Acker Adventures

Lily is 5!!!

2012-02-13T18:39:00.000-08:00

Today is our sweet Lily's 5th birthday! I can't believe she is 5! Where has the time gone?! I know I'll be saying that every year, but really, it's just crazy. She is so old! I remember giving birth to her like it was yesterday! Don't worry, I won't go into those details :) We had a pretty low-key day today, but did go out to Paddington's for pizza-her choice! She opened a couple presents and then had ice cream for dessert. This weekend is the family party where we will do some more celebrating! Here's a little look back in time of our little Lily Mae:

First Halloween and my little mermaid! She was 8 months.

This was around Easter time. Still not waking and she was almost 1 1/2!

9 month photo session-love her grin and chubby cheeks!

2 years at Christmas time!

3 years old.

4th birthday in Disneyland-Um, seriously, this girl goes there so much!

Our 5 year old waking up to her floor covered in balloons! The kids have had a blast playing with them all day!

Blowing out her candle in her ice cream.

We'll have more pictures to come after her party!! Happy Birthday Lily! We love you so much and are SO thankful God has given you to us. You are a sweet girl who loves her family, friends, and Jesus! We are thrilled you ended your 4th year with accepting Jesus into your heart! You are a special girl! Love you!

And they're off!!!

2012-02-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

To DISNEYLAND! My parents are starting a "new" tradition of taking all the grandkids (by themselves) to Disneyland when they turn 5. Well, since Lily is the oldest grandkid she gets to go first!! I can't believe she'll be 5 in two days! Crazy!

Can you just see the excitement on Lily's face?!! And my parents as well! :)

And of course Jameson wanted to be in a picture!

That boy doesn't know what to do with himself without his sister here! We have been enjoying one-on-one time with just Jameson. It's been quite easy just doing the bath and bedtime routing with just one kid! I do miss Lily though! My dad keeps sending me picture texts of all they are doing. Let's just say, come tomorrow when she comes home, it will be detox time!! She's been having way too much fun! :)

Snow!

2012-02-02T15:04:00.000-08:00

First of all, I'm a terrible blogger! I've just haven't taken many pictures lately because we haven't done anything fun! Anyway, a few weeks ago, we got some snow! It was very exciting for the kids-and me too! Right before AJ left for work, he took the kids in the sled around our backyard.

Lily had fun, Jameson, not so much.

Out to the front yard we went to play in some fresh snow! I would say that Lily is trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue, but that would be a lie. She just made a weird face.

Jameson happy at the moment!

Yay for a family picture!

My little clean up boy. He was crying before this picture and just stood in the yard bawling. I think he just didn't like feeling snow on his face!! What is with that boy not liking snow and sand?! Anyway, after I just told him to go in the garage he found this broom and came and outside and started "cleaning up" (in his words.) Anyway, we were probably only outside for 20 minutes but the we had fun!

Oh Jameson...

2012-01-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

I love my boy. Really, I do. But, he gets into everything!!! Is it because he's 2? Or because he's a boy? Or because he has red hair?!! He definitely keeps me on my toes. If there is ever a quiet moment and I don't know where Jameson is, you better believe I'm running around trying to find him! I was able to capture some photos of this little stinker and I thought ya'll would want to see them :)

We put him to bed, and before we go to bed we always check on our kids. This is how we found Jameson! And it was freezing that night! Crazy boy!

Yup, that's my lipstick all over his face.

Another PJ mishap. This time he was still awake, but he had unzipped his pj's AND took his diaper off!!! Luckily, he hadn't peed or anything! YIKES!

He has the cheesiest smile! He wasn't mischevious in this picture, just cute :) I love the "fohawk" look!

And he decided to get into Lily's markers and draw himself some facial hair. Oh boy! I have a feeling he is going to be a crazy little boy in school! But I do love him!!!

Merry Christmas!! (A little late!)

2012-01-07T15:38:00.000-08:00

Well, it's only the first week of January so it's not too late to post about Christmas right?! Oops! Here it goes! Warning: Picture overload!!

A few weeks before Christmas, Lily was a part of the Pee Wee Choir at church for the second year in a row. They sang 2 songs; Joy to the World and Silent Night. She had a blast being a part of it and was most excited to wear her new Christmas outfit! That's my girl :)

So cute before we leave for church!

She concentrates very hard on singing!

All the kids! Crazy to think next year Jameson is "eligible" to be a part of it! Not sure if he can handle it. I can see him jumping on the stage while singing!

Then, since Christmas fell on Sunday this year, and with AJ being at church early to lead worship at 2 services Christmas morning, we decided to celebrate with our little family 2 nights before Christmas! Luckily, the kids aren't old enough to know what day Christmas falls on. They had 3 straight days of present openings! Here they are with their stockings:

New shirt!

New truck!

That night, we also decorated sugar cookies. I didn't want the frosting to stain their clothes, so they got to be naked chefs!

Jameson did well....for the most part! He got 3 cookies to decorate and would slap on some frosting then just lick it off. Talk about a sugar high right before bed!

Lily did great and decorated a lot! This was her kind of thing.

And right before bed, they opened their annual "Christmas Eve Jammies!" Although, it was Christmas Eve Eve to them :)

Christmas Eve day we headed on over to the Acker's all day! So much fun being with family and eating lots and opening presents!

Jameson playing catch with Uncle Jeff!

A new football helmet from Grandpa! This boy is obsessed with football and helmets!

Toy airplane for AJ...he's quite excited!

New purse for me!

Christmas morning (after church),we headed on to my parent's house for an entire day of eating, being with more family, and opening more presents!

Lily braiding her Auntie Lu's hair

Newlyweds and their cute Christmas tie and sweater!

AJ loving his new Traeger BBQ pellets

Hmm...what should I eat next?!

New baby doll clothes!

Yay more balls!

Jameson got this bouncy ball from Leandra and Kevin, and she and Joel were trying to teach him how to use it. It was quite hilarious as he had no idea what to do and Leandra was making him jump up and down. So funny. But you kinda had to be there to think it was funny :)

Hmm...what could be in those presents?!

A new (toy) guitar!!!!! Jameson was thrilled! He calls them "seetar!"

Joel was trying to tune Lily's guitar. Funny how I take a picture of him with her cute pink guitar but not one of Lily with it!
And that's our Christmas extravaganza! We were so blessed by our families and we so enjoy spending time with them! Happy New Year :)

Christmas time!

2011-12-19T16:55:00.000-08:00

Yikes, I've done no Christmas posts and Christmas is 6 days away!!!

I'm listening to Pandora Christmas music (right now it's the Carpenter's-love them!) and enjoying the Christmas lights on my mantel and on my tree. I LOVE Christmas time! It always goes so fast but it's fun while it's here! The weekend after Thanksgiving we went to get our tree! Can I just say how thankful I am to live in a state where there are a plethora of trees and for cheap!!! It only cost us $15-can't beat that! And we took along my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and my sister for some extra fun! The kids also really were into it this year; except Lily kept asking for food! Oh well!

Jameson and his Auntie Lu!

Barb, Andrea, AJ and lily

Lily really trying to help by lifting the tree! Crazy girl!

Our annual picture in front of THE Christmas tree! :)

Any chance for AJ to use his chain saw and he's a happy guy!

Lily helped me decorate the tree this year!

All finished!!

And last week, Lily was in the Pee Wee choir at church! This was her second year being a part of it and she loved it and did great! She for sure was more shy on stage but in her defense there were a TON of people in the audience!

All dressed up in her Christmas dress! So cute :)

Tried to get a picture of Lily with her friend Zoe and this was the best I could get!

Lily on stage and doing her "thing!"

All the kids

Such concentration :)

I love having her a part of the choir and she loves it too! Next year Jameson gets to be a part of it!!! WHAT?! Is that crazy to anyone else? Cause it is to me! He wanted to sing so bad with the kids this year and he was practicing with them and everything! Too cute!

Family Photos 2011

2011-12-05T08:56:00.001-08:00

Our family finally got some updated pictures of all of us! I'm thrilled with how they turned out! We were playing a risky little game with the weather with having outdoor pictures in November, but it turned out to be great! It was a bit cold and dewy (which is why my hair looks nasty! Oh well) but they still turned out great-at least I think they did :)

Here is Lily's "cheesy" smile...yikes. It gets better later on!

Yay a true smile from Lily!!!

She loves her daddy!

My hair = ickyness, but Jameson is adorable!

Belated Birthday Wishes

2011-11-28T14:02:00.001-08:00

Oops. AJ's birthday was 1 1/2 weeks ago. So, thought I'd wish him a belated birthday on here. Better late than never right?!!!!

Happy Birthday to the BEST daddy....

the goofiest guy

and the most loving husband a girl could ask for!!!!

Happy 35th birthday! I will never catch up to your age! :) Love you so much!!!

Jameson is 2!!!!

2011-11-15T18:35:00.001-08:00

I can't believe my sweet, red headed boy is two years old! His birthday was 11/11/11 this year-that was kinda fun! To celebrate him (and AJ's upcoming birthday-their birthdays are a week apart) we had lots of family over for a lasagna feed and presents and cupcakes! Jameson is really into Elmo right now, so we made it an Elmo party! Poor AJ didn't get his choice on what kind of party he wanted :)

The birthday boy in front of all his gifts-along with my brother getting in the picture!

My aunt Tammy, cousin Ben and his girlfriend Megan

Sis-in-law Katie, Joel, J, Lily, my mom, and Grandma

Kevin and Leandra enjoying their own private table :) Actually, more people were around, I just didn't get their picture!

My CUTE kids!!!

Elmo even made his appearance!!!

New truck!

Do you see his excited face over his new elmo jammies?!

And excited over a sweater vest! :)

New backpack to carry his own diapers in!

And a NEW tractor! He LOVES this thing and sits on it all day. His feet don't quite reach the pedals, but he doesn't mind!

Just a little snapshot of the big party we had! There were 21 people in my tiny house including my kids and Andrea's new baby. Crazy! But, we all fit and had a great time!!

Elmo cupcakes! Can I just tell you how much I LOVE Pinterest?! That's where I got the idea for the elmo cupcakes as well as the Elmo veggie tray. My sweet friend, Suzanne, came over and helped with the frosting-that lady is an amazing baker! Anyway, I was thrilled with how well they turned out! Lily also had fun helping me put Elmo's face together :)

The birthday boys! (With my Grandpa in the background!)

Jameson at 1 year!! Love his sweetness!

And my 9 lb. 12 1/2 oz. boy!!! Love him! We love being Jameson's parents and have SO enjoyed these last 2 years!!!! Happy birthday sweet boy! And thanks to our amazing families for helping throw a fun party and spoiling our son!! :)

Happy Halloween!!!!

2011-10-31T20:04:00.000-07:00

Started off the morning with eating some yummy, sugary, pumpkin cinnamon rolls! Super easy and delicious. Gotta love getting recipes from pinterest!

Happy Halloween from Rapunzel and our little basketball player!

We met up with our friends, the Steiner's, and trick-or-treated with them for a bit. Jameson wasn't too sure what to think of Josiah's costume!

We trick-or-treated at the Bernard's house where Leandra and Kevin was having their small group as well! Fun to see familiar faces! We also started off by trick or treating at each of our parents' house where the kids got MORE than candy! Those kids are sure loved by their grandparents! Happy Halloween everyone!

Snapshots

2011-10-30T15:20:00.000-07:00

Just some fun little photos for ya'll to enjoy!

The kids enjoying the hot tub! Don't worry, it wasn't that hot and AJ and I were right beside them as they played! This is their new favorite thing to do with their daddy!

Um, can you say saggy diaper?! We're too cheap to use swim diapers so his regular one filled up real quick!

Love his hair! Reminds me of a woodpecker! :)

A cardboard box = loads of fun!

Lily made a house and Jameson was a part of it. They are playing really well together these days!

Jameson loves being outside rain or shine! AJ was getting ready to mow the lawn and put ear muffs on him!

He LOVES riding with AJ while he mows the lawn.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but Jameson has a giddy little smile on his face. Anything to do with a lawn mower and he is a happy boy!

Don't give up on me!

2011-10-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

Yikes. Over a month since my last post!!! I've had lots of ideas in my head of what to write about, but I'm just too lazy to sit at the computer and type them all out! Anyway, let's start with my brother getting married!!! My brother, Joel, got married to his sweetheart, Katie, on September 9th in Ocean Park where Katie's parents own a Bible camp-and it's right on the beach! It was a beautiful weekend and the weather was perfect!

Here is our super nice cabin we got to stay in! The kids loved watching movies on the wall!

The kids enjoying the bunks! I didn't let Jameson sleep in one, but they had a blast playing in them.

And he STILL hates the beach. Weirdo!

Lily still loves it! Isn't she so cute?!

The theme for the rehearsal dinner was Tacky Hawaiian!

My adorable parents.

And my adorable sister Leandra and her husband Kevin.

The Bride and Groom! Isn't Joel's outfit AWESOME?! :)

It's wedding day! All of the guests posed with these frames for Joel and Katie's guest book. Such a great idea!!

Joels' groomsmen and band mates played the opening music for the wedding.

The kiss!!!

Yay!!! Mr. and Mrs.!!!

Katie's brother, Kyle, was the ring bearer while Leandra and I were the flower girls. No joke.

The super cute decorations

I LOVE this picture!! Lily was so obsessed with Katie being the "wedding girl" and was mesmerized by her and her beautiful dress!

They had bottles of orange crush and coke!! So cool!

Jameson being....well, Jameson!

