Christmas Morning!

Merry Christmas! I love when Christmas falls on a Sunday, the program at church was so beautiful and it was our last Sunday at 12:30 church. Next week we switch to 9am, but it was fun to have Christmas morning, then all be able to get ready for church!

Santa definitely made it to our house this year! Leighton was so happy to see that he enjoyed his cookies and milk and the reindeer nibbled on all of their carrots! She loved all of her Santa gifts, but especially the guitar to play with Dad and the camera that Santa brought for her to take pictures with Mommy! She finally got to open the presents she's been eyeing under the tree from Idaho and bounced on a horse bouncing ball all around the house in her princess slippers (thanks Grandma and Grandpa)! We watched Christmas Story and Prep&Landing(one of our new favorites) and had tortilla soup(not too festive, but Jack's favorite!). It was such a fun Christmas to spend in our home here in Tennessee. We got to skype with Jack's family too, thank goodness for technology! Exhaustion caught up with us and Leighton got a little sick before bedtime, so that wasn't much fun... but luckily we had tons of fun new toys to keep our spirits bright! We all crashed after a fun day of playing, it was such a wonderful day!

Next year, Santa will be bringing some boy toys our way too! Merry Christmas 2011!

Merry Christmas!

We opted out of mailing Christmas cards this year with everything being a little busy at the end of the semester, but we do hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas today! We love all our family and friends, near and far! 2011 has been such a wonderful year for us with Jack's new job and our growing family. We are truly so grateful for all 2011 has blessed us with!

So Merry Christmas from our family to yours...and a Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve 2011

To start off Christmas Eve morning, we decorated our Gingerbread house. Leighton had so much fun and snuck a little sugar for breakfast... okay... a lot of sugar! Nevertheless, we made a 'sturdy' little house of treats and enjoyed the morning playing at my Mom's and relaxing!

That afternoon, we had a little party with my Mom and everyone to open some gifts and eat some treats. My mom spoiled us this year like always, but at least she got to save on shipping costs. This is the first year we have all been together for Christmas and I know it was really special to her to get to see Leighton open gifts. We missed the Maxfield's a lot and my Mom really wanted Jack to enjoy Christmas here, we appreciate all the extra measures she took to make Christmas wonderful! We are so lucky to have two very wonderful families and feel blessed from both of them, no matter where we spend the holidays (we got lots of surprises from Idaho and Utah this year too!). I think one of the things we will enjoy after grad school is being able to travel! We have so many wonderful people, we want to be able to see them all! Here are some pictures from Mom's house Christmas Eve!

That night, we were able to go spend time with my Dad's family at Charley and Happy's beautiful home for the Chandler Christmas Party. We were a little worried that Leighton would be shy since she was usually heading to bed at this time of the night, but she blew us away! In fact, I don't think Jack and I saw much of her the whole night except to open all of her awesome gifts! We got so spoiled at the party and the food was even better than I remembered! My Dad has become quite the chef! Leighton played with her cousins and they were so sweet to include her in everything and fight over her attention a little! I love how much she loves to see them and play with them! As the night went on, Leighton would sneak off and play with the dancing Santa... she danced her bum off! It was hilarious... Charley said he is leaving her the Santa in his will! I got to enjoy some of Granny Pam's chex mix, it's her Christmas special and usually Addison is sneaky and says she'll bring me mine...then it doesn't make it on the plane ride out! I don't blame her, it's amazing! Everyone was so good to us and we had such a great time!

After the party, we drove the 4 hours back to Tennessee and made it into our beds before Santa visited. It was a pretty exhausting trip, but the drive back was fun with Leighton watching movies and snoozing, and Jack and I listening to Christmas tunes and enjoying spending a Christmas Eve together. We were so glad he had the holidays off, one of the many blessings this Christmas season!

Over the River and Through the Woods, to Grandmother's House We Go....

This year the Christmas party at my Grandparent's house was Dec.23rd. It was SO MUCH FUN! There was tons of food...and tons more food...and every food you can think of! My Grandmother makes a feast for our family every Sunday, but our Christmas dinner could feed the masses...and she always has shrimp for me because I'm the favorite! (JK if anyone in the family is reading this...but really...Haha!) After dinner, Ginger and I planned 'Minute to Win It' games for all the kids and I think it was successful in organizing the chaos! Some of my favorites were "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" and "The Nutstacker" -- and thanks to Rachel for the live action pics!

