New Years Eve {2012}

We had big plans for today.  Well, not big plans but plans.

Jim worked a half day this morning.  While he was at work, I decided to clean a bit.  I usually clean something every day, but these days I have to do it when I'm in the mood and that is not very often.  I vacuumed the floor and then decided to bust out the Sgt. Steam cleaner that I borrowed from my mom to clean the grout in my kitchen (don't ever put cream grout on a floor, or buy a house with said grout color.  It sucks!!).  I was just about to run out of water in the steamer so I was packing it up to put it away so I could go and shower for my 1:30p doctor's appointment when Jake had his little accident.

I must admit, I'm not the type of mom that rushes over and comforts my boys when they get hurt.  They usually get hurt from jumping around and being silly after I have asked and begged them to stop.  When one of them starts crying, I tell them that's what happens and to quit being silly.  Today was no different.  I thought Jake had jumped off the back of the couch and hit the vent with his elbow so I was mad.  He kept holding his elbow and kind of crying so I went to see if he was ok.  I didn't know how bad he was hurt was until I saw his shirt was ripped and soaked in blood.  Yikes!

I rushed Jake into the kitchen to get a rag and to call Jim.  It was 11:30a and Jim was only working until Noon, but the looks of Jake's cut I was thinking he would need stitches.

I called Jim and told him about Jake's elbow.  He said he would come home right away.  I had to call Jim back--I wasn't sure what to do with Jake in the meantime.  Talk about panic under pressure :)

I kept Jake's elbow wrapped in a cold wash cloth and held it above his head until the bleeding stopped.  He wasn't crying or anything; we just watched a Batman show while we waited for Jim to get home.

Jim made it home around 11:50am. We weren't quite sure where to take Jake for stitches.  I called our pediatrician's office to see if they did stitches and they did.  We told them we could be there in 20 minutes so they put Jake down for an appointment.

I still hadn't showered or got ready so Jim said he would take Jake by himself so I could go to my appointment.

Jake right before he left to go to the doctor in his ripped, blood soaked shirt.  I love that little shirt--looks like Ryan and Jake won't have that shirt that matches anymore :)

I kept in contact with Jim via text while he was at the doctor's office.  They got to the doctor's office around 12:20p.  They weren't taken back into a room until 12:50p.  Someone finally came in around 1p.  They decided to numb his elbow with numbing cream.  They had to wait 45 minutes to an hour for the numbing cream work.

Jim texted me and told me that the cut was really deep and there was a bit of meat hanging out of the cut.  Eww!  I'm really glad Jim was able to take Jake to the doctor.  As tough as I try to be, blood and guts just aren't my thing, ick.

After Jake was numb, the doctor came in and stitched up Jake's elbow.  Jim said Jake didn't cry or anything while getting his stitches.  He sat and watched the movie "Up".

2 hours and 8 stitches later, Jim and Jake finally made it home.  Jake was ticked about the stitches.  He says he doesn't like that kind of bandaid!  He also says there are black spikes coming out of his arm :)  When I sat him down to take some pictures, he realized his cut and stitches are in the shape of a J, so they suddenly weren't so bad.

Around 4pm, he started to complain that his arm was hurting.  The lidocaine had probably wore off so we gave Jake a shot of Tylenol.  Ryan and Jake wanted to play trains so we all played in the train room for an hour or so.  For some reason Ryan says he is scared of Jake's stitches and calls them his Frankenstein stuff.  Jake takes advantage of Ryan being scared of him and will chase him around with his arm.  Seriously.

Around 5:15pm, we headed to Cafe Rio for dinner.  The Spanish Fork Cafe Rio isn't known for their speed and they definitely weren't very speedy tonight.  Jake fell asleep on the way to Cafe Rio so Jim went and sat down with him and Ryan while I waited in line.  I was in line for about 40 minutes!  At one point, it was like all of the workers went on break and we stood there without moving in line for 10 minutes.  They had actually ran out of something so we all just stood there.  Awful!  I think they had the B team working tonight, lol.

We came home after dinner and played a game of Candyland.  We've discovered that our boys aren't good sports when it comes to board games.  Jake has been ok until tonight; Ryan pretty much bawls if he isn't winning and has been that way since the first game we played.

