2011

January- 
We were excited because Ryan was returning from deployment soon.

We spent time with our best friends in California.

We were preparing for Disneyland.

February- 
Ryan came home from Afghanistan!!!

We took a trip, ALONE, to Vegas!

March- 
We took a trip to Disneyland.

We came back home to North Carolina.

April-
I really started feeling the ache about not getting pregnant, and decided to pursue fertility testing.

We had an awful tornado that hit just down the road from our house.

May-
We had a fun Memorial Day at the lake.

June- 
Jax turned TWO!

We began fertility testing.

July- 
We celebrated our last Independence Day as a military family.

My best friends came to visit from California.

I got baptized.

August- 
I turned 25.

My mom, Jax and I visited Charleston.

Potty training!


September-
We went to the zoo.

We watched Daddy jump out of a helicopter.

Ryan turned 27 and we went ziplining.

October-
We had some big prayer requests.

And God totally answered, because I became pregnant with baby #2! (But kept it a secret)

Jax was a pirate.

November-
Jax became obsessed with my iPhone.

He also became obsessed with his guys.

December- 
I announced my pregnancy!

And we got to see our baby.

We celebrated our first and last Christmas alone, as just a family of three.

I started my second trimester, and am starting to show.

2012 will bring huge changes for our family! Moving back to California, finding a new job for Ryan, finding a new place to live, having another baby, Jax starting preschool next fall, and many other surprises that I'm sure God has in store for us. I can't wait!!

Happy New Year, dear friends!

13 weeks!

I can't believe I'm already into my second trimester! I'm 1/3 of the way to holding this sweet baby in my arms!

I had my 12 week checkup yesterday and everything looks great. We had a little scare because the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat with the doppler. I got really nervous, but he said it's not uncommon to have a hard time finding the heartbeat with the doppler at 12 weeks. He sent me over the the ultrasound room to check that way. Right away I saw the baby squirming around, and it only took a second to see the flicker of the heartbeat on the screen. It was nice and strong! I asked the ultrasound tech to check between the baby's legs, but the little stinker wouldn't open its legs and wouldn't stop squirming around. It's a little too early to tell anyway, but I wanted to try!

We couldn't get very good pictures, but here's the best one...

We actually will be doing our 20 week ultrasound at my next appointment! I'll be 17 weeks, but since we are moving 2 weeks later, we want to make sure everything looks good before we head back to CA. Soooo.... that means only 4 more weeks until we know the gender!! Make sure you go vote in the gender poll on the top left of the blog. Right now, it's pretty split down the middle, so we'll see :)

Here's my picture from this week...

I compared it to pictures from when I was pregnant with Jax... and this is what I looked like at about 17/18 weeks with him! Ha! My body must have remembered what it was doing and started expanding before it was necessary ;) I tried to crop the pictures side by side to compare, but I'm not sure how to do it on my computer. Anyone know how to do that? (I have a MAC and I don't have Photoshop)

Here's Jax's picture from this week...

He's such a ham :)

Can ya'll believe that the end of the year is already here?! It sure has flown by for me! Happy New Year!!

Lots of Christmas Pictures!

We had a good, but uneventful Christmas this year. It was the first year that we were completely alone, and it felt a little weird. I tried to make it feel as Christmas-y as possible, but it just wasn't quite the same. We still had a good time, and Jax was excited about everything... which makes it that much more fun for us!

We went to our church's Christmas Eve program on Saturday night. They did a huge production at an arena-like thing... it seated about 4500 people, and was almost completely full at both 5pm and 7pm. It was a great way to focus on the real reason we celebrate Christmas, and the fact that Jesus was born so that he could, in turn, die for our sins. We set up a tripod and took a family picture before we headed out the door.

Jax fell asleep in the car on the way home, so we didn't end up putting out any cookies for Santa, and we also didn't get to remind him that he got to open presents when he woke up. My early-riser came into our room at 550 the next morning, and didn't even mention Christmas. We laid in bed for a little while and then reminded him that it was Christmas day! He immediately jumped out of bed and headed to the living room. We opened stockings first.

(His Kisses candy blends in with his jammies!)

I got breakfast started after we finished opening our stockings. Monkey Bread!

After I got breakfast in the oven, we distributed presents and got to work! Jax was so excited to open all of his presents this year. It was the first year that he really understood what was going on, and he understood that he could ask for what he wanted. He has been asking for a race car (remote control car) for a while, and Santa totally delivered! We made him open that last, so he had to open his other 471821938893819021 presents first. Next year there will be a limit (for us and for family members) of how many presents can be given to our kids.

