Babysitter Jaxon

I babysit a cute boy that is Jax's age, and his little sister that is only 3 1/2 months old. I only babysit them a few hours on Wednesday and Friday - but it's been fun! I have loved having the baby around. I am so baby hungry it's not even funny! I want my sweet baby girl here NOW haha. But the other day when they were here, Jaxon was especially cute with the baby girl. As soon as she got here he wanted to help get her out of her car seat and he wanted to hold her. So I asked him to sit on the couch. Once he had, I had her across his legs with a pillow next to him to hold up her head. He LOVED having her on his lap, every time she made a noise he would act concerned and want to make sure she was ok. Then I read the boys this book that is a peek-a-boo book so they like to knock on the book before we open the "door" to see who is behind it. I  have them take turns ever other page so it is fair and they learn to share - well Jaxon wanted to make sure the baby got a turn. So on his turn he said baby's turn - so I helped the little baby girl knock on the book and then when I opened the door to show them what it was - he got so excited and clapped for her and told her "YAY" since she was the one who did it. It was so cute. I know he is going to be a great big brother - but he is also going to want to be VERY involved and helpful which I know can be a hard thing because he is so young and doesn't understand everything yet - but it has been so cute to watch him interact with her. I ask him a lot - do you want to have a baby sister like this and he always yells YES and gets excited. That makes me happy! I'm excited too!

Success

Jax did great last night in his big boy bed! After we put him down he didn't even get out of bed once. Part of that is probably because we put the portable DVD player in his room and turned a movie on for him to fall asleep to. Haha - so we cheated a little bit but after a few mins we checked on him and he was out.

I don't think he slept very well though - we had the monitor in his room so we could hear him and he "woke" up  a lot. He never got out of bed though - I think he was just getting used to the bed. I checked on him several times and he was always sideways with his feet hanging over the edge, so that might have been why he woke up...OR he might have been waking up because of the rain storm we had last night - who knows - but today he was VERY cranky. I put him in his bed at noon and he fell right asleep. So not only did he stay in his bed last night - but he also is taking a nap today which hasn't happened in a while! WAHOO! Hopefully it keeps going this well and he will get caught up on his sleep so he isn't cranky! :)

Big Boy Bed and more

Well... It's official. We put up Jaxon's big boy bed and tonight will be the first night of him sleeping in it... (wish us luck).

We were lucky and got the mattress, box springs, and frame for $50.00 from someone in our stake. It has only been used for about 3 years so we were excited to get a bed for so cheap!

We wanted to make this as exciting for Jaxon as possible so of coarse we got his favorite sheets.... TOY STORY! They are VERY bright and "loud" but he LOVES them haha. The comforter is also reversible and the other side is a lighter blue and much more calm so we can always switch. :)

I have to admit I am a little sad - after we put up the bed I had Jaxon lay in it and he looked so small. I can't believe he is in a regular bed now. I almost cried. Haha - pathetic I know, but I'm pregnant - give me a break!

On another note - on September 3rd we were at a JRCLS (J. Ruben Clark Law Society) get together and Jaxon and this other cute 2 year old Sam were running around and ran right into each other and bonked heads. It looked really bad. Jaxon's eye immediately started to swell. I didn't take this picture until the next day and it doesn't do it justice, but here is his eye swollen...

Then... it bruised - bad. Haha - it started out yellow and green....

And finally it is just black. You will also notice we finally cut his hair.

I also just had to post this picture. Jaxon NEVER sleeps with Dan or I. If he is on our bed he is jumping and wrestling with us. Well he was VERY tired because he is no loner taking naps so by 6:30ish he is pooped and Dan came home early from school and went and laid with him and I went in after a few mins and saw them like this. It melted my heart. Was I a little jealous that Dan got to cuddle and fall asleep with him YES - but maybe one day he will fall asleep with me!

 Now that the crib everything is out of Jaxon's room - it is in our office which will become the baby girl's room. It looks like this as of right now which is KILLING ME! But it won't be like this for long and we will start getting things in place for Baby Girl Garner.

Its a....

GIRL!!!

