Comparison Photos

It is amazing to see the similarities when you look at baby photos of me and Justin compared to Jackson and Rhett. No doubt, Jackson is looking a little more like his daddy every day. What do you think?

Here is a comparison of all three of us:

And now for Rhett, or as I like to call him, "mini me". He looks SO much like me as a baby, it is scary. My mom and grandparents can't get over how much he looks like me, although my dad says he still sees some of Justin. Here is my clone baby:

And now for the three of us ( I think I see a little bit of Justin here):

And sometimes I swear I look back at old photos of Jackson, and I see so many similarities in our boys, even though they for sure look different. Take a look at my beautiful boys at 7 months old:



Family Updates!

Here are some family updates that I have been meaning to write down for quite some time now:

-I am a certified milk donor! Instead of letting all of my excess frozen milk go to waste, I began the process of donating it to a milk bank to be given to underweight NICU babies. I had to have my blood tested, provide DNA samples, answer a lengthy questionnaire and have my dr. and Rhett's dr. approve it, but I finally was approved! I have already shipped 200 ounces and will be shipping another 200 son. I am still breastfeeding Rhett about 8 times a day even though he is eating solids for 2 meals a day. I pump 1 bottle every morning for storage. Looks like I won't be weaning any time soon.

-Awhile back We got rid of our old cars (GMC Acadia and Toyota Prius) and got 2 new cars. This time we upgraded to a brand new 2011 GMC Acadia Denali and then we also got a 2009 Toyota Camry hybrid for our work commuter car. We are IN LOVE with the Acadia. It is the perfect family vehicle. The Camry has been great too. It is a little bit bigger and more comfortable than the Prius was, gets just slightly less miles to the gallon. We made offers on several Nissan Altima Hybrids before the Camry, but the deals kept falling through as many car dealers tried the ole "bait and switch" on us. We will keep the Acadia for a while, but we may replace the Camry with an Altima if we find a really good deal out there. The camry is fine, but I am not in love with the color. It is their hybrid green color, but it is a little to green for my taste. Jackson loves it and calls in the "green machine". ha

-Jackson and Rhett are going to have another cousin who is due to arrive in February! My older brother and sister in law are expecting a boy, which will be Jackson and Rhett's sixth cousin, but first boy cousin. We can't wait to meet you Eli!!

-Justin was asked to teach a pharmocology class at our local community college. He is looking forward to the opportunity and the good news is that it won't interfere with his current job. He has toyed with the idea of possibly teaching a few classes around town in the past, so he is excited to try it out and add "Adjunct Professor" to his resume :)

And now for some updates about our precious Jackson:

-He is in a "why?" phase. For everything we tell him, his response is "But, WHY?". It is cute and I love his curiosity, but sometimes it gets a bit redundant. I have to laugh at myself because I find myself saying "Because I said so" all the time.

-He is obsessed with street signs, fire alarms, and fire extinguishers. He asked Santa Claus for a fire extinguisher. He can name almost any street sign and tell you what it means. He loves to talk at length about what each sign says! (He did end up getting a play fireman outfit and extinguisher from Santa)

-He is also obsessed with naming every Soda drink that he can think of. Although he has never had any of these, he loves to name each drink-Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, Diet Coke, Pepsi, etc. You get the idea. He loves to talk about the drinks really loud in stores when we see them. Tonight while at Target, he is walking down the aisles saying in a very loud voice "MMMM mommy I LOVE Dr. Pepper!." So of course I am sure complete strangers are looking at me like mother of the year while thinking that I feed my child such junk.

-Jackson played fall soccer and did well. He kinda struggled to pay attention at the early practices because they moved slowly and they were just learning the basics. Once the games started, he did better. He scored a couple of goals and loved running back and forth. For the last few games he started getting a little aggressive at nudging and elbowing people out of his way. He also loved kicking the ball even when it was not in play or kicking over the cones :) Because he has an August bday, he was the youngest on the team, so overall he did well to keep up with the bigger kids.

-Jackson continues to thrive in preschool and his teachers are just wonderful. He had a Christmas program a couple of weeks ago so they had been practicing their songs prior to that. His teachers said he sings the loudest! They are amazed at how quickly he picks up the lyrics. Justin and I love watching him through the window before we pick him up at school. He is always seated right next to the teacher during story time fully engaged. It is also fun to see him play with the other kids. His newest game that he plays with his friends is "superheroes", although he has to be reminded from time to time to not play so rough.. Boys!

