Christmas at Pawpaw and Bam Bam’s

After Christmas morning at home, we headed out to my mom and dad's house. One of Jackson's favorite things to do this Christmas, was to find his name on the gifts. As soon as we walked in the door and he saw so many gifts with his name on the tag, he couldn't wait to start opening gifts.

"HEY EVERYBODY! IT'S TIME TO OPEN PRESENTS! COME ON! TIME FOR PRESENTS!" (He likes to think that he is in charge....)

We kept the boys in the kitchen for a few minutes while my parents put their new bikes under the tree to surprise them with....

These are called Skuut bikes and are supposed to teach kids balance, steering and coordination before they learn how to ride a real bike.

I don't know what Mom and Garrett were talking about, but it looks fun!

Oh.....help me! Aaron is going to learn Spanish. You should hear him speak it now. He thinks he has a natural talent at speaking Spanish already. Going to a Mexican restaurant with Aaron is always an experience - "Excuse me Senorita. Can we get more el-chip-os?" The bast part is that he isn't trying to be funny, he really thinks they understand el-chip-os better than the word chip. And trust me, this is only an EXAMPLE of his spanish vocabulary. Again, he believes he is a natural! :)

Jackson and Garrett's FAVORITE Christmas present. I highly recommend this toy! Zoom Around Garage

Every Christmas Aaron puts on all of his shirts he gets. He is not like most of us that just fold it and put it back in the box...he has to put it on. If he gets another shirt, he will put it on over the first one. He wears many layers of shirts during present time.

"Agggggg! I gotta try this one on!" is said after he opens every shirt.

I had to laugh at my sister and Ricky this year. Next year will be completely different for them with Savannah crawling around, but this year they got to open their presents so peacefully.....

But for me, it wasn't too peaceful.....

With the boys opening presents one after another and toy makers putting those darn twisty ties on every toy, I got behind on everyones trash.....

And then our oldest child was coming out of the bathroom still pulling up his pants because he didn't want to miss anything....

We had to deal with many battles over new toys - BIG battle over this airplane!

And if the boys actually have a calm moment, chances are my husband is doing something crazy......

Sis, get ready!.....your time is coming!

I love this little shirt for Garrett!

Playing Wii -

Garrett couldn't make it any longer....

Jackson playing cars with Pawpaw.....

Christmas!

Starting with the day before Christmas Eve....

While Garrett was napping, I let Jackson make gingerbread cookies to leave out for Santa. Garrett probably would have enjoyed using the cookie cutter as well, but sometimes Jackson needs that one on one time with me and the thought of Garrett with flour and a rolling pin scares me a little.....

Jackson and I baked them and later that evening, the 4 of us decorated them.

After his attention span with making cookies came to an end, he decided he would pretend to be Santa and ride on his sleigh (the bar stool) while calling out the names of the reindeer. I had no idea he knew all their names until this moment. I don't think I even know all their names....

We spent the morning of Christmas Eve at home. We went to the 2:00 church service with Randy, Dianne, and Blair and then spent the rest of the evening at their house. Both Shelly and Carissa's in-laws live out of town, so this year they were not home for Christmas. We will have Christmas with the whole family next week.

Christmas morning....

The letter from Santa and the plate of cookies after Santa got a hold of them.

{Did you know that the Santa that visited our house didn't get the "memo" that you are supposed to leave a letter for the children after you eat their cookies? Mrs. Claus had to tell him about the letter! Santa also got in trouble for the cookies. He thought he needed to eat every cookie on the plate and make the plate look clean and crumb free. After Mrs. Claus refilled his plate with cookies, he finally got it right. Mrs. Claus was a little bossy this year since a certain 3 year old asks a lot of questions.....}

Presents left by Santa....notice a gingerbread man must have fallen out of his pocket while he was going back up the chimney.

For the whole month of December I have been trying to figure out how to handle Christmas morning. Last year Jackson and Garrett were BOTH in cribs and couldn't roam the house in the middle of the night, this year however....they BOTH have freedom.

We decided that we would let them sleep with us so that they would wake us before roaming the house.

And this is why we are not fans of "co-sleeping" -

We have a king size bed, but wow - they could care less if they knock Mommy off the bed. For some reason, Aaron sleeps just as comfortably as they do, but I am balancing on the edge of the bed to keep from falling off.

Seeing what Santa left.....

At this point of the morning, Garrett thought that the whole Christmas morning thing was over rated. He wanted to go back to bed.

Shaking the presents...