Wow - when the ultra sound tech told us that - Dan and I both gasped and asked her if she was serious and if she could please check again. We were both SURE that she would say it was a boy. But of coarse we are so excited to have a little girl join our family! We were very worried during the appointment that we wouldn't be able to determine the gender because her legs were crossed and tucked under the entire time - I had to laugh, cough, roll onto my side, shake, do all sorts of stuff to get her to move her legs and when she did we got the exciting news! That should have been our first clue though - she is modest haha. Jaxon had his legs spread wide open showing his stuff off LOL. 

Anyway - the Garner "spell" has been broken and we are having a girl - its a miracle. We couldn't be more excited!!! Here are a few of the ultra sound pictures we got today of our sweet baby! 

Latest Project

So I bought this piece of furniture from someone in our stake here in Lubbock forever ago for really cheap. We needed some extra furniture that had storage and since it was such a good deal I figured I wold get it and make it look nicer. Well that took forever for me to actually do. But I did it. I didn't think to take a before picture, so I apologize for the picture with all the toys and blurry James haha but it was the only picture I could find where you could see all of it. 

This is it before...

And this is after...

The total cost to do this was about $3.00. THATS RIGHT!!! I found black paint at home depot on sale for 2 dollars and I just spray painted the hardware silver with a can of spray paint I already had from another project I did... sooo not bad for 3 bucks right? I am happy with the way it turned out. In an ideal world I would get new more modern looking hardware, but I'm fine with this since it was so cheap! 

Boy or Girl?

Well today, September 8 2011, I am officially 20 weeks pregnant... half way done! Wahoo! I think this is the longest part of a pregnancy because the beginning (at least for me) is bad because I am sick and it seems to last forever. Then, you start to feel better but you have to wait until week 20 to find out if you are having a boy or girl. After that (at least with Jaxon) it seemed to go by really fast until the very very very end haha.

Tomorrow morning we go into have our ultra sound and find out the gender. For the record, I will be VERY happy either way. At first I kept thinking I wanted a girl because the Garner's apparently only produce boys (well mostly produce them). There are a couple of girls in the Garner line but they were both the 5 child I believe and at this point in my life I am NOT planning on having 5 children. So my first thought was that I would like to have a girl just so I know I am going to get one for sure haha. And yes of coarse I want a little girl, I think every women does! But at the same time, I would love for Jaxon to have a little brother. So really, boy or girl, I am totally fine and excited either way! :) Now when/if we have a third child, if this one is a boy... I will be really really really wanting a little girl - but obviously happy to have a healthy baby no matter what.

I am nervous about the appointment tomorrow. This is where you can really see your baby and make sure everything is developing ok. With Jaxon they had a hard time seeing one of the chambers of his heart so we had to go back 2 more times until they were able to see it. It was a little scary. So I am just hoping that everything is ok and that this baby is healthy.

At this point in my pregnancy I am feeling WAY better. I think I am pretty much over the sickness. I will get waves of nauseousness, but I haven't thrown up in a couple of weeks so I'm pretty sure its over WAHOO! I have had lot more pain with this pregnancy which I think has a lot to do with the fact that I am lifting and taking care of a 33 pound 2 year old all day, playing with him on the floor, and for some reason I have the urge to do all these home improvement projects so I have been doing a lot of sanding and painting which has made me contort my body in weird positions to get everything painted haha. Hopefully it doesn't get too much worse, maybe if I take it a little easier I won't be in so much pain! I also feel like I need to be eating ALL THE TIME. This is not good. I hope it goes away. I have been doing a pretty good job of controlling the urges, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night STARVING and I have to go get something. This didn't happen until the VERY end of my pregnancy with Jaxon so I'm nervous. I gained 30lbs with Jaxon and don't even want to gain that much with this pregnancy (since I'm starting it bigger) and these crazy hungry all the time cravings are making me nervous!

Lastly, we have asked Jaxon several times what he wants to name his baby brother or baby sister - he always has the same answer... "Scissors". Interesting.