All the guests had free time for about 2 hours after we ate! People walked on the beach, played football, or pickleball like Katie!!!

Katie was such a beautiful bride and Joel looked great too!! Congratulations you two! We are SO happy for you guys!!!!

Randomness

2011-09-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Yikes, I've been gone for a while! Life just seems to be getting busier and busier! My little brother got married last weekend! YAY! I'll be back later with pictures of their amazing wedding day! In the meantime, here are some snapshots of my sweet kids!

Silly boy! He thought 2 binkies were better than 1!

Jameson is OBSESSED with singing and music and instruments! Every day he sees AJ's guitar and Jameson yells, "Sing!" I think we have a future musician on our hands! So AJ will play some stuff and let Jameson "play" with him. I think we need to find a cheap guitar for Jameson to play on!

Yes, my son is wearing a skirt! This was given to Lily and she thought it'd be funny to put it on Jameson. Of course, Jameson could care less she was dressing him up like a girl! I am thinking when she wears make-up (in 10 years!) she'll want to practice on him! :)

They both love their blankies and they both smell them!!!! How crazy is that? They truly are related!

Backyard Fun!

2011-08-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, my silly husband was playing in the kiddie pool with the kids. He and Lily were having a water war with these little squirt toys. They were being funny so I wanted to take a little video. And Jameson is hiding behind AJ's back! Anyway, here's just a little snippet into my crazy family :)

Spontaneity!!

2011-08-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday after church, our little family headed to Lincoln City to play at the beach! We've been wanting to go all summer but we've never made the time to do it. Jameson has actually never been to the beach! Can you believe it?! Anyway, after eating a quick lunch we left the house at 2pm and headed to the beach! We let Jameson take his daily nap in the car! Once we got there we set up camp near the little river that runs through the beach. I excitedly took Jameson's shoes and socks off as I couldn't wait to see what his response would be his first time feeling sand! Well, it didn't go as great as I thought. See for yourself:

Can you see his mouth open as he's crying?!

He stood up and is still crying while he's looking at his feet thinking "what is this stuff I'm standing on?!"
Still mad.
Lily, on the other hand, is having a complete BLAST! She was loving the sand and water!
I finally sat Jameson down on my lap and let him play in the sand, hoping that he would warm up to it all. Who knew he'd freak out?!
This one's for you mom! (If you can't see it, it's a kite of Mickey Mouse :)
And the boy finally got used to sand and water! YAY! He loved splashing around in this water and playing. Phew! I was getting worried he'd be some weirdo that wouldn't ever like the beach!
AJ and Lily playing a little baseball. The weather was perfect too! It was really warm and just a little breeze. I was hot since I wore jeans! I was thinking we'd be cold...thankfully, I was wrong.
Jameson made some friends with complete strangers. And his shirt is off. And his belly is big. And I love it!
We had such a fun afternoon! We only stayed at the beach for 2 hours, but that was enough time for the kiddos. We then went for a fun dinner at Mo's. We had a great time and I was thankful we chose to be spontaneous that day!

Anniversary trip

2011-08-08T16:41:00.000-07:00

The weekend before our anniversary, AJ and I got to get away for 2 whole nights without kids!! Woohoo!! My wonderful parents watched the crazy kiddos while AJ and I explored Portland! I really do love Portland. There's so much to do and see and just walk around. But, I will never live there (Lord willing!) It's too busy for me and I could easily get lost :) Anyway, we had a gift certificate to stay at the Grand Hotel at Bridgeport. Super nice rooms! Our first full day we decided to head to Ikea. So.much.fun.

Trying out a new table at Ikea. And holding a starbucks. Life couldn't be better!

Next, we headed to Omsi. I was especially excited for this part since I hadn't been since I was in middle school! AJ was not thrilled to go. I really wanted to see an Omnimax movie, but it's $9 a person! No thank you. So, we just walked around. And walked around. And I got bored. But, AJ was having a ball.

See? He loved these little mind game stations they had. He wanted to figure them all out. And there were probably 50 of them! Ok, maybe not that much. But, we spent a lot of time on them!

He's enjoying himself a little too much! :)

After Omsi, we walked around Bridgeport and window shopped. After walking and then eating dinner we decided to go eat some more (cause I love food!) and get some delicious dessert at Papa Haydn's on 23rd street. I also love this place! Such a fun environment to be at!

AJ did not want me taking his picture. As soon as I got my camera out he said, "Are you going to put this on the blog?" Yup!! His cake was nummy!
I had a berry cobbler. It was good, but not my favorite. I still ate it though!
After dessert we headed to my brother's band concert. We haven't been to one of his gigs since Lily was a wee little baby. Kinda hard to get out for a late night concert with kids! Anyway, it was fun that his band was playing in Portland! I was getting tired after dessert and was kinda ready for bed! And it was only 9:45pm but we persevered and had a blast!
Me and Joel before they played!
Here is Symmetry/Symmetry playing. They were really good!
The next morning, we headed back towards downtown Portland and had brunch at Mother's Bistro-so yummy!! We've only been here two times but we love their food.

After brunch we went back to Bridgeport and saw a movie-thankfully we had free movie tickets! On our way home we stopped at Woodburn outlets for a bit then went and picked up the kids! What a wonderful weekend :) I will say that on our actual anniversary AJ brought home some beautiful flowers. See?He also wrote a card for me. Before I type it out, let me say he went with a more funny version this year. And we've recently started playing this game where we hide things under each other's pillow and see how long it'll take for the other to find out. Yes, we are lame. But, it's funny and we laugh :) Anyway, here's the poem:

Love is patient, love is kind,

Poo-poo pee-pee all the time,

Two people in love, it's so special,

Oh how I love to stuff things under your pillow.

I realize some of you may think, "Really?" But I laughed!!! It's the best card ever! And now you all have a glimpse into our marriage : )

Living Room Reveal

2011-07-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

First of all, two posts in one week?! Unheard of for me lately!!

I'm finally posting pictures of my *almost* finished living room! I really wanted to wait until everything was done to show it off, but who knows when that will be! And really, I'm sure only 2 of you are anxiously waiting for pictures :) Anyway, here's the first of the newness of our living room:

New tile!!! My kids and I traveled to Washington back in May, and while we were gone my super sneaky husband decided to put in new tile in our entryway!! I so wish I knew he was doing this so I could take a "before" picture! Let me just tell you, our old linoleum was a nasty brown/yellow/white blend and it was actually rounded into the carpet. Hard to explain, but this new tile is SO.MUCH.BETTER! My husband is amazing and such a handyman for doing everything all by himself!

Just a close-up view.
New pillows from Big Lots and new curtains from JCPenney's. I hate that the blinds are closed, but I was trying to get natural light in without using the flash, and well, it didn't work so great. You get the idea!
New lamp and little orange pear (both from Real Deals which is one of my favorite stores! Seriously, if you have one in your area go to it!) This is where I need some more decor or something! It's too blah for me. I am going to switch out the brown ribbon on the lamp and replace it with blue ribbon to add in some more color. And this picture doesn't do the lamp justice-it really is a cool looking lamp. You'll just have to come over and see it for yourself. :)
New pillows from Big Lots, painted (old) mirror, and new wall decor hangers on the wall from Pier 1. Again, I need some more stuff on the wall to the right of the mirror. I've been looking on pinterest (my new favorite site!!) and trying to get ideas. But I just don't know where to go or what to do. Should I do a bunch of picture frames in all shapes and sizes? Or mirrors in all shapes and sizes? Or one thing only? If you have any ideas I'd love to hear them!
Just a different angle of the room...but check out the revamped ottoman!
The old cover of this ottoman was ripped and we were losing chunks of the material!! It was nasty. But, that's what happens when you have 2 kids running and jumping on it, shoes resting on it (which of course, is totally allowed!) But after 4 years, this little ottoman needed some TLC. I found this fabric at Hancock and LOVED it. I was searching for some cotton laminate that would hold up for a while and was wipe able and would look good AND match my new color scheme. So when I came across this, I was SOO excited! I think it's perfect and my husband once again was a handyman and recovered it while I observed.
This picture can be deceiving. The blue you see on the wall is actually on our ceiling!! Since our house was built in the '50s, we have some cool character traits that we love. One, being this little trim on our ceiling that is only in our living room. Once again, it's hard to explain, so just come over and take a look! But, what you're seeing in this photo is the top of our entertainment center. I need to find some pillars for the blue candles (from Target clearance), but I also need something else. What exactly? Not sure. Again, I will take any ideas you have! Another shout out to Real Deals-the frame and clock are from there! Love that place.
Just a closer view of the stuff. And my new lampshade from Lowe's! My mom found a lot of this stuff for me and bought it for me for my birthday. That woman sure knows her decorating stuff! She's really good at finding little and big things to add to a room (like the candles, and the wall hanger thingys, etc.) Thanks mom!!!!

And now for the hutch!!! It went from this (being sanded):

To THIS:

Seriously, a whole new hutch!! I'm in love with it. And I'm not just saying that to toot my own horn! Who knew some sanding, kilz, and 1 coat of paint would make such a difference?!! I love the blue color and it's exactly how I hoped it would be! The orange accent wall is quite fun too. Sometimes it's a little too orange-y for me and not as poppy, but alas, it's done and I'm not changing it! It's a fun color combo and I really do love all the finished products! The "Home" sign on the wall is also from Real Deals. Can you tell I had a gift card there from my birthday?! : ) Plus, their prices are great! And no, I'm not being paid for their advertising!

A close up of the fun knobs from World Market (thx Mom!) and the fabric for this beauty of a hutch! :) Since I already had the cotton laminate for the ottoman, I was having a hard time finding fabric to use for the hutch that would go with it. I know they aren't a perfect match. And I also didn't want a really bright, bold fabric for the hutch since the ottoman is bold with the new fabric. I also wanted a fabric that would be timeless as oppose to the bold, trendy fabric for the ottoman since I figure I could change the ottoman whenever I wanted if we ever change the room!! (Which we won't for a long time!!) Anyway, we (my mom and I!) found this fabric at Joann's in Washington-on that little trip we were on when AJ was busy laying tile! The fabric is actually just attached to the old school press board of the hutch with spray adhesive. So easy to do!! All this to say, I love how the hutch turned out!

Here is another Real Deals find! This vase needs more foliage too-it's too much orange on orange. But I was having a hard time finding the right shade of blue flowers. And sometimes I think blue flowers are old lady. Sorry to any of you that have blue flowers in your home!! I'm sure it looks great! :) Anyway, maybe I'll add some greenery or white flowers. Again, I'll take suggestions! I wish I took a before picture of this vase thing. The blue wasn't spot on and kind of clashed with the color of the hutch. So, I just sponged on some of the hutch paint and voila'! It matches great! Also, the little flower/vine decorations were a light tan color on a dark brown backdrop and I just didn't love it. So, I sponged on some of the orange paint and it looks so much better! By the way, totally have to give credit to my mom cause that sponge work was her idea. Thx Mom!

Anyway, that's my ne-to-me living room! Hope you enjoyed the tour and my long explanation of things! :)

8 Years!

2011-07-26T16:14:00.001-07:00

Today, we are celebrating 8 years of marriage!! I love this man more and more everyday and I'm SO thankful God brought us together!!

Happy Anniversary AJ! I love you SO much!!!

This 'n That

2011-07-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

Oops. It's been a month since I last blogged. My bad!!

We haven't been up to much lately, just the daily grind of life! We're staying busy playing in the sun, swimming in the kiddie pool in the backyard, going to parks, and hanging out! Here's some random pics of what we've been doing:

Lily has been into picking out Jameson's clothes lately. She will lay them on the floor of his room just like this, complete with socks and shoes! It looks as though the rapture happened!

My handy husband always has some crazy ideas. And this was one of them! He was tired of spending money on flowers every spring, so he decided to build a greenhouse! I'll admit, I totally made fun of him for this! I'm such a mean wife! But, he has proved me wrong! He planted the teeny, tiny seeds in egg cartons in March (which he now realizes was too late) and kept grow lights on them in the garage until it was warm enough to put them in the greenhouse outside! Crazy!

Here is his little set up. And the wooden shelf in the corner was filled with trays of plants, but he had already transplanted them into pots before I took this picture.

The pots on the ground in the picture are beans! AJ had fans set on timers and everything going on in this greenhouse. I was impressed. And the pots of flowers and veggies are even bigger now! I'll have to update with pictures of them soon!