Jackson finally getting his "toy wee-weeder (weed eater), toy blow, and toy chainsaw." He also had a "toy bike" on his list, however Santa must have known that Jackson's BamBam and PawPaw were getting him a bike, so Santa didn't bring him one. After presents were opened and things had settled down, I asked Jackson "What was your favorite gift from Santa?" He said "My toy wee-weeder, my toy blower, my toy chain saw,................does Santa not know how to make a bike?" :)

The rest of Christmas Day coming up next. I thought that was enough for you all to handle for one post. :)

Merry Christmas!

{Merry Christmas from our family to yours}

Christmas with Harleigh

(I am behind in blogger. This was from last Friday!)

Ricky has Harleigh on Christmas Eve, so my sister and Ricky use that day as their "Santa Christmas morning" and then the rest of the day with Ricky's family. We have always done something before Christmas with Harleigh so that my parents and our family can give Harleigh her gifts and then my sister gives the boys their gifts so Harleigh can see the boys open theirs from them. Did you understand all that?! ;) Okay...now for the pictures....

Cupcakes. When I was making these Jackson said "Mommy! You forgot to put HoHo's (Santa's) face under his hat!"

While my dad ran to the store, you will never guess who knocked on the front door.....

Santa!!! The boys couldn't believe their eyes!

And the fear sets in....

At first Jackson just stood by Santa and told him what he wanted for Christmas -

"I want a toy wee-weeder (weed eater), a toy chain saw, a toy blower, and a toy bike."

Getting a little more brave....

Although Garrett was scared to sit in his lap, he wanted to give Santa a bite of his pretzel -

Garrett didn't really enjoy this moment -

We told Jackson he had to sing Santa a Christmas song -

We thought we were successful. When Santa left however, Jackson saw a pillow that had Santa on it. He said "This HoHo isn't the pretend Pawpaw HoHo." I don't know what he was talking about........I explained how that really was Santa and Pawpaw was at the store. I think he understood, but I didn't ask him about it much more....

Presents.....

Garrett decided to take his Thomas the Train to the stairs to protect it from others....

The kids dancing! I think Harleigh is secretly starting to think the boys are fun!

Watching them dance was funny! Garrett always copies Jackson. However, when Harleigh is around, it is one big domino effect. Harleigh does something....Jackson copies Harliegh....and then Garrett coping Jackson. It was pretty cute!

Harleigh reading "The Potty Train" to Jackson and Garrett.

Shaving Cream Snowman!

I decided to be brave and let the boys use shaving cream to make their own snowman. First, I can't even tell you how excited Jackson was to get to use Aaron's shaving cream. "We get to use DADDY'S shaving cream!??!?!?!" He thought his was the coolest kid around!

The hardest thing about my personality and having young kids is standing back and letting it be THEIR work. When I want to say "put the nose lower so you have room for the eyes" or "the hat is upside down," I have to bite my tongue and say "great job." To each of them, their work is perfect and that is what makes them proud and that is what makes me smile!

My plan was to draw 3 circles, squirt shaving cream inside the circle, give them little pieces I cut out for the nose, eyes, arms, etc. and stand back.

Jackson was okay with this and went to work....

While Garrett looked at me like I was crazy for trying to make him stick his hand in shaving cream....

This is when I feared that Jackson was going to put shaving cream on his WHOLE paper instead of within the perfect little circles I drew, but I kept my mouth closed and enjoyed his happiness...

I started Garrett's bottom circle for him....

He watched his big brother to make sure he approved of this messy project....

I finally did the shaving cream for Garrett so he would at least put all the pieces on....

"Jackson, smile with your snowman!"

"Garrett, smile with your snowman!"

Their finished products!

Christmas with the Leakes

Last Sunday we celebrated Christmas with Randy's side of the family! Here are a few pictures from our gathering...

Aunt Susan with Brooks

Jackson decorating a train cake with his cousins

(Garrett was having a little well needed rest…)

Silly Boy!

Jackson's FAVORITE part of the day!

Jackson LOVED these bells! We all got to hear A LOT of the bells!

A FIVE Minute Christmas Home Video

Yes, it is indeed 5 minutes and I am fully aware that only Grandparents may watch the video to its entirety. 

I am also fully aware of the fact that Garrett’s pants are too short.  Pretend that they are capris….which means you will also have to pretend that it is summer time and capris are appropriate for boys to wear.  The pants are size 18-24 months….Garrett is 21 months….I thought the pants would fit….They didn’t….We were at home….Garrett is a squirmy little guy….enough said. 

Be sure to watch the beginning when Garrett copies every move Jackson makes.  I love those little guys!   