Clothes 

A new watch (because we lost his old one) 

A shaving kit! He pretend shaves with Daddy every morning, but now he can "really" shave! 

His race car!

After opening presents, we ate our breakfast and spent the day playing with our new toys, reading books, and watching Christmas movies.

I made Chinese food for dinner, and chocolate roll for dessert. A tried a few new recipes for dinner, and they turned out okay. We had broccoli beef, cashew chicken, egg rolls and fried rice.  I'm glad it was just the 3 of us eating the food! Ha!

Broccoli beef 

Our little buffet for three

But the chocolate roll was delicious (it's a tried and true recipe) and I inhaled a huge piece after Jax went to bed.

YUM! 

Extra YUM!!

Overall it was a nice day, and now we get to look forward to getting back to California and having a huge family Christmas next year!

From our family to yours!

Merry Christmas!

12 Weeks!

I've made it to the end of my first trimester! Woo! Starting next week, I will official be a second trimester gal. I have to say though, I really can't complain much about my first trimester. I pretty much don't feel pregnant. (Which can be a little scary/frustrating, but I try to count it as a blessing). I'm grateful that I haven't had awful morning sickness, or terrible heartburn, or extreme exhaustion. This pregnancy has been very similar to Jax's so far, and for that I am blessed. I barely felt pregnant with Jax. The only thing that was real was his kicking and punching my insides. I can't wait to feel this baby do those same things!

I am at such an awkward stage with clothes. I look chubby, not pregnant. All my clothes are too small, but maternity clothes are too big. I've been living in sweats and baggy shirts as much as possible. I am SO thankful that I have one pair of maternity jeans that fits... and I pretty much wear them whenever I go out in public, which isn't that often (thank goodness) since it's Christmas time and all our normal activities are on hiatus.

The baby is the size of a lime this week... about 2ish inches! His/her nerves are connecting and he/she is starting to have facial reactions, and bodily movements. I can't wait to feel them. It is by far the best part of pregnancy.

Here are my pictures from weeks 10 and 11....

And here is this week...

I'm definitely starting to show!

A few final things---
-I finally died my hair now that I'm out of the "danger zone" aka weeks 5-10. And ohhh, it felt so good to do it. Now I just need to get back to California so that I can get this mop cut!

-Don't you just love my new blog design?! I do! It's from LeeLouBlogs.

-I added a gender poll to the top left of the blog... so go VOTE!!

20 Questions

I found this idea on Pinterest. It's 20 questions to ask your child each year on their birthday, starting at 3 years old. I thought I would ask Jax these questions now, just to see what his 2.5-year-old self would say. I want to type these up and print them out each year as a keepsake for when he grows up. It's so fun to hear what his opinions are at this age. Some answers are typical, and some are a little silly... just like him!

1. What is your favorite color?  Blue

2. What is your favorite toy? Race car

3. What is your favorite fruit? Watermelon

4. What is your favorite tv show? Veggie Tales

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Mac N Cheese

6. What is your favorite outfit? Toy Story clothes

7. What is your favorite game? Connect 4 (he loves to put the pieces into the frame!)

8. What is your favorite snack? Goldfish

9. What is your favorite animal? Lion

10. What is your favorite song? Veggie Tales song

11. What is your favorite book? The Llama book (Llama Llama Red Pajama)

12. Who is your best friend? Max and Ben

13. What is your favorite cereal? Lucky Charms (which he's had once!)

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Rake (let's hope he still says this in a few years!)

15. What is your favorite drink? Coffee (ummmm.....)

16. What is your favorite holiday? Gift party (HA!!!)

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Water

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Watermelon (which he's never had for breakfast!)

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Fantastic food!

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? I wanna have a baby sister (awwwww!!!!)

Making a fort

We ended up running an errand this afternoon, and afterward the three of us were hungry.  And it was only 3:30. Ha! I have a good excuse (ya know, growing a human and all...), but my two boys are just boys and, therefore, are always hungry. Jax wanted "beans and rice" aka Mexican food. So we decided to just eat a very early dinner at a yummy restaurant right by our house. 

Once we got home and settled, it was only about 5. We watched a kid show on Netflix, then looked around at each other. What were we going to do for the next 2 hours until Jax went to bed? Build a fort, of course! We grabbed a sheet and some chairs and set up an awesome fort in the middle of our living room. It was Jax's first homemade fort experience and he loved it, obviously! He is such an adventurous little kid. Daddy grabbed the flashlight, I grabbed some books and we had a grand ol' time enjoying each others' company!