I just loved Jameson's outfit that I had to take his picture! He isn't thrilled with the flip flops, but he'll still wear them!
Lily was waiting for Jameson to wake up from his nap and she ended up falling asleep on the floor! This is a rarity around here!
This picture melts my heart!! I was inside and when I looked out the window Lily was loving on Charlie. I had to try and take the picture without them knowing because once the dog saw me he would've ran over to me-which is why that silly bike is in the picture! Oh well. Isn't it so sweet? Charlie is a great dog with the kids. He'll be 9 this Christmas!
And a GIANT dog! A couple from our church started this little summer "game" of dropping off the dog on a door step with a riddle. We woke up one morning to find it on OUR doorstep! Freaked me out. The kids had a blast with it for a couple of days until we took it to someone else's house late at night. :)
I love matching outfits! I figure I can get away with this now until Lily realizes it's not cool to dress like her brother :) But aren't they cute? This was before church one morning. You can see that Jameson is saying "cheese" in the picture!
Jameson is into EVERYTHING!! It must be a boy thing because Lily was not like that at all! We were getting ready to go to my in-laws for dinner one night and I was with Lily helping her do something. I walk into the kitchen and find Jameson had pulled down some leftover berry pie I was going to take to dinner and he had a giant chunk of pie in his hand that he was munching on! I go in there and before I say anything he looks at me and says, "Num!" HA! I just had to laugh and grab my camera! I was amazed he could reach the counter where the pie plate was at and carefully pull it onto the floor and just peel back the foil a little bit to get into that pie! I definitely have to know where he is at all times!
Love these two! My mom had bought a Groupon a while back to Picture People to get like 100 pictures or something for super cheap! So we went a couple of weeks ago and it was not easy getting a good photo! Jameson is at that age where he just wants to run or walk everywhere. I mean, what almost 20 month old wants to sit still and smile for a stranger?! I don't blame him for not cooperating. And then Lily has this really cheesy, fake smile in most of the pictures! This was the only picture with a true smile! And when we walk into the studio room, they have props everywhere like little chairs, stuffed animals, a wagon, and BALLS. If you haven't been around my son much, you wouldn't know that he is OBSESSED with balls. Every time he sees a ball or something that resembles a ball he screams at the top of his lungs while pointing at it and says "BAAALL!" So when he walked into this studio he sees 3 different balls. I said out loud, "Looks like we'll be having a ball in our picture today!" I wasn't planning on that, but you gotta go with the flow. So, the picture above is the best we got. At least they look happy and you can only see a little bit of the ball Jameson is holding! : )

Well, that's the latest news with our family. We did just get back on the 4th from spending a week in Eagle Crest with AJ's side of the family. Did I bring my camera with me? Nope! I was so mad!! :( I took a few pictures with AJ's cell phone so one of these days I'll put those on here. But we had an amazing time relaxing, swimming every day, AJ playing golf with his dad and brother-in-law a few times, Andrea and I riding along in the golf carts one day with the boys, shopping, eating delicious food that I didn't have to cook, playing games, and having fun! And my updated living room is almost complete! Just need a few last minute touches and I'll do the reveal :)

Fun in the sun-finally!

2011-06-12T11:51:00.000-07:00

Seriously, where has the warm weather been?! I'm thankful it at least hasn't rained in the last few days! Last weekend it was actually warm enough to finally fill up the kiddie pool! The pictures don't show sunny weather, but I promise it was! The kids had a blast and it kept them occupied for over an hour! I tried to take Jameson out so I could give him a bath before bed and he freaked out! This kid loves the water! So, I decided to pick my battles and just bathed him in the pool! Worked wonders!

The happiest boy right now!

Cups and water = hours of entertainment! (Ok, not hours, just a while!) I did forget to mention that after I was done bathing Jameson, he says "poo-poo." The past month he's been telling me when he goes poo! I'm quite thrilled with this being how he's only 19 months! I am no way going to potty train right now, but at least he's telling me. Anyway, back to the pool, after he says "poo-poo", I look and don't see anything. I turn my back on him for a minute and when I turn around there are floaters in the pool!!!!!! NASTY! Did I mention that his swim trunks were off since I bathed him? Too bad the "floaters" weren't contained in his suit! Oh well. It had to happen at some point right?!

Under Construction

2011-06-04T20:33:00.001-07:00

We have been redoing our living room for about 2 weeks now and I can't wait till it's done! I did blog about this a while back, and we're finally making headway on it! Here's a tease of what's to come after it's all finished! (OK, so it's not that big of a deal, but I always see fun before and after pictures on blogs and wanted to try it!)

Part of my hutch after it was all sanded.
Next, came the kilz . . . and I won't show you the finished product quite yet!
Some of the painting taking place in our living room. First of all, that orange-y color isn't that orange in person. Think light orange/poppy. At least that's what I think :) I'll have better pictures with better light next time!

And that's your sneak peek! Hopefully I can do the "after" pictures late next week!

Road Trip!

2011-05-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't do as bad as last time with going 3 weeks without any new posts! But, 2 weeks isn't that great either. Oh well! Take what you can get right?! :)
Last weekend my little family headed on over to Redmond for 2 nights away! It was so wonderful as well as a much needed break from the "norm" here! A friend from church let us stay in their house. It was perfect for us! It was a relaxing weekend of doing whatever we wanted!

On the road again....
We time our trips so we'll be on the road at nap time!
Stopped in Sisters for a break to play at a park!

While in Redmond, we:

Had fun playing with each other, even if it was just sitting on high stools and watching Lily color!

Took much needed rests

Played with the camera

Channeled our inner Tarzan (check out Lily's face in the background!)

Went down slides as fast as we could

Took walks as a family while enjoying God's creation

Marveled at the view from the back patio that God allowed us to see!!
Used every opportunity we had to cuddle with our sweet kids
Enjoying snacks while someone LOVED sitting at the table and not in a high chair
Got to spend about 45 minutes swimming at a pool-which they ALL loved!
Tried to tan our pasty skin (Don't let the lady in the background fool you with her coat on! It wasn't that cold out!)
Played ring-around-the-rosie on the deck as the sun was shining
Enjoyed one last view before heading home....

It was a great getaway with just our little family and some fun memories were made! We also enjoyed an afternoon shopping (mainly sightseeing!) around Sisters and enjoying a yummy lunch there too! The weather was perfect! So thankful we got to get away!

Where has the time gone?!

2011-05-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

Geesh, has it really been 3 weeks since I last blogged?! My bad. And the reason for my absence? P.U.R.E. laziness! Yup, I'd much rather lay on my couch watching TV after the kids go to bed, than sit at the computer and blog! Sorry about that :)

Anyway, Easter has come and gone!! We had a great week being a part of the Easter production at church. I had tons of fun, but was sure exhausted by the end of the week!! The Monday after Easter I pretty much stayed in my sweats and just layed around. I was tired! But, thankfully all is well and I'm feeling back to normal :) The Saturday before Easter our church had its annual Easter Egg Hunt. I heard that this year they put out 11,000 eggs!! Insane!! And the weather was so nice! 70 degrees and just plain beautiful! I was hot in my long sleeved shirt! The kids were in different sections for the hunt (they rope off sections for all of the different age groups). AJ videotaped Lily's hunt while I took pictures for Jameson's hunt! Then I quickly ran over to look at Lily and then back to Jameson. Crazy-but fun!

Silly boy! His face looks weird and a little bit freaky. I think the sun was a little bright for him! But he's still cute!

Love these girls! And Lily is of course wearing her favorite Hello Kitty shirt and her friend Abigail just happened to be wearing it on the same day! SO fun. And then Z0e in the middle breaks up the matchiness (is that even a word?!)
Lily is on the hunt! She got lots of candy!
Jameson kept pointing at the eggs and saying, "Ball!!!!" He was very excited. He would walk over to an egg, pick it up, examine it, and put it in his basket. Then he'd take the same egg out and put it back in and over and over. I was coaching him and practically picking the eggs to put in his hands. He got the hang of it though!
See? Examining his egg. He did figure out how to open the eggs, but didn't do much with the candy. At one point he'd take the candy out of the egg, then put it back in, and over and over again. The little girl in the background is Katie, Abigail's sister (the one who was wearing the same shirt as Lily.) These little 1-2 year olds were so cute as they hunted for eggs!
My sweet kids! Gotta love hand me down dresses that Lily can wear for holidays. She loves frilly dresses right now and twirling in them. Not the best picture-should've taken them outside!!
Holding hands and liking each other for the moment!

And, 3 days after Easter was my 28th birthday. I'm finally catching up to AJ-hardly! :) It was a great birthday and I felt SO loved by my family and friends!! I was completely spoiled with cake, a girls night out eating more dessert and a birthday party with my family. SO fun! Thanks everyone! Here is a birthday sign Lily made for me. I think it's because she's used to seeing banners around the house when it's her birthday or Jameson's birthday, so she thought I needed one for my birthday. If you look closely, you can see a rainbow and she wrote 28. Well, I wrote the 2-she tried-but she wrote the 8! Love her sweet heart!

And that's all that's happening at the Acker household. I'll try to update more often!

Old MacDonald Had a Farm...

2011-04-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

E-I-E-I-O! Well, it wasn't Old MacDonald's farm that we visited, but my Aunt Tammy's farm! And she doesn't really live on a farm, but has acreage and dogs and horses :) I watch a little (she's actually older than Lily!) girl every morning and take her to kindergarten in the afternoons. Well, during the week of Spring break there was obviously no school, so I watched her, Ayla, and her brother, Drew. Lily had a blast having 2 playmates for 3 whole days. I, on the other hand, was feeling overwhelmed and was definitely exhausted by the time 3 days was over!!! But we made it :) And my awesome Aunt let us come over and ride on the horses! The kids had a blast even though Ayla and Lily didn't want to ride the horse. Lily has been on Tammy's horse before, but of course she HAS to do everything that Ayla does-or doesn't do-and if Ayla doesn't ride the horse, Lily doesn't ride the horse. This drives me nuts, but I know it's just a stage....right?! Anyway, here are some fun photos of our afternoon:

Jameson is really good at saying "dog", except any animal that moves he yells dog! As soon as he saw this horse, Rose, he kept saying "dog" over and over! And his voice is so deep! He cracks me up!

Ayla and Lily hanging out. Rose Jameson in mid-sneeze. I was trying to get a picture of him with the ball you see in the background!

Even Jameson took a turn on riding this pretty horse named Nikki. He loved it!

Ayla and her brother Drew.

The girls just posing for a picture. They never actually rode Nikki. Silly girls.

After horsin' around (I know, I'm a dork, but I couldn't help myself!) we followed my aunt and cousin Jessica to another little "farm" that they were house-sitting for. Here's my cousin hanging out with J-man. The kids got to see 2 giant cows and they got to jump around on a haystack. There were also chickens to see! Jameson was just staring at those creatures just walking around. Tammy said we could take the eggs if we wanted them since the owners were out of town! Free eggs?! Sweet! Luckily, I had some helmets in my car so each kid got to hold a helmet and grab eggs!

Ayla taking a turn to grab some eggs. That chicken on the right side of the picture was stubborn and wouldn't move from those eggs! But the chicken was calm and didn't care that the kids were trying to grab eggs around her.

Lily, on the other hand, was a little freaked out. The chicken is that dark shadow in the right side of the pic. But, I give her credit for going INTO the hen house! Remember the bathroom horror in Disneyland and she would complain when it stunk in there and wouldn't walk in?! Yup, she's getting braver in her old age! ;)

Well, that's all the pictures. And I'm SO sad I didn't get one of my aunt with the kids!!!! Sorry Tammy! We had such a blast and the kids were still talking about the "farm" for days! Thanks Tammy :)

And it's officially the week before Easter, meaning I haven't seen my husband for more than 3ish hours each day for the past week!!! That boy is BUSY. But he's having fun and it is his job! Practices start tomorrow and are everyday from 5pm-10pm! Our church is so great and is actually feeding us dinner each night. I'm so thankful for that! And my kids won't have to be in childcare until 10pm because my wonderful mother-in-law will stay with them each night until we come home! And then my parents will also help on Easter weekend. Can I just say I am so lucky to have such amazing sets of parents to help all the time with my kids?!!! Anyway, I will say that the Easter set they are building is ginormous and so cool!!! I'm really excited to be a part of the choir this year. So people, if you don't have an Easter service to go to, come to our Easter presentation at Salem Heights Church! Here's the info on it from our church's website: Please join us for "Doubt No More," a dramatic presentation of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as seen through the eyes of his disciple, Thomas. This presentation will incorporate both music and drama. We have several presentation times available for your convenience and childcare is provided for all performances. Performance times are: Saturday, April 23rd at 5 & 7 PM Sunday, April 24th at 9 & 11 AM Free to the public No tickets required Please plan to join us for any or all performances! :)

Our life lately...

2011-04-08T14:04:00.001-07:00

Nothing too exciting has been going on in the Acker household. Just staying busy and keeping up with our crazy kiddos!!! We are getting ready for the Easter production at church which has kept AJ busy-and me too! I decided to join the Easter choir this year and I'm having lots of fun doing it. Plus, I get to spend LOTS of time with my husband which is great! :) Anyway, here are few random photos of our life lately:

As soon as daddy gets home these kids grab their blankets and want to snuggle with him. It's so sweet!

Lily was playing dress up and wanted to be a bride. She's wearing a too-big-for-her dress and a too-small-for-her tutu on her head for the veil. She liked it though! Jameson getting ready to get his hair cut by AJ! This is the second time AJ has done it and it's been great. Plus, I like the price of FREE! As long as Jameson is holding a sucker, he is as happy as a clam.

Love this picture even though it's a bit blurry. My friend, Charissa, had a sweet baby girl a month ago! Lily loved holding little Cayden. Isn't she the sweetest baby?! I just want to eat her up! Lily is pretty cute too :)

All dressed up for church! Too bad Jameson isn't smiling. Oh well.

My poor son. He was standing in front of the dishwasher and the door was about to fall on his head. I stepped over him to block him from that and then Jameson tripped over my foot! He was holding a graham cracker (and still is in this picture!) so he landed flat on his face on our hardwood floors. Screaming baby with a bloody lip is no fun! But after 5 minutes he went back to playing and running around. I felt terrible though! Don't his eyes look so beautiful in this picture?! Gotta love those "Acker blues!"

He's a trooper!

Love these kids. They shared popcorn together and had fun doing it!

Jameson will sometimes help me unload the dishwasher. Here he is putting (or just dropping) the silverware away. He does a good job! It's never too early to teach 'em right?!

My sweet Lily. AJ and I were trying to nap after church one day and Lily wanted to come lay with us. She actually fell asleep after a 1/2 hour of asking me questions. So, instead of all of us napping it was mainly only Lily and AJ. She is a loud breather!! :)

And that's our life lately!!!!