                    

Christmas Cupcake Cake Balls

My day morning, afternoon, and evening were spent in the kitchen.  Thankfully my sister wanted to come over one day this week to play with the boys, so I told her Thursday would be a great day!  She could entertain the boys, while I made cake balls. 

The 17 dozen cake balls are for a wedding in Austin this Saturday.  The wedding is not Christmas theme, but they are having a favor table filled with sweets for when the guests leave.  I think they are putting a sign on the table that says “And to all a good night….” Isn’t that cute?!     

And just when I sat down on the couch with my feet up, I got a call from my Dad who told me to give his neighbor a call.  He ordered 20 dozen to send to his customers at work.  So….back to the kitchen I go!  :)    

Jackson’s Song about “Baby Girl.”

Before we knew if my sister and Ricky were having a boy or a girl, we would ask Jackson and Garrett, “Is Aunt M having a baby girl or a baby boy?”  Once we found out they were having a girl and her name was going to be Savannah, Jackson wasn’t happy.  #1:  He wanted it to be a baby boy.  #2:  He thought her name should Baby Girl and not Savannah. 

Jackson is learning to like the name Savannah (which he pronounces as “Sa-ban-na”).  This weekend I heard him singing a song about “Sa-ban-na” while he was playing.  He completely made this song up, as you will be able to hear.  :)  The words are not always the same and it is kind of hard to understand what he is saying since he makes up the words as he goes, but main line is “If baby girl is not Savannah, the baby girl will just be baby girl.”

I also like the part where I ask him to sing it again for us and he responds with “Who are y’all?” since he was really only singing it for me.   

Garrett’s List of Things, Part 2

If you remember the blog post about Garrett’s List of Things, you know that Garrett likes to go to bed with many items.  Slowly but surely, I started taking the items away one by one.  He didn’t really notice, but I guess some days he feels kind of lonely while laying in bed and decides to get some things from around his room…..like a plastic bowling ball and a soccer ball….

Sweet baby boy…

Pump It Up!

This past Saturday we went to Molly’s birthday party at Pump It Up.  It was so much fun!  The boys LOVED it!  It was a place that made me realize that Jackson is becoming such a KID.  I assumed he would only be brave enough for the plain ole’ bounce house, but somehow this KID of ours knew house to climb a steep wall that was about 15 feet tall.  I guess boys just know how to climb walls like dogs just know how to swim. 

This is one of the walls he climbed, but not THE wall.  We actually don’t have a picture of the big wall because Aaron and I were both probably yelling at him to be careful….step by step…..

Of course Garrett loved the ball game!

Garrett teaching Nana how to play ball.  As soon as she would throw one ball, he would point and yell “THROW!” so she would throw another one.  He is bossy when it comes to playing ball!  :) 

Garrett really wanted to slide down this slide, so I asked Jackson to go up the ladder hoping Garrett would follow Jackson since Garrett and Jackson have been attached at the hip lately.  Although Garrett really wanted to slide, he was not a fan of going up the ladder.  I had the child that held up the line at the bottom of the ladder!  You know….the child that the other kids have to go around.  Look at his little defeated face.  Poor guy.

So I took my shoes off and carried him up…..

This is the BIG slide.  The other side of this slide is the BIG wall that Jackson climbed.  He always started the slide on his bottom, but the slide made him go so fast that he would flip to his belly.  He loved it!

Brooks and Shelly

Time for cake and ice cream!  I think this was Jackson and Garrett’s first birthday party in a “party room.” 

Oh Christmas Tree….

Sunday was the day Jackson has been waiting for…

“MOMMY!  DADDY!  We have to put up the Christmas tree so Ho Ho can put presents under it!” 

FYI:  Garrett fell asleep in the car and I put him straight to bed for his nap.  So, don’t think I am weird for making my child nap in jeans in the video below. :)    

Jackson was very serious about the tree…

Garrett however got in trouble several times that night….

 

Focused….

Crazy….

 

Focused….

Crazy….

 

After many broken ornaments and much discipline, now if you ask Garrett “Do we touch the Christmas tree?”  He will put his head down and says “Uh-Ugh!” 

Oh Christmas Tree…..

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care….

And by “care” I mean, this year I decided to use 3M hooks instead of our traditional heavy stocking holders.  Why?  Because…..

 

 

Cozy Christmas pajamas with reindeer feet!

   

   

I think Jackson is getting a little annoyed with Garrett’s craziness!

Now that we have one child with a prop and one child doing a front roll, we thought it was time to wrap up the photo session!

