Early Christmas parties

We celebrated Emily's birthday out at Nate and Andrea's... Em is healing so well and was such a trooper to have all the kids around her. She got a nice new recliner to help her get up easier, and hopefully just relax. Jackson was so jealous her chair had so many new buttons! I also snapped a few shots at her birthday party. How fun to have Kathleen around too!  Matt's girlfriend Katie came down from Utah to meet the family this Christmas too. It's been fun to get to know her better too.

  Jackson was so cute during the "what we like about Emily" game. "I just love her smiles and she is so nice. I just love her". Ha! how cute!

 Of course I had to take all these pictures in secret, because Em doesn't like the camera's out, but I couldn't help it....

We also had my family's Christmas party. Brad and Julie decorated their garage so nice and we all ate in there. Shaela used her new smoker and cooked us up some really good pork. We had family pictures and walked down to the orange street live nativity. Matt was a shepherd, and hurried and took his shirt off under his robe, so he was probably the only shepherd I've ever seen who was trying to show off their chest! Grandpa Fuzzy came as Santa and Jackson soaked it all up. He was so excited to see Santa walk in. I love this picture, it makes me just excited for Christmas all over again!

He kept going up to Santa during the party and saying things like "hey santa, how come you didn't come to my house yet?" "hey santa, my name is jackson...have you met my baby tommie?" It sure was a fun party. Tommie walked away with a fun ball popper toy. Jared gave James a sweet new fishing pole and tackle box. Jackson got awesome stomp rockets from Eliza and Brianna made me the cutest HUGE magnet board to hang in my house! We sure had a lot of fun! And Christmas isn't even for 5 more days. 

Things are looking up!

 
I have finally started to at least get 4 hour chunks of sleep and that has made all the difference.... guess I was just exhausted! :) Jackson and I did have the stomach flu again this past week, and we are still doing laundry to clean up throw up! But, I am just feeling so much better!

James snapped this picture the other night during family scriptures. We've tried to actually start reading with Jackson, and found it works best to just whip out our phones and read a few verses again until Jackson's attention span is gone. I've actually enjoyed spending a few nights reading in front of the tree. And, since jackson can now tell me the story of Jesus being born...it's working!

Jimmer is growing up! He's starting to actually calm down a little, but I'll often look out the door and see him just staring at what I'm doing inside...

Jackson will go outside and play with him now, especially if "he's not in a jumpy mood" as Jackson calls it.

It's finally gotten a little cold at nights, so I'm starting to contemplate if we should let him come sleep inside. He'd love being in Jackson's room, but I still picture him going crazy chewing everything in the middle of the night.

Tommie is back to his happy self and officially rolls over! He figured it out 2 days ago and is so excited to roll over and reach things. I've finally gotten some new little baby toys, and some early Christmas gifts have come, and boy is he happy with them! Whenever Jackson grabs a toy, he instantly starts crying though. Almost seems like he fakes it... :)

During one of our sick days, I spent hours going through all of our digital pictures and organizing folders, cd's, putting dates on prints, etc. I am proud to say we are all caught up! But, it shocked me to see that on my computer,  i had at least 200 pictures like this one below: 

wouldn't it be awesome to be a little kid and just love taking so many pictures of yourself? guess our car rides are just THAT boring! 

December with a baby

I have heard it said a couple of times lately how special it is to have a baby at christmastime.  Honestly, I really hadn't felt too incredibly lucky lately! I really just feel like things have been kind of hard. He hasn't slept through the night in weeks and it seems like someone has been sick forever now! Yet, today I've been home cleaning up Jackson's throw-up and Tommie's diarrhea (he's on amoxicillin for ear infections and strept). The more I've sat here and thought about it, I know I am just so tired. I am starting to get where I feel frustrated at everything and everyone :) But, it hit me really hard today that at least I've been forced to slow down a little. Having a baby around the holidays has forced me to just make sure i spend time at home. And, lately I have just taken care of my kids. I've loved the time spent just lounging on the couch holding Tommie while he sleeps. Or just talking to Jackson.... he's getting so big. I stare at him lately and wonder where he came from and what his future holds.