DISNEYLAND!!!!

2011-03-26T20:08:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe it has already been a month since we were at the "Happiest Place on Earth." We went again with the whole family! This included my parents, siblings, and their significant others. Before we left the weather report said rain every day!! We went prepared with ponchos, boots and rain coats! Luckily we only needed them a couple of times! Praise the Lord! Anyway, my parents took Lily a day early so it was just us "kids" with Jameson on the way there! I'm so thankful for my siblings (and Kevin and Katie!) for helping! Here's Jameson on the way...a sucker so his ears don't hurt! He was a happy boy and did really well on the plane!

Disneyland! Lily hanging out with Auntie Leandra and Uncle Kevin.

Happy little boy! On the Jungle Cruise ride. Pulling out our rain gear for just a little bit! Lily with her Auntie Lu on Pirates-which she loved! Such a stylish girl :)

Jameson can sleep in rain or shine! Jameson already making his move on the ladies! ;) These girls were watching Jameson walk around and they kept saying how cute he was. They asked their mom to take a picture of them with him so of course I wanted one too! It was pretty funny! Disneyland isn't just for little kids! So cute Lily with her Nana on Buzz Lightyear-Lily also loved this ride.

The kids playing nicely together! I just love Jameson's face! The kids are OUT! Although the reason Lily was asleep is because of exhaustion from crying for a 1/2 hour straight! This girl was terrified of the automatic flushers in the bathrooms. She would only go potty at the hotel in the morning before we left for Dland and at night before bed! We realized she was just too busy playing and wasn't getting enough liquids. Anyway, I tried taking her to every potty in the park (at least I took her to 3 or 4 of them!) and she would freak out. Nothing I would say or do would help her or calm her down. It was a frustrating mom moment!! I was just worried about her getting a bladder infection! Anyway, it all worked out. She did go potty but not for a while! We finally were pushing fluids into her the rest of the trip and when she had to go she HAD to go! Such a lovely memory of the trip-NOT! :) A fun little show from The Princess and the Frog. Jameson and this little girl became fast friends and were dancing along to the music! Us on Lily's FAVORITE ride: Thunder Mountain Railroad! She loved this fast moving roller coaster! I was amazed. She was even putting her arms up in the air towards the end of this trip when going on this ride! She is a daredevil! Jameson wanted to help himself with Katie's leftover dessert.

And he succeeded! The teacups closed because of the rain one night! But it's so pretty! This was the night my amazing parents took the kids back to the hotel to put them to bed so us BIG kids could play! But then it started pouring! So we left early. We got to go on a few rides before we left. Oh well! So cute :) Waiting for a ride in the rain! I LOVE this picture! All of us on Space Mountain...and my brother being, well, Joel :) The next day after the down pour it was sunny! As we walked into Disneyland, their marching band was playing. Love it. Waiting to go on Indiana Jones. Sadly, this is the only picture I have to prove that my dad was there! Sorry Dad! :) Lily LOVED seeing all the characters. She ran right into Jessie's arms!

Our little family! Trying to get a good shot of the kids in their Disney shirts. Jameson was a bit uncooperative :) Lily and Auntie Leandra on another roller coaster! This time in Toontown. I think Lily was tired of taking pictures at this point!Jameson and me on a fun ride in California Adventure.

It was such a fun trip! AJ and I decided we will not go to Dland with just our little family until the kids are at least 7 years old! We had so much help from my family the entire time! I can't imagine going without them! Plus, they're fun to be with too! :) All in all, the kids did really well on the trip and had a blast for going to the park 3 days (and 4 days for Lily!) in a row! Can't wait to go again-with help of course!!

Thankful

2011-03-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

Thankful

-adjective

feeling or expressing gratitude; appreciative

How thankful am I to have God's Word at my hands whenever I want to read it? I didn't have to wait months or years to get it into my hands. Am I dancing with joy and waiting in anticipation whenever I am about to open the Bible and read from His Word?

Rain, Rain, GO AWAY!

2011-03-16T14:05:00.001-07:00

Oh, I'm SO ready for sun!! Instead of moaning and groaning about the weather on this very soggy day, I decided to have fun with it when it came to lunch time. Take a looksie:

Umbrella PB&J sandwich, carrot rain drops, and a puddle of ranch. Lily loved it and ate every bite! Can't say I can take complete credit for this fun lunch idea. I get inspiration from this mom here. She's way more creative, but it's baby steps people! Now go get a book and curl up under a blanket while watching the rain outside!

PJ's, a Doll house, and Paint!

2011-03-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

I have tons of Disneyland pictures I need to put up, but the amount of them is overwhelming so I'm ignoring them. They will be up here soon. Promise. So to keep you happy while you wait, here are a couple of pictures I found.

How handsome is this guy after a bath?! Love his cheesy grin.
He is practically running now. This may sound crazy, but him walking actually makes my life easier!
Don't make fun of my son for playing with his sister's doll house. He was only grabbing the toys and putting them in his mouth. It's cool. I'm just glad they can play so nicely together! (most of the time that is!)

And I've been wanting to redo this baby for a while now:
This was my parent's hutch. They bought it when they got married 35 (I think!) years ago. After AJ and I got married, they gave this hutch to us and they got a more modern one for them. I was just glad they gave it to us as I've always loved it! Anyway, I'm thinking it's time for some paint and new hardware. I'm wanting to paint it this color that's on the walls in the picture:

Sort of a blue/gray , and I'm wanting to paint the wall behind it this color:

A light poppy color. What do ya'll think? My other option is keeping the hutch the blue/gray color and painting the wall behind it red. But I already have lots of red in my house and I'm kinda bored with it. I think this light poppy color would bright things up a bit. But then again, you want rooms to flow in a house right? Only the wall behind the hutch will be painted a "fun" color and the rest of the walls in the room will be a light tan color. I'm not an interior decorator or designer at.all. so all of you blog readers out there who are, give me some advice! I realize redoing this hutch will take lots of time! And sanding. And painting. But just imagine what the finished product will look like!

Birthday Parties

2011-03-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

It's been almost a month since Lily turned 4 and I still haven't put pictures up here of her parties! Oops! She got to have a friend party with a few girls from church and then a family party on her actual birthday. Lily loved her birthday weekend!

Lily wanted a Tinkerbell party.

All the girls enjoying some dinner and being quite silly!

After dinner we played some games. The first being "Pin the wings on Tinkerbell"-I know, so creative right? J/k.

And the second game being "Hot Potato" except it's with a wand. They had fun though!

After games the girls got to decorate their own cupcakes. They got to choose what kind of candy they wanted to put on them. I was thinking all of them would put every piece of candy on their cupcakes, but they didn't! They did really well!

Such concentration!

Then the girls colored some Tinkerbell pictures.

And present time! Lily had so much fun playing with her friends and they all did really well together! It was the first party I've hosted where no parents are allowed :) AJ was my helper and it was really easy cause the girls just played! And here is Lily on her actual birthday in front of ALL her presents! This girl is loved and spoiled! :)

A new double stroller for her baby dolls!

Lily is obsessed with jeans. She was very excited for a new pair! I just love how much of a girl she is by holding up her pants to her : ) Wonder where she learned that from?!

Jameson loving on one of Lily's babies. Isn't he so sweet?!

My brother stole my camera. But I had to put this on here cause Katie looks so cute in it :) And they told us at this party that they are ENGAGED!!!! Woohoo!!!!

Jameson LOVES balloons and can balloon pretty well too!

And a NEW Hello Kitty shirt! Thanks to Lily's Great Grandparents for picking this out! She LOVES it and can now rotate it with her other shirt. We had so much fun celebrating our big 4 year old!!!

L.O.V.E.

2011-02-15T15:12:00.000-08:00

Since we've had Lily, I've created a little Valentine from her to give to the family each year-and now with Jameson of course. This year I came upon this fun idea and had to try it out! I was pleased with the results:

A closer view of it. I asked Lily what she loved about the people we gave them to (aunts, uncle, Grandma, etc.) and she told me what to write. It was quite fun hearing what she loved about each person! Also, yes, I realize Jameson's hand print is pink. I thought of that too late. And it was quite a task painting his hand and creating this print multiple times! I almost had to call poison control (been there, done that) for paint entering his mouth! Luckily, it only touched his lips. But he's fine, so please don't call children services on me k? Thanks.

And a "sweet" friend from church is an amazing baker and shared some of her DELICIOUS cupcake creations with me and my family. Oh, who are we kidding here? I didn't share them with my family! OK, yes I did. But, that chocolate one you see? I inhaled one already and will not share the last one.
And it's just more fun to have at least one picture of one of the kiddos on here. Apparently, since Lily turned 4, she thinks she can wear lipstick. Um, I think not.

Lily is 4!!

2011-02-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

Today is our sweet Lily Mae's 4th birthday! I can't believe she's 4! She is growing up so fast and I just want it to stop! But, I do love this stage of her life too. I love how sweet she is with her brother and is always wanting to help him when he's crying by giving him his blanket and binky. She loves to help me cook anything by dumping the ingredients in the bowl and holding the mixer (with my help of course!) She loves to sing songs and will make up songs too. She will even have conversations in songs! A simple question of "can you bring me my milk please?" will be said in a singing voice! She is funny too! She'll just say random stuff that make AJ and I laugh! She is so independent too and wants to do everything by herself-which I love! She chooses outfits all by herself that mostly consist of jeans and a t-shirt; with her Hello Kitty shirt being her shirt of choice! She'd wear that everyday if she could! She loves going to church and being in her class. She comes home singing some of the songs they sing in Sunday school and always tells me what kind of snack they had (my kind of girl!). She loves playing with her friends and is a social butterfly. Every night she asks me either "who's coming over tomorrow" or "where are we going tomorrow!" She loves going places and getting out of the house. It's funny, because I remember a time when AJ would run errands he'd take her with him. Now when he leaves, I'm wanting him to take Jameson so Lily can stay with me because she's so easy! She plays with her baby dolls pretty much all day and is also into coloring lots lately. I love that she is my Valentine baby too!

Happy Birthday Lily Mae! We love you so much and we are so thankful for you! I pray you would grow up to know the Lord and want to use your "social butterfly" skills to tell others about Jesus! You are so special and we love you!

My Sweet Lily

2011-02-04T14:07:00.000-08:00

I've realized that I've been blogging lots about Jameson lately and hardly anything about Lily! This girl is growing up WAY TOO FAST for me! She turns 4 (!!!!) next week and is acting more grown up each day. I'll do a bigger post on her birthday (I know, you can hardly wait to read it right?!) but while you're waiting, here are a few photos of my sweet Lily:

She loves to play dress up (took her a while to get into it) and loves jumping on her bed. Yes, we are those parents who let our kids jump on the bed. They like it and so do we! Jameson has also come to love jumping on the bed with Lily. He just jumps while sitting on his bottom though. This is them in mid-jump!
So.grown.up. This is also her new favorite shirt and she wants to wear it all the time! And this is right before we chopped her hair!

A new 'do for Lily! I was so sick of hearing whining and seeing tears while I combed her hair (yes, we used conditioner AND de-tangler) and she never wanted me to put it up, or in hair clips, or head bands. I was sick of it so we (mainly me) decided to chop it! At first she pouted but has since loved it. She'll even brush her own hair now! It's awesome!!!
And a back view. I do realize she and I have the same haircut. It's cool. Now we can be twins :)
Can you look at this picture?! She's been really into coloring lately and it will occupy her for quite a while (thank you Jesus!). She's so good at staying in the lines too! And look at all her color choices. The letters at the bottom are ones she wrote all by herself-well, except for the "e" and "D." But if you look closely you can see an "m" and "N" and "g" and backwards "D"! I love that she's learning this stuff! She also drew a person with arms and then a green spider with a web attached. Although, when she was explaining this drawing she said that the web was called his rope so he could swing to his house. She's pretty accurate!

Jameson's 1 Year Pictures!

2011-01-20T14:29:00.000-08:00

Jameson got his 1 year pics taken a few months ago and I'm just now posting them! My friend, Wendy, did an awesome job! There were SO many good ones I just couldn't choose which ones to put up here...so I put most them up! Take a looksy if you want!

For some odd reason, he hated sitting in this chair!! It was quite hilarious to see him freak out. Yup, I'm mean like that :)
"I've had enough!!"
This is him blowing kisses. Makes my heart melt every time.

And waving at me. I love this boy!
He is not so sure about that party hat.

"Hmm, what's this?"
I love his look of concentration here!
"Oh yah, that's what I'm talking about!"
"I'll just try to stuff this whole thing in my mouth!"
"Uh, I think I'm getting full."

"Maybe just 1 more bite!""Now I'm full!"

1st Haircut

2011-01-13T19:49:00.000-08:00

We finally got Jameson's 1st haircut! We did it about a month ago and let me tell you; it was hard for this mama!! I hated to see my baby's curls cut away, but it really was needing to be done. I was a bit tired of him looking like Farrah Fawcett with the feathered sides! :) Here's how it went in pictures:

The before shot:

See what I mean? Farrah Fawcett look-alike!
Luckily, our great barber, Chad, goes to our church so we knew he'd be great at cutting Jameson's hair! Jameson wasn't too sure about what Chad was doing.

And then the tears started coming!!! This boy was NOT happy!
Then Chad came to our rescue. "I have suckers!", he said! All I brought was a ball. Right. Like that was going to keep Jameson happy! And as you can see the sucker worked! It's the first sucker he's ever had and he knew what to do with it. He was as happy and calm and content as he could be the rest of the time!
Jameson doesn't even care that clippers are near his head. He's just checking out that sucker.

