Merry, Merry Christmas

And a Happy, Happy New Year!!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

We actually decorated before Thanksgiving this year since we are headed to Utah for Christmas, I wanted a little bit of time to enjoy the decorations. These blocks were a fun Enrichment activity, and I've had them up for way too long. :o)
We actually don't have a lot of Christmas decorations since we're never actually around our own place for Christmas...but we have enough to fill up one room...so, I love being in our living room right now cause it's so Christmas-y!
I love that we actually have a fireplace to hang our stockings over this year! And I also loved that Jaxon was able to help out with some of the decorating and get excited about Christmas with us this year too. Jaxon got the honor of putting the star on our tree...with dad's help of course. :o)
Our tree is just a little one, but it's fun that we can actually fill it with the little amount of ornaments that we have...most of which are ones from when Jack and I were growing up. Ahhhh, such fun memories!
I hope you all are having fun enjoying your own Christmas decorations and the spirit of it all! :o)

Philadelphia Trip

We went to visit my sister and her family in Philadelphia, PA last week to help Jack have a little more focused studying without us. :o)
Jaxon was AWESOME on the drive, and it only took us 7 hours to get there.
It was soooooo good to see Aurelia, Jon and the kids. The last time I saw them, I was in the hospital after appendix surgery and missing our family reunion. :o(
So, needless to say, this was a much needed visit.
Jaxon and Eli are only 6 months apart...and though you can't tell, Jaxon is the "older" one...even though all the kids were confused since Eli was the "bigger" one.
Here are all the kids-Eli, Zane, Zoe, and Jaxon.
These next set of pictures are hilarious. It's best to see them in progression as we tried to get a picture of Jaxon and Eli.
Jaxon screaming because he didn't want to sit still...Eli wondering what's wrong with him.
Jaxon about to deck Eli. Yep, Jaxon was definitely the big bully out of all the kids. *sigh* my son the bruiser.
Jaxon: Ok, fine, I guess I do like Eli.
I'm glad we did get ONE good picture of those two together at least. :o) Here's one of Aurelia with Jaxon. I can't believe this was the FIRST time that Jaxon and Aurelia had finally met!
And one of me and Eli...and same thing. The first time I've actually got to hold my little nephew.
Aurelia was awesome at showing me some sites and driving us to downtown Philly!!
We got to get some yummy dim sum!! I was sooooo stoked! It was really weird ordering in Chinese without my mom and dad there. Good for Aurelia for remembering the names of all the stuff we like. :o)
This was a pretty authentic Chinese restaurant and they had the tanks with the fish and other seafood swimming around so you could get it really fresh!
It was cool to visit a really big China town.
I don't really get that unless I go home to Calgary...which has been a little while.
Thank you Criders for showing us such a good time!! We miss you guys already. Everytime Jaxon sees these pictures, he just says Eli's name over and over. :o)

Thanksgiving

Well, here's our Thanksgiving post...way late...but what the hey, might as well, eh? At least it's still before Christmas. :o)
We started off our morning a little grumpy cause Jaxon did this about an hour after we woke up.
Well, at least I know he LOVES the Christmas tree and all the decorations. He was trying reeeeeally hard to pull off some of those decorations.
We enjoyed a fabulous dinner with good friends, and another year has gone by and I still have yet to cook my own turkey. :o)
And that was not a complaint. :o)
We had a great thanksgiving, but of course missed our family, but we're so glad to have such great friends as ''stand-in family" while we're all away from home.
Oh, and just one last picture cause it was so cute what Jack did. I had a piano recital for my students the weekend before Thanksgiving and they all did so well, and I actually ended up playing a song for them at the end and Jack was so sweet and came to help watch Jaxon during the recital even though he was super busy with school and then topped it off by bringing me these gorgeous flowers.
Ahhhh, such a sweet husband. Definitely racked up some points for this! :o)

Jaxon's Great Escape

This is for Jack...which I'm sure Jaxon takes after waaaay more than me. :o) Jaxon and I are actually visiting my older sister Aurelia and their family in Philadelphia this week and Jaxon was in time out in the pack-n-play upstairs. We were all downstairs and all of a sudden heard him running around.

Guess he's figured out how to escape time out...

Random Pics

Well, I guess it's about time I posted an updated prego pic on here. Here's me at my baby shower with my good bud Laura who is due 3 weeks after me.

