Update on Abbie

Before I forget everything, I need to do an update on the kids. Abbie at 21 months-ish OK so Abbie at 21-22 months.

Abigail

She really started talking over the holidays and now can say just about anything she wants to say. She went into the holidays just knowing a few animal names but most all of their sounds. Now she says the animal names from dog & cat to giraffe & elephant. She still is an animal lover.

and she's a chocolate lover :)

 She also learned her colors. All of a sudden she can name and identify objects that are red, blue, yellow, green, pink, purple, orange, black, and white. We've also learned that she loves purple. It started in Utah that she would prefer to use the purple spoon, or plate at meal time and now she has her favorite purple socks and bows. She now has opinions on what she wears which makes things interesting. I can normally get her to wear whatever but she'll put up a fight some days. I will let her pick out her own bow every day. We rotate between purple, pink and sometimes red.

Abbie loves Elmo, and I guess the feeling is mutual

 She loves the Alphabet, she will sing along with the song and knows parts of it. It pretty much sounds like A B C ......G! .....P!....S!...V,W,X,Z! now.. know ...Cs ...with me! OK Yeah I should insert a video of her singing it here. It's on my to-do-list :) She can identify a few of them, A, J, M, & W consistently. She is learning shapes, circle, triangle, heart, star, and working on the rest.

Jackson's example has helped her to learn so quickly

She has gotten amazing at puzzles and its her new favorite toy. While she used to be (and still is) our little book reader, now puzzles are climbing the ranks. She plays with puzzles and books more than toys for sure. She can quickly figure out new peg puzzles and now has started doing basic 9 and 12 piece puzzles. She can memorize them and then do them easily. We have 4 of these puzzles that she does over and over. She also loves her two Alphabet puzzles and has those about memorized too. We just need to work on getting the letters the right way sometimes.

She is still an amazing sleeper! She'll take a 2-2 1/2 hour nap and sleep 12 hours at night. She rarely wakes up early. She still goes to bed without a fight and loves cuddling up with her blanket and binkies. The only time she gets them (or wants them actually) is in her crib and I think we'll phase out around the time baby comes around.

She's getting to be a pickier eater. Dairy is her favorite food group, cheese and yogurts are some of her favorites. But sometimes she'll even refuse fruit which is crazy to me since it's Jackson's favorite food group. I have started feeding her baby food pouches again and she'll still devour those! She would prefer a spinach/pear pouch than pear slices - silly girl. But at least I can get her to eat veggies that way!

She is such a sweet girl and has completely melted our hearts! But oh she can be drama. She has become even more of a mama's girl lately, I don't know if it's because I'm pregnant and she senses times are a-changing or what, but it's gotten ridiculous. She had been getting better about it, and now its gotten bad again.

This face...

If I had a dollar for every time she said, "mama hold you" during the day I'd be getting a mani/pedi every night. Literally. Especially when I'm in the kitchen or bathroom so yeah I end up setting her on the counter next to me a lot and she'll sometimes be satisfied with that and other times keep wanting to be held. I used to be able to go upstairs for a few minutes and she'd be fine downstairs with Jackson but now she freaks out if I leave whatever story of the house she's on and will notice immediately and start heading up the stairs crying. Oh and now she has refused to climb downstairs. She can do it just fine, but just will scream "mama hold you" and sit at the top. I normally don't have the time so I just carry her but occasionally I'll force her to at least climb half alone but it is such an event.

I was trying to go outside to shovel the driveway but of course she wouldn't let me...

She loves her brother so much and if he asks her nicely for a toy or book she's holding, she'll hand it to him 99% of the time. I wish it went both ways :) But oh their relationship is so stinkin cute and one of my favorite things as a mother.

They love each other

And she also loves and talks about her best friend Alice all the time!

Her new love, the kitchen! "What you want mama? Hot dog and Orange Juice?"

There are a few different friends who we've left Abbie with, the Pulleys, Rawcliffes, Holbrooks, Morris'. And it's always such a scene when we leave. She screams and won't leave my lap until I force her off and pretty much run out the door feeling awful. I normally get a text 2 minutes later. Abbie is totally fine, happy, laughing and playing with toys! That little teaser, kills me every time but she really does great in nursery and at play dates other than that initial drop off.

She is our little princess and we're loving our time with her as our youngest :)

January in CT

Seriously this has been depressing looking back and realizing how little actually happened this month! I was sickish, the weather was brutally cold, but our kids were happy and cute. Jackson finally got to go back to preschool and his teacher and classmates were so excited to see him again! Abbie has gotten back in her play dates with Alice, her best friend who she talks about multiple times a day. We went to the different town libraries, several trips to the pet store, and played with friends from church this month. But we pretty much stayed close to home and bundled up!

