Easter

I guess I'm a little out of order now, posting about Abbie's birthday before Easter, there's a first time for everything, right?

Either way, March 31st we celebrated Easter and enjoyed our first time around with two kids. Last Easter I was 4 days away from having Abbie! It's crazy how much has changed since then, our family is so much more fun with Abbie in it :)

On "Easter Eve" we had Jackson's friend David over for a play date, they had fun going on Easter egg hunts together. They would take turn hiding the eggs and the other one would go search. This reminded me of what Paige, Michael and I did when we were younger, "practicing for Easter." Jackson went on a neighborhood egg hunt that morning so he was excited for the bunny to come to his house the next day. We also died eggs with the boys and they had lots of fun!

Jackson would always "guide" David...

Dying Eggs!

 And luckily for Jackson, the Easter Bunny did come to our house! Both kids had lots of fun looking at their baskets! They both got cute swim suits, books, candy, toys and the movie Wreck it Ralph which Jackson now loves!

What, mom? Now we get to look for more eggs??

Can you spy the egg on the baby stroller? It took Jackson a minute...

Abbie was totally with it, pretty pro for her first Easter :)

Jackson spotted this one pretty quick and thought it was so silly that the bunny hopped up there!

Finding more eggs outside!

Jackson loved his new magnifying glass the best!

Letting Abbie try her first Jelly Bean!

Taking a picture with these two was nearly impossible.

They are pretty cute though :)

The day got crazy from there! Tyler had meetings, I put Abbie down for a nap, and (as normal) then had to wake her up to make it to 11 am church on time. We took the pictures right before Abbie's nap and Jackson was more interested in complaining about his new shorts (which he now wears just fine) and throwing the Easter Grass to look at the camera. Then after church we cleaned up our house and got ready to host 3 other families for a big Easter dinner. I got off way easy and just made the potatoes and a fruit salad. The Carters, Mullins, and Beverlys came by with our combined 11 kids 5 and under. It was a little crazy with that many kids, Abbie was the youngest so they were all mobile! But the adults did get to sit around and talk for the majority of the evening which was not expected! But having 19 people in your house can be a little loud. We had the movie "The Testament" playing on tv for the kids and it was fun to see the older ones explaining what they knew about Jesus and his resurrection.

And did we take any pictures of the whole group? Of course not, that would have been too smart!

Just kidding, I just found this one that Tyler took. All the boys (three 5 year olds and Jackson) had fun shooting hoops for an hour or more! The 7 girls had fun playing with the few girl toys we have in the house :)

 

My One-Year-Old Girl!

I just put my one-year-old baby to sleep. Are you allowed to say "one-year-old baby" as a phrase? She still is my baby even though babycenter.com will now send me emails stating "your toddler this week." Either way, my girl had a birthday today and I can't believe how old she is! March and April will always be a fun time for us with Jackson's birthday, Easter & Abbie's birthday all within a month. I recently realized Abbie will actually turn 8 on Easter Sunday, so that will be super neat.

But today she turned one and we had a great day celebrating her. Tyler was out of town, sadly, so it was just my kids and I. At first Jackson wasn't so sure about Abbie having a birthday, because of course he wanted it to be HIS birthday. But this morning he was so cute with her and when he saw all the balloons he couldn't care less that they were pink and on her door and high chair this time instead.

She was born at 8 am but she slept in today til 9, a great bday present for mom except Jackson was up at 7:30. But as soon as she woke up we went upstairs and threw some more balloons in her crib. She was so happy and loved seeing all the balloons on her door as well. I was surprised at how sweet Jackson was to her. "It's your birthday Abbie! Happy Birthday Abbie!" over and over. She had been crying before we got in the room but she did not cry for the rest of the morning. She hardly cried all day! I hadn't even gotten her out of the crib yet and noticed Jackson went downstairs but before I knew it he was back in the room with one of her presents. "Here Abbie, open your presents!" Once he realized most of her presents were shoes and clothes he didn't mind letting her have them. I did have one toy for him to open to, so that helped I think.

Loving her balloon wake-up call.

Didn't even plan her matching jammies :)

Thank you Nana for the adorable shoes, the present Jackson brought up!

For breakfast she had a birthday donut which she absolutely loved! But she made quite a mess of herself. Wow that girl gets messy, she loves wiping her hands all over her hair and eyes just to make it that much more fun to clean up. This time she needed a morning bath for sure. She played around a little in the morning before having a quick nap. Then we headed to Jackson's swimming lesson at noon.

Birthday girl!

The "before" shot

Just getting started

When all was said and done.