I think I'm at about 30 weeks here. Wow, it's getting close to the end. I'm proud to say I haven't gained quite as much weight with this pregnancy as I did with Jaxon...but who knows, I still have a month to go, so we'll see.

And here's a pic of Jaxon being Jaxon. He loves being like his daddy.

Isn't he cute? :o) Well, we have more pictures to post from Thanksgiving and what not, but I haven't gotten them uploaded yet, so I'll have more updates soon!

WICKED!!!

I can't believe it's taken me THIS LONG to fiiiiinally get to see Wicked, but it was well worth the wait. It was AMAZING!!! I loved, loved, loved it!!! We got some discount tickets to go as a big group so a ton of the girls from the ward and some husbands all went on Wednesday.
A group of us started off our evening with dinner at IHOP.
Then we headed downtown to see the show.
The playhouse was really big and had great architecture, but the only complaint was that our seats were a little in the nosebleeds so the acoustics weren't fantastic up where we were seated. I kind of wish I had binoculars. During one of the scenes, one of the guys takes glasses off the main character, and I was like, "oh, she has glasses on??" It was hard to make out features, but the singers and dancers were so talented and expressive in their body movements that I felt like I didn't miss too much.
This is Karie, Mattie, and I just entering the playhouse.
Before the show started. I was soooo excited to see the show!
Some of the girls and I after the show. All I can say is WOW! It was so good. The leads had such amazing voices and the story was just sooooo fantastic!! I can't wait to go again! :o)

Our Swine Flu Experience

Well, like I said in our last post, we've been out sick for a little bit and I just wanted to vent some of my thoughts and concerns about the whole H1N1 thing. Two weeks ago, Jaxon and I went to go get our vaccination shot to protect ourselves from the H1N1 virus. We were at the clinic about 15 minutes waiting and then getting our shot and we thought that would be it. We've never had a bad reaction to a flu shot and as far as I could tell, Jaxon and I were healthy before the shot.
Well, the day after the shot I started feeling a little off...started getting congested and got a pretty bad cough. The day after that, I was laid out, completely sick, couldn't even sit up in bed to even read a book, and ended up in bed pretty much 24-7 for the next 3 days with a fever, barely able to move, eat, drink, and wanted to curl up and DIE! The full symptoms thankfully only lasted for that long, but I've had left over stuff-congestion and cough still...2 weeks later.
So, biggest question for me...how did we get the swine flu?? Hard part is it seems the doctors can't even agree on what happened. Family doctor said my symptoms were only after effects from the shot and did not prescribe me ANYTHING and said to just wait it out. Both my OB and Jaxon's Pediatrician say we must have got it before or waiting to get the shot and said to get prescriptions ASAP and that we needed to have gotten medication within 48 hours of getting any flu symptoms!! My mistake was not talking to my OB first and waiting another week before I saw her and actually got some good meds to help out with some of my symptoms. I honestly just can't belive that we got the flu waiting to get the stupid shot to prevent it!!
Needless to say, I have my reservations now about any flu shot...however, I guess if my symptoms were only a "mild" case of what the swine flu could actually be like, then I guess I'm lucky that we got the shot, cause I can't even imagine a flu worse then what I got. Jaxon thankfully did not get as bad as I did and got his medication in time to help shorten the duration of the flu for him.
But all I can say is THANK GOODNESS FOR JACK!!! He was a LIFESAVER during those days I was out and took care of Jaxon ALL DAY LONG and did EVERYTHING, from meals and cleaning to just babying me and holding me when I was crying so bad cause I hurt all over.
Anyways, thank goodness it's over and we're all on the mend. But I just can't believe that this flu is out there and that prevalent that we could have gotten it so fast! So, be careful out there!!

