Christmas Came Early

Christmas came early at our house. Michael's parents came to town this weekend and brought Christmas with them. Jackson has finally discovered the joy of opening presents and he had a BLAST! Below are some pictures of his presents. The pictures are actually taken with an early Christmas present for mommy & daddy. We bought a new camera! We finally have a camera with a shutter speed fast enough to keep up with Jackson.


Jackson showing off his Handy Manny tools.



Jackson and Nana examining a gift.



Papa showing Jackson his new trunk. This will keep all of the toys put up and it matches his room decor. (The giraffe rocker is Grayson's. Isn't it cute?)




Mr. Potato head was one of the toys in his new toy chest.





Finally finished...this is the swing set we gave Jackson for Christmas. It's a little hard to keep it wrapped and under the tree.

Carol of Lights

One of my favorite traditions at Texas Tech is the Carol of Lights. The first weekend of December, they have an annual lighting of the campus. Raider Red leads everyone in, the choir sings Christmas Carols, and then all at once all of the Christmas lights on campus are lit for the first time. I've always wanted to take Jackson and this year we happened to be in Lubbock at the right time. Though it was FREEZING cold, we had a good time.

Family Pics 2008

Each Christmas we have gotten a family picture done. We started with our Engagement Pictures and are on picture #7. It's fun to look back and see how our styles have changed, how we've added faces to the pictures, and how the size of my belly changes.

Jackson- 2 yrs 7 months

Here are some of the pictures Wendy (http://gigglengrin.blogspot.com) took of Jackson a few weeks ago. She did such a great job. We couldn't decide on a favorite!

Lunch with a High School Friend

While in NM I met up with one of my best friends from High School, Joni. Joni met us up at Casa Blanca for lunch. Jackson had a good time showing Joni all of his tricks while Joni & I had a good time catching up. We saw each other briefly back when I was barely pregnant with Jackson but haven't really had a chance to visit since I was a Freshman in college. Crazy. It was nice to catch up and realize that we still have lots in common.

Random Pics from NM

Cooking pizza with Nana Jo.

Eating the bell peppers while cooking the pizza.

Wearing Nana Jo's glasses upside down.

Walk Through Bethlehem

When we got to NM on Sunday night, my parents took us over to the Walk Through Bethlehem. The local churches get together and put on a really neat exhibit that shows what it would've been like to be Joseph & Mary trying to find a place to stay when they went to Bethlehem to pay their taxes. At the end of the tour, we saw baby Jesus and then they went on to explain the importance of Jesus' life here on earth, his death, and resurrection.

Jackson loved looking at the real animals along the walk.

Grampa was a tour guide for the walk. Luckily we were able to be in his group so Jackson got to walk with Grampa.

Jackson talked through most of the walk but when we got to the scene with baby Jesus, he sat still and watched the scene. (Funny story: When we were at the spot of the tax collector outside the main streets of Bethlehem, the tax collector talked to us asking if we had money to pay our taxes. When he asked if we had any questions, Jackson asked, "Is this going to take long?")



They even let the kids feed the animals as part of the walk.

Po Po Car

Uncle Marc let Jackson explore his police car right before we left their house.

Football with the Fam

It's not much fun to have 4 kids cooped up in the house all day so we sent all the boys and kids outside to enjoy a little football. Everyone took turns pulling Aiden around in the wagon while the friendly game of football took place in Marc & Kathy's front yard.

Thanksgiving Travels

We have been on a road trip this Thanksgiving. Michael's granddad passed away so we all headed to Houston. While it was a sad time, we all know that Granddaddy is happy to finally be in heaven with his wife who passed away in August.

Since Thanksgiving was the same week, the whole family packed up and headed to Lubbock to celebrate Thanksgiving at Marc's house. Marc had to work on Thanksgiving so we decided to take the celebrations there so we could be together as a family.

This is the BIG van Michael's parents rented to make the journey.

We had our own vehicle and were making a trip after Thanksgiving so we travelled in our own car. Jackson was as happy as a clam in the backseat with his DVD player. He did great for it being a 10 hour trip.

Aunt Kathy in the BIG van.

We took this picture as we approached Bryan/College Station. Michael wondered which Aggie painted the lines on this road.

Quick Picture

So it has been awhile since we've posted anything. Life has been pretty busy at our house without any pictures to prove it. This morning we met a photographer (http://gigglengrin.blogspot.com/) over in Arlington to get our annual family pictures done. Hopefully we'll have those back soon so we can post them. Though it was FREEZING cold, we think we got a lot of good pictures. On our way home from the pictures, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch (& to warm up) so I snapped a quick picture of Jackson. Oddly enough, the first rocker he went for was burnt orange. I refused to take a picture of him in that rocker for fear it would be used against me in the future.

Elmo makes his debut!

Since I always have to work during our church's Fall Festival, we decided to head over to Prestonwood's Fall Festival last night to play. Jackson refused to wear his Elmo costume at our Fall Festival so I was determined to get him in it for some pictures at Prestonwood. He was the hit of the parking lot. As we walked through, we heard all kinds of comments about the cute little Elmo.

Once there we ran into the Palmer family. Brady and Jackson had a good time just rolling on the grass. Dianna and I decided we shouldn't have bought any tickets, we should have just let them play on the lawn. Since we had tickets though, Michael and I took Jackson over to the bounce houses. He's talked about the bounce houses since our Fall Festival last weekend so we knew he'd be thrilled. He wanted to jump on everything! They had several for little kids so he got to bounce as much as he wanted. Notice in the progression of pictures that his Elmo costume makes its way to my arms...he got so hot jumping, we had to ditch the costume.

After jumping, we walked over to the huge area of toddler games. Jackson had a blast going fishing, throwing baseballs, and kicking soccer balls but his favorite part was collecting the candy at the end. It was a fun night all the way around.