Love the mohawk!! May just have to try that sometime :)
Almost done and already looking like a completely different boy!
Ta-Da!!! Isn't he the cutest?! And he's still holding that sucker!! I'm sad that his curls are gone, but it was time. He's no longer a baby but an, "almost-completely-walking-little-toddler-boy!"

Videos

2011-01-07T13:56:00.001-08:00

Here's a little video of Jameson walking! He is so picky about walking these days and will only do it on his terms. He does it more and more often each day, but is still a bit wobbly! And I think he prefers crawling because he gets around faster! But, at least he's doing it! Woohoo!

I am finally getting his cupcake video up! And, in my defense, I didn't realize how far away I had set his cupcake from him! From the angle I was at, I didn't see how far he had to reach to eat it! Oops! He did a great job eating it though! :) And I love all the flashes of cameras and the laughter in the background! So fun :)

Christmas 2010

2011-01-01T21:02:00.001-08:00

Yes, I do realize Christmas was last week and as of today Christmas was last year, but I'm just now getting around to posting pictures. Better late than never right?!

We started the Christmas festivities by frosting sugar cookies! Here is Lily with new friends Ayla and Drew (who are brother and sister.) I watch Ayla a few mornings a week and take her to kindergarten after having her at my house for a few hours. Lily and her play really well together and it's nice she has a playmate for a few mornings a week!
These are Lily's cookies! I just love the globs of frosting she has on some of them. And I really like all of the sprinkles on the cookie in the back left corner! She had lots of fun and ate more than she frosted!
Here are some that I did. I really enjoyed frosting them! Normally, I'm in a hurry and just want to do a quick job, but I wanted to spend a little more time on them. I know they aren't perfect, but it was fun and they tasted good!
Growing up, my siblings and I got to open 1 present on Christmas Eve and it was always new PJ's! Of course, we didn't realize it was the same thing year after year until we were much older! I wanted to start this tradition with my kids too. It sure is hard finding somewhat matching jammies for a boy and a girl! I know you can't see their PJ's very well, but they are both wearing guitar jammies! I loved it!
Jameson opening a new book that sings songs. He really got into opening presents, but of course only paid attention to the boxes and wrapping!
Lily got new tape in her stocking! She was so excited. I'm not kidding! This girl is obsessed with tape and I'm tired of her stealing mine and using it all up. So, I got her some of her very own! At least it's a cheap stocking stuffer!

Christmas Eve was spent at my parent's house this year. Jameson is looking a bit crazy eyed while playing with a new toy!

My dad being ...well, my dad! He's a very silly man and was trying on my new belt! Sorry dad-please don't hate me for putting this on here for all the world to see! You know you still love me! :)

Lily got a new baby doll that is tiny like a newborn baby and even smells good! She named her Zoe.

My kids LOVE their Uncle Kevin and he is so good with them too. Lily was laying on his lap for a good 30 minutes and Jameson would just crawl over to him and want to be held or played with! We are so blessed to have such wonderful aunties and uncles who love our kids!

AJ eventually had to leave early to get ready for the Christmas Eve service at our church. (I'm sure most of you who read this know he's the worship leader there so he's in charge of all that stuff :) Anyway, my mom, brother, sister, and I decided to sing along with the choir. It was only singing a few carols, but it was fun to be on stage with each other! Joel even wore one of my mom's many Christmas sweaters!

Christmas day was with AJ's family. Lily is loving this new frog tent! It's actually Jameson's present, but he is kindly sharing with her.

I love my family!!!

Lily put her arm around me all.by.herself. I am usually begging this girl to hug me and kiss me! It's times like these when I just melt inside because of her sweetness!

Andrea and Jeff

Barb and Dan-they're so cute :)

These next pictures are mainly for my grandparents to see since they weren't with Lily while she opened them! This is a fun Christmas book! These are the ones that you can record your voice reading the book to them. Lily loved it! Thanks Grandma and Kjell!

Jameson is digging his new toy from my grandparents as well. He loved taking these pretend milk jugs out and throwing them and banging them on the table! He is all boy!
And another fun toy of a magnet doll that you can dress up!

We are SO blessed by our family and their generous giving to us and our kids! And it's even more fun to spend so much time with them during the Christmas season! And since I'm posting this on 1/1/11, I will end by saying Happy New Year!

Bethers

2010-12-27T14:24:00.000-08:00

As we got ready to celebrate Christ's birth on Christmas day, I got a devastating call that my good friend, Beth, had passed away. I've known Beth for as long as I can remember. She was such a fun youth group leader I got to have. She was a servant who loved the Lord, she desired to share the Gospel with those that didn't know Christ personally, and she had the sweetest, most kindest heart. Beth had a great smile and would laugh so easily when I was being weird and most likely being obnoxious towards her! She was easy going too. But, what I remember the most about her, is no matter how she was feeling or what was going on with her life, she lived for the Lord. She gave Him glory and praised Him no matter what she was going through. She was such a great teacher and leader to me while I was in the youth group. And as I grew up and out of youth group, she was still a great friend to me. As my heart filled with sadness and mourning on Christmas day, I needed to remember that while we were here on earth celebrating Christ's birthday, Beth got to say happy birthday to Jesus' face in Heaven!

My sweet Bethers. Here she is as our cabin leader when our youth group went on mission trips to Mexico. The left picture is when I was a junior (I think!) and the right one is when I was a senior. She was brave for putting up with us crazy girls! I specifically remember one night seeing a GIANT (I'm not kidding!!) icky, weird looking bug/creature. All of us girls were freaking out-except for Beth! She was the calm one. She bravely got a broom and smacked the bug creature out of our cabin. She was our hero! :)
Beth was a bridesmaid in my sister's wedding, so she got to be a part of all those fun activities! Here we all are at PF Changs.

Beth is in front row with the hat. She has the best smile!

Oh Beth. I miss you so much already. I still can't believe that you are gone and I won't get to see you anymore. But, this I do know: I can cling to the promise and hope that you are in Heaven! You are pain free and worshipping God! And you've left such a great legacy behind. Thank you for your great example of truly living for and serving our Great God. I look forward to seeing you again in Heaven! Love you Beth.

My Little Singer

2010-12-23T11:38:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, Lily finally got to participate in the pee-wee choir at church! I had been waiting for this since she was born! I'm pretty sure I was more excited than she was! They had to learn 3 songs; Go Tell it on the Mountain, Jesus Loves Me, and Love Came Down at Christmas. She knew the songs and seemed to have lots of fun performing!

Practicing before going on stage. They are singing "Jesus loves me" and they had hand motions for the song. This is when they were singing "they are weak but He is strong." Too cute!
She has such a serious face while performing-but the other kids do too!

Lily with some of her friends from church. I love all the Christmas dresses!
Lily did wave to me as soon as she sat down on the stage. And at one point during one of the songs, she kept turning around and staring at some of the boys behind her right in the middle of the song! Oh well. It wasn't that distracting :) She seemed to have a lot of fun and was pooped after it was all said and done. They performed before the kids production (1st-5th grade kids) on Saturday night and then before 2 services on Sunday morning. Both her and I were exhausted on Sunday afternoon! But it was worth it!

Dedication

2010-12-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

A week after Jameson turned 1, our church had a baby dedication. What's a baby dedication you ask? Well, it's basically a public declaration that we (as Jameson parents) accept the responsibilities before God and our church to raise him in the ways of God by guiding him to the Word and by being a living example in our Christian walk. (And yes, I took that information from the Certificate that the church made. I'm cool like that :) Anyway, we did this with Lily too when she was a baby.

How cute is he?! I just love his fake tuxedo shirt and his belly sticking out! Here he is watching the praise team sing some songs.
Not the closest picture, but you get the idea! :)

I tried to nudge AJ to look at the camera, but he didn't. Oh well.

Most of the whole family! We missed AJ's brother and sister in this one!

Ah, I love his pin-striped pants too! Thanks to my mom for purchasing this outfit for him!
We love our little man! And you better believe I put some gel in his hair to make it curly!
I just had to include some almost naked pictures of him too. These were taken right after a bath one night and he was just being too funny and making the most silly faces. He kinda looks like a sumo wrestler to me!!
He stands really well on his own, but has yet to take any steps on his own! I think he wants to walk, he just doesn't have the motivation to do it. He is definitely fast at crawling though!

Gosh, I LOVE his curly, red hair after a bath! I so wish it would stay curly when it's dry, but it doesn't! And this boy turned 13 months last weekend! He's usually his happy self when we're out and about, but at home he has turned into quite the whiner! It's driving me nuts. He has this weird scream/cry he does when he's trying to get our attention. It sounds like a combination between a screeching bird and a Whistling Pete firecracker. Doesn't that sound like a joy to listen to?! Well, if you're curious as to what it sounds like in real life, just come to our house between 3pm and 5pm. That's usually when he's grabbing at my legs while I'm trying to get dinner ready and all the while making that sound. Awesome. But, I still love this boy SO much-even if he's a loud, bird screeching, Whistling Pete boy! :)

The Great Christmas Tree Adventure

2010-12-07T22:35:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I realize the last post and this one both start off with Lily peeing!!! I just think it's hilarious and I have to document this time in her life. She'll thank me, er, hate me later! :) We had quite the adventure to get our Christmas tree this year. We usually make my sister go with us, but her and her husband opted not to since it was pouring out. Good decision. We loaded up the gang and went to our favorite, cheap tree farm! Again, it was POURING out. We had put off getting the tree for a few days and both realized it was now or never. I was just praying we'd get enough of a break in the rain to go hunt for a tree. Anyway, as we're driving around the big tree farm, Lily says, "I have to go potty." Of course she does. We try to distract her and kept talking up how fun it was going to be to get a tree. It didn't work. She had to go potty NOW. And this time we didn't have the potty chair with us for some odd reason. So, we sat her on the side rail of our car and let her do her thing. Or so we thought!

She really did try to go. Do you think I'm weird that I keep taking pictures of my daughter going to the bathroom?! But really, look at the concentration on her face. She really did try!

After the potty incident, we headd out to find the perfect tree. And look! It stopped raining! Praise Jesus! Since my sister didn't go, AJ isn't in the family picture this year. Yup, that's a guilt trip on you Leandra! J/k :)

After finding our tree, we put the kids in the car to play so I could help . . . who am I kidding? I mean watch AJ cut down the tree. As we're outside, I hear Lily yelling from the car, "I have to go potty now!" I helped her do her business and she went! That girl is a pro. The other incident was Jameson fell while in the car and bumped his head on the door. My bad. We were parked at a slight incline and he must've lost his balance and fell against the door. He was ok and everything, but I felt horrible.
I had to document that AJ really was there. See?
Jameson loved playing with those lights! Or maybe I just wanted a cute picture of him with lights so I kinda wrapped them around his body. Or maybe not. I guess you'll never know. :)

Ta-Da!! AJ and I take turns on the color of lights that go on the tree. I'm a sucker for white lights. I love them. They are classy, elegant, and pretty! AJ loves colored lights. We were super smart in figuring out how to eliminate arguing by taking turns early on in our marriage on what lights to use. Yay, go us! This year was my turn and it makes me so happy to see my white lights on the tree. In AJ's defense, he really wouldn't care what lights ended up on the tree. He would do what makes me happy. Isn't he the best? But, I feel bad, so I gotta let him have fun too.

Geesh, this is the weirdest blog post I've ever written. I'm thinking it might be one of those things where I write something and it sounds really funny in my head, but when I wake up tomorrow and go back and read this, I'm sure I'll be saying, "Did I really post that for the whole world to see?" Yup. Oh well.

Anyway, that was our Great Christmas Tree Adventure! Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing about it!

Lazy!

2010-12-03T14:41:00.000-08:00

Yup, I'm a lazy blogger! I've just been busy and haven't made the time to put anything new on here! But I've got some fun pictures to share from our recent adventure to Klamath Falls! AJ's sister and her husband, Andrea and Jeff, recently moved from Salem to K. Falls because Jeff got a new job. We were sad to see them go when they lived only 3 minutes away from us! But, thankfully 4ish hours isn't that far away!

Well, 4ish hours is far away if you're a 3 1/2 year old who needs to go potty right now! Our motto is, "have potty chair, will travel." The beautiful lake as you are heading into K. Falls. Wish I knew the name of it! It's probably called Klamath Lake or something like that :)
Us girls went to a fun little shop and Lily was loving this little apron.
It was such a beautiful weekend while we were there so we took advantage of it and went to this awesome park near Jeff and Andrea's house! It had tons of play equipment that all of us (including the adults!) enjoyed!
Jameson loving the swings
The GORGEOUS view from the park.
So, there was this play rock wall at the park. Personally, I think it's kinda dangerous for a park with kids, but, that's just me! Well, Andrea and I thought it'd be fun to climb it and have our picture taken.
Then I got the not-so-bright idea to climb over the other side of the rock. Let's just say I'm not as young as I used to be! I couldn't find any foot holes to put my feet into and I got stuck. I basically dropped to the ground while laughing with embarrassment!
Auntie Andrea with Lily!

Andrea and I "playing" some more. By the way, my arms were SUPER sore the next day from doing this! Man, I'm out of shape!
I love my Lily Mae!
I love AJ. He's the BEST daddy! After the park, we drove to the Running Y, a resort in K. Falls, to look around. Of course the kids had to try that playground out too!
Jeff took all of those pictures-he's quite the photographer!

Uncle Jeff being silly with Lily!
Bath time!

