Take my picture

Jax has started smiling on cue when there's a camera pointed at him. He's also become obsessed with having his picture taken and is constantly saying "Mommy, take my picture". I thought I would share a few :)
















And just because I love how my 2.5 year old still likes to snuggle me after his nap (or when he half naps then sleeps on me for the second half)...


So sweet :)

7,8,9 Weeks

When I was pregnant with Jax I took weekly pictures of my belly. For the first 12-ish weeks, they mostly looked the same. Ha! My belly didn't change much until about 13 or 14 weeks, and even then it was only noticeable to me. I have been so surprised by how quickly my belly has bulged with this baby. 

Starting next Thursday (12 weeks), I will be doing a weekly pregnancy post. I'll have pictures and updates on anything pregnancy related. I did this with Jax, and I LOVE looking back at how I was feeling and what was going on while he was in my tummy. 

I currently can't find my USB cord for my camera, but once I do, I will post pictures from weeks 10 and 11. 

7 weeks

8 weeks

9 weeks

Each week when I take my picture, Jax asks to take his "belly picture" too. So here's one of his weekly pictures :)

Happy Friday! Only 9 sleeps until Christmas!!

It's official!

After 14 long months of trying (with an 8 month deployment thrown in the middle), Jax is finally going to be a big brother!!

I am 10 weeks pregnant!

I've been dying to tell y'all but I wanted to wait until we heard the heartbeat. Last Wednesday we finally did! Oh, how it was music to my ears! Jax loved seeing the baby and hearing the heartbeat. We recorded it and he is always asking to hear it again. So sweet!

Baby #2!!

THANK YOU to each of you who prayed for us along this journey. (If you are new to my blog, read about it here, here, and here). And by the way, it happened naturally and without Clomid! Although the Clomid was sitting on my night stand, ready to be used the next month :)

We are beyond excited and we can't wait for July to get here!!

It's the Holiday Season

 Our neighbors have a huge tree in their front yard, and every year it dumps tons and tons of leaves into our yard. We try to stay on top of it by raking at least once a month, but it seems to never end. Ryan was outside raking the other day and Jax wanted to help. And by help, I obviously mean throw leaves around and make a bigger mess than there was to begin with :) But he was having the time of his life "helping" Daddy rake leaves!

We always put up our Christmas decorations on the weekend after Thanksgiving. Last Sunday we went and bought our tree. Real, of course, because fake trees are just WRONG!  We spent the afternoon drinking hot chocolate, pulling everything out of boxes, and putting all the ornaments on the tree. Jax put about 15 ornaments on two bottom branches. But he was SO proud of himself for doing it. We just moved them around once he wasn't paying attention anymore. Christmas is so exciting this year because Jax is really into it.... which makes it so much more fun for Ryan and I!

Here he is helping Daddy put water in the tree stand

Some kind of crazy face... he makes those a lot!

22 days until Christmas!!

Randoms

I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving! Ours was quiet and nice with just Hubs, myself and Jax. We can't wait until next holiday season when we are back in California with our families! But in the meantime, I could never let a Christmas season pass me by so we spent today making our house festive. Jax is really excited about Christmas this year so we're already having lots of fun.

Nana sent some Christmas stickers, markers and a coloring book. Jax is obsessed and we've had to limit him to one sticker sheet per day!


While Jax was drawing 2-year-old things, Ryan was drawing this. Nice.


We had a fun Thanksgiving craft and snack at Mommies Group last Tuesday. We do a craft once a month and the kids always love it!





Growing up, we had a Rudolph that lived under our tree. He walked a few steps at a time and sang his theme song. To carry on that tradition, we let Jax pick a musical character to live under our tree. He chose Frosty... And he LOVES him :)


We spent last year in California since Ryan was deployed, so I didn't get to do any of my own Christmas decorating. I forgot about half of the stuff I have. It's been fun to get it all out this year and deck our halls for one last time in our first home!


It's the most wonderful time of the year!!

Happy Thanksgiving from my little turkey :)


This year he is thankful for piggies, cows, Max, friends, elephants, Daddy, Mommy, and Mojo. I had to remind him that he is thankful for those last three. Ha!

Have a great and yummy day!!

His Guys

Back in February we went to Disneyland and my parents bought Jax a really cute stuffed Mickey.





He started sleeping with it every night, tucked in under his arm. A month(ish) ago we went out of town for 2 nights and we forgot Mickey at the hotel. Major bummer! The hotel found him and sent him to us... Except they accidentally switched our package with someone else's so we ended up with two pillow pets. We finally ended up getting Mickey back, but Jax was without him for about 10 days. In the mean time, I gave him a stuffed bear and a Build-A-Bear puppy that had been sitting in a toy chest. After we got Mickey back, he slept with all three guys for a few nights. Then he decided that he no longer wanted Mickey and he only wanted his "guys". He asks for them every night and he has to have one tucked under each arm. I loved his Mickey and really wanted him to have that one, but he just loves his guys more. And seeing this sweetness each night...





Well, I can't argue with that!

To My Veteran

Happy Veteran's Day to my handsome veteran and to all the other veterans who bravely and proudly serve our country!

Randoms

This week has been pretty uneventful. Just the usual church on Sunday, Mommies Group on Tuesday, gymnastics tomorrow (Thursday). Ryan went back to work today for the first time since his surgery almost a month ago. It was weird to have him gone! But, he has a 4-day weekend for Veterans Day so that will be nice. I get to celebrate my handsome Veteran and all the sacrifices he has made to serve his country and provide for our family!

Jax is funny and cute as always. He's really into saying "I can help" with everything we do. He also asks "what that do, Mommy?" about everything he sees. He's such a curious and smart little guy.

Here's some proof :)


Guitar playing!


Shaving with Daddy (He uses the toothpaste tube. Excuse the sleepy eyes!)


My guys watching TV. Boys will be boys!


Playing in the toddler section at Monkey Joe's.


Such a lover-bug!


Wearing Mojo's Halloween dress as a... Hat? Scarf? I'm not sure! Ha!


Eating VEGETABLES! With chopsticks! I was amazed at how well he used them (the kid ones) and even more amazed that my child who refuses to eat any vegetables actually ate mushrooms, zucchini and broccoli! What the?!

And finally, here's the cute fall wreath I made. I LOVE how it turned out!


I'm off to finish watching the CMA's. Happy Wednesday!

Jax's iPhone

Ok, so my 2.5 year old doesn't actually have his own iPhone. HOWEVER, he does like to think that what's mine is his. He is constantly asking to play with my "shone" and watch "bideos" on it.

It started innocently enough. I got some toddler-friendly games from the app store and let Jax play them when I needed to distract him or keep him occupied. For awhile, this held him over. He had learned how to unlock my phone (by watching me do it... I definitely didn't teach him that!), and I made a folder with all his games. He knew exactly where they were and he would mostly stick to those.

Then, he started opening MY games folder. He started playing Where's the Water? (aka- the alligator game) and Angry Birds. Then he figured out that if he clicked on the Golden Bird, it would have a button that took him to "bideos" (aka YouTube). This became his routine for awhile. He used his new discovery to go to YouTube and watch Mickey Mouse or Special Agent Oso.

He actually figured out how to go straight to the YouTube app, and was doing it so consistently that I finally had to put a stop to it. I've put some major limitations on how often he can be on my phone, and also what he can do on it. He's rarely allowed to watch YouTube anymore and mostly has to stick to his toddler games.

I just really can't believe how quickly he figured it all out. The world our kiddos are growing up in is unreal!