We only played half of a game before it was just Jim and I still playing so we decided to put the game away and just watch a movie.  The boys weren't really interested in watching a movie either; they just ran around and were being silly like normal.  We let them run wild for an hour or so and then put them to bed around 8:30p.  Jake was so worried about getting blood on his pajamas or in his bed :)  Jim and I both told him that he would be fine.

Jim and I stayed up and watched movies on Netflix and then went to bed.

We had a really low key New Years Eve this year.  The plan had been for Jim to work in the morning, we would all go to my doctor's appointment at 1:30p, and then we were going to run errands.  But Jake needing a trip to the pediatrician's office for stitches changed our plans and that is fine.  We're flexible :)

I'm sad I didn't get a picture of Ryan on New Years Eve or any pictures of us all together.  I need to be better at taking pictures next year.  I'm so worried about taking too many pictures that I just don't take any.  Sounds like a New Years resolution in the making :)

Happy New Years Eve!

Mr. & Mrs. Casey Jackson

Jim's niece Makena got married today.  

She is the oldest niece but she is hardly old--she'll be the ripe ol' age of 19 this coming January.

My boys were so confused about who was getting married and what it means to get married :)  They kept asking if I was married and who I was married to.

The ceremony took place at the church in Sutherland.  The cultural hall was decorated really nice--there was fabric draped from the ceiling and white lights hung.  It was really pretty.

At 2pm, the wedding ceremony started.  I missed pictures of Muren and Eliesia throwing flowers and Madison as a bride's maid; I don't know what I was thinking.  They all looked so cute, too.  Ryan thought the flower petals on the ground were so cool.  He picked up what he could.

Then Makena came down the aisle.  I almost missed getting a picture--all I got was a shot of her and Rett from the back, but hey, I got a picture :)

Makena's dress was really pretty.  She looked great in it, too.

The ceremony was short and sweet per Casey's request.  

I prefer them that way, too.

Jake being silly after the ceremony was over.

Officially Mr. and Mrs. Casey Jackson.

After the ceremony, everyone went up to congratulate the couple.

Miss Muren at the table playing with the kids.  She's so cute and plays with/mothers my boys really well.  My boys love her.

There was a luncheon after the ceremony.

We had stopped in Nephi and got the boys a bite to eat at Wendy's so they weren't really interested in eating.  

Bill and Holly just had their 5th baby on November 26th.  Jake was so excited to see the baby and kept wanting us to look at all of her tiny features.  He was thrilled when I asked if he wanted to hold the baby.  He's going to be a good big brother :)

Muren wanted a turn to hold baby Penelope, too.  The baby was starting to get a little fussy so she didn't get to hold her too long on this turn.

While waiting for the reception, the kids went and played in the nursery.  They were having quite the good time in there.

Grandpa and Grandma Nielson with Makena.

Jerry and Michelle with the bride.

Makena with all of her uncles, just missing Richard.  He and McKell are in Oklahoma visiting some of McKell's family.

And Jim and I with Makena. 

You know when you don't feel too bad about yourself when you are with child and then you see a picture of yourself?  Yeah, that's what happened to me.  I didn't think I was that huge until I saw this picture.  

Good hell.

No wonder I don't take the weekly picture shots.  I am 35 weeks today in this picture.

I was checking the settings on my camera and just happened to be looking at Jim so he pulled the duck face.  I snapped the picture and told him I was putting it on Facebook and my blog :)  

Makena's bouquet was really pretty.  It was filled with jewels and even had a belt buckle in it. 

It was quite heavy.

The bride and groom with Crandall and Guin.  After taking all of our pictures with Makena, we realized we hadn't got any with Casey, oops.  We decided one with grandpa and grandma was sufficient :)

The wedding cake.

Jake was so concerned when we were leaving because he didn't get a piece of cake.  He thought we were at a birthday party of some sort and we were leaving before the cake was being cut :)

We didn't stay for the reception; we decided we better head home.  They were having a nacho bar and a chocolate fountain.  When they started putting out the candy for the chocolate fountain, all of the kids started gathering.  They finally had to put the candy away until the reception started.  Probably a good idea :)

The wedding turned out really nice.  I'm really glad we were able to attend.

Congratulations Casey and Makena.

Christmas {2012}

Christmas Eve {2012}

Jim was going to work a 1/2 day on Christmas Eve, but Sunday night he got a call that he wouldn't have to go into work.  Woot, woot!  SO, I was able to go to the gym Christmas Eve morning with Julee.  