For my grandparents this year, the whole family put together a scrapbook where each family got a couple of pages together and Tiawanna, Mom, Ginger, and Addison compiled them into a scrapbook. It was so sweet to see them read it and see all of the happiness that has come from the family they created. My grandparents are such great role models and we love them so much. I hope they enjoyed getting to look through it after the party.

With four new great-grandbabies this year, we'll probably have to update it for 2012 :)

Little Miracles

This morning Leighton kept putting her hand on my stomach and saying "Hey Bro-gan!"(she calls her baby brother Bro-gan...one of our recent favorite things!) and every time she did it, he would start kicking. It was so cute, she got really excited and when I tried to explain that was baby brother kicking, she would just start trying to tickle me. She is so funny and I love that she's usually a morning person! It sure makes up for my recent lack of sleep when she's giggling and keeping my exhaustion entertained!!

I love this little girl, she's going to make an awesome big sister!

(Jack got a little upset when I straightened her hair a little big ago...I know it's a no-no...but I love having a little gal who likes to dress up and do hair/make-up, so every once in a while we break the rules :] )

December Daddy-Daughter Date

For Jack and Leighton's daddy/daughter date in December they went to see the new Muppet movie. Leighton called it "The Muffets" and had so much fun! They came home singing all the songs and re-watching them on YouTube. Jack is the best daddy ever, he loves having his 'dates' with Leighton. I'll try to better at documenting them in 2012, I know she'll love seeing these when she's older!

Ugly Sweater Party

My friend Lorianne hosted an Ugly Sweater Christmas Party for the fun ladies in Relief Society and it was a blast! Here are a few pictures to commemorate the craziness :]

Me and Audrey before the party:

AnneMarie, me, and Lorianne with our Secret Santa gifts:

Some totally awesome ladies:

Classic goofy shot:

What a fun night!

Christmas Parade

I wanted to include some pictures from the Christmas Parade. It was Leighton's (and Jack's) first Christmas Parade because in Idaho if you had a parade in December, everyone would get pneumonia for Christmas. It was so fun to see Leighton run out and grab candy, not to mention the kids on either side of us were bringing Leighton candy because she was the smallest. She left with a huge bag of candy and goodies and talked about the parade the whole next day. I love this age, she is just so much fun and full of excitement!

Bristol Speedway in Lights

Here in Tennessee, one of the big Christmas attractions is at the Nascar Motor Speedway in Bristol about 25 minutes away. They light up all the surrounding area and inside the track with huge light displays that you can drive through. Then you get to drive down on the track and in the middle is a carnival type area with rides. Our friends the Lufkin's and Shawver's(minus Cameron) were able to go with us. There was a bonfire where we all made s'mores and Leighton and the girls rode the train and merry go round. It was a blast! Leighton has LOVED seeing Christmas lights this year and they had every light display you can imagine, from toyland to aquariums to dinosaurs to the Nativity. A lot of the displays were also animated -- for example, Jack's hospital group did a display where Santa takes an unfortunate fall off the roof while delivering gifts... get it - because they're a hospital... HA... Okay, so it was a little corny!

And of course there were a few Redneck Santas :] We'll be going back here next year for sure!

Oh, Christmas Tree!

We kept up our tradition of decorating the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving again this year. Mom was awesome and let us steal one of their extra trees from the attic. It is 7 1/2 feet -- definitely an upgrade from our Charlie Brown tree in the trailer. It was so much fun to see Leighton get excited about putting ornaments on this year! We let her choose where to put them and she did a great job! This is one of our favorite ways to kick off the season and then we relax and watch Christmas movies and drink peppermint hot chocolate :)

Catch-Up on November!

Happy Thanksgiving 2011!

November passed so quickly, I just wanted to summarize some of the fun stuff we did after Leighton's surgery.

Jack got to visit Idaho and although he had a lot of clinicals(and didn't take pictures!), he did get to see his family after 6 months out East. Leighton and I were sad to miss it, but we're glad Jack was able to see his brothers and sister and their families! We're hoping to make a visit this summer after baby boy arrives and gets settled in. We sure miss them, especially around the holidays!

