The Baby Bump

As requested, here is a picture of my baby bump. I am a just over 24 weeks here. I am acutally a little bit smaller than I was with Jackson at this point, at least I think so. Everything is going great this time around. However, I am already on medication to help stop my contractions they seem to come more and more each day unfortunately. But, I am hoping that we can hold off a little bit longer with the bedrest this go around, if not avoid it completely! Keep us in your prayers!

The Tale of the Coveted Pink Coat...

While plaing at Grandma Riggs one Sunday Jackson spotted his cousin Lily's too small pink winter coat. He couldn't get enough of it. It was love at first sight. He wore it everywhere at Grandma's house. Despite sweating from the heat and not being able to use his arms properly, he had an honest-to-goodness breaksown when we pried it off to go home for the day. Grandma said take it home, we'll get it later. At which point Lily decided that she needed the coat just as badly as Jackson and she needed it now! After a small bribe of ice cream she decided we could drive away, with coat in Jackson's arms. He found it every morning despite our efforts to hide it every night. For 5 days he could think of nothing else and we decided we needed to give it back to the rightful owner before Jackson has heat stroke ;) What a funny little boy! Hopefully he will be able to find more "manly" things to play with soon!

Playdate...

Jackson had one of his neighbor friends, Ryan Cullimore, over while his mom was out to an appointment. It was a great moment when I saw how nicely Jackson was sharing his toys and even better when they decided to actually play nicely together.
This lasted over 20 minutes taking turns pushing eachother around the place. What a great payday moment!

Fix It!

Jackson has learned the manly art of Fixing Things. He pulls me over to where the tools are and tell me that he needs to "fixit." After pulling many things out in hopes to understand what he is saying he points to the tiny screwdriver. Immediately he starts to "fix" all his toys by placing the screwdriver in all the plastic screw holes. He is very smart. John was so proud to see our son taking an interest in more boy-type things!

"Sand Box"

Jackson is starting to take interest in anything and everything messy. He loves playing in the sandbox and loves even more feeling sand in his hands. He got some new sand tools for Easter and we tried them out at the tetherball court in our condos. (Tetherball, who plays tetherball these day...I'm sure it was meant to be a sandbox for little kids!)
My mom stopped by just as we were on our way out, he loved showing my mom what to do.

What a cute little boy I have. He is acting like such a big kid these days. We will definately have to give the "sandbox" a try again.

Mother's Day Rewind...

We have both been blessed with amazing Mothers. We could never do enough to show our love and appreciation but we decided a homemade treat might be a good start. So, Jackson helped me make oversized heart shaped cookies for our mother's this year. He was especially helpful in pouring in premeasured ingredients, decorating the cookies with pink and green finger frosting and of couse licking the beaters. It was his first real chance to lick the beater by himself and he made sure to do a thorough job.

John decided to get in on the action and "help" his son out.

John and Jackson were swet and made me breakfast and gave me a cute little monkey frame with "My Monkeys" in it. John spoke in church and gave a really good talk, however, I hope that we get a break from speaking on holidays soon!

Can't believe that next year there will be 3 boys on Mother's Day.

Quick Getaway...

John and I decided that we needed---and earned----a quick getaway, after surviving busy season and before baby #2 comes along. We took a quick 4 day cruise through Carnival Cruises. We left from San Diego and stopped at Catalina, Ensenada and came back to San Diego. It was so nice to get to have my hubby all to myself. We had a blast exploring the ship, visiting with people aboard, seeing the shows and eating, eating, eating.

San Diego Port.

It was a really quick boarding process, they didn't mess around getting you aboard the ship. It was really awesome how smoothly everything went.

Carnival Elation

It was a huge ship, equipped with 9 holes of mini golf, a race track, ping pong, oversized chess, water slide, pool and hot tubs. Unfortunately it was too cold, for me, to take advatage of the pool and hot tub, but we never wanted for things to do and see.

John got pulled out of the crowd to "volunteer" in a hip hop dance of verses other unfortunate "volunteers."

I died laughing and to my happy amusement John's team schooled the other team. After which the professionals showed up the crowd and did some amazing stunts.

The dressy night out/night at sea. To my shock, I grew out of many of my regular clothes while on the trip and had to improvise many of the essential outfits and such. John got a good laugh at me trying to find clothes that would fit my ever expanding midsection.

Catalina, our first port.

It was my favorite port. We went on a glass bottome boat and saw SO many fish pressed together to eat, we couldn't get a good look at a single one of them!

We explored the island on foot and took in some of the many shops in the area too. I don't think I would mind visiting Catalina again, it was really beautiful.

Ensenada, our last port.

It was a smelly place, perhaps only enhanced by my sensitive pregnant nose. We just decided to wander around and find inexpensive toys to take home to Jackson. It really isn't that exciting of a place. I honestly don't know why it's even a port of call, but oh well. John and I enjoyed navagating the street and couldn't bring ourselves to bargin on prices due to the extreme poverty in that area.

Having armed military cruising the street didn't give me the warm and fuzzy feeling of safety that I think they were trying to project. We were glad to get back to the boat and hang out the rest of the day there.

I miss not having daily room service and meals provided, but am glad to be home with Jackson. I don't think he missed us at all. Grandma's houses always seem to have that effect. ;)

Here's to another unknown amount of time before John and I vacation alone again! But here's to many more fun memories!