She immediately tried putting on her new clothes, something Jackson would never do!

Jackson "helped" her open most of her presents!

Happy girl!

Today Jackson had to get in the pool wearing clothes and shoes to simulate what it would feel like to drown and to ensure he can still float and swim with all that heavy stuff on him. He did NOT want to go swimming with shoes but he did so great and as soon as the clothes were off he did so well. He loves swimming so much and has already improved a ton!

Abbie was too engrossed in her book to notice Jackson screaming about swimming in shoes

After swimming we met some friends at Chick-fil-a for lunch! Abbie's friends Colin & Allie were there (both just 2 months older) and her little friend Paris came at the end too. She sat in her high chair for well over an hour and was so great. She loved her grilled chicken nuggets, fruit, and she got sips of chocolate milk and lemonade. She also had their waffle fries for the first time and loved them! And of course we ended off the lunch with an ice cream cup which she and Jackson shared somewhat willingly but it was gone pretty quick :)

With Colin, baby date

I caught her flirting with the people at the other table

Home for afternoon naps and then a chill day at our house this evening. We went to the park after dinner so Abbie could swing and check out the dogs at the dog park. The girl LOVES animals, especially dogs. I just put her to bed and honestly she has been an angel all day.

Before her nap

  

When did she get so big?

I love this little girl so much!

She is such a good little girl. She puts up with a lot from her older brother, so she is super easy going. Finally she is starting to sleep better at night. We're not all the way there yet but it's been a vast improvement since the bad habits she got into at Christmas time. Now on her good nights she will go to bed around 8:30 and sleep til 6 am when I'll nurse her and then she'll sleep for a couple more hours. I'm only nursing her twice a day usually now. Just at bedtime and that early morning time. I will probably be done in a month or so, just when Jackson finished too. She doesn't like bottles but will drink out of sippy cups very well. She loves her water and I'm trying not to giver her juice but she tends to steal sips of Jackson's whenever he has it. She is doing ok with milk but chocolate milk is the main way I'll get her to drink it right now.

She takes 2 naps a day, but can be flexible if we are out and about. She goes down for naps so easily. She cuddles up with her blanket and a binky in each hand and one in her mouth and hardly ever cries at naptime. I put her in her crib awake and she'll be asleep in a few minutes. She is also an expert at falling asleep in her carseat and in her stroller on Disney days. She LOVES Jackson even when he drags her around the floor and tries to wrestle her. She loves any attention he gives her. She loves animals and while she is not super vocal yet, she makes the same little sounds when she sees dogs, lizards, squirrels or birds outside.

She is not walking, I really thought she would be by now! Because of that and her lack of hair it is hard to look at her and think she's ONE? But she can crawl super fast and cruise around on furniture with ease. She has taken a few steps, her record is 8, but she has no interest in it. She could do it if she wants to, she just doesn't at this point!

She loves looking at books and playing with toys, especially ones that make music. Whenever she hears a song she starts bouncing and dancing. Her favorite things to do is climb up on things, especially Jackson's picnic table and hand things to people. All day long she hands me toys, books, food and gets such a kick out of it. She points all the time. If she wants something she points, if she sees something interesting she points. She doesn't do much whining or screaming. She's either happy and quite, happy and softly babbling, or crying.

We love our little beauty girl so much and can hardly believe it's been a year since she was born!

Jackson's 3rd Birthday

I still can't believe I have a three-year-old. But I'm so glad he's getting older, learning new things and having so much fun enjoying life :) I guess I already blogged about my emotions and his milestones at the age of 3, but here is what happened for his birthday this year!

The big day fell on a Sunday this year, and we had his party the Thursday before the weekend. I would have loved to have a little party on Saturday the day before, but that was actually Tyler's last day of his MBA program (which reminds me to post about that and upcoming graduation events later) But yeah, Tyler was at school as he was last year on Jackson's 2 year old Saturday birthday. For his 1 and 2 year old parties we had bigger parties at our house with parents and families that knew Jackson well. These were great, but I'm thinking that moving forward, for older birthdays we'll do just kids. I was hosting joy school on Thursday and decided to turn the school day into a party day. So we had joy school at the normal time and then turned it into a party inviting a few more friends over afterward. AND we combined the party with Jackson's good friend Maelie Carter. She and Jackson share the same birthday and since they're in joy school together it made sense for Courtney and I to combine forces on the party. Honestly she ended up doing a lot more work than I did!

We decided on an ice cream theme since it's fun and gender neutral :)

The Invite

The party in action

Courtney made the ice cream cone cupcakes and rice krispy treat favors

We had an ice cream bar outside

Even Dad got to be there for the party!

