Christmas 2013

Ok so last year I didn't quite get a Christmas post in but this was close.

This year was the best!! Jackson is at such a fun age! Although our house is still in boxes..a mess... I did manage to put up decorations and ignore the million and one boxes in our garage. OK so our outdoor lights did not get hung.... but anyways

We had a lot of fun decorating cookies! Jackson was so funny taking all of the icing off and eating it, licking the bowl, and pouring sprinkles directly in his mouth. Needless to say the house was a mess, he ate two cookies, and took a very short nap..but it was all in good fun! Totally worth it.

 We went to see the Zoo lights which is he loved! He had no interest in the animals but only the lights. He loved hanging out with another little boy we went with..who he was constantly trying to imitate.

And then we saw Santa..

Christmas Eve we attempted Mass. He self destructed in five minutes and spent thirty minutes outside being a holy terror. I took this time to point out to God that this is what he gave me hints the reason we avoid going to church. But we did recover after leaving and the rest of the evening was great!

Opening gifts from the Gill's

The elves were hard at work until 11pm building toys, drinking white Russians and watching Elf. This is a great tradition we started.

Jackson got up around 6:30 and found this:

He went straight for his lawn mower and car and was zooming around the house in no time. Then we ate breakfast: Snowman pancakes (vegan) and Cinnamon rolls for the adults

Testing out his new table

And climbing all over his Pottery Barn chair

We opened the rest of our gifts and had Christmas lunch with my parents. And instead of dessert we had a hot chocolate bar that was amazing!! Homemade hot chocolate is the best! We spent the rest of the day playing with toys, watching Christmas movies, and eating. It was pretty awesome.

Now for unpacking the million and one boxes out in the garage, hanging pictures, painting, etc. I think I can I think I can

11-15 month schedule

I was just thinking how awesome the one nap is when I realized I never wrote an updated schedule post. Really for myself to remember for the future!

Somewhere around 11ish months Jackson started refusing the two naps.. much to my dismay...BUT after a transition period (that I can't even remember now) we LOVE the one nap. He usually sleeps between 2-3ish hours. So here we go:

5-6:30 Wake up time... it's getting better.  Then he eats

9:30/10 Snack

12:00 Lunch

12:30/1 Nap

3:30 Snack

6:00 Dinner, Bath

7:00 Bedtime

Look how easy a toddler schedule is!! In between times are obviously play times. It's amazing what can get accomplished in a 2-3 hours period. It's also much easier to plan and do things. Love love love!

Sorry for the Thanksgiving picture.. I need to take some new ones.

15 months

This picture sums up Jackson: Happy, wild (see the mark on his eye), hilarious, spunk!

Dear Wild Thing Jackson,

You are one wild thing!! I swear you never walk anywhere, it's always a run. You even run in place, we call it "fast feet." You are obsessed with throwing, rolling, kicking balls. At least an hour a day you spend throwing them in new ways and watching them.. and how dare we try to move them! You do get extremely frustrated when they get stuck under stuff... You also do the most adorable thing ever: you pretend sleep on the changing table in a little baby ball with your bum up in the air..naked/clothed it doesn't matter. I rub your back and you just smile. It's so cute! You love playing in our new back yard with the motorcycle and soccer ball. You scream every time we take you back inside.You also really love running in the teepee for us to chase you. These past three months you have been a MAMA's boy 100%, now you love your daddy but mama is your go to. It's been changing back and forth so I'm sure next month it will be daddy's turn.

The sleep has dramatically improved! You don't cry at all to sleep. You just go in there and sleep!!!!! For naps and night time. You do however still wake up between 5-6 am. You sleep 11 hours at night and 2-3 hour naps. Heaven!!

You can now say: mama, nana (dada), all done, ball, um (up), out, "h" for help, uh oh, get done, bye bye, shoes, bell button (belly button), all the animals sounds, vroom, roar, beep.. I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
Sign: more, all done, help
Wave: hi and bye
Gesture for everything!

You are the funniest little ham ever! I have never laughed so much in my life. You still throw pretty big tantrums and can be difficult but you usually turn it around with big hugs, kisses, and making us laugh. We would never describe you as easy but it sure keeps us on our toes :)

Jackson we have never loved someone as much as we love you! We can't wait to see what the next three months bring!
Love, Mama, Nana (Dada)

A tad early..but who am I kidding?! If this doesn't get done now we will be a 16 months.

Thanksgiving 2013

We have so many things to be thankful for family, health, love, lots of laughter, and of course our new house! This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house. We started the day bailing on our race (it was 32 degrees outside) only to run a relay later that morning. We watched the Macy's Day parade while we got ready for our guests to arrive. After lots of prep in the kitchen and awesome fried turkey made by Jamie himself, we ate! Yummy food! After lunch/dinner we had our annual basketball game of "horse" which I myself won!! This is a least two years in a row... A game of beer pong later and lots of football we had to put all the babes to sleep. The next morning we had our first annual christmas movie in christmas "Js" as we call them.


