20 Week Bump Date

How Far Along: 20 Weeks Today!! 

(You can check out my 20 week post from when I was pregnant with Jackson here.)

Size of Baby: (According to babycenter.com) 20 weeks: Your baby is about the size of a banana. Your burgeoning baby now measures about 6 1/2 inches from head to bottom or 10 inches from head to heel, and weighs roughly 10 1/2 ounces.

Total Weight Gain/Loss: At 17 weeks I had gained 10 lbs total.

Maternity Clothes: Yes, all maternity clothes.

Gender: Its a GIRL! Still nameless, but I think we're narrowing it down. My husband really likes Peyton and I'm now leaning towards Lyla. The two names are names we both like, so it's just a matter of agreeing on one. I'd love to hear your favorite of the two. :-)

Movement: Yes, feeling movement. The movements seem to be getting stronger, but they are still few and far between.

Food Cravings: Nothing really at this point.

What I miss: Nothing really.

Sleep: Sleeping okay.

Symptoms: Just a growing belly and some slight sciatic nerve pain.

Best Moment this week: Getting some Christmas shopping done over the weekend.

What I am looking forward to: Coming up with a name, my next Dr. appt. a week from today and I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year!

5 on Friday

Yay for Friday!!!

 We sent out our Christmas Card earlier this week. I think it turned out so cute!

 I got the idea from this blog and used her steps for taking our picture. Then,  I ended up going with this template from walmart.com for our card.
(It is a much clearer picture in real life, but I can't seem to figure out a way to copy it from their website without it being a little blurry.)

We took Jackson to Santa's Magical Kingdom this past Monday night and we took a train ride through the lights! It was so fun. Jackson loved it and I think this may become an annual tradition.

We are done with our Christmas shopping for Jackson (other than a few stocking stuffers) and I'm also done with Jake! :-) We have a few more people to buy for, but I'm happy to at least have the major ones crossed off my list. Here are a few things we got Jackson. 

This will be his gift from Santa that we'll set up and have ready to go for him on Christmas morning. (He loves to color right now, so I thought this would be really fun for him. Plus it can turn into a chalkboard or a dry erase board. :-)

Jake picked up this cute little digital camera for Jackson all on his own. :-)

My nephew has one of these and loves it, so we got one for Jackson and a game to go along with it.

I really want to make this bunting for our living room. I have a similar, everyday bunting that is very similar to this and I'd love to make one to change out for Christmas.

Jake and I are having a hard time agreeing on a name, so I came up with a name poll earlier in the week and then we narrowed it down to this name poll. I'd love for you to vote and tell me which one you like the best. :-)

Baby Girl Name
	Harper Ashlee
	Avery Rose
	Hadley Renee
	Lyla Ashlee
	Peyton Ashlee
pollcode.com free polls

19 Week Bump Date

How Far Along: 19 Weeks + 2 days
(You can check out my 22 week post from when I was pregnant with Jackson here.)

Size of Baby: (According to babycenter.com) 19 weeks: Your baby is about the size of an heirloom tomato. Your tiny tomato now weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and is roughly 6 inches long from head to bottom.
{Baby Girl is actually a little bit bigger than this as she weighed 10 ozs. last week during our ultrasound. Hopefully this doesn't mean she's going to be bigger than her brother who weighed only 8 ozs. at our 18 week ultrasound and went on to weigh 8lbs. 12 ozs. at birth!}

Total Weight Gain/Loss: At my 16 week appt. I had gained 10 lbs total.

Maternity Clothes: Yes, all maternity clothes.

Gender: Its a GIRL!!

Movement: Yes, feeling movement more, but still not very often. I did feel her give me a few kicks Sunday night though, which was so cool.

Food Cravings: Still no real cravings.

What I miss: Nothing really.

Sleep: Sleeping okay.

Symptoms: Just a growing belly and some slight sciatic nerve pain.

Best Moment this week: Feeling those first few kicks.

What I am looking forward to: Coming up with a name for Baby Girl!

