Icy cold

Winter has officially arrived here. Snow and ice blanket the ground outside our house, creating a beautiful backdrop. However, I don't have to go out in it, so I suppose it's more beautiful to me. Poor Jon though has to commute to Fort Worth and back. Luckily, when at its worst yesterday, his work allowed him to stay home, safe and warm. Luckily for me too, since I got to sleep in! It should ice more often!

Well our moving date is rapidly (and slowly) approaching...1 week from Saturday and then we'll be at our own place. Jon and I are both really excited and are counting down. I've been busy acquiring new furniture for the place, since Jack's arrival has us needing more storage. One of our new acquires includes a gift from Grandma Nelson: baby gates that interlock into a play yard, making a hexagon. It's so funny, when I put it up, both Jon and I said it looked like an Ultimate Fighting ring for babies! But what do you think?

(Jack's waiting for the next contender to challenge him! )

*Warning* This is really random: The other night while finishing up laundry, Jack helped me carry it back to our bedroom. See what a cute little helper he is!

An extremely interesting post:

So I feel like I have nothing really interesting nor funny to write about. I've been reading up on all my friends' blogs today and EVERYone has an attention-grabbing antecdote that's either hilarious or touching. Examples of such touching and hilarious antecdotes include babies being born and toddlers throwing basketballs in toilets. Want to hear my attention-grabber? I bought a recliner this week. Ooooo!!!! No really, it's exciting. It's brown and leather. No really, stay with me here. It has a red undertone! Okay, okay, but I bet you really want to hear that it'll really complement our couches, right? For those of you still reading, thank-you! And you are invited to visit whenever you feel like dropping by, and to take a load off in our new, comfy, brown (red undertoned) leather recliner! You may want to wait until February 18th though, since it will not be delivered until then. Now that's exciting!

Family Photos

About a month ago we decided to have professional pictures taken of our family, especially since Jack is just too cute to not document. As a surprise to family, we sent photos as Christmas presents, which was not only fun, but surprisingly stressful. Who knew it could be so difficult to choose which pictures to buy and which to leave by the way side. Below are some of my absolute favorite shots.He looks like he's trying to make an escape, I call it "Jack on the run!"

He smiles so easily, the whole photo shoot took less than 15 minutes.


I love this one because it captures his personality... spunk mixed in with a bit of mischief (notice he is pulling my hair)

Merry (belated) Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas, made even more magical because of our 8 month old Jack. Technically, Jack had 2 Christmases: 1 in Richardson and 1 in Midland. The Sunday prior to Christmas we opened presents with my parents, and took some awesome shots of Jack tearing (literally!) into the wrapping paper. It was quite the process of unwrapping. While holding Jack, my mom held the gift up for him to see and then he'd either eat it (yes, I said eat) or tear at it with his finger-claws. Then he had the wrapping paper immediately taken away from him (poor boy!) so he would not proceed to eat and swallow said wrapping paper. Lastly, his gift was opened in all its glory, AND....he ignored it, having eyes only for the cheap wrapping paper. Irony of ironies!

For "2nd Christmas," we went to Midland to visit with Jon's family. We had a very nice time and Jon's parents were super excited to play with Jack, despite his never-waning energy. In fact, Jon's dad was so worn out by Jack that he had to take a nap! When asked how I handled Jack every day, I commented I had NO idea! I'm still figuring that one out! Christmas morning was bright and early and Jack got to tear into more presents, and Daddy got more wonderful shots.
Jack got some great new toys including blocks, a dump truck, a toy for his car seat, and cute books. Despite our troubles in picking out just the right gifts for him, he decided to go after the black trash bag full of wrapping paper and ribbons, crying when it went away. Go figure. Oh well, at least we know he's not greedy!
Overall, it was a magical time for us and we can't wait for next Christmas when Jack will have a better idea of why we're making him rip open presents and then ignore the wonderful wrapping paper. Here is a shot of Jack with his Grandma Nelson, with his new dump truck (which he has played with by now).

Hello Fort Worth!

Merry Christmas all and Happy New Year's! It has been too long since our last post, apologies! So much has happened over the past few weeks; it's been an exciting and happy time for our family. First off, Jon received a job offer from an oil company out in Fort Worth and he is very happy. Although I think my parents are a little less than thrilled about us moving farther away. Case in point: upon telling my dad the good news about the job, he asked where it was located, to which Jon responded that it would be in Fort Worth. My dad remarked it would be quite the commute each day, not realizing our plans to move out there. When we told him our plans, he just got quiet and ever since has made passing comments about how he'll never see us anymore! Oh the drama! As if we'll be more than 45 minutes away. (It's not as if my 2 other sisters don't live across the country...) So our plans are to move January 31st to our new place. We found the perfect apartment. It was exactly what we wanted and I can't wait to make it our home. I'm probably annoying all the people around me, because it's all I can talk about lately! Stay tuned for the new address!