We also got to visit the school where Andrea teaches because they were having a carnival. We had such a great time and look forward to going again since they have lots of snow now!

Christmas Cards

2010-11-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

Shutterfly is having a sweet deal that if you blog about them they will give you 50 free photo cards! So, why not show you there fun Christmas card options?! These are the top 3 that I like:

I love the brown and red combo in this one.

I love the black and white picture! It makes the green/red stripes really pop!

And I just love this one too! Because both my kids can be either naughty or nice. Luckily, they are mostly nice! You can find those photo cards HERE

Shutterfly also has fun CALENDARS that you can give as Christmas presents! I personally like the desk calendar. For someone who sits in an office all day long, it would be so nice for them to look at fun family pictures!

And even though Jameson just had his birthday, I love THESE fun birthday cards you could send out! I may just have to do this for Lily's birthday in February! Anyway, there are so many options to pick from! Not sure how I'll decide!

Snow Day!

2010-11-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

We finally got some snow last night! It's not a ton, but enough to make it look pretty outside! It started after the kids went to bed, and I told Lily if it started snowing while she was sleeping, I would wake her up. I have vivid memories of my mom doing this with me when I was younger! She'd wake us up at probably only 9ish, but to me it felt like the middle of the night! We'd get our snow clothes on and go sledding down our hill! It was so fun! Anyway, I knew I wouldn't take Lily sledding in it last night, I just wanted her to see it. Well, 9:15 rolls around and enough snow had accumulated on the ground. I went into her room and tried whispering to her to wake up because it's snowing. My whispers turned louder and louder. That girl would not wake up! She was moving lots as I was talking to her, but was clearly enjoying her nice warm bed. Sad. I really wanted her to wake up! I guess I should just be thankful that she can sleep through anything right?! So this morning when she woke, I showed her the snow and she was very excited! I told her that I tried waking her, and her reply was "Yah, I was tired so I didn't wake up." You better believe that!

AJ and I got the kids bundled up so he could take them for a quick ride in the backyard on a sled! Jameson's gloves were much to large for his little hands, but they worked! All ready to go for a ride!

Weeeeeee! AJ was pulling them fast!

Lily was a great big sister and held her brother nice and tightly.

It's hard to tell, but Jameson IS smiling!

Hat hair! I had just given him a bath and then we decided to take them outside. So his hair turned from looking cute to a mess! Oh well, I love it! I'm so glad we got to have a little snow to enjoy and play in!

Happy Birthday AJ!

2010-11-18T13:56:00.000-08:00

Happy 34th Birthday to my AMAZING husband

Who is the BEST daddy

And my BEST friend!

I love you AJ!!!!!

1st Birthday Party!

2010-11-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

Last week, we had our whole family over to celebrate Jameson and AJ's birthdays! Those two are exactly one week apart! So it was nice lumping them both into one big party! I made homemade pizza that AJ bbq'd-so yummy-and some delicious sides brought by the moms. And of course cupcakes for dessert!

He loves balloons!

I am One!
Jameson with his twin Uncle Joel! I hear all the time how much Jameson looks like my brother and I fully agree!
Jameson playing with his Grandpa Acker
Joel and Katie with the birthday boy.

Lily with her Auntie Leandra and Uncle Kevin
My dad being silly with Jameson and my mom!
I still can't believe he's one!
Big sister just had to help Jameson open his presents.
She kept saying "take a picture of me!" Oh geesh. Pretty sure she needs a slice of humble pie!
Lots and lots of presents!

He loved playing with this bow!
A fun walker/ride on toy! He loved it!
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!" AJ took him off the new toy to eat his cupcake and he was not happy!
This is what he did when he saw the cupcake! He leaned forward and ate it with his mouth before ever touching it with his fingers!
"Mmm this sugar stuff is good!"

Now he touches it with his fingers!
And back to eating it with his mouth!
We love our baby!
OK, this is the worst picture of me and AJ (I'm greasy and his eyes are half open!) but I just loved how Jameson was wanting to touch my face so badly with his sticky, chocolate fingers!

I have the best video to put on here of Jameson eating his cupcake, but I can't get it to load!! I'm so bummed! I'll try and figure it out and post it on here later!

Happy 1st Birthday Jameson Andrew!!!!

2010-11-11T07:52:00.000-08:00

*Warning: This will be a SUPER long post with lots of pictures....I just couldn't choose a few for this big birthday post!*

What a bittersweet day for me! My sweet baby turns 1 today and I honestly can't believe it's been a year already! I remember the day of his birth like it was yesterday! I remember waking up super early because I was too nervous and excited to sleep. I remember reading my Bible in the early morning and reading about God's promises and how He is faithful to me. I remember getting a shower and doing my hair and make-up before going to the hospital. (such a difference compared to when Lily was born and we left for the hospital at 1am!) I remember laying in the bed getting all hooked up to monitors and IVs and being prepped for surgery and being super anxious, but God was with me! My husband was an amazing support too. And shortly thereafter our sweet Jameson entered the world weighing 9 lbs. 12 1/2 oz!!! BIG BOY!

Right before I walked into the operating room.

Fresh out of the womb!!

First photo with our little baby boy!

Lily was SO excited to meet her brother! Since she wasn't allowed at the hospital (darn that swine flu!!) she-and we-were thrilled to be home so Lily could finally see Jameson for the first time!

First weeks at home...

He was and still is such a snuggler!

1 month old: Love those matching jammies!
Sucking his thumb while sleeping on AJ...so sweet!

2 months: Whoa! Check out those thunder thighs!!! This boy loves to eat!

3 months old: First trip to Disneyland!
He doesn't realize that he's at the "Happiest Place on Earth!"

4 months: Really starting to get more chubby and smiley!
His red hair is the BEST!

5 months: Asleep while getting his diaper changed!
6 months: Can finally get his toes into his mouth! It took him a while to reach that leg over his ginormous belly!

I love dressing them in matching outfits!
7 months: Sitting up so well
Here he is dancing at his Auntie Leandra and Uncle Kevin's wedding!
8 months: Is the best sleeper and will sleep anywhere-including at the pool!

He loves being with his sister!
9 months: He loves standing against furniture!

And he loves playing outside!
11 months: Exploring, crawling, and moving all over the place!

Showing off his teeth!
12 months: Still a snuggly, great sleeper, and happy baby!

And he loves his mama! He won't say "mama" too often, only when he's crying and wants me to hold him! Then he will say "mamamamama" over and over. I think it's cute-for now at least!
He LOVES the dishwasher! He's usually fussy when I'm trying to make dinner and will stand on the ground clinging to my leg because he wants me to hold him. Since I can't do that and cook at the same time, I found he is happy as can be if he can stand at the dishwasher! He'll jibber jabber while pulling silverware out and banging it on pots. Whatever keeps him happy!

That was the fastest year of my life. I don't remember time moving this fast when it was just Lily! I long for just one more moment to hold Jameson as an infant so I can love on him and squeeze on him while he was so little! I do realize I sound like an over emotional crazy mom here! But, I'm just sad his infant/baby days are over. I still call him my baby and probably will until the day he says "Hey mom? I'm 10 now. Can you please not call me your baby?!" Ok, sadness over, I'm so excited to see what kind of boy he will turn out to be! I can already tell he will be into everything! He loves crawling and moving all over the place. He can stand up on his own from sitting down on the ground and without holding onto anything! He has yet to take any steps, but I can tell he'll get there soon! He babbles all the time and says dada every once in a while along with dog and mama. He has 6 teeth! They all seem to be coming in right after each other! He sleeps great at night and takes 2 naps a day. Honestly, he is SO much fun! Thank you Lord for this sweet baby that you've given us! Happy 1st Birthday baby boy! (There I go calling him baby again and again! Oh well!)

Pumpkins...

2010-11-09T12:49:00.001-08:00

Yes, I know Halloween is over. But, since we're still in November it's OK to post about pumpkins right?! I completely forgot to write about a trip to the pumpkin patch and carving pumpkins so here you go!

We were so busy during October that the first Saturday we had free was the day before Halloween! Why not go to a pumpkin patch that day? We took Lily's friend, Zoe, with us and they had a ball playing-even though it was raining! Luckily, all of the fun activities to do were in a barn so they were dry as can be!

The girls in jail

Being silly when I was trying to get their attention. If one does something, the other one copies! I think Lily put her arm up first. Silly girls!

Such good friends!

Playing in the corn pit. Both girls wanted to "model" the corn.

My sweet Jameson just hanging out in the stroller.
And a few days before Halloween, we decided to carve a pumpkin! Here is Lily feeling the inside of a pumpkin for the first time. She did not like it! This is her pouty face...isn't it pretty? Not! I guess I'll just save this picture and embarrass her when she's older. I'm such a mean mom :)

Jameson is loving this pumpkin stuff!

He wanted to see what the pumpkin tasted like.

And why not taste the top of it too?

And since we were laughing at Jameson tasting the pumpkin, Lily wanted some attention too. Here she is tasting the pumpkin. She's a weirdo :)
And the finished product!
Ta Da! And Lily did help scoop out the insides once we got her a big spoon! Who knew she wouldn't like to get her hands all slimy?!

Halloween!

2010-11-02T07:55:00.001-07:00

On Saturday night, our church had its annual Harvest Party. It was fun for the kids to have 2 chances to wear their costumes! Well, it was fun for Lily, Jameson could have cared less!

Here are my tigers!! We got Jameson's costume first and Lily was going to be a princess. Once she saw Jameson was going to be a tiger, she said, "I want to be a tiger like my brother!" So cute! My mom helped me figure out a tiger costume for her and I thought it worked great!
You can see Lily's tail coming through her legs. And my friend Tara helped me sew together Lily's tutu!

Look at what this boy can do!! Stand up all by himself!
Playing games at the Harvest Party. Check out that action shot! She knocked 2 of them down!
A guy from our church was presenting the Gospel to all the kids as this was an outreach event. He was quite silly in his costume!

Lily and her good friend Zoe!
Me and my tiger boy!
The church had a "jail" set up, and each kid got 3 tickets that said "go to jail." They could pass these tickets out to anyone-including parents! Well, Lily was being shy and didn't want to pass them out, but she wanted to be in jail like all the other kids. So she wanted me to go to jail with her! We had to stay in there for 5 minutes! That's a long time!
Me and my tiger Lily!

Jameson crawling all around-check out his tiger tail!
And playing another game.

On Halloween, we trick-or-treated at AJ and my parents' houses and then we met up with 2 of our friends and their families and drove to a neighborhood to trick-or-treat. Lily had a blast! She is finally old enough to understand what this silly holiday is all about. Although, anytime she saw a little dog she started crying and wouldn't go up to the door! We have a giant lab for a dog and she isn't scared at all. But little dogs? Don't get her near one! It was kinda funny how she would just sob randomly! Out of all the scary things you could see on Halloween night, she chose dogs to be the scariest! Oh well! It was a fun night, and besides the little dogs, she loved running around with her friends getting free candy! I mean, what's not to love about that?!

Reminiscing....

2010-10-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

I was looking back through old pictures that I've taken at Halloween since Lily has been born. Thought it'd be fun to share them with you all!

Such a sweet, little baby!! I loved this costumer because Lily wasn't even crawling yet so the mermaid was perfect for her. She was 8 months old in this picture. Doesn't she and Jameson look alike?!

Lily was almost 2 in this picture. And this was at the stage where she did NOT want to sit still for pictures-which is why her face isn't super smiley! At least I have documentation of her in this costume though!
And last year's Halloween. It's amazing how much older she looks now compared to just 1 year ago! I really wasn't planning on getting her a costume last year. Terrible right? It's because I was so GINORMOUSLY pregnant and I honestly thought I'd be in labor or have a newborn by the time Halloween came around. Plus, I hate Halloween and didn't have the motivation to do anything for it. Once I came to the realization of how selfish I was being, I quickly bought a costume on clearance the week before Halloween and we did a little trick-or-treating. Lily had a blast! And then I felt guilty for almost not letting her dress up. Oh well-the past is the past right?! :)
OH.MY.WORD. Do you see how HUGE my belly was?!! And my face?!! SO thankful my baby is almost 1 year and not in my belly right now!
And the last picture of just the 3 of us before Jameson was born! We are going to try and go to the pumpkin patch tomorrow (weather pending) so hopefully we can recreate this picture with Jameson in it!!

Like Father Like Son?

2010-10-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

I was recently looking through AJ's parent's photo albums because I never have seen baby pictures of AJ. Shocking right?! I have seen pictures of him from 2 years on (mainly because we had one in our wedding slide show) but never went and made the time to look at his baby pictures. Now that we have a son, I really wanted to see if AJ and Jameson resemble each other as infants. People say that Jameson either looks like me or AJ. I'm thinking he looks more like AJ, but Jameson definitely looks like his sister! Anyway, here's a photo of Jameson at 10 months:And here is one of AJ when he was 8 or 9 months old:Do you see some similarities?! Cause I do! Yes, AJ's face is A LOT slimmer than Jameson's! And is it just me or do AJ's legs look long in this picture? I know he's leaning forward, but they really do look extra long to me! Who knew he'd be 6'6 when he grew up?! But, I really do see lots of AJ in Jameson. Especially the smile and maybe the ears. Anyway, I thought it was kinda fun to compare the two. What do you all think?

Swings!

2010-10-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

Oh this weather has been so nice lately! Fall is my favorite season and there's nothing like a crisp, sunny day to put a smile on my face! At the beginning of the summer, my wonderful aunt and uncle gave us their old swing set! Their kids are too old for it and they so graciously gave it to us. Lily LOVES it and is out there swinging every single day. Now that summer is over, I thought for sure we wouldn't be outside anymore. But with these sunny days lately, she's still having fun on it!