 He is in to "shirts-off parties" (thanks to Matt!) He takes his shirt off all the time. I caught him running full sprint down the street the other day, with no shirt on of course. When I caught up to him, I asked him what he was doing "going to grandma's for a cookie" he told me. He learned about "stranger danger" at school and has been telling me not to eat candy from strangers everyday. I finally asked him if he even knew what a stranger was.... turns out he thought it was some kind of bug. Cute to think he's been worried about bugs giving him candy for weeks now! :) But really, he is just getting to smart. I've been working on teaching him how to read and he's picked up letter sounds really fast. We are working on blending sounds and the other day, I sat down to drill him on blending words like "man" , "fan", etc. He was wiggly and kept getting them all wrong. I was tired and just said, "ok jackson, I'm done with this. I think this might just be too hard for you." He got real serious, looked at me and said "mom, i'm bored. I know all these." And really, he read me every word on the page. We had never even worked on those. I was so impressed!
So needless to say, despite the stomach flus, ear infections, strept throat, fevers, and incredibly LONG, LONG nights, I have loved being with my boys and watching them grow up. I haven't done too many "christmasy" things, nor even focused on any gift giving solely because there hasn't been much time leftover after trying to just get sleep! But, I have felt more love for my family this month especially, and that's what christmas is all about anyways.

Other good things have happened this past month:



 We hosted Thanksgiving for the Anderson family here. It wasn't crazy busy for me, but it was some work and clean up. It was fun to actually seem some of my dad's family that I haven't seen in awhile. My great-grandma mish even made it. She hasn't been doing too well since her stroke, and is now in a care center. I spent time talking to her in the backyard and showing her all the dolls and crocheted things she has made me over the years. I'm not sure she really remembered who I was, but she definintely remembered the things she had made me! I'm sure they took hours of work. Poor grandpa anderson (or RJ Fuzzy as we've all started to call him) had a BIG fall at the party. We were doing some little relay races with the kids on the side of the house, and he went jumping down the sidewalk with a balloon between his legs. He fell really hard and had a huge lump on his head, a black eye, and blood everywhere. I'm sure it didn't help that he is on blood thinner medication since his clots...

Tommie started eating rice cereal! I wouldn't say he's good at it yet, nor that most of it goes down his throat... but Jackson is really in to being his big brother. I think since Tommie rolls onto his side, grabs for toys, and laughs, Jackson feels like he can play with him more. It's cute to watch how excited Tommie gets just to see him. That doesn't mean there isn't moments where Jackson teases him. In fact, I know Jackson is the cause of the crying when I find Jackson in the other room with his hands over his ears...he doesn't like to hear the crying! :)

James has gotten to be a lot more active lately and trying hard to beat his brothers in the weight loss contest. He's down 18 pounds! :) Look at how amazing he looks now. 

He also went to the opening of a new Crossfit gym in Mesa. Shaela is way into it, and if we could afford it... I'm sure we'd both be way into it too...it looks so fun. James joined in the workout, despite all the ladies just sitting there watching him. He was sore for days, and Shaela wasted him, but we had fun at the barbecue after! 

We also won free krispy kreme donuts every month for a year! And when I say we, I mean James, because I did absolutely nothing. His cosuin, Adam Brown, called him up at the store opening and said he was the firs tone there in line. Sure enough, Adma sat there all day and all night and got a punch card for 52 dozen donuts. He was on the news too. James was one of the first 100 there at the party, along with brad and matt, so he got a punch card for 12 free donuts...all while i was sleeping! 

We also were put on the ward christmas party planning committee with Brad and Julie. There was a new polynesian couple int he ward --the Le'Ota's. So we held a luau with authentic food and dancing. Nothing real Christmas-y but lots of people came and it was a huge success. That really seemed like a lot of work for me, I was sick with some sort of flu and had never left Tommie that long.... but in the end, it was all worth it! However, the Le'Ota's were so amazing to me. He spent one whole day just picking out the pigs at a farm and getting them slaughtered (nasty, i know). But then, the whole day of the party, he just sat out there all day long, hand turning the pigs with his friend, the DJ. All for some pork that I couldn't even bring myself to try (something about already throwing up didn't help!) Some people really are just so giving.

It probably doesn't even need mentioning how excited James was about the roasted pig. The fact that we drove down to the church, just to check on the pig should explain a lot! :)

On to November

I can't believe October went by so fast. Here's a few highlights:

I had a great 25th birthday. I guess I'm growing up since i'm a quarter of a century now.... A lot of my day was spent with these 2 boys... couldn't ask for cuter boys!

 My mom, Julie, and Shaela also took me to my favorite thrift store and babysat while I went out to lunch with James. My mom also made me dinner and my favorite Oreo ice cream cake.... It doesn't get much better than that! It was so fun to be back around my family and I sure felt spoiled and loved. Shaela and Jared took us to "Abuelo's" for another birthday dinner and to a place called "Primp and Blow"...the hair styling bar. Somehow, Shaela's hair was the one that turned out amazing. Hmm...

