Christmas

Jax figured out how to turn the lights on the tree on.

Me almost at 35 weeks

Growing up my family didn't do stockings - we had Santa boots. I wanted to keep the tradition so I made these for our family.

Christmas was wonderful. I first have to tell about Christmas Eve. The Garner's go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast every Christmas Eve, so ever since Dan and I started dating, I did this with them. We were so excited when we saw that Lubbock had a Cracker Barrel too so we kept the tradition going here in Texas. We woke up Christmas Eve morning and went to breakfast. We were SOOO excited when we saw that it was snowing! It doesn't snow much in Lubbock - but the fact that the 2nd snow of winter was on Christmas Eve made it feel more like Christmas to me! Breakfast was delicious! Jaxon really enjoyed his pancakes and he thought it was fun to "drink" the syrup (don't worry - the bottle wasn't open).

The unopened syrup bottle

Trying to drink it haha

My boys

Me and my handsome little guy

When we got home we watched a Christmas movie, played, then Jaxon went down for his nap and Dan and I finished wrapping gifts and started on the Christmas Eve dinner. We decided that since we couldn't go anywhere - we would make dinner special so we made Turkey and mashed potatoes with other delicious stuff. It was so yummy! After dinner we did our Christmas Eve things which consisted of opening the Koch shirts my grandparents sent us, the "P.J's" my parents gave us, and trying to read a Christmas story. The story didn't go so well - Jax didn't want to sit and listen to it - but it was fun anyway. Then after Jax went to bed Dan and I put out all our presents, and the presents my parents brought and the Garners sent and watched a Christmas movie and went to bed.

Watching a Christmas movie

Opening the Koch T-shirts... wonder what color they will be???

Yeah...blue!

Christmas morning Jax got up at his usual time of 7:15ish so I went out to see if Santa came and start filming while Dan went and got Jax. When Jax came out and saw his boot and stocking on the couch and all the presents around the tree - we thought for sure he would be so excited to start opening them... well he wasn't. He saw the the box of cereal he got as part of his boot and all he wanted to do was eat the cereal. HAHA - so we took a break, and ate cereal. He didn't really care about opening gifts - as soon as he would open one he just wanted to play with it or keep playing with a toy he had previously opened so after a while Dan and I just opened all our gifts while Jax played and then we helped him finish opening his. The last present we brought out was from my parents and we knew we had to keep it hidden until the end because once he saw it he wouldn't care about anything else... and we were right - as soon as Dan rolled his little "bike" out he dropped his other toys - yelled "BIKE" and didn't want to do anything but ride the bike. He got spoiled that is for sure - but what can you expect? He is the only grandchild on BOTH sides and our only child right now so its hard not to go a little crazy haha - but next year my parents will have 3 Grandkids and Jax will have a little sister so maybe it will be different.

All the presents except for what Santa brought

I am realizing now the downfall to having a camera that is our picture camera and our video camera... I recorded pretty much all of Christmas so I couldn't take any pictures during it. So we have a super long video of the entire thing - but only a couple of pictures at the end I took of Jax and his stuff. I didn't even get a family picture of all of us in our matching outfits :( boo. So I will remember this for next year and do pictures at the beginning of the family and then start recording.

Jaxon's gifts - we couldn't get him to get off the bike or hold still for the pictures so this is the best one we got haha 

Dan got an ipad, headphones, shirts, slippers, and a calendar I made for him of our family.
I got a sewing machine, Cricut, jewelry, scarf, hat, perfume, mani/pedi certificate, and a certificate for a professional to come deep clean before the baby comes hehe.
Jaxon got, a dinosaur train and all the characters, thomas the train - train tracks and trains, the tag reader and 5 books to go with it, markers and coloring pads, food/dishes for his little play kitchen, puzzles, activity dice, a car track with battery powered cars that go on it, dinosaurs, a bike, remote control car, and some other books.

I think that's all haha. We were very spoiled and blessed to have such a wonderful Christmas!

Merry Christmas

This is such a wonderful time of year. It's hard sometimes not to get caught up in gifts and the excitement of it all, but I hope we can all take time to remember what this time of year truly represents and should remind us of... our Savior. I have a quote up in my house that I love, it says

"The magic of Christmas is not in the presents, it's in HIS presence." 

May we all remember our Savior and his birth! Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

Grandma and Papa came - Jaxon met Santa

This past weekend we were so lucky to have my parents come visit. My mom has been here before but my dad hasn't so it was very nice to get to have them both here. With the arrival of baby girl garner fast approaching, we (well I) am not allowed to travel so we obviously are not able to go see our families for Christmas this year which was sad - but having my parents come made things better. They got here on Saturday and we gave them a tour of the Texas Tech Campus - showed them the temple and other things around Lubbock, and went to a nice Stake dinner that night. Sunday we all went to church, and then just had a nice relaxing day here at the house playing with Jaxon, talking, laughing, the guys talking politics which my mom and I finished my Christmas for the families. Monday we went to the mall so Jaxon could see Santa (which I will talk more about in a sec) - did some shopping - then my parents stayed with Jaxon so Dan and I could do a lunch date consisting of lunch and a movie (Sherlock Holmes 2) then my mom and I did a little more shopping - we all went out to dinner - and then watched a Christmas movie (Scrooge - my families tradition). Tuesday they woke up and had to drive back to San Antonio for my dad's company Christmas party so it was a short but VERY sweet visit. Jax was sooooo sad to see them leave, as were Dan and I. He loves them so much and it was so hard to see them go but my mom will be coming back when our baby arrives so that will be nice to have her here again!