Thanksgiving

On Wednesday, they boys and I went to Nana’s house (Aaron’s Grandmother) for a playdate with some of Aaron’s cousins and their children.  Nana has 3 daughters and is now up to 15 great grandkids.  In just 2009, 6 out of the 15 great grandchildren arrived…..2 sets of twins and Brooks and Chloe.  Unfortunately not everyone was able to attend, but we all had fun getting to spend the day with all the generations!  

  

Jackson and Garrett playing with Cole

Brooks!

The boys looking out the window as G-Mom arrived with Molly and Claire -

Lunch Time!

Laura holding her cousin, Isabella - 

Dianne holding her “great nephew” Drake (twin of Isabella) and Brooks -

Making turkey cupcakes -  (Great idea from Shelly!!!) 

   

 

It was getting to be naptime for Garrett, but the cupcakes seemed to give Garrett enough energy to continue on…..

 

Until we were done with the cupcakes, on to another project, and I decided that Garrett didn’t need the marker any longer…..

 

Although Jackson was trying to be the best big brother ever by giving Garrett a purple crayon to replace the marker…..All good things must come to an end……It was naptime!

On Thanksgiving Day, we only had one place to go since we had Thanksgiving with Aaron’s side of the family a few weeks ago.  We spent our morning at home watching the Thanksgiving parade on TV and then headed down to my parents house.

Aaron, Dad, and their neighbor John frying turkeys -

The boys finding trouble to get in to -  (no, they did not remove all the bark you see missing…..)

Happy Boy!

   

  

Showing Jackson the turkey -

 

Excuse the apron….

  

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I guess it is time to put up the Christmas tree.  Jackson has been saying for the past few weeks “First it is Thanksgiving, then we sing a song, then it will be Christmas.”  I don’t know where the sing a song part came from, but I guess that is what stage we are in now….we are singing!   :)

What to do with extra painters tape.

With our house on the market, we have some of our big furniture we can live without in storage at my parent’s office.  One of those pieces of furniture is the train table, however we still have the train track pieces at home.  On special days, when I am okay with having a big mess of train tracks, I will help Jackson put it together on the entry way floor since it is a flat surface.  However, it always becomes a fight between Jackson and Garrett.  Just when Jackson builds the track perfect, Garrett will come by and destroy it.  “Mommy, I want to play with my train track” is one of the requests I secretly don’t love hearing.  It’s like saying “Mommy, I want to get really mad at my brother today!” or “Mommy, I want you to trip over my train track 1,000 times today!” 

The other day when I heard Jackson mention his train track, but he hadn’t directly asked me to get it out yet, I decided to be proactive and try something new.  I saw this idea on another blog and it worked great!  Make a road with painters tape and a little black sharpie!  Jackson was satisfied, Garrett didn’t have anything he could knock down, and I didn’t have 100 pieces of train track to trip over.  Everyone was happy! 

 Garrett’s choice of cars are a little too big!  Perfect example of one of the ways he would destroy the other train track -  :)

A few random things -

1)  For those that left a comment on the last blog post saying that I should start a side business, you are all very sweet!  I actually have several orders coming up for the holidays.  One of the orders is for 200+ cake balls that will be used for wedding favors.  Others are for people to take to holiday parties and a wedding shower.  I love baking and creative projects, so earning a little extra cash here and there while doing something I enjoy is always nice!  So….I do have a LITTLE side business going, so e-mail me if you need anything!                 jordan8082@sbcglobal.net 

2)  If you click HERE, you can see Jackson’s Thanksgiving craft from last year.  It was featured on Tip Junkie today, which is one of my favorite websites!  Awhile back, the cakeball favors I made for Shelly’s baby shower were also featured on her site.  You can find that link HERE. 

Cupcakes!

A blogging friend of mine, Jessica, e-mailed me last week to see if I would be interested in making cupcakes for her daughters first birthday.  She e-mailed me the fabric that matched her daughter’s shirt she would be wearing at the party and from that I decided to design the newly popular cupcake toppers.  

The topper (minus the stick)

The cupcakes

Cupcakes with toppers

Here are some cupcakes I made for my friend Kristin.  They were having a surprise party for her step-dad’s 50th birthday.

 

My Sister is having a……

That’s right!  Although the Chinese Calendar, Intelligender, and the heartbeat all pointed towards boy, the sonogram showed differently!  It is for sure a girl!    Congrats Sis and Ricky!

Gobble, Gobble.

We had Thanksgiving a little early this year with Aaron’s side of the family so that Shelly’s husband, Justin, could join us before leaving to play winter ball.   

