Merry Christmas!!

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

May you all experience the love, peace, and joy HE gives this Christmas and New Year!

We'll Be Home For Christmas

We're dreaming today of a place we love

Even more than we usually do

And although I know it's a long road back

I promise you...

We'll be home for Christmas!!

Christmas Eve will find us

Where the airplanes land

We'll be home for Christams

If only there are no delays!

We'll be home for Christmas

You can count on us

Please have snow and mistletoe

And presents under the tree,

We'll be home for Christmas and we can't wait!!

A Long Day!

6:30 AM- Jackson is up and wants nothing to do with going back to sleep with mommy

7:00 AM- Finally roll myself out of bed, since You Tube is no longer occupying Jackson

7:30 AM- Get Jackson breakfast to eat while I work out, keep an eye on Jackson while working out so he doesn't fall off the treadmill that he is jumping on, change two poopy diapers

8:30 AM- Take a shower and get both of us dressed, decide against shorts just because it is December 21st not because it is 80 degrees outside

9:30 AM- Load the car, drive over to pick up Emily and Huntley and head to the mall

10:00AM- Arrive at destination and praise God for the front row parking spot and that the mall is not crazy, return wrong makeup I bought the other day then shopped till we dropped, Jackson needed to be right next to Huntley the whole time or otherwise he would ask "where is she?", both kids were great shoppers!!
12:00 PM-Leave the mall and point the car in the direction of Freshberry:), clearly Jackson and Huntley enjoyed it as much as me

12:45 PM- Settle back in the car and head for home

12:55 PM- Both babies alseep

1:20 PM- Drop Emily and Huntley off and pray Jackson stays sleeping until I am able to lay him down

1:30 PM- Park in the garage, leave the car running, go open the house door, go back to carefully maneuver Jackson out of his carseat to bring him in, Jackson wakes up and starts talking to me, go quickly to lay him down, crying

1:40 PM- Go back to the garage to turn off the car and shut the doors, come back inside, still hear crying, go lay by Jackson, he tosses and turns for a hour but never goes back to sleep

2:40 PM- Try to rock Jackson, he wants nothing to do with me, calling for daddy

2:50 PM- Head downstairs, trying not to think about the over-tired, crabby boy I am going to have to entertain for the rest of the afternoon

3:00 PM- Take Jackson around the block in the stroller while he enjoys his oranges, stop by and get the mail, enjoy the beautiful sun and weather

3:20 PM- Camp out in the front lawn to let Jackson run around and play since he is happiest outside and had NO nap, correction a very short nap, today

4:15 PM- Outside play turned out to be the best decision of the day, also resulted in severe thirst:)

4:20 PM- Major meltdown because Jackson wanted his other nuk, considering the very short nap on his part, one meltdown not too shabby

4:30 PM- Calmed down, snuggled in oversized chair under a blanket and read books together until daddy got home

5:00 PM- Cleaned up and headed out to eat at Willies, enjoyed sitting outside on the patio on this gorgeous night, ate way too much food

6:00 PM- Walked through the HomeGoods store, Jackson tested out all the chairs

6:30 PM- Drive though the subdivision looking at Christmas lights

7:00 PM- Enjoy popsicles, read Christmas devotion and story

7:30 PM- Bedtime for Jackson, daddy has honors tonight, me crashed on the couch for the rest of the night, I declare tomorrow a pajamas day!

Impromptu Photo Shoot

Yesterday Brian took Jackson outside to run around and kill some time while I was still getting ready. He also got some really great shots of Jackson. I know I am biased BUT I must say he is one handsome little boy!

Love HIM!
He always sits down here after walking around the whole block and says "break."

Mr. Independent:)

So Sweet!

What a goof! He loves to ding the bell.

I think some of these are the perfect shots for our upstairs hallway! I got an early Christmas present, Adobe Photoshop. I can't wait to try it out over break!

Christmas Came Early

Since we will be going back to WI for Christmas, we decided to have a our own Christmas with Jackson here before we went home. Last night he got to open up some pajamas to wear on his "Christmas Eve." I love this tradition my mom started with my sister and I. I especially love that she stills does it!
Of course we went with Thomas pajamas. He kept pointing to the Thomas on the left and saying Big Thomas. He couldn't look cuter in those jammies! Can you believe they are 3T and the shirt is almost too short?

We told him in the morning he could open a few presents from us. So, this morning he woke up saying "Ana Claus, Ana Claus". He learned quickly and we haven't even really talked about the him. Each night we read a little Bible story and the Christmas story to him. He was way more into opening his presents this year compared to last year. As soon as he opened up his vest he had to wear his "jacket".

He loved pulling gifts out of his stocking, but I think his favorite was the M&M's,

Or was it his new bottle?

It was a fun morning loving on our little guy! Little does he know he gets to have Christmas 2 more times!