When we got back, our flight landed at 11 pm on a Saturday night. The kids barely slept at all before we got home at midnight. And then we had church the next morning at 9 am and it was Jackson's first day of Sunbeams! Tyler drove to church early for meetings but the kids and I slept in. Remember, we are going on a two hour time difference too so we really slept in. I woke them up at 9:30 and we rushed to get there just in time for primary to start.

Jackson wasn't cranky but just so tired that it was actually a good thing because he was perfectly well behaved in his class! Since I'm in primary too I got to watch him in there and it was so fun to see him. He liked being in with the other big kids and sat still in his chair. The other 3 kids in his class are all much younger, having just turned 3 in the fall so Jackson definitely won the best behaved award. He was just fine sitting in his chair during sharing and singing time and was excited to follow his teacher and head to his class. He smiled as he waved goodbye to me as I stayed in the primary room.

Tyler snuck a pic through the door window of his little class wearing their crowns.

Giving Abbie a make over

A doll or stuffed animal accompanies Abbie to all meals now

They love their new bean bag animals from Nana

These two are still the best of friends

Where I can be found most of the day...

She loves her new princess castle and fox shirt!

Bundled up, she insists on wearing her pink coat every day...

He loves candyland!

We checked out some puppets from the library

These kids are both puzzle pros.

Tyler took 2 quick trips down to NYC, who plans a trade show there in January?

This boy sure loves getting creative with his legos!

Baby Number Three!

We've got exciting news in the Jennings House!! Jackson & Abbie are excited to get a new sibling in the family! We are a baby and I'm due on August 25th!

Will it be another one of these...

or these

I found out that I was pregnant right before we flew home for the holidays! So we were able to tell both of our families for Christmas :)

This was the first time I found out I was pregnant alone, both other times Tyler was with me when I took the test. This time I found out during nap/quiet time so I had a few hours before he came home from work to let it sink into my mind. I wasn't sure how to even tell him but at the last minute I put a leftover roll/bun in the oven and had Tyler look inside when he got home from work. Hoping he'd get the "there's a bun in the oven" line, luckily he did. Not the most creative in the world but I was just rolling with it.

I'm now 15 weeks along and feeling pretty good overall. I had a couple tough weeks around 6-7 weeks along which also happened to be when we were visiting family. Just after the new year I started feeling sick at random times and food wasn't always agreeing with me. At this point I was thinking the baby was a boy because I had a much harder pregnancy with Jackson and this one was getting off to a rough start. But luckily, since being back in CT for January & February I made it through my first trimester just fine.

I went to the doctor a few days after we got back in town and had an ultrasound done which confirmed everything and set the due date at August 25 as I thought. It's going to be weird delivering at a new hospital with a different group of doctors, I really grew attached to the ones in Florida. Winnie Palmer Hospital is amazing and I'm already dreading the experience this time around. I just hope I don't have to share a room haha. I also got on my best friend Zofran for anti-nausea medication but luckily I haven't needed it every day. So far I really like the new doctor's group I've gone with. I went back in February and had another ultrasound which provided the cute little profile you see below.

13 weeks 4 days along, looking cute already :)

I still will feel icky in the mornings and I've taken a lot of afternoon naps while Abbie napped. Tyler has stepped up and helped a lot in the evenings and has made dinner quite a few times just because I didn't have the energy to do so. I've still been able to eat most everything but I've gotten another obsession with cheddar cheese (Just like Jackson's pregnancy) and crave salty foods or fresh fruits and vegetables (just like with both pregnancies).

So there have been some tougher moments and cheese cravings similar to Jackson's pregnancies but overall it's been much more similar to Abbie's pregnancy with occasional morning sickness and exhaustion throughout the day but overall normal eating and life could continue :) So I'm kind of torn as to the gender of this baby!!


We are so excited though! I told the kids pretty early on just because I was feeling sick in UT & AZ and wanted to explain why momma couldn't get off the couch. I'm not sure if Jackson caught on immediately and Abbie was obviously clueless but now they both are 100% aware that there is a baby in momma's tummy! Jackson mentions the baby often and is looking forward to tickling and playing with the baby. He says he'll share his toys with him or her. Abbie loves to give my tummy kisses and play peek-a-boo. Jackson gets excited when we see babies out and about now and I know he is so much more into it than he would have been a year ago. Abbie loves her baby dolls and rocks them to sleep and changes their diapers so she's always had the baby thing going. But she also likes to act like a baby still in many ways, so hopefully she can get that all out of her system in the next 6 months...  Jackson thinks its a boy and Abbie thinks its a girl. We'll find out on March 28th! Crazy to think we'll be a family of five and Tyler and I will be outnumbered!

One more week in Arizona

So I've done it again. I've gotten 2 months behind in blogging, dang-it. Well I was doing ok last month but apparently I didn't blog for an entire month which leads me to today... While now it is March (although there is still a foot of snow in my yard) I'm still getting caught up on our trip out west from Christmas time.