I love these kids so much! Aren't their smiles great?! Really hoping we won't have to do braces someday! :) This is a swing AJ made a couple years ago for Lily. And just the other day AJ made and added a bar to keep Jameson nice and safe in it! My husband is so crafty!

Lily LOVES pushing her brother-which is great for me! I love just sitting and watching her do all the work!

This is the swing set from my aunt and uncle. It's the best when other kids come over because they play out there a ton! Here is Lily having fun with my friend Anna's kids.

So, if you want to come to a "private" park and play (hardly a park!) come on over to our house! We love visitors!

Eleven Months!!!!

2010-10-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

Say it ain't so!!! Next month is B-day month and I'm dreading it! I wish my sweet Jameson would stay little forever! But, he really is at a fun stage right now!
*He is crawling everywhere! He loves to be mobile and follow us all around the house. He even "chases" Lily around the house wherever she goes.
*He can pull himself onto anything! Chairs, tables, Lily's bed, doors, his crib, etc. We are definitely baby proofing our house!
*His hair is getting thick and long! I refuse to cut it until at least after he turns 1. I love how red it is too! How fun that God added that surprise bonus for us!
*He loves his sister and mimics her when she laughs. I've even caught himself laughing at her when she's crying. It's kinda funny!
*He is eating almost 100% table foods. He loves pulled pork that AJ cooked on the Traeger (a glorified bbq for those who don't know what that is). And so far he hasn't been picky about anything! I'm hoping this lasts for a bit.
*He sleeps great at night and during nap time. Although, now that he pulls himself in his crib it takes him forever to go to sleep at night! As soon as we lay him down he turns over and gets up and wants to stand in his crib and play! Oh well-at least he's happy and not screaming right? We find him asleep in the funniest positions.

On a walk to the park-it was chilly! And his hat barely fits him!

Such a BIG boy standing by himself-and playing with my fall decorations. Yup, I've had to move some things because of him!

Mmmm.....pulled pork!

Fast asleep

He loves Charlie!

Always so smiley!

"I see you mama!"

Gymnastics!

2010-10-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

We recently enrolled Lily in a gymnastics class through the YMCA. It's once a week for 10 weeks and it's only 45 minutes long. Just the right amount of time for her to run around, do some somersaults, and hang with her friends! The class is basically a tumbling class, not so much learning new gymnastic moves. But Lily has fun and it's fun for us moms to chit chat while we watch our kiddos play!

Lily with some of her friends from church: L-R, Zoe, Evie, Abigail, Ellie, and Annie

Jameson wanted to try the balance beam out too!

Jumping on the trampoline

Doing some flips on the bar with help from her teacher

Even Jameson got to crawl around on the mats!

Trying out the balance beam

Choo-choo train with all her friends!

Learning how to do a backwards somersault

She did it!

And a regular somersault!

"It's the end of the world as we know it"

2010-09-27T21:11:00.001-07:00

Well, not really. But since Jameson can OFFICIALLY do this:

It's the end of my freedom! Who knew dangling Lily's beloved doll as a carrot would make Jameson crawl?! It's always the toys he can't have that he loves to hold! And please excuse the almost naked 3 1/2 year old in the background getting into her jammies! :) Crawling is so bittersweet. I'm SO excited he's doing it because it means he's figuring out how things work and accomplishing new tricks! But at the same time, he's getting older and will now be into everything! Oh well. It's the price you pay to have your kids grow up right?!
And also today, Jameson said his first word over and over. See if you can tell what he's saying:

Too bad his first word wasn't "mama"! Oh well, he's still so cute! And Lily's first words were "hi kitty" from back when we had 2 cats! Apparently our kids are animal lovers! :) What a big day for Jameson!

Seriously?

2010-09-26T16:24:00.001-07:00

Could this girl BE any more cuter?!!

I don't think so!

Lily has been acting so old lately and it makes me so sad! I mean, I love that she's getting older and is developing such a fun personality. But at the same time, I miss my little, chubby cheeked girl! She is so fun to be around and is also fun to have a conversation with. She acts so grown up when she talks with me and uses hand gestures and all! In less than 6 months she will be turning 4! Really?! Where does the time go?!

Sisterly Love

2010-09-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

Lily LOVES singing songs to Jameson. She really does love him and rarely tries to lash out at him! I'll enjoy them getting along because one day I'm sure they are bound to fight! In the meantime, I will enjoy all the real and made-up songs she sings to her brother.

PS Lily's hair normally doesn't look that cute! She had just got it cut that day and her hairdresser always loves to curl her hair! Why Lily will sit still for her and not for me blows my mind! Oh well!

The Zoo and Aumsville Corn Festival

2010-09-18T16:56:00.000-07:00

A month or so ago (I know, I'm a bit behind!) my mom took me and the kids to the zoo. I haven't been to the zoo in years and Lily (and of course Jameson) had never been either! We had a great time and the weather was perfect too. It wasn't super hot out and there was a nice breeze. We stayed for 4 hours and still didn't see all of it! I was ready to go though-pushing a giant stroller all over the zoo wore me out! But we all had a really fun time!

She loved her own little entry!
Lily and my mom!
They are both ready to explore the zoo!
Cowgirls (and a random kid in the background)
Getting ready to ride the train around the zoo
Jameson loved it-well, it's not like he knew what was going on. But he was happy as usual!
I love my kids!! Jameson lovin' on his Nana!
Playing with some lion statues
Future drummer?! She actually had a good beat! She wanted to touch all the animals but all that was available for her to touch was this goat! And the next day we all went to the Aumsville Corn Festival! It was a fun and free (besides food) event and it helped us stay busy while AJ worked!

Waiting for the parade to start. And yes, Jameson is still at the stage where anything and everything goes in his mouth-including a closed container of sunscreen!

Jameson enjoyed the parade mostly. Once the fire trucks and ambulance came by with their sirens on (those things are loud!!!) he cried and cried. I felt so bad, but covering his ears was not helping! So, I took a picture....

I know, I'm so mean! But you gotta laugh a little bit right?!

Lily loved standing with her Papa while waving at the floats. Her most favorite part was picking up all the candy that was being thrown out! There was one point where there was so much candy around her feet she just kinda froze and didn't know how to pick it all up! She gave her candy bag to my dad while she grabbed fistfuls of candy! You had to be there but it was quite funny!

She wanted to continue waving even though it was a bit loud for her ears!

So much candy she doesn't know what to do with it!

After the parade we went to the park in Aumsville where there were booths of food and other things to look at. There was this awesome creek that ran around the perimeter of the park! I really wish we knew this was there earlier because it would've been fun to go there with the family and swim around! Lily loved it!

As you can see I wasn't brave enough to go in the water, but my mom was!

It was such a fun weekend of activities we don't normally do! Thanks mom and dad for taking us out!! :)

10 Months!!

2010-09-11T16:47:00.001-07:00

Ahh, 10 months already?! I'm getting sad thinking about my sweet baby boy turning a year old! He is growing up TOO fast!

*Jameson is sleeping completely through the night now! Woohoo! He will wake up between 7-8am (except for the past 2 mornings he's woken at 6am. Ugh. I'm thinking he's teething again.)
*Has 2 bottom teeth

*Wearing 18-24 month clothes!! The length is a bit long on him, but if he went any smaller I'd have to keep his pants unbuttoned because his belly is so big!

*Trying SO hard to crawl. He can scoot backwards and rocks on his hands and knees. He just can't figure out how to make himself go forward. I feel like it could happen any day now!

*Lily calls him "buddy" all the time and I love it! I never call him that, and AJ maybe does it a little bit, but that's what she calls him 24/7. So cute!

*I'm pretty sure he just said his first word the other day-"dog". The "g" isn't so pronounced, but when he saw our dog, Charlie, outside yesterday, he kept saying "dog, dog, dog". And to someone who doesn't hear him babble it may just sound like dah. But I really think he's saying dog! He says "dada" every once in a while but I'm still not sure he associates that with AJ. He says "go" a lot, but not in reference to going anywhere, and he says "baba" a lot. It's fun to hear him talk so much!
*Tries really hard to pull himself up on furniture, and has succeeded a few times!

*LOVES to eat-especially regular food. I'm still making my own baby food, but now I'm able to incorporate more table foods. He loves my chicken pot pie and chicken casserole as well as bread of any type and cheese.

Pretty sure I've posted this before, but he's so cute.

Love this picture of me and my little man! He's so smiley all.the.time.

On a train at the zoo (zoo trip will be posted on another day!)

Loving his bouncer for the moment, but is pretty much done with it. He wants to be on the ground and moving! I know that wasn't many pictures of just him-apparently I need to be taking some more! His hair is still red which I love! And it's growing in lots. We love our big 10 month old!

Cute Kids

2010-09-07T15:03:00.001-07:00

Lily loves to do whatever Jameson does. And that includes standing against furniture with him!

Um....I know. I probably shouldn't have taken this picture-but it was too funny not to!
They love taking baths together! Well, Jameson more than Lily. I think he's a bit too wild for her liking. But it makes bath time more fun!!

Mmm...

2010-08-31T13:13:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes!!!! This is the first year we've had success at growing our own cherry tomatoes. All I did was plant them in pots and watered them and now we have nummy tomatoes. Lily and I eat these like they are candy. AJ hates tomatoes-too bad for him, more for us!
Lily has been wanting to help feed Jameson his food lately. I know it's hard to see, but she did a great job! I've got such a good helper!

Ocean Park

2010-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we went with my brother to Ocean Park, WA where his girlfriend, Katie, and her family run a kid's Bible camp. We stayed for about 3 1/2 days and had a great time! We explored Long Beach (which is near Ocean Park), played lots of pickle ball, made 500 cookies, served campers their meals, and played on the beach! It was a ton of fun and it was hard to leave! We're trying to figure out when we can go again!

We waited until my brother got off work at 8:30pm to leave! It was about a 3 1/2 hour drive. We didn't pull in until 12:15 am! But the kids slept the whole way! They were already in their PJ's so it worked out great. My brother Joel being so silly with a beach towel!
One day we headed over to a lake property the camp also owns. It was so beautiful there! We even got to do some paddle boating and ride in a canoe. The crew-poor Jameson and his too big of a life jacket! He did not like wearing it!
Ready for our family paddle boat ride! AJ did all the work paddling since Jameson and I sat in the back. It was a quick trip around on the lake!
AJ and I took a turn in the canoe...Yah, we're cool! :)Katie doing a fabulous job of watching the kiddos while we were playing on the water!Every day we were there we always made an opportunity to go and play pickle ball! It's a game similar to tennis but the net is shorter. You play with paddles that are a bit bigger than a ping pong paddle and the ball is a whiffle ball. I was terrible at it! But AJ LOVED it being the tennis lover that he is : ) It was still a fun time for us to all hang out and let Lily run around!
Here's my action shot-and looking dorky! I had fun though!
AJ playing with Katie's brother Kyle.
Jameson was happy to just sit in his stroller and watch!
Lily and Katie getting ready to make 500 chocolate chip cookies! Lily LOVES Katie and everywhere we went Lily was always asking where Katie was or what she was doing! It was pretty cute.
Enjoying the GIANT beater way too much!
Mmmm....cookies!!!
Bike ride on the boardwalk!
Hanging out in Long Beach.
Silly hat! I think her eyes look so pretty!
She loved digging in the sand!
He loved chewing on his cup!
Katie and Joel-wished he would smile more nicely! :)
I love my family!!
Joel and Fiona. And everyone says Jameson is a spitting image of my brother (which I think so too!) What do you think?!
Serving campers their lunch-this was my favorite!
Jameson loved staring at Ben (he's a friend of Katie's family.)
Katie with her parents Linda and Steve.

We had such a great time and can't wait to go back!!!!

9 Months!!

2010-08-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

Today is my little (big) man's 9 month birthday! I'm getting more sad with each passing month. I don't want my baby to grow up! I will say he is so fun right now though! He's very wiggly and is wanting to move but has yet to crawl. He'll be sitting up and try to grab for a toy and will flip his body onto his stomach. He does this all.day.long. And yet, he still hasn't mastered crawling! When he is on his stomach he'll kick enough and start scooting backwards. He may just skip the crawling stage. Lily didn't crawl until she was a year old!! And she didn't walk until she was 15 months!! So, I'm thinking we just have some lazy kids around here! :)
*He weighs 22.8 lbs (only the 60%!!) and is 30.5 inches long (85%). He's huge to me, so I'm not sure how his weight and height aren't off the charts! Oh well!

*Still wearing 12-18 month clothes, but it's starting to get small!

*Sleeping through the night! Hooray! Well, as of 2 nights he's been doing this! I've been giving him a snack (rice crackers) before the last feeding of the day in hopes it would fill him up and make him sleep. But he would still wake up between 4:30 and 5:30 am! Ouch. My super smart husband said "why don't we just feed him some oatmeal baby cereal before that last feeding?" Sure. Let's try that. We've done that for the last 2 nights and the first night he slept until 7 am and this morning he slept until 8 am!! Praise the Lord! I was really hurting for sleep, but if he goes until at least 7 I feel like a new woman! Hoping these sleep habits stay this way!

*He really is the best, easy-going baby!

This boy LOVES to eat!

Chewing on his sister's toy! I promise we didn't give it to him! :)

He loves to stand against furniture-we are the ones who have to put him there though. He'll eventually pull himself up I'm just sure of it!

Such a big boy!!

