcake Wars on the Food Network, one of the judges is the owner of Sprinkles and it is considered one of the first cupcake shops. It was a nice afternoon treat!

We had such a good time. Thanks to all my sisters and my mom for all of the fun and help with Jackson! Everyone helped me lift the stroller, push the stroller, hold and feed the baby. Natalie was super helpful at the airport and on the planes, I couldn't have done it without her. She was also the trip planner! Thanks Captain Nat!!

It was a pretty whirlwind trip, going from one thing to the next, but we got it all in!! (I seriously suffered from vertigo too. Really. Even when I got home I was dizzy for moments several days after we got back. We pretty much took every form of public transportation possible. I guess it wasn't a good combo for me.) We ate at some delicious places that I didn't mention, but that was part of the fun too, of course. I had red velvet pancakes for brunch one morning....can you say rich and delicious?!! We want to make it a tradition and next time we are thinking of heading to some tropical and warm location! We'll see!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Halloween 2012


Hope you had a fun Halloween! We sure did. I finished my Halloween tree yesterday, so it still counts! Here's what I did quickly just in case you ever want to make one too.

I bought my tree at Joann's. I had to hunt it down, but I found one and only paid $12 (orig. $30).

All of the stuff I put on the tree was found at Michael's. I made little ornaments from these Martha Stewart stickers. I put some paper on the back of each one, then used some black thread to hang them. Easy.

I used 4 colors of ribbon: orange, black, purple and green.


The cute little round ornaments were all out by the time I made my tree, so my mom let me borrow some of hers.  I give all the credit to my mom because, well, the whole idea was hers! I just copied it. Thanks mom!



Molly watched me as I made mine, so it was only natural that she wanted to make one. I had her go into the backyard and look for branches. Then we put them in a vase and she put some ribbon on hers like mine. Today she drew pictures of bats, witches and spiders and we taped them on. She was really pleased with her tree and her new disguise she got yesterday that she's showing off here as well. 

Molly and her bff, Carly.


Onto TRICK-OR-TREATING!

Molly and Ali were cupcakes for Halloween. I had several people ask if I made their costumes. Nope! I got them after Halloween last year from Old Navy for about $3.50 each. Much cheaper than if I made them myself. Score.

 Ali didn't want to wear the hat (or cherry) but don't worry, I did put shoes on before we left!

 Cupcake sisters!

Jackson had 2 costumes which worked out well since right after my mom took this picture for me and I stood up, he puked all over his costume and the porch. Yucky. We changed him into his monkey costume, so it was good we had a back up! He was a very cute lobster though!

Earlier in the day we went trick or treating at daddy's office. We didn't know they did trick or treating, but he called and said um, I don't have any candy! So we picked up Molly from preschool and then went straight over and the girls had some extra fun. Jackson was wearing his monkey costume, but I took it off before I took the picture. Duh!

Justin stayed home while Jackson slept and I took the girls around trick or treating. We have a neighborhood party every Halloween with a light dinner and a parade followed by a countdown to trick or treating. We had a lot of fun there and got to see a bunch of friends before we took off.

We have a great neighborhood layout for trick or treating and only went to about 3 1/2 circles then called it good. The girls already had so much candy at that point. We were home around 7ish and then we let Molly pass out candy at our house. She loved it! She ran to the door each time and probably enjoyed passing out candy more than collecting it :)