I of coarse didn't take any pictures :( my mom did though so as soon as I get them from her I will have to post them - we got some pretty funny ones of Jax that is for sure!

Jaxon met Santa:
Jaxon knows who Santa is and he will say "ho ho ho" and pretend like he is Santa so I thought he was going to do just fine sitting on his lap. We talked about what he would tell Santa he wanted for Christmas (dinosaurs and trains) and he would get so excited to tell him. Well while in line he kept yelling "no Santa" so my mom and I explained it was all ok and had him watch some other kids get on his lap, smile for the picture, tell him what they wanted - and he seemed like he would be ok. NOPE - as soon as I tried to walk away he started crying. Who is this little boy? Jaxon is not afraid of strangers and goes up and will talk to pretty much anyone (which isn't good I know - we are working on it) so I thought he would be fine talking to someone he gets so excited about. Luckily - the people who built Santa's mall "workshop" put a VERY large chair so Santa suggested I sit with Jaxon on the chair which I did and we were able to get a picture and Jaxon was able to somewhat tell Santa what he wanted. The Santa at the South Plains Mall was actually a REALLY good one. All his facial hair was real and he was just the sweetest cutest man. I thought it was a little weird he wasn't in the normal Santa outfit (the red coat and stuff) but he was great! I will scan in the picture (horrid of me) so you can all see Jaxon's somewhat happy face while meeting Santa for the first time. Not exactly how I imagined it would go - but memorable and pretty funny none the less!

Listening to the spirit

Right now I am so grateful for the spirit, here is why:
-Found out we were pregnant on June 1, 2011 in Utah
-Saw my Dr. in Utah (Dr. Brown) for my first 3 visits - everything looked great to deliver just like I did with Jaxon.
-Came back to Lubbock and found a Family/OB Dr and started care with her - was told everything was not great, would need a C-section and lots of other weird things
-Kept feeling weird about the entire situation but did nothing about it
-FINALLY followed the prompting of the spirit at 34 weeks, called my doctor in Utah, told her everything and was told to go find a new doctor immediately.
-Despite many doctors saying they wouldn't see me because of how far along I was - found an experienced OBGYN, had an appointment and was told the same things my Utah Dr. had told me. Everything was fine and I can deliver vaginally.

My C-section was scheduled with the other doctor for January 19th. If I would not have followed the promptings of the spirit, I would have had an unnecessary C-section. I know there are worse things in the world than that, but I just feel so blessed to have the spirit in my life to guide and direct me. I feel so at peace now which I never did with the idea of having a C-section and now I know why.... I didn't need one.

Do I feel dumb for not following the promptings sooner? YES - Did I learn my lesson? YES

***Note - the Dr. I WAS seeing here in Lubbock is a fine doctor, she is young and mainly does family practice so she is not as experienced in OB. I have kept her name out of all of my posts so as not to make her look bad. I know a couple other people she has delivered and everything went perfect with them - for me she was just not a good fit.

"I'm Horney".... You're WHAT???

When Jaxon was hungry he used to say  "I want to eat" or he would go get something out of the fridge or pantry. But the other day he came up to me and said, "mom - I'm hungry" BUT it didn't sound like hungry at all - it sounded just like "mom - I'm horney". OH MY GOODNESS. I was like WHAT did you just say Jax? And he repeated it and I still didn't know he was saying hungry so I was trying to figure out WHERE ON EARTH he would have heard that word! Then he said I want yogurt and I realized what he was trying to say. Because I laughed so hard about it - he kept repeating it over and over again. Obviously I had him say it for Dan when he got home from school and we had a laugh about it, but needless to say, I am trying to get him to say either "I'm starving" or just stick with "I want to eat". Lets hope he is never hungry and tells me about it when we are with other people. LOL.

Christmas Traditions

When Dan and I got married,  because of the closeness of both of our families - we were able to do a lot of fun Holiday things with both families and continue doing the traditions we had grown up with. Last year we went back to Utah for Christmas and got to continue doing all of that. This year with sweet baby Addison coming in January we are staying in Lubbock, so Dan and I decided that since we are officially having our OWN Christmas and Jaxon is getting older and can understand more - we should start some of our own traditions. The problem is... WHAT?

Some of the traditions we grew up with that we are planning on keeping are:
*Going to Breakfast on Christmas Eve Morning at Cracker Barrel (Dan's family)
*Opening a present on Christmas Eve (always matching/coordinating PJ's to wear) (Lisa's Family)
*Reading a Christmas story as a family before going to bed on Christmas eve (Both Families)
*Having a HUGE yummy breakfast Christmas Day (Both Families)

That's it - how sad! So you can see why we need more! Normally we did a lot of other things but they were things in Utah so since we are not there we need to figure out things we can do here in Lubbock as well as just things at home that can be done anywhere.

Some things we have talked about are:
1) Going to see Santa (now that we have a child - (almost children) this is obviously something that will be fun)
2) Doing something with the 12 days of Christmas - ANY IDEAS ABOUT THIS?

What are some traditions you do with your family?