Jackson is 10 Weeks Old!

Jackson hit double digits this week by turning 10 weeks old. I can't believe how big he is getting. He's talking and smiling a lot more now. On Christmas eve he even gave us a little LOL!!! :-) I had his little puppy dog rattle and was making it kiss his cheeks and he laughed out loud, only once, but it was the best Christmas gift of all! Of course, since then, I've been trying to get him to do it again, but have had no success. He also made my day this past Tuesday when I walked in the door after work and said hi to him and he gave me a big smile! It melted my heart. He goes back to the Dr. in 2 weeks, i'm sure he's gained quite a bit of weight and has grown much longer in length since his last appt. at 6 weeks. He's still eating 6 ozs. every 4 hours and that seems to be working pretty well. He's also sleeping very well through the night, only waking up once and sometimes not waking up until I get up for work at 6!! He's such a sweet and happy baby.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

When Jake and I had our first married Christmas together, we decided to get a real Christmas tree. We wanted to actually go out to a farm and cut one down ourselves, so we found a farm online that was about an hour away from our house and we drove out there only to find that their trees were shorter than I am (5' 4"). Not exactly what we had in mind.

So we then decided to go to this cute little tree stand, right down the street from our house. This isn't your typical "parking lot" tree stand. They grow their own trees at a farm and even have some trees shipped all the way from Oregon and other parts of the country. Its run by a very sweet family that also have a pumpkin patch in the fall and sell flowers in the spring and summer. Needless to say, we've gone back there every year and we always get a Noble Fir. Its such a beautiful tree with a lovely scent.

I thought it would be fun, since this was our fifth Christmas together, to make a collage of all of our Christmas trees. I wanted to see the difference in them each year. You can tell the first year, we really underestimated the size tree we needed for our living room. Since that first year, we've always gotten a little bit bigger of a tree. Last year I even had to buy another strand of lights to go around it.

So I thought I would share our Christmas tree collage with you. Just something fun to look back on. :-)

Christmas 2011

Here are the rest of the pictures I took this Christmas.

Christmas Eve at our house with my Mom's side of the family.

Landon opening presents on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day at my Mother in Law's house. Between my husband and his 2 brothers and their families, there are 3 boys, their wives and then 9 children between all 3 boys. So there's always A LOT of presents.

My nephews Ethan and Jack and my niece Bella.

Our little family of 3 on Christmas day at my MIL's house.

My nieces Kyleigh and Alexis waiting to see whats in their stockings from Grandma.

Bella, Sophia and Ethan waiting to see whats in their stockings from Grandma.

 The kids opening their gifts.

Jackson with a bow on his head. :-) He was my best present of all this year.

Jackson with the pillow his Great Great Grandma Smith made for him.

Jackson enjoying his first Christmas.

Jackson trying out his new swing from Grandma.

My nephew Landon opening presents at my parents' house the day after Christmas.

My nephew Landon opening presents at my parents' house the day after Christmas.

Landon helping Jake open some of Jackson's gifts.

Cousins Mason and Jackson.

My little butter ball taking a Christmas nap.

Cousins Mason, Landon and Jackson in their new Christmas pj's from Maw Maw and Papa.

Jackson is 9 Weeks Old!

I'm very late posting this, especially since he's actually 10 weeks old today, but I did take the picture last week, just hadn't had time to edit it. Here is my big 9 week old baby boy. I just can't believe how big he is getting. He's already wearing some 6-9 month clothes!!!

A little video of Jackson

Jackson is really starting to smile and talk more and more each day. Last night I thought I'd try and get a little video of him talking. His favorite place in our house is on his changing table. I hung the comforter/quilt from his crib set on the wall next to his changing table and he just loves to look at and talk to the turtles and fish on it. So after changing his diaper last night, I thought I'd try and get a little video while he was in the "talking mood". Here's what I got.

Oh, How Pinteresting Wednesdays.

Here's what I'm loving on Pinterest this week.

 I really want to make something like this to hang in my home.

I'm thinking about making a collage wall in our living room, with lots of pictures and things that mean something to us as a family. I saw this on Pinterest just yesterday and thought it would be cool to try and make. She typed out the lyrics to the song that was playing during their first dance at their wedding, then she cut it out in the shape of a tree, (which I could do using my cricut). She then added the 2 hearts and in another picture I saw, she added the couples initials to the hearts.