After we all cleaned up we headed out to the mall. I needed some makeup and I wanted to show Jackson the "big tree". He thought the tree was pretty cool from the third floor but when we got down to ground level we lost him to the ice skaters.

He couldn't get enough of watching them skate around. We ended up sitting and watching them for quite some time.

We decided just to eat our lunch where we were. I also enjoyed a vanilla latte courtesy of one of my students:)

What a great first day of my Christmas vacation!

Christmas Baking

Growing up I always loved making Christmas cookies and candy with my grandma, mom, sister, aunts, cousins. Each year it seemed that less and less participated and now that I live a thousand miles from my mom I miss out on it each year. Thank goodness I married a wonderful guy who loves to do anything with me.

Last Sunday we spent the day baking away. We started off with cut out cookies. Jackson was game for helping in every way possible!

Brian won favorite parent points by making Jackson a Mickey cookie and letting him eat the whole thing!

Brian and I teamed up and made toffee. He stirred constantly for 10 minutes, then I spread the chocolate chips on top and broke it into pieces. This stuff is amazing and so addicting! I am glad there is no left in my fridge! I also dipped peanuts and Ritz with peanut butter in chocolate.

During Jackson's nap we frosted cookies and as soon as Jackson woke up and came downstairs he said "cookie please". Yup! Cookie number 2 for the day!

Here is a sampling of the finished product, so yummy!

The best part of baking all these goodies is delivering them to friends and indulging in a few myself!!

Wordless Wednesday: My mom is a great cook!

Honestly, there are no words to describe how much my son eats!

Camels, Donkeys, Sheep, Goats, and Santa

It has been a weekend of animals and I actually forgot to include elephants in the title. Friday night Brian and I went with Louis and Katrina to First Baptist's Christmas show. At the show we all got up close and personal with an elephant! I never realized just how big and stinky they really are until I was so close that I could have touched it.



Saturday morning we headed over to my aunt's church for their Visual Natvity. Even though Jackson wasn't in the program he got to play the part of a shepard.

All he was interested in were the animals!

He feed the goats and sheep with daddy and

rode the camel with daddy and mommy, and the donkey ALL by himself! Oh, did I mention this was on December 11th and it was 75 and beautiful outside!

They also had crafts to make and cookies to decorate.

After a fun morning Jackson went down for a nap. Once he woke up, we headed out to see Santa. We opted for Bass Pro Shop again because they give you a free picture, the lines are short, and the shop itself lends a lot of excitement for Jackson! See what I mean:

Jackson was waving to Santa while we were in line and excited, but once we got up there we couldn't get a smile!

Family picture inside Bass Pro Shop. I always love how they decorate for Christmas!

We shopped along with the other million shoppers at the mall, but I finished all my Christmas shopping!

Gingerbread Barns

Saturday afternoon Jackson and I headed over to Katrina's to build Gingerbread Houses. Each year Katrina invites all the girls from Northwestern College that ended up down in Houston to build houses. And like last year, she was nice enough to invite me even though I abandoned her after freshman year! Thankfully God brought us back to the same place!

Jackson was all into decorating his house or barn, as he called them, for the first 10 minutes. He found a M&M and ate it, that was the end of decorating. He kept sneaking candy into his mouth. I don't know how much he ate, but I do know it was A LOT!
Jackson really loves Katrina (and Louis)!

I had a hard time keeping our house together because Jackson thought it looked better without a roof! The finished product! Right after this picture Jackson ate Santa peep and his pretzel skis.

Gingerbread House Decorators 2010!

Santa's Wonderland

Right after work on Friday we jumped in the car and headed to Santa's Wonderland with Louis and Katrina. We wanted to get their as early as possible for Jackson. I didn't want him tired and cranky on the hayride. I was also excited that it was a nice evening, no need for coats, hats, and gloves.

I thought everything in Santa's town was so cute! They had a lot of cute things and yummy goodies for sale.

Jackson will be guiding Santa's sleigh this year!

Jackson was sitting by the fire, then it started snowing, and he wanted to be apart of that! "Reee-ach!"
I think he liked it!

Next up was the hayride through Santa's Wonderland. While waiting in line for a few minutes Brian realized it might have been a good idea to take Benadryl since there were animals around and we were going to be sitting on hay and he is allergic to hay! I was a little worried we may be making an impromptu trip to the ER, but we I mean he made it out alive. Since then I have added benadryl to the drugs I carry in my purse.

Jackson has really warmed up to Katrina and Louis. I think they got the best "family" picture that night!

He oohed and ahhed just like we thought he would and may the hayride even better for me.

After the hayride we walked around Santa's town a little more and debated a picture with Santa but ended up skipping. Here is our attempt at a family picture.

We headed out early because it was past Jackson's bedtime (ok, ours too)! I am upset that my camera was acting up and I have dust spots, I think, on many pictures. Oh well, memories were made none the less!

Thanks for joining us for a fun night Louis and Katrina!