Davy Crockett…… (This hat was actually Aaron’s when he was a little boy!) 

 

Jackson had a little bit of everything for dessert…..

Garrett’s favorite thing was whipped cream from G-Mom!  He LOVED it!

       

Garrett loving on Baby Brooks!

Garrett seems so big compared to Brooks, but the crazy thing is that Brooks and Garrett are a tad bit closer in age than Jackson and Garrett.  

Airplane!

I did bring my flip video camera to Florida, but I didn’t put fresh batteries in before leaving. 

They did sell batteries in Florida, but I didn’t remember to buy any when we were out and about. 

I did get a few videos, but I didn’t get many….

Enjoy!  (Yes, we went to Florida over a month ago, but it was only recently I finally got around to replacing the batteries) 

 

 

**I was trying to keep Garrett calm so he would go to sleep, which is why you don’t see action from him.**

Home Sweet Home we Stay.

Back to square one. In our house we remain. (read previous post first if you haven’t yet)

The “wanna be buyer” offered a low price. We came off the asking price, almost meeting him half way. He said his first offer was as high as he would go. I mean, really….who offers their highest price as their first offer. He gave us absolutely nothing to work with. Clearly he was just looking for a steal, but we’re not just going to give our house away.

I thought finding this out would upset me. It is somewhat of a let down, but in a way I am at peace with it. For whatever reason, a little voice in my head kept telling me “don’t do it.” I don’t know if it was because of this buyer, because of the closing date, because a higher offer will come, or because I am a little scared to move. Even though the reason is unknown, one thing I do know is that everything happens for a reason…..especially when 2 precious little boys are involved!

Stressed. Best time to blog.

It’s 2:30 on Saturday and the phone rings.  They want to show our house between 3:00-4:00.  Luckily since it was Saturday, a day I know people house hunt, the house was pretty clean.  But, I still only had THIRTY minutes to make it perfect and wake Garrett up from his nap…..his nap that I had put him down for at about 2:15.  Long story short, I did the whole turbo clean thing and threw the boys and the dog in the car and off we went.  I felt like a woman on the run hiding from someone like they do on Lifetime movies.  “Hurry boys!  Get in the car!  They’re be here any second!” 

Normally, we will drive around, but on this day I didn’t feel like it.  So….we sat in my car a few houses down.  Aaron got home from work, parked his truck behind my car, and we all waited.  The people arrived at our house…….and we waited…….and waited……….and waited.  They were at our house for an hour and a half.  Aaron was convinced they were eating all of our food.  ha!  Jackson at one point said “I need to go pee-pee.”  At this point we didn’t want to take him somewhere to go potty because we wanted to see if they were going to be loading up their cars with our belongings since they had been there so long!!  :)  We were sitting in front of a friend’s house, so Aaron let Jackson out of the car and behind the car door, take care of his business.  (Boys…..why do they have it so easy?!)  About 5 minutes later, Garrett started reaching for his door handle while saying “poo-poo, poo-poo!”  Clearly he was tired of being in the car and thought he would copy Jackson.  (FYI – No Garrett is not potty trained and no he didn’t really have to go “poo-poo!”)

This happens to be the same man that was interested in it a few weeks ago.  He put in an offer, but it was lower than what we would like.  We counter offered back and now we wait.  We wait to hear if we will be “homeless” for Christmas since he wants to close on or before December 11th. 

Through all this, Aaron and I are really leaning towards taking it off the market at the end of our contract if this deal doesn’t work out.  I’m just to the point where I hate having it on the market.  I hate feeling stressed, when I don’t have to be.  I hate that I will sometimes choose not to randomly take the boys to the park for a little while, only because it is not worth making the house spotless before going.  (keep in mind we don’t live close to anything, so we don’t have time to be back before it shows) And honestly, even though it would probably drive me crazy, I can’t wait for the day we can just walk out the door and beds can be unmade if we ran out of time to make them, laundry can be piled up if I simply didn’t have time to get to it because I wanted to build a Lego tower with Jackson and Garrett instead, and if Jackson and Garrett made a fort in the living room with chairs and blankets, we can just leave it there for when we return.  I can even leave the house with my bras hanging up to dry in the laundry room if I want to!!!!!!  I just want our normal life back.  Yes, I hope this deal works.  I really hope this deal works.  I really want to move.  But at the same time, if we’re not going to move, let’s just make the most of being here.

That’s that.  I probably shouldn’t have said anything about the offer, because it will probably result in me having to blog about it not working out.  However, even though I told myself I shouldn’t blog about it, I am…..it just feels like the right thing to do tonight.