This is an example of a picture wall collage that I'd like to do in my living room. I have a bigger wall, so I'll probably add more to it.

I really love this quote.

I'd like to take all these pictures of Jackson and arrange them in a frame for our collage wall.

 This is something else I thought would be cool in a frame for our wall.

Christmas

I hope you all had a great Christmas. We certainly did. :-)  It was a great weekend spent with friends and family.

I took lots of pictures, but I forgot my memory stick at home this morning. So I'll post a few that we took Christmas day at church that I've already uploaded to Facebook. I'll try and post the rest later this week.

The set from our church Christmas musical was still up on Christmas morning, so we took a few pictures sitting on the couch. Landon, Mason and Jackson all had their Christmas red on. They looked so cute.

Jake, Jackson and I at church on Christmas morning.

Jackson, Landon and Mason. (Jackson slept through our little photo shoot.)

Maw Maw an Papa (My parents) with their grand-babies.

Jackson at church on Christmas morning. :-)

Our 2011 Christmas Card

Christmas Plans

I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year because I received the best present of all...

... this sweet baby boy. :-)

Christmas for us this year, starts on Christmas Eve with my Mom's side of the family. Every year we spend Christmas Eve with my parents, my Mom's parents, my sister and her family and then my Mom's 2 brothers and their families. We all take turns hosting it. I chose to host it this year. :-) It will be a bittersweet Christmas Eve this year without Grammy here with us. This will be our first Christmas without her. It was sad decorating my tree and going through all the ornaments she had gotten for me the last few years. Last year she gave me an angel ornament that lights up. I decided to put it at the top of my tree to symbolize her looking down on us from heaven. I miss her so much and wish she was still here, but I know this will be her best Christmas ever because she gets to spend it with Jesus.

Then at 10:00 Christmas Eve night, we have a candle-light service at church that is always so beautiful.  I look forward to it every year.

With Christmas being on a Sunday this year, we have church Christmas morning at 10, and then we are spending the rest of the day at my Mother in Laws house. Jake's 2 brothers and their families will be there as well. We have 8 nieces and nephews on Jake's side of the family, so much of the day is spent opening gifts. We will also have lunch and play a game or two I'm sure.

Then we are all off work Monday, so thats when we are celebrating Christmas with my parents, sister and my sister's husband and kids. We have a tradition where we always fix breakfast food, no matter what time we end up getting together that year. So we'll be having our traditional breakfast at around noon. The kids will open their gifts and we decided the adults would buy $10 gift cards this year and play dirty Santa with them. We also plan to watch Its a Wonderful Life and play a game or two.

So those are our plans for this year. I'm really looking forward to the next few days spent with family. :-)

What are your Christmas plans for this year??

2011 Christmas Decorations

I'm a little behind in posting my Christmas decorations this year, but I've been sick with a sinus infection and double ear infection for the past 2 weeks and am finally feeling better. I also started back to work this week, so its taken me a couple days to get back into the swing of things here, (another blog post on that later).

We got our tree 2 weeks ago and with being sick and taking care of the baby, it took me about a week to finish my decorating. I just did a little at a time. Here are some pictures of our house all decorated for Christmas.  :-)

Our 2011 Smith Family Noble Fir.

The Christmas Tree all decorated.

The living room all decorated for Christmas.

 A close-up of the coffee table in the living room.

A close-up of the entertainment center in the living room.

Entry table in the living room.

Our dining room table decorated for Christmas.

The bakers rack in the dining room/kitchen.

The stove, decorated for Christmas.

All Smiles!!

Jackson has really started to smile more... and I'm loving it. Here are some pictures I took of him yesterday in his little Kansas City Chiefs jersey.

A cute little grin.

A little bit bigger smile.

Then my personal favorite... a great big smile!! :-) 

Jackson is 8 Weeks Old!

Jackson was 8 weeks old this past Thursday. So hard to believe he will be 2 months old on Tuesday. He's growing up too fast. I also go back to work next Tuesday, :-(  I'm not looking forward to that at all.