Leighton and I were able to go visit SC for her cousin Hunter's birthday party! Hunter and Leighton are about 6 months apart and are so cute together lately, as they're both talking so much more. Hunter loves Thomas the Train, so here is a picture of him(left) playing with some of his cool birthday toys with our other cousin Andrew.

We also got to go back for Thanksgiving and I didn't snap enough pictures, but I love this one of Ethan and his fiancee and my long-time friend, Rachel. They are so sweet to each other, I love that we get to see them so much since we moved here.

Another fun past-time of November is Leighton's obsession with Papa's music room. Leighton has inherited Jack and my love of music and Papa Joey lets Leighton sing all day when we visit. She has such a blast...and then passes out with Jammin' (her nickname for my Mom).

Leighton also loves playing football with her cousins! My mom is such a good sport and teaches the kids fun games and Leighton loves hanging out with the boys (who are also good sports when she doesn't understand all the rules yet).

Jack also started his new job in November and is really enjoying it (and is excited to buy some new scrubs that aren't "galaxy blue" --the required color at Johnson City Medical. Ha!). We are so proud of him for getting the ICU job and working hard towards his goals!

We've got a future soccer star!

Yesterday marked 22 weeks 5 days in my pregnancy and Jack got to feel our little guy kicking around and squirming! I have been feeling this kiddo move around since 14 weeks, but every time I try to show Jack he would stop moving or move to the other side of my stomach. We were both so excited for that he finally got to feel the kicks too. This baby is definitely more active in the beginning than Leighton was. I started to feel her move for the first time around 20 weeks and still didn't know if that was her moving or other bodily stuff. But baby boy moves the whole time I'm awake and a lot at night too. Especially after I eat or when I'm trying to relax, I'm so happy that he's so active and present. We just love him already and can't wait to meet him, but he can stay in there as long as he wants, we're patient!

Catch-Up on October!

Leighton hanging out with Mom before Preschool - October 2011

The surgery kind of put life and blogging on hold and we are all so glad it is over, as well as Jack being away for the week and life is getting back to our normal routine!

October came and went and I still have so much to catch up on (like the whole month of November..ha) but here is October, all the same!

We were able to travel down to South Carolina for my Grandaddy's surprise 75th birthday party! It was so much fun! Leighton got to play with all her cousins and she and Hunter had fun feeding Grandaddy all the yummy food! These two kiddos sure got into the potato chips, every time I came back over Leighton asked me for another "sour chip!"(salt and vinegar) My cousin Ginger and I had to sneak a prego picture and she spent most of the party resting...then only a few days later Ellie Pearl arrived at 36 weeks. Ellie wanted to party too!

Then back in Tennessee, my friend AnneMarie's dad plays at Atlanta Bread each week and the girls got to play and have dinner together. It was really fun, I want to take Jack back to hear the "One Man Band" sometime!

Then on October 21st, one of my best Tennessee galpals Audrey's second daughter was born. She was so sweet to let Leighton and I come visit her. Charlotte Marie Shawver is so beautiful, we just love her already! It's crazy that Audrey had been pregnant the whole time I'd known her... and now you can't tell that she had a baby a month ago! Go girl!

We also had the opportunity to go to Leighton's cousin Cole's birthday at Monkey Joe's in Columbia, SC. It was a blast! I wish I could've gotten more pictures of the birthday boy...but it was so cute when he got our other cousin Will to sit in the birthday chair with him. I love how close they are! Will's big sister Maddie was so sweet to take Leighton on all the big slides! She was such a good sport! We also got to meet Cole's new little brother Cooper. Our family is growing so much this year! My cousin Audrey is due in December and then we're due in March. I'm so glad they will all be so close in age! Thanks for inviting us to your party Cole! We love being close enough that we can drive down for family parties!

Here is a picture from my 25th birthday. Jack had to work on the actual day, but Leighton and I got all matchy-matchy for church. We wore sparkle shoes and blue and white and had a really great Sunday watching the Primary program together. I love having my sweet little Leighton, we have so much fun together! Then Jack more than made it up to me with awesome gifts and dinners and movies... I got pretty spoiled!

And finally Halloween -- which was so much fun, despite how crazy we look in the pictures! There are funny stories behind these...but they were funnier if you were there... so just take my word for it! We also got to take Leighton to trunk-or-treat and to the hospital for Jack's co-workers to see her costume. I love Halloween, it's a good time!