Change

*** This post is a bunch of ramblings and jumps all over the place... so sorry, I just have a lot on my mind!

I feel like so much is changing.
Jaxon is getting so big and so grown up. He is still our very energetic little boy with too much personality for his little body, but he is understanding so much more, and talking so much more (even if I am the only one who can understand what he is saying haha) and although its exciting to see him becoming such a cute boy - it kills me to see my baby growing up. We talk to him a lot about the new baby coming, and so he has become obsessed with babies. All of his toys now become babies. Instead of having elephants, monkeys, dogs, he has BABY elephants, BABY monkeys, and BABY dogs haha. He also likes to be a baby himself. He will say baby and then hand me his sippy cup and climbs in my lap and I hold him like a baby and feed him his milk out of his sippy like a bottle lol. I probably shouldn't encourage this behavior, but I'm not gonna lie - I LOVE holding him like that. Before we got pregnant I didn't feel the "need" or "urge" to have a baby, we just felt like it was the right time to add to our family, but now - I NEED a baby! I guess it's the Lords way of getting me ready to actually have one. At the same time, (now this will probably make me sound like a bad person) I am sad it's not going to just be Jaxon and I anymore. I love my little man more than anything and it is hard for me to imagine not being able to give him 100% of my attention after this sweet baby comes. What if Jaxon thinks I don't love him as much or that he has done something wrong and that's why I don't spend as much time with him. The thought of that is KILLING me. I cried about it to Dan yesterday (blaming the crying on the pregnancy) - and he was trying to hold back laughter which made me mad at first, but he said Lisa, we want to have another baby - you want Jaxon to have a sibling, this is a good thing and not something to be crying about - which is completely true and I KNOW that we should be having this baby and I'm so excited, but I guess I'm just nervous for all the change.

On another note - Jaxon is no longer taking naps. This is a VERY new development in our home - I put him in his bed and he climbs out and plays with toys during nap time. I keep him in his room for "quiet time" for a little bit - but going from him taking 3 hour naps during the day to nothing is a hard adjustment for me and him - I put him to bed last night at 6:30 (an hour and a half earlier than I normally would) and he zonked out and slept until 7:30 this morning - so I'm not sure if this is going to be his new sleeping schedule or if when we get him a big boy bed (which needs to be like TODAY) he will start taking naps again. I don't really know what to do.

We FINALLY had Jaxon's 2 year check up with the doctor. He did such a great job! I couldn't believe how well behaved he was. I guess its because the last doctors appointment we went to was a NIGHTMARE so I was dreading this one and was expecting the worst and he really was great - the entire appt took an hour and a half and most of that was just waiting which Jaxon doesn't do so well, but he did great and was such a trooper when they gave him his shot and took blood - he didn't really cry at all, he just said "that hurt" and then asked for a sticker when he was done LOL. He is 37 inches tall which is 90-95% for height and he weighs 33.6 lbs which is 90-95% for weight. So he is a big kid and he is growing great! They also did a developmental check up - he is doing great for talking, understanding, problem solving, and a bunch of other areas I can't remember LOL - but he passed all that with flying colors. The saddest part of the appointment was after he got his shot and we went over to the lab for them to take his blood, I had to hold his arm out so the nurse could get the needle in and Jax looked back at me and said "I sorry mama" :( oh my goodness my heart broke! He thought he was being punished for something! The nurse said that response happens A LOT and that little kids feel like they are getting punished but when he said that to me with his little sad face, I seriously almost started balling. It took everything for me to hold it together and tell him he didn't do anything wrong and that we were just needing to make sure he was growing up nice and strong. He did fine after that but AHHHH my heart broke!

The last thing I wanted to "jot" down is about the holidays. This year it looks like we are staying in Lubbock. I am due the middle/end of January and I feel like that would be fine for me to travel for Christmas, but Dan thinks it's better to stay here. At first I was devastated at the thought of not being around our families for Christmas. But now - I am actually feeling ok about it. It will be nice to just focus on OUR little family and getting ready for our new addition. Who knows what will happen in future years with Christmas and our families, but this year it will be Dan, Jax, and I and we are going to enjoy every minute of our time together as a family of 3, because next year, there will be 4 of us! We will make our own traditions and carry on the ones our families have created with our little family.