Birthday Girl

We celebrated a birthday this week! Jada turned 2 on Monday. We had quite a day of celebrating and are looking forward to celebrating with a costume party with the whole family on Sunday. We had lunch at Fazoli's complete with strawberry cupcakes. After lunch we headed to the park to play and then we just had to try out the newest frozen yogurt shop in Marion, JuJu Berry. I've been looking for a good reason to go since it opened and I found one! [It was pretty tasty, by the way!] After all the afternoon fun, we headed back home for nap time. Jada is notorious for climbing out of her crib. [I know, I need to get her moved to her big girl bed.] After a couple hours of sleeping, I went to check on her and this is how I found her:

asleep in the rocking chair in her room. Apparently that looked like a more comfy place to sleep than her bed. :) Or, maybe she was just a bit too worn out to play one minute longer. Gotta love that girl!

Happy birthday, Jada! We love you!!

Leap Day

Well hello long lost friends! (If there are even any of you out there!) It's only been half a year since I last posted. That's not too bad, is it?! :) I'm sure much has changed since then. Let's see if I can remember the main things.

1. I think the biggest news is that baby #3 is currently baking. He or she will be making an entrance around February 29th...leap day. I'm praying this child listens and obeys when it comes to the date of his/her birth and chooses not to come on leap day. I have a feeling my wishes will not be granted though. Leyton arrived four days early, on Josh's graduation day. Jada arrived three days late, on the one day my mom had said she couldn't be born because she would be busy catering a wedding all day. See? It's gonna happen, just wait and see. (Feel free to hope with me that it doesn't, though!)

2. Leyton has started his 2nd year of preschool. He loves it, all except the cleaning up time. He's gotten in trouble twice that I know of for not being a good cleaner upper. Once he missed out on playing outside and the other time he had to sit in time out for two minutes. He's not very good at helping with clean up time at home either. We have a daily battle getting him to pick up his toys. His favorite line during that time is, "It's hard work, Mom!" Any suggestions on making this any easier would be greatly helpful!

3. Jada is going to be 2 years old in just a few short weeks. It's hard to believe, but at the same time, it seems like she's been around forever! She's quite the pistol. Definitely fits in with the boys better than the girls. Meaning, she's rather rough and tumble. She loves to climb, jump, run, play in the dirt and be mischievious. She's especially good at the last. Speaking of climbing, she decided it'd be a great idea to attempt to climb up Leyton's dresser a few weeks ago. You can probably guess what happened. The dresser toppled right over on top of her! Thank goodness she didn't get hurt, besides the rather large bruise over her eye. It definitely could have been much worse. Needless to say, it scared me to death!

I think that hits on the news for now. I'm going to attempt to be better at updating. Maybe I'll even try to update once a week. I won't make any promises, but I will do what I can. Have a great week!

Snowy Days

Of course, just like everyone else in the midwest, we have been snowed in this week. Not only have we been snowed in, but we've been dealing with a lovely stomach virus. It started with Jada last Friday and has finally [I hope!] ended with me today. Not a fun time to be snowed in, but I guess it worked out pretty well since Josh was able to stay home from work with the kids due to the weather while I was under the weather.

We finally ventured outside for a bit today. Leyton was itching to play in the snow and was pretty impressed that he could defy gravity and walk right on top of it! He had a great time racing his trucks over the ice covered snow. Jada? Well, she wasn't so sure of all the white stuff.

These trucks look like a cartoon version of Ice Road Truckers. Kinda makes me laugh...maybe it's just me.

[I think this might be one of my new favorite pictures.]

Happiness is...

...Leyton being old enough to play T-Ball this year!! I have never been more excited! I have been looking forward to him playing since we found out we were having a little boy. I mean, of course there were other things I was excited about, but coming from a family that grew up at the ball field and then haivng a husband who would spend every waking moment at the ball field if he could, it's something I have definitely been looking forward to! I'm sure there will be many, many stories and pictures to come regarding that!



...Jada learning new words all the time! She's 15 months+ already! She can say mom/mama/mommy, dad/dada/daddy, pa, papa, ouch [oush!], hot [ha!], cheese, please [which also sounds like cheese], mine [my!], go [doh], hi, bye, uh-oh...and others that I can't seem to think of.



...Leyton saying hilarious things ALL the time! The kid cracks me up every day. The other day he was looking at our wedding pictures and couldn't quite comprehend why he wasn't in any of them.

He asked, "Mommy, was I at you and my dad's wedding?"

To which I replied, "No."

Through tears he asked, "But, where was I!?!?"

"Well, you weren't born yet."

"Was I in your belly?!"

"No, son."



I didn't quite think it was necessary to give any further explanation at his age. Eventually he'll learn all about marriage and the birds and the bees...just not now. :)





...Jada "singing" songs. Here's an example of her rendition of This Little Light of Mine. I love that girl...

and that boy. :)

Jada's 1st year Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Holy smokes, Jada is 1!

Somehow my daughter has already gone from this...

to this...

a beautiful, determined, full-of-life 1 year old!

Here's how we celebrated with family and friends at our house yesterday:

The celebration started a few days earlier when Leyton and I began making goodies. Leyton was such a good helper making oreo cookie suckers dipped in white chocolate. He was quite the sprinkler!

My sister Lindsey came to my rescue as an excellent helper on Friday evening. We got started shopping and making even more goodies by 9a.m. Saturday morning. We made homemade caramel sauce, caramel corn, white cupcakes and carrote cake cupcakes, and a pennant banner than said "Happy Birthday Jada". After about 16 hours, we were finally finished with as much as we could finish before the party Sunday.

It didn't take long for this quiet, empty backyard...

to be turned into a yard full of fun people like this...

Jada got so many gifts! I think Leyton was more excited about opening them than Jada was, but she quickly figured out how fun it was when she realized what was inside all the wrapping and tissue paper.

Lindsey and I found this cupcake tower at Wal-Mart. It was originally black with a topper that said "Trick-or-Treat". We found the leaves at the Dollar Tree for $1, so Lindsey stapled them on to cover the Halloween decor. It turned out pretty well!

Of course, Jada loved the cupcake!

After everyone demolished a cupcake, we painted pumpkins!

At the end of the day, we were all exhausted.

We are very thankful for a beautiful, healthy little girl. We couldn't have asked for a better day to celebrate the first year of her life!

A lesson

Leyton just got home from preschool. I asked him the usual question...what did you learn at school today? His response?

L: "Well, we went to chapel and learned that some kids had to sit in time out."

Me: "Did you get into trouble in chapel?"

L: "No, I didn't. Adam did."

[I know there's no little one named Adam in his class so I figured out pretty quickly what Adam he was talking about.]

M: "Adam and Eve??"

L: "Yeah. A snake told Eve to eat the apple, so she did and they had to sit in time out!"

Wow. He listens. :)