Unfortunately, I missed last year's post but here are a few pics:

2012

2013

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

We are.....

........We are... officially...



Homeowners!! Hehe if anyone thought that was a pregnancy announcement! November first we finally bought a house! Whoohoo we are thrilled! It's been a long time coming but with our patience we got such a great house, in a kid friendly neighborhood, in a fantastic location. It was actually the first one we looked at. I have been shopping on Zillow for probably two years (driving Jamie nuts with looking and driving past houses) but when I found this one he said ok lets look. I had that appointment set up immediately and we bought it after our second look. We have been LUCKY that our process was smooth and uneventful. Here it is!!!!

EKKS!! I'm so excited! We do have better pictures but hello we are in the middle of a move :) So we officially move in this weekend. Last weekend we had the main floor professionally painted (highly recommend) and this weekend is the moving of the furniture. 

Jackson in the backyard! Funny story: he was sick last week :( Boo but anyways we thought he was better and just being a PITA. So of course on closing day he takes a 15 minute nap. That's right 15 minutes. And then screamed bloody murder for an hour. I was loosing my marbles. But we made it through the closing with the help of some baby Einstein (which we never do by the way but we were desperate). I knew he needed a diaper change but figured we could wait until we got to the house. Well he dumps water all over his shorts before we even get there and then he has an explosion.. and guess what he had thrown the wipes out of the bag... so I manage to get him cleaned up and shorts in the dryer when it happens again...it's all over his (dry) shorts. No wipes and NO more diapers.  I had to put his bottom in a target bag to get him back to our rental house.... I was dying. I hope none of the neighbors saw our white trash baby. Turns out he was still sick :( Poor baby! 

But our first night in the house (we couldn't sleep there) but we ordered pizza, drank the champagne and unpacked a couple boxes! It was so fun eating outside on the deck. Jackson even got to have Dominos!! Probably didn't help his tummy but he inhaled it! 

For those with FOOD ALLERGIES: You can get Gluten Free Cheese and Pepperoni Pizza that is egg and soy free. 

Halloween Fun 2013

Wow a year makes such a difference! It is crazy to look at last year's Halloween. Aww it makes me sad how fast it has gone!! Last year he was around 8 weeks old this year 14 months. This year has been a whole new ball game since he is walking running everywhere. A couple weekends before Halloween we drove 45 minutes away to go to a "real" farm (ok real for Florida not for Indiana but it worked!).

A train ride in the fields! Jackson was very into his snacks..

Hayride! It was 80+ degrees outside hints the outfit change for Jackson.

The corn maze which Jackson loved because he could run around

Checking out the animals

Kissing pumpkins! It was a great day! He feel asleep in the car on the way there (crazy), lasted two hours in the heat, AND went out to eat!! 

The weekend before Halloween Jackson went to TWO Halloween Parties! One at My Gym:

He was a WILD thing at My Gym. While I was nervous because of all the big kids, he was going fully force right along with them. Only one bloody lip and tons of tantrums later :) He did do really well after the first 15 minutes. Then we went to a work Halloween party where he basically slept through it. I wasn't complaining after all that energy he had at the first party.

Then we did some pumpkin painting!

And some Halloween book fun

The finished pumpkin

Halloween!! The Rubbles

Glow stick party! Had a blast chasing after our friends' dog and cat around, stealing hotdogs and playing.

And some Trick or Treating! Jackson lasted about 15 minutes..he couldn't understand why the wagon was stopping. Plus it was about an hour past his bed time. Overall we had a great time!

Allergy Update

Ugh. Sigh.

We had Jackson's allergy appointment yesterday for testing. We got there and the nurse asked if I brought food..I did not 1. Because they didn't tell me to 2. What would I bring egg? Soy? I THOUGHT we were redoing the skin test. After a lot of confusion we finally saw the doctor who told me since it had only been 5 months he did not recommend a skin test. And he won't do another one until NEXT SUMMER. NEXT SUMMER.  Meaning we have to continue NO egg or soy for basically until he is almost two. I had really high expectations that we were coming in today for him to say we could at least start trying soy. Nope. AND absolutely no nuts of any kind until he is THREE. THREE. ************ And we have to start using another cream ya da blah blah more stuff to put on him at night which is already torture. And he said the words of well I don't want to limit his milk intake since his proteins are very limited without egg and soy.. basically because he isn't doing that great with milk either.

I love our allergist. He is very nice and I respect him professionally. So none of my feelings are towards him, it's just the situation. I think I have kept thinking well in a couple months he'll be fine or a couple more months. I guess I wasn't being realistic. Or maybe I was just hearing what I wanted to hear. But this is upsetting to me. Another year of fear of him ending up in the hospital for accidentally eating something (you should have seen me last week when a kid left his pretzels on the floor and Jackson was lunging towards them totally a crazy mom moment), more days of making food/freezing/prepping, no taking him out to eat, etc. Traveling is getting to be impossible because we can take a bunch of baby food and I can only prep so much and take it in the cooler. We want to go to Disney but I already know I have to call and make arrangements for his food. It's just a lot to do on my part. He is completely fine! He's happy, healthy, at a perfect weight, developing perfectly, and he has no idea what he's missing. It is sad to me that when he reaches for our food we have to say no. I've thought about making us all soy/egg free but we really can't afford it at the moment. Native Sun already gets a pretty penny out of us for Jackson's food!