Eagle Crest

2010-08-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

The week after the 4th of July, our little family headed over to Eagle Crest with AJ's parents and sister and her husband. We do this every summer and have such a great time! We are spoiled with amazing meals that I never have to cook, coffee made every morning, and on site babysitting! :)

On the way over, she was occupied with watching Boz over and over! And holding her baby, aka Big Baby.

Snugglin' with my girl under a towel!
Grandpa Dan and Jameson

One day, Andrea and I went golfing with the boys. Well, they golfed while we drove them around in the golf carts! SO much fun to drive those things!

Grandma Barb loving on Jameson!

Sleeping by the pool-he did this daily! It's so nice having a baby who will mostly sleep anywhere!

He LOVED swimming around and splashing his hands and feet. He really liked this car too!

I love my kids!

Gotta keep my red-headed, fair skinned baby in the shade!

Grandpa and Lily having a heart to heart! :)

One night after dinner, we walked over to the golf course and practiced on a few holes. Lily LOVED running around-barefoot of course-and "helped" by holding the flags (is that what they're even called?! I'm definitely not a golfer!) Maybe she'll be a golfer someday!

Going for a walk and I'm pretty sure I only lasted 10 minutes before I couldn't carry Jameson anymore! That boy is heavy!

Auntie Andrea and Jameson

Us girls went shopping in Sisters one day and of course we had to make a stop at Sisters Coffee-it's so good!

Love those chubby cheeks!

Family bicycle ride! The kids loved riding in this trailer we borrowed from some friends. Jameson only loved it for about 10 minutes then he started crying. I'm thinking his sister had something to do with that?! It was fun though!

We went to the pool everyday. Lily was a fish! She loves swimming! And fyi, the pool was not closed like it says in the background :)

Even Jameson loved chillin' in the stroller!

Love her, squinty eyes and all!

AJ was the best dad and played with her in the pool the whole time so I could lay in the sun!

We had such a great time and look forward to it every year!

We're at Year 7 and I'm in Heaven!

2010-07-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

7 years ago today, I married the man of my dreams and here's 7 reasons why:
*He loves the Lord and his desire to live for Him is so evident in his daily life.

*He is great at surprising me with my favorite coffee drink and will sometimes wake up before me and go get a drink and leave it right next to me on my bedside table! He even did that today!

*He makes me laugh ALL.THE.TIME.

*He LOVES our children and you can see they love him SO much too!

*He can fix anything-seriously! One time, my hair dryer broke and he took it apart, put in a new cord and made it work!

*He is great at encouraging me-especially in my walk with God.

*He is the best BBQ-er I know!!! :)

I can think of more than 7 reasons why I love him, but I don't want to make you all bored! These last 7 years have gone so fast! I can't wait to see what God has in store for us for the next 7 and 70 years! I love you AJ! At the airport coming home from our Hawaiian honeymoon. Look how tan we were! And how much of a baby I looked like! :)

At the beach probably during our first or second year of marriage. Again, such baby faces we had! And check out my cool shades!

Our sweet family-praise God for all He's done! And I'm thinking we need an updated family photo!

Random Videos

2010-07-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

Lily started swim lessons today and has it everyday for the next 2 weeks! I'm a bit worried that it might be a very LONG 2 weeks! She did pretty good and her class is 4 kids total-Lily being the only girl! She did get bored and "tired" when she was waiting in the pool for her turn to be taught things. And she just had to tell me how tired she was by screaming loudly and then crying for ALL to hear! She said, "I'm tired of holding on!" (to the edge of the pool) and "I want to get out!" I just didn't make eye contact with her and hoped she would eventually stop! Her instructor was great and really helped her out. She eventually got over being "tired" and was enjoying the rest of the class. And really, the class is only 30 minutes long so it's the perfect amount of pool time! Although, when she was proclaiming her dissatisfaction with her pool time I looked at the clock and saw we still had 15 minutes in the class to go! I couldn't wait for it to be over! :) Here's a little video of her in her class today.

Lily's swim lessons from Amanda Acker on Vimeo.

And this last video is an oldie but a goodie! I was reading a book to Jameson and he loved all my silly animal sounds. Please ignore how stupid I sound and focus on his cuteness!!

Jameson's squeals from Amanda Acker on Vimeo.

8 Months!

2010-07-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Wow. 8 months. Pinch me. It's going too fast. I want it to s l o w down!!! I have no idea how much Jameson weighs since he hasn't been to the Dr. since 6 months! I should just sit him on that scale to find out! He is as pudgy as ever and I LOVE kissing his thighs, knee caps, wrists....basically, anything that has multiple rolls all over I love to kiss! He is still not crawling or really rolling for that matter. I know lots of babies who are younger and are rolling back and forth and back and forth again. But, it's really nice to leave my baby in one spot and leave the room and come back and find him in that same spot! I know he'll start moving when he wants to. And I'm just fine with him taking his sweet time!

*Wearing 12-18 month clothes!!

*Sleeping ok but not great. Lately, he's been wanting to wake up at 5am to eat and after I feed him will go back to bed. I know he can go longer, but he won't. And I'm a sucker and won't let him cry more than 3 minutes. Yes, I'm a softie!

*LOVES to eat-but we all knew this just by looking at him! I'm still making all my baby food and it's going well. Now I'm trying to figure out what kind of snack foods to feed him. He's nursing a bit less now which gives me more freedom! I'm trying to be more creative with my baby food mixtures too. I recently made pineapple/banana, pineapple/pear, and sweet potato/corn. He seems to like it all!

*LOVES his sister. He always looks for her when they're in a room together. He follows her with his eyes and lights up when she talks to him. It's so sweet. He does get mad and cry when she randomly scratches him across his face. Ugh. Still working on her! :)

*Loves his bath and cries when I take him out.

*Talks all the time.

*Grabs at people's faces all.the.time. I think he does this mostly to people he knows though. *Stares and talks to his hands. He's done this for a while, but it's so cute to hear him cooing at his hand as he holds it in front of his face. Think of someone getting engaged and holding their hand out in front of them to admire their ring. That's what he does!!

*Recently started to notice Charlie (our lab). He will just stare at him and make an "O" shape with his mouth.

He is still a happy baby and people always tell me how easy going he is-and it's true! He just goes with the flow. Even when he's super tired and doesn't seem to get a nap in (which is every time he's in the nursery at church! Must be too much going on!) he's still a happy baby-with an occasional cry. We love our little man!

He LOVES the swing! We recently inherited my aunt and uncle's old swing set that their kids had outgrown. They were so generous in giving it to us! Lily is on that thing all day!! It's awesome! This was taken the day we got it and all of us were anxious to use it. I don't sit on the swing much though-the whole structure creaks! Just for kids I guess! Anyway, anytime Jameson is on it he just laughs and coos! So sweet. And I promise to put pictures up of the whole structure with Lily playing on it!

Outside lots these days. Need shady spots for my fair skinned, red headed baby!

Outside again-and in the shade! This time in his jumperoo. He loves it.

Love this picture. I'm so excited to use this wagon now that Jameson can sit up by himself!

First night in his high chair (this picture was taken a little bit ago though). I'm pretty sure we got this out way too late, but it's great now!

4th of July

2010-07-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

I will start by saying that I can't wait until my kids are older when we can stay out late and enjoy fireworks! Ever since Lily was born I'm pretty sure we've been in bed and asleep by 11pm! Oh well :) We're cool like that! Anyway, the Acker's (AJ's folks) had an awesome 4th of July bbq with TONS of food and family and friends! It was so nice to eat, chat, and relax. I just wished it had been a bit warmer! Grandpa Dan did buy some fireworks to do with Lily, but that girl is so scared of loud noises she held her hands over her ears the whole time.

See?! But smiling so sweetly with her Auntie Andrea!

She later sat with Dan while AJ lit some fireworks, and again had her hands over her ears and then she wanted Dan's hands to cover her hands over her ears! After about 5 fireworks she said she was done. Maybe next year she'll be into it more! She did do some sparklers though!

Some of the boys-my dad, new brother-in-law Kevin, and AJDan lighting some of the fireworksLily playing with some sweet girls- Sophia and Eloise in the background!Brother and Sister with Lily MaeThis girl rarely shows affection to me anymore, so any chance she gives me a hug on her own I just soak it all up! She was squeezing my neck so hard too! Luckily I had my camera ready so I can capture that she really does love me! :)And sweet J baby playing with a necklace! He loved that thing. Let's just call it some beads on a string instead of a necklace. Makes it sound a bit more manly huh?

Crawl 'n Slide

2010-06-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

Lily got a slip 'n slide for her birthday (which was in February!) and we've been anxiously waiting to use it! The weather has FINALLY been nice enough lately, so we put out the slip 'n slide the other day. Lily can be a dare devil at times, but she's usually pretty cautious about things at first!Instead of running and sliding on this new toy, she wanted to crawl!

And she made it to the end! Jameson wanted to try it out too! I love his chubby little ankles!

Then they just wanted to sit on the slide and play in the water. Jameson LOVED it! In fact, when I picked him up to go inside, he started crying. He was having too much fun trying to grab at that water!

We had so much fun using it and look forward to many more times playing with it! Hopefully, by the end of the summer Lily will be wanting to actually slide instead of crawl! ;)

Leandra and Kevin's Wedding

2010-06-22T18:20:00.000-07:00

My sister got married on June 12th and I'm just now putting pictures on here! My bad ;) It definitely took us all some time to recoup after a busy, fun wedding weekend! The day was beautiful with the sun shining bright. Leandra was GORGEOUS and I loved being a part of their day. I cried too much, but I guess that was going to happen considering it was my sister getting married :) Our fun bridesmaid bags that were full of fun gifts from Leandra!Waiting to put her gown on...Ta Da!!Isn't she BEAUTIFUL?!!

Me and my Lily Mae being quite silly! A much nicer picture! This girl was quite the ham when it was time for her to be the flower girl. She started off great, and once she realized everyone was looking at her and "oohing" and "aahing" she quickly turned from the sweet girl to a goofy one! She dumped the remaining flowers right where she was standing (she was only halfway into the auditorium!) and dropped her basket on the floor and RAN to the stage where we were all at. OH MY! I wanted to die. She stood on the stage for maybe 4 minutes and decided to walk off and sit with daddy in the audience-which we figured would happen at some point, but just not right away! Oh well, I guess it's expected from a 3 year old right?!Family photoSigning the marriage license

Jameson hanging out with his GrandpaSisters!! And nothing like a graham cracker and sparkling cider to eat right before you walk down the aisle :) At the reception and just chillin'Father/daughter dance-so sweet!

Mr. and Mrs.! Aren't they so cute together?!!!! Getting ready to say my toast and feeling so nervous!Toasting away...and I cried WAY too much during it! Oh well :) Cutting the beautiful cake!

She was nice while feeding him cake. He pretended to be mean, but played nicely in the end!Our awesome line dance instructor, Francel!Line dancing! It was SO fun! Yup, that's my brother groovin' to some country!

My dad and his grandson! Getting some sweet kisses from his beautiful Auntie!

I didn't get nearly enough pictures that I wanted, but I was a bit busy fulfilling my matron of honor roll and taking care of my kids! :) We had such a fun day and I really want to do it all over again because it was great! Lily also keeps trying on dresses and asks if she can wear them to Auntie Leandra's wedding! Leandra and Kevin are STILL on their honeymoon (2 whole weeks!) and get back this weekend. I can't wait to see them! Congratulations you two!!

7 Months!

2010-06-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

I can't believe we're over the halfway mark until Jameson turns 1!!! Crazy! He is still as sweet as ever and we are loving him more and more each day. Lily is also loving on him lots and rarely hits him on purpose anymore! Big difference from when he first entered her world! She loves to make him smile while they're riding in the car together and she loves giving him kisses too. One day I'll have her help me feed him food....I'm just a bit worried she'll shove the spoon way into his mouth!

*Jameson is wearing 12 month clothes (and has been since he was 6 months!)

*Eating cereal and orange veggies. Tried green beans 2 times and he hated them. I'll try them again later along with other green veggies. I'm also making my own baby food! I never did with Lily so I thought I'd try with the boy. I will say I've never bought nor cooked a squash before, but now I'm a pro at it! It's actually quite fun for me to make his food-I feel all domestic-y. :)

*Sleeps wonderfully. Lately, I've been putting him down around 9:30 and he'll sleep until 6 or 6:30, I'll feed him, then put him back down until 9! Awesome!
*Loves to giggle at us all

*Can sit up on his own! We still put the boppy behind him just in case he falls backward, but it's definitely a whole new world for him which he loves!
*He finally rolled over on his own from his back to tummy. He doesn't do it often, but he can do it!
*Still doesn't love being on his tummy for play time. And he always spits up when he's on his stomach! I'm sure he'll be a late crawler like Lily was (She didn't crawl until 11 months and started walking at 15 months!!!!)

*Is officially out of his infant carrier because he's too long for it! It makes it a bit hard for when he still falls asleep in the car because his poor little head just droops down and he looks so uncomfortable!

*Is truly a happy baby all the time (unless he's hungry or tired!)

Smiling for the moment while on his tummy!

Getting some sweet kisses from sister

He's working hard to get those toes into his mouth!! Can he make it over his big belly?!

And he can!!!! He LOVES sucking on his toes-it cracks me up!

Sitting up like such a big boy!

First bath in the sink! I can't believe I never did this with Lily when it's so easy to do! Plus, it's easy on my back! And check out all those rolls!!

Such sweet kids!!! This was before church last week.

And a close-up. We're so blessed!!!