Halloween

So sorry this has been delayed. We have had a bad case of the flu in our household and it's been hard getting back up on our feet. Anyhow, this year we did some pumpkins...mine is the Frankenstein one and Jack's is the freehand one. :o)
Jaxon wasn't quite as interested in pumpkins this year, so we'll try him again next year.
We dressed up for our ward party. Jack and I were the couple from Juno (Juno and Bleeker).
Nobody really got what I was unless Jack was standing next to me. :o) Oh well, it was a pretty easy costume for us this year.
Jaxon got a little warm, so we didn't have him keep his costume on during the party. The night of the ward party was so warm we were a little disappointed that it wasn't actually Halloween because it would have been nice weather for the kids to go out and around.
For actual Halloween day, we went out to Broadview Heights to go trick or treating and it was COLD! Here's Jaxon in all his puppy dog glory before we headed out.
You can tell how excited Jaxon was to be in his costume. Which was so sad. He had been trying on the costume all week long and wouldn't take it off...and then the nights we actually wanted him to wear it...he didn't.
Good thing the costume was warm-er though. But still not quite warm enough. We had to keep Jaxon in a blanket the whole time we walked around.
He was so cute walking up to the door for candy though. He didn't really get the whole concept of trick or treating, but he would just say "treat" and didn't take the candy (no worries, Jack and I made sure he still got the candy in his little treat bag :o) and then he'd politely say "dank-you" and walk off.
It was fun having Jaxon actually be able to walk up to the door himself this year and get candy himself.

October Happenings

Well, I mentioned a couple posts ago about Jaxon loading up his bed with toys when we leave him alone in his room for bedtime...and here's proof. :o)
I don't know how that kid fits in the bed too with all those toys on there.
Other October happenings of course included Canadian Thanksgiving! We love having an excuse to cook up good food and have a fabulous Thanksgiving feast, so that's just what we did with our fellow Canadian friends. :o)
I've also been getting to do so much more with Jaxon lately and I just can't believe what a big boy he is. He actually helps out with some cleaning and cooking things. He really enjoys helping me bake in the kitchen...which means I guess I better start baking a little more now. :o)
Jaxon helped me make some yummy banana bread muffins the other day.
And last, but not least, we got a chance to head to the zoo one last time before it got too cold and we got to check out the new Dinosaur park area they had set up. The dinosaurs were all electronically animated and moved around and made noises.
Can you see the little baby Stegosaurus in the leaves? :o)
We even got to ride on one. :o)
All in all, it was a wonderful day to go out and enjoy the little bit of sunshine we had in a break from the rain and yucky weather we've had the past little bit.

23 Weeks

I thought it was about time for me to finally post a preggy pic :o) So, here I am in all my 23 week glory. I am feeling huge, but fine and healthy otherwise. :o) I feel very blessed to be able to still be out and about and doing everything I'm still doing.
I've been super "nesting" lately so been super busy trying to figure out a new decorating scheme for the kids room. I think I'll try to have Jaxon and the new baby share rooms if we can, so I'm trying to do up the room all run for both of them. I'll show some pics once I'm done.
Oh, and in other news, we've moved Jaxon into a toddler bed, thanks to our friends Dave and Melissa, who are lending us theirs. It's so fun to see Jaxon in it and he has been doing pretty well, only waking up once a night and coming to our room and scaring me in the middle of the night. :o)
Jaxon is such a funny kid though. As soon as I leave him for bed, he gets up and piles TONS and TONS of stuff on his bed. Toys, books, pillows...whatever he can get his hands on. When I go to check on him before I go to bed, it's hard to find him amidst all his stuff.
Oh, and just another random picture. Jaxon still has his shoe fetish and still loves pulling out all my shoes and trying them on and walking around the house in them. I was pretty impressed he was able to get around in these ones.
Even I have a hard time getting around in these high heels. :o)
Well, I think that's about it for us. We're doing well and just preparing and soooo excited for the new baby. We're having a REALLY hard time coming up with girls names that both Jack and I like, so suggestions are welcome. :o)

Mini Carnival

We went out on a little family outing with our friends Laura, Randy, and Brogan the other weekend. There's a little "mini" carnival near us that has rides and things, but kind of miniature, so Jaxon and Brogan were just the right size for them...well, ok, maybe a little small, but we, the parents, thought it would be fun to see them in it. So, here are some pics of that day.
Enjoying the little boats...of course Jaxon's favorite part was the steering wheel.
Jaxon enjoying the carousel with dad.
Sorry for the blurry pic, but had to show Jaxon and Jack on the mini roller-coaster they had. I still can't believe we put Jaxon on it, and I think the verdict is that he's still a little small for it. He had a scared expression glued on his face the whole time, but when the ride ended, he clapped his hands...so, I think he was scared, but I think he still enjoyed it.
I think this was by far Jaxon's favorite ride. I just wish I could have fit in the car to go around with him. :o) It looked like a lot of fun.
All in all, it was a great day out with the family.