Photo Dump

These are just recent photos I’ve got lying around my desktop that haven’t made it into a post. I’ve shared most of these photos on facebook recently, so some of you have seen them, but I want them on this space so when I have blog made into a book, they will be here! Plus, my kiddos are super cute so you should always be eager to look through tons of pictures.

Last week, we took Jackson’s favorite walk—to the trains!

Belle was my laundry distraction helper this day!
{I had several people tell me they thought this was Jackson at first!}

Jackson climbed into bed with Belle after a nap one morning. Lots of giggles.

I took this picture at Chick-fil-a awhile back… Belle just loves to give kisses so much that she kept kissing the little boy on her placemat!       

I snapped these photos one day in class. Apparently even though I’m enrolled in Grad School, I still eat like a kindergartner.

I caught Belle in the act of her favorite activity—playing with the trash and recycling. Seriously… our home is flooded with toys. Why does she love trash?

This is the result of me telling Jackson to get on some socks so we could put shoes on to play outside. Not quite what I had in mind… but he did what I asked!

Cutest little Chiefs fan ever.

Jackson discovered himself on the security tv at Wal-mart. He was pretty captivated by seeing the boy on the tv do the same thing {dancing like a crazy person} as he was doing!

I traced the kiddos with chalk yesterday {much harder than you think!} Jackson added faces, shoes, and he drew a stripped shirt for the boy. Belle was in charge of the yellow. Pretty good! 

This was Belle today after church this morning. She fell asleep clutching the fork!

And two more pictures from this afternoon. I realized that I several pictures of Belle so I wanted to get another of Jackson. And this is why I don’t have as many pictures of the boy. While he said “cheese”, he didn’t look up from what he was doing. Belle on the other hand walked right up and said, “cheese” with a perfect little smile.

 

Whew! Lots of pictures. Lots of cuteness!

Welcome home camera

I finally have my camera back after having it sent off to be fixed {thanks to accident protection plan from Best Buy}. Anyway, in honor of this celebration {because I've been incomplete without it this past month!} you get a peek into what we did tonight! So glad we actually did something other than grocery shop or clean.

We played hide and seek- Jackson gets all of the good places because he's small. But he's an incredibly bad hider as he likes to say where he is hiding the moment some says "ready or not, here I come!"

Jackson and Belle played with the nativity set.

Well, Belle was more concerned with eating the camel, really.

We put ornaments up on the tree!

I tried to get Belle to wear the Santa hat, but she wasn't having it.

We went out side for the unveiling of the Chistmas lights that Derek and Forrest put up this weekend...

...only to have some of them work!!! So Derek spent several minutes on the roof trying to figure out the problem.

I don't have a picture of Jackson being Buzz Lightyear {that was before I remembered where my battery and SD card were}. I will have to document that because it's quite humorous. Daddy was Woody, me Jessie, and Belle was the dinosaur {all at Jackson's request}.

Eventually I won't be so enthusiastic about having my camera back, but until I do, expect lots of posts!

Family Pictures

I have been meaning to do family pictures ever since Belle joined our family in February.... so it only makes sense that we just got some taken at the end of November, right!? Oh well, it's perfect timing for Christmas cards! I contacted one of Julie's friends from Delleguardia Photography and we went over to main street to take a few pictures. Take a peek: 

{this photo was actually Jackson's idea-- "Get on the tire, Mom!", "Get on the other tire, Dad!"}

I love these shots of Derek and the kids!

Our rambunctous & energetic, sweet & cuddly little guy!

Our precious little girl!

 {Yes, this is the only face he would make for the camera at this point... thanks kid!}

I really wanted to get a decent picture of both of the kids together with the Christmas lights, but after an hour of photos {during naptime} wasn't really condusive towards that idea. Oh well. These are still cute individually!

This is our family-- November 2011!

LOL Pictures

Whenever I upload photos from my camera to my computer, I like to take an inventory and decide what ones are keepers and which ones to use for blog posts. These pictures all made my keepers, but they haven't found a space on my blog until now. The only thing they all have in common is that they make me chuckle. And I hope you get a smile out of it too!

When my friend came to stay, I found Caleb "shaving" his legs with sunscreen and a house key. Hilarious.

Geez Mom, get that camera OUT OF MY FACE.

Me: Jackson, what ARE you doing?!?

Jackson: I'm just licking my knee, Mom. 

Me: Oh, okay. That's normal.

Why do you make me wear these dumb bows anyway?

"No one feeds me anything yummy in this house. I guess I'll eat my toes."

And my favorite:

Family Pictures

What better way to celebrate the holiday season than with family pictures? 

We didn't actually go for our us, but for Derek's whole family! 

Top: Me, Derek, Brad (brother), Mary (sis-in-law)

Middle: Linda (mom), Forrest (dad)

Bottom: Jackson, Gabe (nephew)

We did get some good shots of our family, though. And this one of Jackson and Derek is one of my fave ever!

Here's our little stinker- showcasing the *only* actual smile from the entire evening... and he's only smiling because he's been promised a tic-tac. Notice the nice big boo-boo on his forehead?! It's a mystery to us how it go there, but having some sort of mark on his face has become the norm these days. 

____________________________________________

Last Christmas we took the cousins to get their pics taken and we decided to do it again and make it a tradition. Waaaaay easier said than done. I'm totally not even looking forward to adding another little girl into the mix next year! (I'm excited about the girl, just not the process of getting pics.)

(These pictures were taken in the afternoon before the above pictures and Jackson didn't smile here either. No idea what got into this boy. He was nearly in tears when I asked him to smile-- the kid who has been called the happiest-kid-alive and has never met a stranger. At least we ended up with a few!)

Jackson and Gabe are wearing the overalls that were gifts from Great-Grandpa-- so we invited him along too! He is one proud Papa and the boys love him!

We're a pretty good lookin' family if I do say so myself!

Pictures for Daddy

In the past several letters from Derek, he's been leaving some very subtle hints about wanting more letters and more pictures.

* It's okay to share my address with other people- family, friends, all of facebook!!

* If you want to send more pictures, that'd be cool!

I've spent the last week petitioning people send letters. Surprisingly (or not), telling people that Derek has to do 20 push-ups for every letter he receives is really motivating for people! And of course, I'm still doing my part writing letters and trying to capture new, cute things that Jackson's been up to, and that's what I'm sharing with you today!

Jackson takes very good care of Elmo and feeds him some of his lunch. Elmo would say, "yum" every time he "ate" a cracker.

(How's this for pretend?)

Jackson now refers to his blanket as "bip" and he loves to wear it as a cape and run circles around the house.

Jackson is yelling, "Go, go, go!" when watching pre-season football, while enjoying some pizza! 

(is this masculine enough to make up for this?)

This is Jackson playing it cool during the dance party the other day. The kid loooooves pockets.

 Jackson's added several words to his vocabulary, and "catch" is one of them. He'd say it every time I'd roll the ball to him.

We have a new recliner now and Jackson loves to sit in it and "rock"-- all of time time. 

If you'd like Derek's address so you could send him a letter and I haven't given you his address, please let me know!! It doesn't need to be fancy or lengthy-- just anything to remind him of home. He doesn't have any contact with the "outside" world and he'd be so encouraged to hear from you!