-Jackson is a wonderful big brother and just so loving toward Rhett. You can really tell that they have a genuine affection for each other. The only problem is that now that Rhett is crawling and pulling up on things, he can get to some of Jackson's toys (that are safe for a baby to play with), so we have had an issue with sharing. Also there have been a few times where Jackson has "loved" on Rhett too hard by tackling him...which gives me and Justin a mild heart attack but thrills Rhett! Nobody can make Rhett smile and laugh like Jackson can!

-Jackson has a little girl in his class named Claire that he talks about and he loves to tell me that he kissed Claire (with a big smile on his face). Then I tell him "you better not be kissing any girls besides mommy!" and he gets the biggest laugh. Here is a picture of some of his class after his Thanksgiving party. Clair is the third from the right in the yellow shirt.

-He is just an all around wonderful child. We have our special time together before his nap time where we lay in bed and talk, be silly, and "hide" under the covers. He will say "Mommy I think you are beautiful like a princess" and "you are my best best best friend forever and ever". I love it! He is also a big daddy's boy as well and is extremely close and affectionate with both of us. I love how he gets a shy smile when I tell him that he is such a kind, smart and handsome boy. We are so in love with and proud of our Jackson!

Here are some recent photos of Jackson, along with his 3 year old preschool photos that were taken back in Sept that I forgot to post. Enjoy!

His first trophy and some of his team members below-I don't know why blogger is rotating the photo.

Fun rainy day craft project:

 Jammies!

Rhett-7 months old

It's no surprise that I am way late with this, but I will backtrack to what Rhett was doing at 7 months old. At  7 months, Rhett:

-Got his first 2 teeth at the same time-the bottom ones while we were at Disney World!  I should have known that Rhett would get his bottom first since Jackson got his top ones first since they are so different :) I miss my baby's gummy smile, but he sure is cute with his little teeth popping out! His two top teeth are bulging out of his gums and should pop through any day now. It is wreaking all kinds of havoc on his (and ours!) sleep. Now if only I could get him to stop nipping while he nurses!

-He is SO close to crawling. He can go from laying down to sitting up and everything in between. He really thinks he is something when he sit up and gets really proud of himself. He rocks on all fours and will lunge to get what he wants. He has moved forward a little bit, but I dont consider it crawling until he can crawl longer distances. We found out he can pull up to standing in his crib and pack and play so Justin has lowered both.

-He is not sleeping well AT ALL. I am incredible sleep deprived and it is wearing me down day by day. I guess it is combination of several things that have made his sleep so bad. And by bad-let me give you an example. On an average night, he goes down at 7:45, wakes up fussing at 8:15, 10, 11, 12, 2, 4, and then every 15 minutes or so between 4-6 AM. I am a zombie. He usually wakes up for good between 6:30 and 7 AM. I feed him at 11, 2, and 4 AM. The rest of the time I pick him up and rock him back to sleep. So that is my first mistake, I know. I have always been super responsive to him at night to keep him from waking Justin and Jackson and I realize that I have created a lot of the issue. Also, he got a cold around 6 1/2 months that messed with his sleep and then his teeth popping through at 7 months. I dont know how much longer and can keep it up but I keep hoping it will get like it was when we first moved him to his crib. I miss sleep so much :( I used to think that Jackson was a bad sleeper, but he has nothing on his baby brother!!

-He is increadibly social! He hasnt had any stranger anxiety and is always wanting to be part of every conversation, even if he is not invited..haha! He will stare people down with his beautifiul smile until they acknowledge him. I have had so many people tell me that I should put him on Youtube!

-He is so vocal and always hollering about something. He sometimes "sings" when he is nursing and is always talking to me. He will grunt at me and I will grunt back at him and we will go back and forth until he starts laughing. He is mainly still using vowel sounds and his new favorite is "ohhhhh".

-He remains feisty as ever. He refuses to be ignored and makes his precense known. He does not like it if I am out of his line of sight and will fuss until I reappear. He has masetered the "fake cry", which I am sure Jackson taught him well! He is definitely not as mellow as Jackson was as a baby. He is in constant motion and when he gets excited about something, he will move his wrists and ankles in circles over and over again, which is really funny.

