Wednesday, January 26, 2011

My Boy

Jack is magic.



He's the kind of baby that you miss while he's napping.
(Don't get me wrong, naptime is GLORIOUS!)



He adores us. He's a little obsessed with Daddy. He laughs at his sister. He snuggles with his Mama.



We just eat him up. Kate's always saying, "he's so cute!"

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He is constantly putting things in his mouth. We have had to pull all of the little white rubber tips off of the door stoppers in the house. He literally moves the door, yanks off the white tip, shoves it in his mouth, and takes off crawling, all within seconds.

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I've spotted him a few times with a toy in each hand and one being carried in his mouth.

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Poor guy had gotten himself stuck and all we did was stand around and take pictures before rescuing him.

He grabs my phone and puts it to his ear, often babbling away.

He still has a fairly small vocabulary. Mainly da-da, la-la, and well... that's about it. He is LOUD, though, and just babbles away.

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He has an ear piercing scream. Kinda like a girl. It mostly happens when he's playing with a ball or a balloon, his two favorites.

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But, he's all boy. During diaper changes, he plays with his, um, "boy parts", and giggles. He LOVES food. He shovels it in!



He is pretty close to walking. He walks all around the furniture and loves to hold hands and walk. We keep thinking he'll just take a step, but not yet.



He dances to music (in his own baby way, of course).

He claps when he hears music and claps on command.

He gives kisses, only when he feels like it. Otherwise, he just turns away.



He's a total snuggler. He will suck his thumb and lay his head on you, and you'll feel like you want to stay that way forever.

Like I said... he's magic.



Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Baby Shower

A few friends and I pulled off a surprise shower for one of my very best friends, Megan. She and I have been friends since 3rd grade. She's having her second girl any day now.

Since this was her second baby, we did a small diaper shower and they got a lot of great stuff.

Check out this awesome diaper cake that Meg's sister-in-law made!



I added some cute diaper pin decorations and baby girl ribbon to the topiaries I made for Kate's first birthday.



Poor Megan has been on bed rest for awhile and has gone to the hospital almost an hour away at least twice now, only to be sent home. She'll kill me when she sees this picture posted, but it's the ONLY one I got of her the whole time.



Kate went with me and had a blast playing with all the kiddos.





Here's to hoping Baby Taylor Grace makes her arrival SOON!!!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

New Year's Eve

Better late than never, right? (I should go back and count how many of our blog posts start like that!)

For the first time, I think, ever, we spent New Year's Eve at home with just us. It ended up being a really fun night!




We made the Pioneer Woman's lasagna... SOOO yummy!!



We played games and drank orange soda. :) That's a treat, you know!



Kate had asked to bake cupcakes, so we saved it for New Year's Eve.



We got to stay in comfy clothes all night and not worry about getting all "fancy".
Although, we did buy some goofy hats and leis.



Jack didn't make it past 8:00, but Kate stayed up and partied 'til midnight. We made newspaper confetti, which she used to make "snow" angels.

It's great to go out with friends, or have a New Year's Eve date, but this was a nice and needed change this year.


Saturday, January 15, 2011

Mothering My Girl









"Start now to be the kind of mother you always wanted to be. Don't wait until she's eighteen...Keep in mind that all she wants to be doing--for the greatest part of her young life--is what you're doing."
Mother to Daughter: Shared Wisdom from the Heart, Melissa Harrison

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Our Christmas 2010

What a fun season it was! Ok, here goes...

Earlier than we ever have before, we pulled out the Christmas decorations. With two kids this year, it was sort of tornado-like. Jack was into EVERYTHING! Kate, of course, wanted to play with all the breakables.

Somehow, (it might have been two in the morning when these pictures were taken. ha!) it all came together.





For the first time ever, we got a fake tree. We ended up finding one on Craigslist for a price that was too good to pass up. Honestly, we spent less than we would have if we had gotten a real one.





We did lots of Christmas crafts this year since that is Kate's favorite thing to do these days.


(She spit on Rudolph's nose because she wanted to make it "shiny". ha!)



We had fun with this little guy, who was lovingly named Alice.
A well thought out name for a boy elf.



We drove around and looked at Christmas lights. We found this crazy house:



A snow day was even thrown in the mix, and the kids and I enjoyed a quiet day at home. We spent most of the day playing in the basement playroom and Kate helped me put together gifts for my students.



The next day, Mimi brought Kate and Jack up to school for my Christmas party. Kate belongs in a classroom. She was on cloud nine.


Can you spot her there in the front?



JAck at party

Kate at party

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We took a trip to see Gammy, Gampy, and Stuart in Kansas while they were on their way to Texas for Christmas.















We went to Bass Pro to see Santa.







On Christmas Eve, we slip slided to the candlelight service at church and then came back to Mimi and Papa's for chili and opening pajamas. All of Julie's girls were there, and Kate was thrilled.





Long story short about those jammies, I grabbed them last minute at Target. I thought they had snowman faces on them. Turns out they were skulls. My baby boy wore skull jammies on Christmas Eve.



On Christmas morning, we woke up slowly and even laid in bed for awhile.



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There was BEAUTIFUL snow on Christmas Eve and Christmas that was seriously magical. After opening presents, we went out on the deck (because we are wimps) and "played" in the snow.

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Kate and I made a sorry excuse for a snowman.





I think Jack ate two whole cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.







After it was all said and done, the house looked like a bomb had gone off.



The rest of the day was spent with both sides of our families and we had a blast.

Next up: New Year's pictures!