And because we're having such a hard time deciding on a name, I thought I'd add a poll here, with my favorite girl names, to see which ones you all like the best.

Baby Girl Names
	Harper
	Lilly
	Avery
	Savanna
	Hadley
	Ava
	Olivia
	Emma
	Lyla
pollcode.com free polls

A Storybook Photography Photo Session - The Fitzpatricks

A few weeks ago, before the frigid weather hit St. Louis, I had a session with my sweet blog friend Becky (Weezer Words of Wisdom) and her adorable family. Her kids are just so cute!! I had a lot of fun with this session! Here are some of our favorite photos from that day. :-)

 See... I told you they were cute! :-)

Christmas Pajama Party Link-Up

I'm linking up with Darci, Ashley, Jenny, Julie and Natasha for their Christmas Pajama Party Link-Up.

We happened to take our Christmas Card pictures this year in our pajamas, so before taking those, I got one of just Jackson in his Christmas Jammies! I wish I would have gotten a full body shot, but with a 2 year old, you have to take what you can get. ;-)

I'm hoping to get our Christmas Cards out today or tomorrow, so I'll have a post on that coming soon. :-)

Our 2013 Christmas Tree

This past Saturday, we went to our favorite little tree stand, that we've gone to every year since we got married, and picked out our 2013 Noble Fir.

Jackson went along with us for the second year, and though he was more interested in the playground at the daycare behind the tree stand than in picking out a Christmas Tree, we found a beautiful tree and even got a few cute pictures while we were there. I am so bummed though, because I had one of the men there take a family picture of us with our tree and when I got home and started looking through them on the computer, I accidentally deleted it off my memory stick. :-( It didn't go in to my recycle bin either, so I guess it's just gone forever. Oh well, I got some cute pictures of Jackson, so I guess that will have to do. 

I wish he was showing me the trees here, but he was wanting me to follow him to where we could see the playground. ;-)

Jackson checking out the little bit of snow that was on the ground that day.

Jake and Jackson watching the man trim the trunk and wrap up our tree for us.

We brought it home that day and set it up in a bucket of water in our garage over night and then we brought it in and decorated it Sunday evening. 

Jackson helping to decorate the tree. :-) BTW, this didn't last long, so I'm glad I got a picture when I did. ;-)

And our 2013 Christmas Tree all decorated. It smells oh so good and Jackson got excited when we turned the lights on this morning. :-)

A Visit with Santa

Before I get started, I first want to say a big Thank You to everyone who linked up with Holly and I yesterday for our Christmas Traditions Link-Up! I've loved reading all about your traditions and hope to comment on all of them today!

Now onto our trip to see Santa. :-) We took Jackson to see Santa last night at the mall. We've taken him there every year since he was born. It was a new Santa this year though and he was great! I had been talking up Santa with Jackson before we went and he was even saying HoHoHo when I woudl ask him what Santa says. Super cute!! So when we got there, Jake took Jackson right up to him and Jackson gave him a high five. We were thinking, oh good, he's going to do great again this year. However, it went down hill when Jake went to sit Jackson on Santa's lap. Jackson was not having it and actually got down and ran and got back in his stroller, Ha! I so wish I had gotten it on video.

So I stepped in and took Jackson back over to see Santa and he was not happy about it. So I got him a candy cane and sat next to Santa with Jackson on my lap and he calmed down when I showed him the candy. He was fine as long as I was holding him, but the moment I tried to set Jackson next to Santa and scooch out of the picture, it was all over. :-(

So needless to say, Jackson is sitting on my lap in this picture and they were able to get a couple shots of him where he's not crying. I tried leaning back out of the picture, but you can still see that he's clearly sitting on my lap. Ha. Oh well, at least we got a picture and have a fun little story to tell someday. :-)

As we were leaving, we told Jackson to say bye to Santa and he did say bye to him and waved. It was cute. He just didn't want to sit on his lap. ;-)

And because I always like a comparison. Here are all 3 Santa pictures side-to-side. :-) I just love seeing how he's grown each year.