-He's still doing great with baby food and trying new things. His current favorites are mangoes and sweet potatoes. He flat out refuses a bottle, and has decided that he would rather go hungry when I am gone all day to meetings than take a bottle. Thankfully I do not have many all day work meetings, but I hate that he wont take it. I cant wait for him to drink some water out of a sippy cup and eat snacks since he wont take bottles anymore.

-He got his first ear infection at almost 7 months, which is new territory for us since Jackson has still never had one. One day he started crying (screaming) and woudn't stop. We didnt know what else to do but take him to the dr and they found a very early and mild ear infection in one ear. Boo! On one hand I felt like a failure that he had to take antibiotics at almost 7 months old when Jackson was well over a year old until he needed them, but on the other hand I guess it is not so bad since he has had a few colds and has been exposed to so many more germs with big brother around. Still, I hope there are not any more to come!

-He weighs a little over 20 lbs and he is a solid little guy. I love this baby boy so much and I can't believe he is already 7 months old! I hope at the 8 month update I can report that he is sleeping better! :)

Here are some photos at 7 months old:

He is always smiling!

Disney World Vacation 2012

We had such a fun vacation! We left the last week of October and were there for our 6 year wedding anniversary and for Halloween. This is such a great time to go and the crowd levels are super low. We stayed in a Cars suite at the Art of Animation, which was fantastic! Our room over looked "Radiator Springs" and Jackson was in Heaven. He kept calling our room "home" and said he wanted to live there forever.  He had his own (Murphy) bed that he just loved. We also got the Disney dining plan, and we had some wonderful meals during our vacation. We spent 1 day at Downtown Disney, 1 day at Epcot, and 2 days at the Magic Kingdom. The weather was perfect and most importantly, we were all healthy!! Justin had either food poisoning or a stomach bug 5 days before we left, so it really is miracle that nobody else got sick! Here is our trip broken down by day:

Day 1-Travel Day to Orlando. As we got on the interstate, Justin played "Holiday Road" and we sang it to Jackson and Rhett to kick off our Griswold's trip to Wally World :) Rhett was fussy at times, but overall both boys did well. We took our time getting there and got settled in to the hotel. We had dinner at the restaurant on the resort. Jackson was wired and jumping around everywhere. Rhett had meltdown city when it was time to go to sleep for the night and cried himself to sleep in my arms. I thought maybe it was a combination of the long car ride, new place, etc. But a few days later his first teeth-the two bottom ones-popped through! Thankfully he was fine the rest of the trip and quite a happy little guy!

Day 2-This was our 6 year wedding anniversary! We ate breakfast at the resort and then set out to look around headed to Downtown Disney. It was still a little windy from Hurricane Sandy, but otherwise a really nice day. We rode a few kiddie rides with Jackson and had to drag him off crying every time. We tried explaining that we were going to have 3 whole days of nothing but rides at the park. This is when I knew he was going to really enjoy the rides at Disney. We let Jackson pick out a toy at the toy shop and then had a nice lunch. Rhett did great and was happy the whole day. We headed back to the hotel for nap time. After naps, we got up and went shopping for some Florida Gator clothes at nearby stores. Justin found a great deal on Gator flags for the car and a new Florida sticker for our car. Jackson got a really cute jersey and I got a new shirt. Then we headed to the Contemporary resort for our reservations at Chef Mickey's. It was a character dinner, so Rhett and Jackson got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Donald. Then we rode the monorail and went back to our hotel for the evening.

Day 3-We did breakfast at the resort and then headed to Epcot. We got there soon after opening and went straight to the Seas with Nemo and Friends ride, which Jackson enjoyed. We didn't wait for a single ride the whole day. We also rode Journey into the Imagination 3 times, The Grand Fiesta Tour (boat ride in Mexico), Turtle talk, Innoventions, and Jackson's favorite was Spaceship Earth. He rode it 3 or 4 times. Rhett rode with us on Nemo and Friends, The Grand Fiesta Tour, and Spaceship Earth. When we first rode Spaceship Earth (with Rhett), of course the ride stopped halfway through for a few minutes. We were pretty much in the dark in the caveman section and Rhett started fussing. I was in the seat with Jackson and Justin was in the seat with Rhett. Rhett was getting more and more upset and I knew he was probably getting hungry, so I had Justin hand him over and I nursed him as the ride finished up. haha. He finished eating about 30 seconds before we got off of the ride and nobody had a clue. Me and Justin had a good laugh over that-this is by far the most interesting place that I have nursed Rhett!! They also had a mothers lounge that I used at the park for nurse Rhett, which was really nice. We had lunch and headed back to the resort for naps. We had debated about whether to go back for naps for wing it and let them nap in the stroller, but since they are both still so young, we opted to go back. I enjoyed my naps SO much and so did Justin and the boys. After we woke up, we headed back to Epcot and did a few more rides before our dinner reservations at The Coral Reef. This was my favorite meal of the whole trip-it was fantastic, although both boys were a challenge to keep happy because it was kind of a long meal.