The kids after the party ended, minus Addie Brown who left early.

Maelie, Sarah, Taylor B., David, Taylor G. and Jackson

Thank goodness for David! His other close boyfriends all moved last year!

The birthday kids!

On his actual birthday, he woke up to a fun surprise at his door that is now going to show up sideways..

The boy was seriously spoiled by his Nana, Grammy & Mom, so we split the presents into two shifts. We opened some in the morning and some after his nap later in the day.

Proud to be THREE!

He was excited to come down and see the table of presents!

The first present he picked was Gordon the Tank Engine, he loves it!

That morning he opened his new trucks (he still loves his fire truck, cop car and ambulance best), and activity books. Normally Jackson loves donuts, but he wasn't so sure about this one. I guess he doesn't like the Long Johns so much? Or maybe he likes them more of a dessert than a breakfast, either way he prefferd a banana, just like the past two years *and every other breakfast of his solid food eating life*

 

The only pic I got in his church outfit, I promise he looked cute and I did do his hair at one point.

Just before the rain hit.

Something we should remember is the crrrazy rain storm that hit on his birthday, right as we were driving home from church. When we left church it was sprinkling and when we pulled into our neighborhood a full on tornado-like thunder-storm hit. Trees fell down all over the neighborhood, constuction debris was flying all over the road and Jackson and I were in the middle of it all. Since we had three cars at the time, I had to park in the driveway which means Jackson and I got absolutely soaked on the 3 second run into the garage. It literally looked like I had jumped in a pool. That wet. Luckily Tyler was able to park in the garage with Abbie since she was asleep through the whole thing and didn't get wet. But yeah, there is proof in the above picture that my hair was straight and down but it didn't last that way too long.

Luckily Jackson took a great nap during the rain storm and when he woke up we continued the celebrations. 

Playing with his earlier presents

Getting ready for more presents

Thanks aunt Paige for the cool Alligator Shirt!

 

He got this awesome new bedding set from Grammy and he immediately jumped on top of it

OH yeah and Abbie was there too, she always climbs up on this table when she wants attention, I guess she needed some that day :)

Playing with his new puzzles

 He got some great presents this year! Some cool puzzles, his bedroom set for his new big boy bed we'll set up in CT, play-dough pack, some cool clothes and awesome presents from his friends at the party too!

 While he might not have loved the donut he did eat his cake. And I didn't mention earlier but he loved these party hats I got for his party! He wore it every day for a week.

And one of the best presents was this awesome cape! Now we have a super hero in our family!

Chh Chh Chh Chh Chhanges!

It's nap time and both kids are sleeping. The house is somewhat clean, dinner is somewhat planned out and I'm feeling somewhat on top of my "to do list." When all these things align, I can blog!

OK so, where were we. Oh yes, we bought a house, sold a house and bought a van.

First, the most important and longest of the stories, we bought a house - We headed up to Connecticut March 16-18. It was dang cold but luckily no snow to deal with. The kids did pretty well on the flight. Actually Jackson did amazingly well, didn't make a fuss once and Abbie did just alright. She's getting harder and harder the older she gets! But when we got there we drove around for a little bit, got set up at our hotel and grabbed lunch at Panera. Tyler wanted me to feel as comfortable as possible so eating at a well-known and loved restaurant for lunch helped quite a bit.

The thing that is going to take a while to get used to is how old it all is. We're driving through Simsbury, CT and all the signs keep saying "established 1670" just to give you an idea. Also the suburbs west of Hartford are really rural feeling and there are trees everywhere. That's not really a bad thing, just going to take a while to get used to. Supposedly that town, Simsbury, is one of the best towns to live in and is well loved by all who live there. While driving through it I just kept waiting to see something that wowed me but it didn't happen. It's cute and quaint but I'm not quite sure why honestly it has such appeal? Maybe it will grow on me. Anyways, we ended up buying a house in a neighboring city but considered houses in several towns.

We looked at houses in Burlington, Canton, Avon, Simsbury &... I think that's it for this day but we also considered Granby, Weathersfield, and West Hartford. All the houses had pluses and minuses and I had looked at them so many times online before arriving, it was kinda weird actually being in the homes I had already memorized in my mind. We were looking at houses built or majorly renovated in the past 30 years (which limited our search dramatically). We wanted a good street or neighborhood (which also limited our search dramatically). Only one of the houses we looked at (the one we bought) had a sidewalk in the neighborhood. We were looking for a decent size yard, but small flat driveway that wouldn't be hard to maintain in winter time. All the houses we looked at were 4 bedrooms and all around the same size of our current house and in our price range, which was another huge limiting factor. Some had pools, but I really didn't want or need one with a pool because it would just sit there unused 10 months out of the year! With these restrictions we didn't have a ton of houses to choose from, but there were some pretty good options.