I then had a doctor's appointment to go to at 10:30a. I know, I had 2nd thoughts about going to the doctor after being at the gym, but I don't work up that much of a sweat at the gym these days.  At my doctor appointment, my blood pressure was a bit high.  I guess my blood pressure isn't supposed to get over 140 and it was at 136 (no, I don't know what the bottom number was.  Jim already gave me crap about that...)  It could have been that I just got done at the gym, but my blood pressure actually started to get high at the end of my pregnancy with Jake, too.  

Dr. Nance told me I was to take it easy, which means no going to the gym until further notice.  Sad, sad day for me.  I still don't feel super awesome and going to the gym actually helps me feel better during the day.  I have to go back to the doctor in a week to see how things are.  If my blood pressure is still high or higher, I have to go on bed rest, ugh.  If it continues to stay high, I would have to go on hospital bed rest--even worse.

I had to run to Macey's after my doctor appointment--I'm sure that didn't help my blood pressure any.  It was a mad house.  It was snowing, there was no where to park, every cart in the place was being used, and the check out lines looked like lines for Black Friday.  Luckily, I found a parking spot fairly easy and was able to get in and out of the store within 40 minutes.

When I was done with my errands (I also had to take some movies back to the library that would be due the day after Christmas and I wasn't sure what our plans were so I wanted to return them so they wouldn't be late), I went home and started to get ready to head to Levan.

I had to finish my salad for Christmas Eve, make an appetizer (by choice, because tortilla rolls sounded delicious to me--no wonder I'm a whale these days), get our Christmas crap packed up, and pack my bags as well as the boys.  Oh, and shower and get ready.  Amazingly, we got all of that accomplished and were on the road by 2:30pm.

Of course, it had just started to snow again.  We got off the freeway in Santaquin to get gas.  I'm pretty sure my blood pressure was out of control--the roads were so terrible and slick and people, in small cars, were going so fast.

We got back on the freeway and from Santaquin hill to just past Allred hill, we passed 6 slide offs/accidents with one happening only a few cars in head of us.  Talk about major spike in blood pressure--I was a nervous wreck until we got to about Mona where the roads cleared up a bit.

We finally made it to Levan a little after 4pm and all in one piece.  Christmas Eve dinner didn't start until 5pm so everyone began to arrive around the same time we did.  It was our year to go to Oak City for Christmas Eve, but there wasn't anything going on at the Nielson's this year so we went to Levan.  All of my siblings were coming to celebrate Christmas Eve with my parents this year.

For dinner we had ham, yummy potatoes, stuffing, carrots, 7-Up salad, rolls, and white chocolate cranberry bread pudding for dessert.  Dinner was really yummy and we had some great conversation.

The rest of the night the kids played and the adults visited.  The only picture I took of the night was Ryan walking around in our Christmas stockings.  It was pretty funny.

We got the boys in bed around 10pm.  I had to wrap one last present for my dad, Santa made his visit, and then Jim and I went to bed.

What Santa left for the boys.
The top picture is Ryan's loot, the middle picture is everything, and the bottom picture is Jake's loot.

Christmas Day {2012}

I woke up around 7:45a and the boys still weren't up yet.  Joseph and Emilee were going to come down for breakfast around 9am so I figured we better get up and get going so we could get breakfast going.

We went downstairs around 8am and got the boys up.  They were still fast asleep, but it wasn't hard to get them to wake up.
They were so excited to go and see if Santa had left them anything.

The boys were happy with all that Santa had left for them.  They instantly wanted everything opened, too.  Jake kept wandering over to Ryan's pile of gifts even though he had pretty much the same stuff.  Ryan's just looked better or something.

My boys are a bit obsessed with skeletons, bones, muscles, what is inside of our bodies, etc. so Ryan's Human Body Encyclopedia book was a big hit, even though his face doesn't show it :) 

Ryan and Jake got Hulk punching gloves.  One of their favorite things to do is wrestle/fight with Jim.  Hopefully Jim won't get beat up too bad when they fight with these Hulk gloves.

Kendrick woke up maybe a half hour after Ryan and Jake and came down to see what Santa had left for him.

After seeing what Santa had brought, we decided to go and get breakfast started.  We made pancakes, turkey sausage, hash browns, and fried eggs.  I helped my mom stir up the pancakes.  

I measured out all of the dry ingredients while she got the wet ingredients ready.  The recipe for pancakes that we make are usually on the thicker side.  Today, the batter was really thin--like you couldn't even flip the pancakes because they were too thin.  Mom asked if I had measured out the right amount of flour.  I was pretty sure I had.  After thinking about it, mom had used a 2 cup measuring cup to measure the milk, but she had counted each 2 cup pour as only 1 cup.  SO, we had double the amount of milk we needed :)  We had plenty of pancake batter for breakfast this morning, ha ha.

The Eyre's wanted to watch us open presents, but they had to be into Nephi at Noon for more Christmas festivities   We got breakfast mostly cleaned up and then  got presents sorted so we could open them.

Ryan was so excited to open presents that he just couldn't even wait for his turn. 

Normally we each take a turn and open one gift at a time so we can see what everyone gets for gifts.  Jake was good about waiting, but Ryan just could not wait.  I was impatient with him so I just told him to open his gifts and be done with it so he did.

The boys loved all of their gifts.  Even baby Nielson got a gift from Grandpa and Grandma Mangelson this year.  They gave him some cute receiving blankets.  I forgot to take a picture of them though.

My mom and dad crashed after they opening presents.  You would've thought they had been up all night playing Santa but they weren't :)

Jake laid under the Christmas tree and played with his new sword.  He was so content under the tree.  I loved it! 

I moved to get a better picture and Jake got out from under the tree, gripes.

Jake got his punching gloves and went to town on dad.  It was pretty funny.  You can't really tell, but in the bottom right picture Jake is starting to get mad and trying to hit as hard as he can.  It was pretty funny.

Ryan really liked the train set that Kendrick got.  I think Ry played with it more than his own toys :)

We decided to get dressed and go to Oak City for a visit.  We left Levan around 2p.  The boys fell asleep as we were crossing the ridge.  They were pretty tired from all of the Christmas festivities.  

We made it to Oak City and were able to visit with Crandall and Guin.  The Clark's also came down so Ryan and Jake were able to play with Brody, Eliesia, and Muren.  

Crandall had made prime rib for dinner.  They made me a piece of chicken since I'm not a huge fan of prime rib :)  We also had garlic mashed potatoes and corn.  Dinner was really good.  Ryan loved the chicken and prime rib.  He had a whole piece of chicken and two servings of beef.  He doesn't care for potatoes or corn, but he definitely got full on meat.  He's a little carnivore.

We headed back to Levan to stay the night.  Charlie had Max and Katie so the kids played.  We played a few games of Blokus and then ended the night watching Polar Express.

We had a great Christmas this year.  I think the boys got a lot of fun new toys to play with.  We were able to spend time with family and really enjoy the holiday.

December 26, 2012

We woke up around the normal time this morning.  I had just went and used the restroom and came and laid back down for a minute when I heard Jake bawling.  I think he was nervous that Jim and I weren't there for some reason.  I went down and got him and let him snuggle with me and Jim for a minute.

We went downstairs after a few minutes.  Jake wanted a ride on Jim' shoulders so Jim did it. Turned out Jake had a massively full diaper and got pee all over Jim.  Hilarious.  We got the boys in the tub and dressed for the day first thing.  Jim also got showered and dressed, too.

We had another big breakfast this morning.  There was leftover pancake batter from yesterday so we decided to use it.  We made more hash browns and eggs, too.

After breakfast was done and cleaned up, we decided to clean up our Christmas junk and get the car packed.  It was starting to snow and wasn't supposed to let up today so we thought we better get on the road.

I got showered and dressed after we got everything packed up.  We had a quick game of "go fish" with the kids before we left.  Jake had a lot of fun playing it.  We learned that Ryan is a horrible game player and bawls if he doesn't get his way.  So annoying.

The boys fell asleep on the way home.  I was hungry when we got to Spanish Fork and knew we didn't have much to eat at home so we stopped at Jimmy John's and got us a sandwich.  We fed the boys noodles when we got home and got the car unpacked. The boys wanted to open all of the toys that we hadn't let them open in Levan :) Our house was a disaster in a matter of minutes.  Yikes!

The rest of the day, the boys played with toys and we just relaxed.  It was a great end to the day.

Merry Christmas {2012}

I loved the way our Christmas cards turned out this year.  Emilie always does an amazing job.  She's really good at helping with the decision making since I am super indecisive!

The only thing I wish I would've added was something about baby #3 coming February 2013.

We had our family pictures taken on October 4th so I was two days shy of being 23 weeks.

Anyway, we hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Gingerbread Cookies

We had to run to Shirley's Bakery in Provo today to pick up the rolls for the Jackson Family Christmas Party tomorrow.  They had gingerbread cookie kits.  I thought they looked fun and I knew my boys would like decorating the cookies so I bought 4 of the cookies and a tub of frosting.

We waited until later in the evening to decorate the cookies. Jake wasn't as interested in decorating them as Ryan was.

Ryan got right to work frosting his cookie.  Jake, he wasn't too hip on the idea and just wanted to be silly. 

Ryan still working hard; Jake still being silly, as usual. 

As soon as I decided to decorate a cookie, then Jake wanted it.  I let him decorate the cookie that I frosted. 

This is Ryan's finished product.  Doesn't it look delicious? :)

Temple Square Lights

We decided to take Ryan and Jake to Temple Square tonight to see the lights.  We left around 3p so I could run a few last minute errands before Christmas.  My errands didn't take as long as I thought so we were on our way up to Salt Lake around 4:30p.  The boys fell asleep on the ride up so we decided maybe we would get dinner before heading to see the lights.

We didn't have any ideas of where to eat; we're kind of burned out on our usual's.  I turned to the Urbanspoon app for help.  I found a place called Moochie's Meatballs downtown that sounded pretty good.  We decided to try it.

Moochie's turned out to be pretty tasty.  Ryan ate his entire sandwich.  Jake, my usual good eater, wouldn't eat anything.  We had to wake him up to go inside and I think he was still a bit tired and ornery.  The rest of us enjoyed dinner.

We headed to Temple Square as soon as we finished.  We were able to find a parking spot a couple blocks away.  We got the boys all bundled up and started walking to see the lights.  

Jake was struggling to keep up so Jim put him on his shoulders.  Then Ryan wanted to ride on my shoulders, but I just didn't think I could carry him like that so he was ticked.  As soon as we got to Temple Square, he was fine.

These were some of the first lights Ryan saw.  

He loves the color green so he had to go and see them up close.  I think this picture is so cute, too, 

Jake was cold, but he was happy to be on dad's shoulders. 

The temple looked beautiful all lit up. 

Jake loved the lights, but he hates to be cold so I knew he wouldn't last long. 

I love that he has his hands in his coat pockets.

Ryan had a blast running from place to place checking out all of the lights.

Thanks goodness it wasn't extremely busy so we could keep up with him.

Ryan spotted the Angel Moroni on top of the temple and was mesmerized by it.  I had the boys sit so I could take a picture of them with the temple and angel in the background.  This is as good as I could get though.

I think the boys enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful lights.  It was just a wee bit cold for Jake so we only stayed for about 45 minutes or so before we headed back to the car.  I was a bit cold, too, so I was fine heading home.

We had a great night together.

Gingerbread Houses at Preschool & Snow!

I signed up to help in Ryan's preschool class this afternoon.  They decorated gingerbread houses.  

I was glad that Miss Tiffany was doing this at school because it got me out of doing it at home :)

Ryan did really well decorating his house.  I was pretty pleased that he didn't make quite the mess that other kids were making, yikes.

 Ryan with his finished product.  I didn't get any pictures of him in the process of decorating his house because I was busy helping with the kids.

One of the kids in Ryan's class didn't come to school today so Jake was able to decorate a gingerbread house, too.  He ate more candy than he put on his house.  He was pretty proud of his house though.  Can you see the massive glob of frosting on his house kind of by his hand?  I have no idea what he was doing--maybe creating a snow pile or something.  It was a bit of a mess though because he got it all the way to the edge.

It has been snowing a lot the last couple of days.  It has been snowing pretty much all day today.  I actually got to wear my snow boots that I purchased two years ago for the first time today.

When Jim got home from work, he wanted to get some of the snow off of the driveway.  The boys were more than happy to go outside and help.

Ryan and Jake saw Jim knock some snow off of the tree so they had to do it, too. 

They actually shoveled snow.  It may have only been for about 30 seconds, but they did help. 

Just to show the amount of snow we've got in the last day.  Wow! 

The boys love playing in the snow. Jake doesn't last quite as long out in the cold as Ryan does, but he still likes to go out and play.  I'm glad we are getting snow. I just hope we get all that we need now so we don't have to have snow clear into May.