I know I have no room to complain because I see kiddos that have serious issues. And I thank god everyday for Jackson. But sometimes I can't help but to get frustrated. When I'm looking at the bright side this kid eats way healthier than any other kid!

12 Month Foods

12 Month Foods

I know we have been MIA recently but life has been crazy!! I'm working 28 hours a week but with drive time it's a lot more..exhausting but great. And then Jamie was out of town for work and we went out of town the two weekends following... so just crazy busy. 

12 month foods are much more exciting!! I had to write them down so A. I can remember them for Jackson B. When we have future kiddos this will be helpful

Breakfast: Always with fruit and milk, never with syrup, and always egg/soy free

• Waffles
• Pancakes
• Donuts (left over from his birthday)
• Need to try oatmeal again
• Trying to find a muffin recipe...
• I even mix it up sometimes and make blueberry pancakes :)

Snack:

• Water and graham crackers (soy/egg free)

Lunch: Always with veggies and milk, sometimes cheese

• Quesadillas (cheese, chicken, beans, veggies, you can be creative)
• Hummus on bread
• Lunchmeat with bread
• Chicken salad
• Sunbutter on bread
• Tacos
• Chicken nuggets occasionally (free of everything)
• Turkey hot dogs occasionally
• Going to try Mac N Cheese and tuna salad soon

Snack:

• Fruit, milk, raisins

Dinner: Always with milk, veggies, sometimes fruit

• Spaghetti and meatballs
• Veggie lasagna (mushrooms, peppers, onions, tomatoes, everything!)
• Tacos
• Quesadillas
• Chicken
• Going to try chili, veggie pizza

He has an amazing appetite and pretty much loves everything except plain chicken..who can blame him? I love the variety of foods he is eating and yes we are trying some kid friendly foods (we don't want him being that freak that has never had mac n cheese ;) Jamie's words not mine..). We have been pretty successful with dairy so that has really opened our food world! I'm loving cooking for him and finding new recipes. The best part is I can freeze everything so it lasts awhile. 

Our newest goal is have a family dinner with Jackson. It's really hard during the week because he eats at 6 and Mon/Wed I don't get home until 6:30 and Jamie gets home late. Our goal is Thursday/Friday/Saturdays. And boy let me tell you the first time was a disaster. Because I have to start making both dinners at 5 that leaves Jackson to... hang on my leg and cry for an hour because all eyes aren't on him. Then by the time I get everything on the table and sit down he has inhaled his food and is signing "all done." Over all he was pretty patient while I inhaled my food but it was not relaxing at all. I think have two parents on board will help next time! 

Anyone have any great (allergy free) food suggestions?! I would love a more savory breakfast for him but I'm struggling with the no egg part. I'm not especially into bacon or sausage either. I don't want to do toast because that takes away from our bread stash that I homemake. 

Two years!

We have been married TWO years! What an amazing two years it has been. Our first year was a lot of change- moving to a different state, two new jobs, and first pregnancy.. to our second year of having our first baby! In case you forgot the first year :) I'm so lucky to have found my soul mate and my best friend. This year has had it's ups and downs but we always make it through stronger than ever. From a baby with colic to getting a new job, moving (apartment to rental house), and tons more we have had one heck of a year.  This year was the year of finding balance and learning to communicate through those sleepless nights. It was figuring out how to be a family and not just a couple. Trust me being a selfish couple of two- sleeping in late, staying out late, spending too much money on stupid stuff was much easier but not as fulfilling (meaningful, fun in a new way, I can keep going)!! 

A look back on our second year:

September 2012: Jackson was born!

October 2012: Halloween with our little lion and the "sugar daddy"

 November 2012: Thanksgiving Jacksonville Beach

 December 2012: Christmas and trip to Roanoke

January 2013: My birthday dinner and date night

 February 2013: Our first half marathon together! The Donna Half

March 2013: Jackson and I took a trip to Indiana (sorry hubby)

 April 2013: Having fun at my brother and sister-in-law's baby shower

 Jamie's surprise 30th!!

 30th birthday in VEGAS! We had an amazing 48 hours :)

 May: First Mother's Day/ TPC/ Plaid Party fun/ first family vacation to Long Boat Key

 June 2013: First Father's Day and a month of pool, beach, and park time!

 Trip to Atlanta to visit my brother and his family. Also a trip to the aquarium!

July 2013: Celebrated the 4th at the beach! 

 August 2013: Jackson's first birthday party

September 2013: Jackson's First birthday, Weddings in DC and Indiana

While this year was focused all on Jackson, we did have some alone time (need to take more pictures of the two of us..). I already know that our 3rd year will be even more amazing!