Jax Birthday Pics

Little Man turns one tomorrow, but we went ahead and celebrated yesterday at Uncle Travis' house. It was a beautiful day filled with more egg hunting, lots of laughing, and of course more toys and clothes than Jax knew what to do with! He's a blessed little boy, that one. I'm reeling from the fact that he's as big as he is already... everything really flies by more quickly the second time around. Everyone told me that, and it's absolutely true. I pick that boy up and squeeze his little face as often as I can because I know my time to do that is limited. He's already started wriggling to get down and crawl, so you'd better believe I'm kissing and hugging and squeezing at lightning speed these days. I miss my newborn. Jaxipoo, the minute I met your Daddy I envisioned having blond-haired, blue-eyed little boys running around. You're even more perfect that I could have dreamed!

So here are a few pictures from the par-tay yesterday. His shirt was monogrammed by my friend Terra. Check out her site- her stuff is amazing!

Birthday & Easter Eggs-travaganza

I'm having a hard time staying awake tonight to post because I'm worn out from our weekend! From Daddy's birthday on Friday to Emerson hunting eggs on Saturday morning to going-away dinner for Lisa Saturday night to Easter dinner and Jax's birthday party today, it was a lot!

Uncle Travis invited Emerson to hunt Easter eggs with his church at a park Saturday morning. It was her inaugural egg hunt, and she had a blast. On the way there, Daddy began coaching Emerson on strategy, and by the time we arrived, she was saying things like, "Watch out for the other kids" and "get the eggs first." I tried to balance the strategy by reminding her we would be making new friends & that everyone could get eggs. Daddy and I just laughed at each other. :)

Here we are on our way to the park in the shuttle.

Heading to the preschool egg hunt area. I'm really glad Daddy suggested we put her rainboots on her... it was swampy in areas.

Getting some more last-minute Van Valkenburg strategy...

Stopping mid-hunt to smile for a picture while the sunlight is blinding you... too cute.

Being a just a little depressed that it's over.

Saturday night we had Lisa over for a good-bye dinner. Tomorrow morning the movers are coming and putting her boxes in a van, and she's heading to Houston. I've finally come to terms with her leaving and am not going to be all emotional and sad about it. So many things have fallen into place for her to make this move, and it's going to be so awesome! Now that doesn't mean I'm not going to miss her... Lisa, I'm going to miss watching the Bachelor with you, going to Ihloff for our monthly pedicures (and your conversations with Marty), our annual Christmas brunch at Wild Fork, getting Chinese takeout, our love/hate for P90x (and your infatuation with Tony Horton), how much my daughter loves BELLA (wow, I'm really going to miss that dog), and your cute little house where I once lived. Thank you for taking me in when I needed somewhere to live and becoming my most cherished friend of all time. From one black sheep to another, I LOVE YOU and will miss the heck out of you! I will be hitting the road to come see you, so just get ready!

Okay, so now I'm too tired to post pics of Jax's party... I'll work on that tomorrow. Nighty-night!

Happy Birthday to my Husband

If you're reading this, I want to wish you a happy birthday and tell you how much I love you. I'm glad you were born 32 years ago, and I'm glad you picked me to spend the rest of your life with. You're the most incredible husband and friend to me, someone I am still passionately in love with and can't get enough of. I'm ridiculously proud of the job you do on a daily basis, how you provide for your family and work your butt off, yet still find the energy to come home and give us your all. Thank you for being the hands-on, engaged, full-of-life daddy that you are. Your children will be incredible human beings because of you.

I hope you enjoyed your day off today - we loved having you home!

I love you.

SALE at NY&Co

If you're in need of some retail therapy, New York & Company in the mall is having a '50% off everything' sale starting tomorrow through Saturday. I have a hard time finding stuff that fits me there (my man-shoulders are the bane of my existence), but I do like their things. The sale applies online, too.

Like sister, like brother

I was looking through Em's 11-month picture folder tonight, seeing if I saw any resemblance between the two of them at this age. Out of the blue, I came across these two pictures. Sister Sue used to have the War Face, too! I totally forgot about it. I know she didn't mix her War Face with heavy breathing through clenced teeth, so hers was a little more low-key, but nonetheless she meant business.

Upon further review of the rest of the folder, I found one that's eerily similar to one I took of Jax just last week.

Weekend Update

Like the SNL version, just NOT AT ALL.

This weekend was so much fun! It started Friday night with an Uppercase Living party I did for a customer... I really enjoy when I have an Uppercase event. It gets me out of the house, and I love the products so much. She also served a fantastic strawberry jello pie that made me really want summer to get here!


Saturday morning we dropped Jax off at Pa-Pa and Grandma Van's house, and we took Emerson and met Uncle Travis at the BOK Center to see Elmo Live! Uncle Trav planned the whole thing, and Emerson was totally mesmerized. She brought her baby Elmo with her, and she yelled "Hi, Elmo!" quite a few times when she saw him on stage. Like the normal 2-yr-old, her attention span would get the best of her, and she'd sit on the floor at my feet and not want anything to do with the production, but then she'd snap out of it and be just fine. All in all, it was a great experience for her... awww, her first show!











Daddy had to head to the office and work the rest of the day (thank God it's the only Saturday he's had to do this), so Em and I headed over to Lisa & Bella's house for a quick visit. Lisa's parents, a.k.a. Meme and Ba-Ba to their grandchildren, were there helping her pack boxes and do a few things to get the house in shape for the new owner. Emerson was in full show mode, having just come from almost two hours of dramatic theatrics. She was cracking us up!



From there it was back home for naptime, then after naps, we got up and went to Paisley's 1st birthday party! She's two weeks older than Jax and is a tiny little petite thing... such a fun one to hold! Jax is getting ridiculously hard to hold these days. Emerson had fun playing with Lexi and the other kids in the pop-up tent in the hallway.

Today was a lazy day! Daddy was completely exhausted from a beast of a week, so he took my advice and we stayed home this morning from church and went to the local diner for breakfast. This afternoon we all took naps, the kids played outside in the front yard while we cut some of our ornamental grasses back, then I loaded up the kids and did a quick grocery shop before bedtime.



I'm tired! It was a fantastic weekend, but I'm looking forward to hopefully getting caught up on sleep this week. We're going to be diligent about getting up & running this week. I need to lose like 10-15 pounds ASAP. I officially weaned Jax on Saturday, so I'm going to cut back on my carbs a little bit, too. Not quite South Beach Phase 1, but just healthier carbs & fewer of them at dinner.


Here's to a great week ahead with some beautiful weather forecasted!