There were a few beautiful large homes with pools, but they were all a little more rural and would be a longer commute for Tyler to work and to get to the airport. There was a beautiful home with an out-of-this-world renovated kitchen, covered porch and huge bedrooms - but it was basically in the middle of a forest with no neighbors in sight. There was a smaller modest home in a cute neighborhood in Avon with a smaller kitchen, amazing basements and 4 rooms all upstairs. The price was much lower than any other house we were looking at also, so this is the house we chose! Another reason we chose this house is that we went to the ward on Sunday and connected with so many great people, it made us officially decide to make an offer.

While it's definitely not the most flashy on the outside or updated on the inside, it will be a perfect home for our family. The main level is much smaller than we're used to but that just means it will be easier to keep clean, right?? Also the kitchen is pretty outdated, so we are planning on redoing the appliances, counters and cabinets soon, which we're excited about! (Since the price was lower, we feel we can do this and have some fun with it) The four bedrooms upstairs are not huge but will fit our family with a guest bedroom for now, and have room for more kid(s) in the future :) The best part about the house in the basement. It's 700 square feet and I'm viewing it as kid central. I'm hoping to keep all the toys down there, we can have the train table there as well as future toys (I'm picturing a kitchen set, play house, easel, arts and crafts center) It will be great. We can also have an office space down there as well as a tv and couch hangout area. It will also be great to have guests stay down there when we have lots of people visiting or in a couple years when we don't have a guest bedroom anymore! The backyard is a large grassy area that is pretty flat compared to others we saw. It backs up to a forest which is kinda crazy but hopefully the kids don't venture off in there since it's blocked by some prickly bushes...

The house is very close to the major shopping area of the area - (almost too close, you drive through an ice cream shop parking lot to get in the neighborhood). It was a turn off at first, but eventually I've gotten used to the idea. Once you're back at the house you don't realize where you are.  Some of the houses we looked at were 10 minutes to a grocery store, this one is 1 mile or less from 3 or 4 stores. We've got all the major stores you could want within 5 minutes - other than Target, so sad! But all in all it's going to be a great house and a great little ward and we are excited!

Abbie looked too cute, waiting for our luggage in CT.

This is what I saw all weekend, a blur of trees from the car window. We were in the car A LOT!

Letting Jackson play at the Hartford library, downtown.

I realized I didn't take any pictures of myself on this trip, chilling with the kids while Tyler handed in our deposit check to the realtor.

Not the best pic, but here is our family after buying a house in CT!

Back in Florida and Jackson gets a turn in the stroller, that iPad saved our life that weekend.

OK the second thing to mention, we sold our house. It's been in the works for a while now but it officially is going down. We sold to our good friends Jon and Semra Eichelberger. We had always joked about them buying our house, or the house next door and how fun it would be to be neighbors. Right now they are renting a place a couple streets away and we love hanging out with them! So now they will be taking over our house and we can always come visit the place when we come back to Florida. We have been incredibly lucky in that the real estate market has gone up again here in Windermere. We bought at the lowest point of the market and now are selling at a bigger gain than we expected for only living here for 3 years. We have had multiple real estate agents, appraisers, and inspectors to our house these past weeks and now it's done and I'm just so glad we don't have to worry about listing our house and keeping it clean for showings!

And lastly, we bought a van! Wow never thought I'd end that sentence with an exclamation mark but it's a pretty sweet ride. We have to turn in Tyler's company car this week so we decided to just go for it when we found a van with the right price. Tyler negotiated like a champ and we got an amazing deal on a brand new 2013 gray Honda Odyssey.

When we got the car it had 1 mile on it, seriously. And just today it hit 200 miles, so we've driven it just a bit but I still need to read the owners manual to make sure I know how to use all its ammenities! It's got a leather seats, a tv/dvd player with wireless headphones, fridge, rear camera, automatic doors, wireless, a hard drive where we can store hundreds of songs from cds, and so much storage! I never thought I'd drive a van but what do you know. We looked at other cars, but after sitting in the van, the suvs just didn't compare inside!

And that about wraps it up! So we bought the house March 18, got the paperwork started to sell our house March 19, bought the car March 20, then I threw a birthday party for Jackson March 21. It was a busy week to say the least, but we are so incredibly blessed and excited for these changes ahead!

More about Jackson's Birthday, and Easter to come (soon hopefully)!