After a fun time in Utah, the kids and I headed back to Arizona to warm up for the week while Tyler traveled in the Pacific Northwest for work. He went to Seattle, Portland and San Francisco in a week. We took it very easy and hung out with Grammy, Grandad, & Steven in Mesa.

I was pretty scared for the flight by myself, not going to lie. I had been feeling sick all morning and Abbie had hardly much of a nap so this 4 pm flight scared me. It got even more alarming when Abbie screamed the whole drive to the airport...  BUT miraculously my kids didn't make a fuss or wimper the entire flight or even in the airport.

Luckily we had a empty seat next to us so Abbie was able to feel like a big girl.

Thanks to our Wendy's kids meal toy for entertaining Jackson for at least 30 minutes!

Couldn't have asked for better behaved kids!

I really have no pictures from the week. I got my hair done by the lovely Hillary, we went to parks, played outside, ate at chick-fil-a (twice), pei wei, and played with our Christmas presents we'd left. One big outing was a trip to the aquarium at Arizona Mills Mall. While Jackson was almost too excited while we were there and rushed through the whole thing, he really loved it and has talked about it every day in the weeks since. That was the one thing he was most excited to tell his preschool teacher about when he went back to school the next week. He also discovered the barracuda while there which is now one of his favorite animals. Abbie will most of the time say that her favorite animal is "fishies" so of course she loved it too :)

First time coloring my hair since April :/

Princess Abbie

Pants-less Jackson enjoying the warmth

Meanwhile Tyler had fun while traveling for work. He got to meet up with several friends in Oregon & Seattle. In Oregon he saw Tamara Battles & family and watched the NCAA title football game with the Wilsons. He also was able to go to the Nike Factory Store at their headquarters in Oregon and got amazing deals on shoes and workout clothes! He took a quick trip up to Seattle where he visited the U of Washington and was able to meet up with Reggie Woods. Then in the bay area he got to see Derek Anderson & Ty Morley. He's got a college buddy in every major city in the west and quite a few in the east I'd say haha. 

He had a quick layover in Phoenix which allowed him to come back to my parents house and help me pack all our presents in his bags! We almost fit all of them, my mom just had to ship one box with a couple big presents for the kids haha.

Missing me in San Fran :(

Showing his bag outside the store

Utah for the Holidays

The morning after Christmas we headed up to Utah to spend the rest of our holiday with the Jennings family! We actually flew the new Allegiant Airline - Mesa to Provo flight - which was a new experience. It wasn't necessarily closer to either of our parents houses but the price was right!

We woke up the kids and put them right in the car, Jackson thought it was so funny to be on an airplane in jammies. But when we got to Utah we were welcomed by Grandpa along with Great- Grandma & Grandpa Harline. Jackson and Grandpa picked up right where they left off..

When we got to their house (and every morning while we were there) we discovered there were some dinosaurs getting into trouble. This day they were on the counter eating some cereal, and then every morning Jackson would wake up so excited to see where the dinosaurs were. 

Those silly dinosaurs...

The trip was full of family, food and fun! It was pretty dang cold the whole time we were there and while there was snow on the ground, no new snow fell while we were there so we didn't play outside much at all.

The one night we bundled up we went to the SLC Temple lights with the whole crew!

Pretending that my teeth weren't chattering...

Jackson calls the SLC Temple the "Castle Temple"

Most of the time we spent in the Jennings warm house running around with cousins! Abbie & Norah had lots of fun playing this little piggy with grandma!

Abbie loves ring-around-the-Rosie!

Our own "Christmas Eve" Nativity

We had a blast at Airborne one evening

One night we all went out on a date and had some babysitters come watch the kids. We had amazing Thai food and then headed over to Target to buy the best thing for $5 then had a white elephant gift exchange. This bunny pajama onesie was the hit of the night.

Travis and Alise found the best prize of the night!

We LOVED getting to spend a couple days with Great-Grandma Jennings!

Singing songs as we put the kids to sleep

Most of the crew in Chipotle for New Years Eve

Jackson loved the building truck set he got for Christmas!

Our first trip to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple

We just had to make sure Abbie didn't eat all the cookie dough...

When things would get boring or the kids would get too rowdy, they'd make cookies with Grandma!

The three big kids :)

Probably the biggest hit of Christmas was the trampoline for upstairs!

The last couple days, before we left Utah, we spent up in SLC with Papa & Nana. I didn't take too many pictures since I forgot my camera and phone was full but we had lots of fun! We went out to dinner, lunch, a basketball game, and the hit was the Utah Natural History Museum aka dinosaurs!

While Jackson doesn't see them too often he always remembers and warms right up to his Papa and Nana. Abbie did great too and sat on both their laps and would go to them easily.

Jackson totally embraced the U of U cheers! He still occasionally yells GO UTAH!

Jackson kept stealing Papa's chair so Nana made it his own :)

 It was a great trip!! We are so lucky to have been able to spend so much time with all our family out there. We're already excited to go back again this summer :)