Day 4-We woke up early and set out for the Polynesian Resort to have a character breakfast with Lilo and Stitch at Ohana. The food was served family style and it was so good! They had a parade for the kiddos as well which was fun. We ate and rode the monorail into the Magic Kingdom and got there right after it had opened. There was no wait for any of the rides we wanted, so we were able to walk right on. I went and got some fast passes for some of the more popular rides later in the day. We took turns riding with Jackson or staying behind with Rhett for most of the rides. We did: Buzz Light year, Tomorrowland Speedway, Dumbo, Goofys Barnstormer roller coaster, Tea Cups, Small World (with Rhett), Winnie the Pooh, and Aladdin's magic carpet rides (with Rhett). We were worried that the kiddie coaster might be too much for Jackson, but he LOVED it. He rode it 11 TIMES in a row with Justin. They let him stay on over and over because there was no line. He rode most of these rides multiple times. Jackson was beside himself because he was having so much fun. Rhett seemed to enjoy it too. We watched a show with all of the characters in front of the castle and Rhett really liked the songs. I took advantage of the baby center with him where they have a nursing room that holds 4 mommies. Every time I went it was busy, which was great...except Rhett wanted to socialize with everyone in the room. He would stand up and "talk" to all of the other babies and mommies. It was so funny. They couldn't believe how social he was. I had to basically face a corner so that he couldn't see anyone just to get him to eat! What a ham! Also, we had a Mickey Ears hat that we got a Toys R US before our trip for him and everyone kept stopping us asking us where we go it. Disney would make a lot of money if they sold those in the park! We ate lunch at Casey's corner and for dessert, Jackson got his first taste of cotton candy, which he loved.! Then we went to the resort for nap time and came back to the Magic Kingdom for a character dinner at the Crystal Palace with Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, and Tigger. The characters were great, but the food was just ok. Then we rode the rides some more and headed back to our "home" :)

Day 5-Halloween!! I dressed both boys up in matching Halloween pumpkin shirts and they were just adorable! We had breakfast at our resort and got to the Magic Kingdom before it opened. It was really fun to see the whole production of the park opening and the show beforehand. We rode all of the same rides with no wait, except this time I got to ride the Goofy coaster 8 times in a row! We did a few new rides on this day: Peter Pan, Carousel, Mickey's Philharmagic, and the Jungle Cruise in addition to riding all of the ones from the day before multiple times. We had lunch at the Main Street bakery and had some delicious Halloween cupcakes for dessert. Then we headed back for a nap and then back to the Magic Kingdom afterwards for more rides. I was getting sad as the sun was setting and the day was coming to a close because we were having so much fun together. We had dinner at the Liberty Tree Restaurant in the park and it was my 2nd favorite meal-so good!! Both boys did great and then we rode a few more rides and got Jackson picked out his Mickey ears, candy apple and rainbow lollipop. His favorite was the lollipop! On the way out of the park, we picked up both boys some Disney t-shirts and then headed back to the resort.

Day 6-Jackson woke up crying because he didn't want to go home and wanted to stay at the resort forever! So sad! We got packed up and said our goodbyes to all of the cars at the resort. Then we went to the gift shop to pick out our souvenir magnet and a few toys for the boys. We hit Bob Evans on the way home (Justin's favorite) and then made our way back home. We had so much fun and it was definitely a successful trip! We were all pretty bummed to leave. The nice thing is that we came home on a Thursday so we had the weekend to recoup. I know Rhett is too young to remember our trip, but I hope Jackson remembers what a fun time we had together as a family. Here are some photos of our awesome trip!!

Day 1:

Day 2:



Day 3:

Day 4:

 Day 5-Happy Halloween!

 Saying Goodbye..