Halloween was sure exciting for Jackson this year. They had been doing a ton of halloween activities at  Orange Patch and he knew he wanted to be a superhero. (Ok, well he calls it a super reader from PBS, but making a super hero costume was SO much easier.) While he was taking a nap one day, I threw his costume together and boy did he wake up so happy! When we went to the ward Halloween party at montagues...he was the hit with his little friends. I think it's because he was so happy about it. no one knew he had girls' tights on! :)

James has been put in charge of renting out the cabin, and he's actually had a lot of renter's sign up. We spent veteran's day weekend there to try and get a few things ready/taken care of, etc. It ended up being an incredibly COLD trip, but still relaxing all the same. We even drove through the snow to go into town for the broadcast stake conference. Elder Holland spoke on how the missionary work in Arizona will be growing immensely and we need to be prepared to help with it. Elder Eyring then talked on remaining optimistic despite all that seems wrong in the world. Inspired message seeing as president Obama just got elected for his second term. 

We made it back in time for the veteran's day parade. The tanks were of course a big hit.... 

I stood by this mom who's son was "somewhere fighting al quida" she didn't know where, but hadn't seen him for 4 years. He told her he was finally able to come home for Christmas, but only if they could pay the 4000. She cried as she told me she couldn't afford it, but sure wished she could see him. I was so impressed with her story and realized that for the first time in a long time, I actually thought abotu veterans on Veteran's Day! Ha! imagine that! 

To say that all has been right with our world isn't quite true. James' job has gotten pretty stressful. He took on this job knowing we couldn't make it work on just his salary. But, he would get paid commission for any properties he could bring on, and he really felt things would improve. Well, it still has only been 4 months, but out of the 60 properties he's contacted, he hasn't had a single one go through yet. Naturally, he is starting to get frustrated. And adding to that, he's somehow gotten in the middle of a little feud going on between his company and a competitor. It's been such a mess and the competing company sent out a letter to several properties, which needless to say, wasn't very nice about James. It made me mad, but mostly just added to James' stress levels... That and one property he had, that might have actually gone through, ended up being an even bigger mess. Unknowingly, he had gone with an unlicensed landscaper and thus, would've taken lots of business away from Jared, my brother in law. To put it nicely, the past 3 weeks has been really bad for James. I don't know he takes bad news, after bad news, after bad news, and just keeps going. He sure is incredible to me at just still trying and finding ways to mend relationships. I've done my best to stay positive for him, but man, it sure  gets hard for me....and I'm not the one going to work every day any more! We've done a lot of thinking about it, and we both know he needs to stay with this job...it just seems right. But, things better start picking up real soon! And, I just thank James every day (sometimes several times a day) for being the man that he is, and willing to take on so much responsibility for his family. Looking back on our marriage, things have never really gone "the easy way" for James, he's always had his fair share of difficulty in whatever he has faced, but it always has worked out to his advantage....sometimes it just takes a LONG time. :) And let's face it, who really likes waiting? 

Tommie has sure started showing his personality. He has picked up laughing and sure surprises us at what he laughs at. Most of the time, it's just whatever Jackson does gets him laughing...To quote my niece, Macey, "I'm not sure what's more funny...Tommie laughing or Shawnne's singing...." But, whatever, I'm not ashamed of my great entertainment skills (or lack thereof). Tommie's laugh is still cute... and yes, we are BIG caillou fans in this house. Here's the link....

We've also had Sadie over while Shaela and Jared went to Disneyland. Jimmer has been going NUTS. He plays non-stop and let's just say he's definitely hit puberty and knows that Sadie is a good-looking girl! :) But, he's also started limping and been really fatigued. While doing some research, he may have been a little to hyperactive lately, and probably has severe growing pains. Guess what's supposed to fix it? Vitamin C! Ha! Who knew! We'll see if it actually works. 

So many mosquito bites

When I planted the garden this week, I hadn't noticed that poor tommie was getting attacked. I was more concerned about Jackson and Jimmer following behind me, digging back up my seeds! I felt so bad when I looked over and saw that the mosquitos were swarming around him. Needless to say, he was so happy to get some calamine lotion on!

new family pictures

I took advantage of all the pretty leaves in prescott and took a few pictures with my good-looking boys!  I think they turned out great! 

 And a few others of my favorites from the week: