Merry Christmas...a day late :-)

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas. We have been enjoying spending time with our family in Branson Missouri. We are staying at Big Cedar Lodge. We are lucky that my parents, Justin’s parents, my sister and Justin’s sister and brother-in-law have all been able to be here. We are missing having Jack’s other Aunt and Uncle, but we will hopefully have an opportunity to see them soon.

Jack has been staying up late and I think he will be off his usual schedule for a while when we do get back to Dallas. He is having a blast running around the condo and playing with all his relatives that he doesn’t get to see as often as he would like. He got some great new toys for Christmas and so did his parents 

Justin will have to be heading back to Dallas before us to get back to work, but Jack and I will be spending a few more days up here before heading back home on Thursday. We are going to spend our last few days before the New Year with Jack’s grandparents (both sets). This will probably be our last trip back up here to Springfield before the new baby arrives in March.

I know I have a lot of work ahead of me when I get home to prepare for our little girl before she comes. Hope that everyone has a great New Year’s Eve and I will post again next year!

Preparing for our Christmas trip

I have been pretty busy the past week. I only have a few spare minutes today because Jack is sleeping next to me on our bed. I am actually hoping he wakes up soon. He fell asleep when we were on our way back from a playgroup this morning (at 1:00) and is still sleeping. I really though his hunger would get the best of him since he hasn’t had lunch yet, but I guess he played really hard and he needs the sleep. I just hope that he is still tired when it comes to bedtime...

This will be our last play date for a while since we will be back in Missouri spending time with our family over the holiday. I am looking forward to seeing everyone and I can’t believe that Christmas has arrived so quickly. I am not looking forward to the colder weather that awaits us in Springfield and Branson. We’ve been spoiled the past few days with really warm weather. Today it got up to 80 degrees :-) I am excited to have some time to relax and for Jack to spend some quality time with people he doesn’t get the opportunity to see very often.

I hope that everyone has a great Christmas!

Christmas is just around the corner...

It is hard to believe that in just one week we will be down in Springfield for Christmas. I think the month of December has gone even faster than I thought it would. We have been keeping busy with playgroups and Jack’s weekly therapy appointments but over all we have had a nice month (so far). I was able to get our Christmas cards out this week and I finished all our shopping, so all I have left to do is to wrap the presents.

Jack is constantly surprising us with new words he knows and he is doing a better job at following directions. He still wanted to spend a majority of his time playing outside; luckily, it hasn’t been to cold here with most days falling into the 50’s. Yesterday we had a pleasant surprise with a 75-degree day, which we took advantage of by going to the park. I know that my friends back in the St Louis area have been dealing with cold temperatures and ice storms so I am thankful for not having to deal with that type of weather :-)

I have recently taken over the organizer position for the playgroup we joined back in August. It was on the verge of shutting down, so I decided that I would keep it going. We have made some great new friends through it and I didn’t want to see it go away. Luckily, the group has quite a few members and there are several co-organizers and assistant organizers to help with the daily responsibilities.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Just another Monday....

Today has been a busy day getting back into the swing of things. I was away for the weekend back in Springfield to visit my best friend Kristin and her daughter. We had a great time catching up and I miss her already. It has been to long since we had some time to hang out and I really hope I can keep it from being so long before the next time.

Jack and I have been busy running earns today. Once we got home, he has spent most of the time playing and tearing up the house. He finally got so tired he just passed out. He is still sleeping now, but unfortunately I will have to wake him up in about 20 minutes or he will never go to sleep tonight.

The weather here today isn’t very warm, but I must say it is warmer than it was while I was in Springfield. I am getting excited about our trip back up for Christmas but am a little scared of the weather we might face while we are there. My St. Louis friends got some snow and I know of several teacher friends who were luckily enough to have a snow day today. Those are always fun, especially before the holiday break.

I’m going to use the remainder of my free time to try to get some more Christmas cards addressed and written before I must attempt to wake Jack up. I am not looking forward to that task...I just hope he isn’t to upset with me :-)

Ready for the weekend.

Well, our busy week has finally ended and I am very excited to be heading off to Springfield tomorrow to have a fun weekend with my friend Kristin. I actually have my bag packed and the only things left I have to do is clean up the house and do a little laundry. December is almost half over and Christmas is approaching quickly. Jack enjoyed all his playgroups this week and last night I went with my friend Lindsey to see How the Grinch stole Christmas the musical. It was cute, but my luck of sitting next to a strange person reigns on. Luckily, this time it was just a loud/funny sounding laugh, but she did find practically everything they said funny. It was a fun girl’s night out.

I haven’t really written much about our newest addition who is on her way, but things there are coming along well. I am at 26 weeks now and it is hard to believe that in only about 3 months we will be a family of four. I don’t think it will sink in completely until she gets here, but we are going to start preparing more seriously after the holidays. I am looking forward to having another female in the house...now the teams will be even. :-)

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend!

Relaxing weekend...talking more!

I hope everyone had a nice weekend; our weekend was a big long lounge fest. We spend the weekend hanging out at home and doing a whole lot of nothing which was a great change of pace. We did have a monumental event happen (well monumental for us anyway). Justin was working on this all weekend and last night around 7 o’clock it finally happened. Justin got Jack to say “I Love You”!!! I know he doesn’t really understand the words he is saying, but it is still the best thing in the world to hear :-) He has started learning words by either hearing them spelled to him while looking at a book, or just verbally said to him (What can I say he loves letters). So now, when he hears the letters I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U spelled he says I love you. He then moves past the spelling stage, will repeat the phrase, and then eventually learns the name of an actual object/thing. He is making tremendous progress in the talking department. We are still working very hard at improving his receptive language (following directions and doing things upon request) and with him mimicking actions but we are moving in the right directions. He has come such a long way in the past year and I it seems that with everyday he is learning a new thing. So proud of my little man :-)

Today is our least busy day of the week and we are planning on getting out this morning, doing a little Christmas shopping, and hitting the grocery store, if he can stay awake for all that activity. Jack seems to enjoy getting up early on Monday mornings and really loves to fall asleep in the car, but we’ll see how far we get. The rest of the week, he has his usual appointments, along with a playgroup and I am going to be helping a new friend by watching her daughter one day. This little girl is riot and its fun to watch the two of them interact. I am going to have a mom’s night out with my friend Lindsey, we are going to go see The Grinch the musical in Dallas and I can’t wait I think it will be a great show.

The other thing I am looking forward to is my trip back to Springfield to see my best friend Kristin and her daughter Elise. We don’t get many opportunities to see each other since she lives in Florida and now we live in Texas. The last time I saw them was last Christmas, so I am so excited to get to spend the weekend hanging out with her and her daughter.
I hope to have a chance to post again before the weekend arrives, but this week’s schedule is full so we will have to wait and see. Hope everyone enjoys there week.

I want to wish my mother-in-law and father-in-law a Happy Anniversary today!

Happy it's Friday!

So glad that I can finally say its Friday, I am so ready for the weekend. We have had a great week but the second half of the week was pretty busy. Yesterday, Jack’s speech therapist came to work with him and right after that ended we hosted this week’s playgroup. It was fun we had eight moms and eight kids so it was a full house (felt really full since we have the Christmas tree up which takes up some of the living room space). Jack was not in the best mood when it started but by the end, he was better. We had one of the mom’s and her daughter stay after to have lunch and he was funny when it was just the two of them. She kept taking things from him and he would want them back, but as soon as he got it, he wanted to give them back. She kept telling him “no, I don’t want it anymore” and he just proceeded to chase her around the house trying to get her to take whatever it was he wanted her to finally have.

Today we met up with our friends Lindsey and Lila to do a little shopping at the outlet mall, but we didn’t really find anything we needed. Lindsey did get some cute things for Lila and for her nieces and nephews.

Justin has his work Christmas party that he will be going to later tonight and I am hoping that Jack goes to bed early (since he hasn’t napped). I plan on enjoying the evening with a little TV...I hope I have something DVR’ed to watch. I am sure I can find something to watch that Justin would not want to see.

Hope everyone gets to enjoy their weekend.

25 days till Christmas!

Today is the first day of December and I am really excited this year. I think last year with the house being completely in boxes and Justin already working here in Dallas made it a little hard to get into the holiday spirit, but this year I’m ready for Christmas! We have a busy month ahead of us already and we decorated the house the weekend before Thanksgiving (because we knew we were going to be out of town).

Today I am going to bake some cookies for our playgroup tomorrow and start cleaning up the house so it doesn’t look completely destroyed. Luckily, I got most of the laundry done yesterday so I can focus on the areas that people will actually see.

Jack is finally feeling back to normal after having a little touch of a stomach virus that reared its ugly head at the toys r us last weekend. However, he is back to his normal tricks of wanting to play outside, destroying the house and eat everything he can get his hands on. He is doing really well with learning new words and he likes to say the phrase “Elmo’s World” when you sing him the Elmo World song.

We have plans to have lunch with a friend from playgroup tomorrow afternoon (after playgroup ends) and we are looking forward to doing a little shopping with Lindsey and Lila Friday afternoon. This week started slow but it seems the second half is going to fly. Hope everyone else is ready to enjoy his or her December!