Thanksgiving & Thankful Surprises

I don't feel like we have ever truly recovered since our visit to the ER with Jackson on Halloween eve. My cold has taken weeks to overcome and I took a turn for what I thought was the worst on Tuesday of this past week. I woke up feeling so sick.

I threw up while making Jack breakfast. Yes, I know that's too much information.

The rest of the day I felt so incredibly achy and awful. Shocked I didn't throw up any more all day. Thankfully, Jack was an angel all day.

My boss said it was morning sickness. My cousin texted me, "maybe you're preggers?!" I responded with a "not even possible! I haven't even started  any sort of cycle to make that happen! It's SO unlikely!"

Well, I bet we all know where this story is headed...

Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I woke up still sick. So, before work I say, heck, why not see if they're right.

And no, this is not the picture from May of 2011 when we found out Jack was coming into the world (although they are pretty similar looking.) 

Hello baby #2! Hello so many crazy awesome excited freaked out emotions!! 

It's a bit sooner than we had expected, but we knew we were taking this risk. Since it took us so long the first time to conceive Jackson, we wanted to leave this one up to chance a bit more. God has His plan for us. And it looks like my body bounced right back into baby makin' mode...even without a cycle! 

I'm still in a bit of shock of how to take it all in and them being so incredibly close in age. Also, the same wave of concerns of pregnancy come into play as well. The anticipation of the first heartbeat, the first major ultra sound at around 20 weeks, the labor, all of it! My first Dr. appointment for #2 is December 5th. 

Despite the exhaustion of 1st trimester woes, sickness & a hectic work week, we kicked off the 4 day weekend with our last trip to Disneyland before our passes expire for the year. Not sure if I'll be renewing with being pregnant...which makes me so sad! 

The Christmas decorations were so  beautiful and so much fun to see. It was insanely busy though so we ended up just getting dinner and walking around both parks. It was, as always, magical. Yes, I know I am cheesy. 

We had a wonderful & fantastic Thanksgiving dinner at our Aunt & Uncles house in San Deigo. Michael, Lisa, Mandy & sweet little Abby were there. It was so much fun to watch Jack and Abby (15 months) interact and play. 

Then the next day, Aaron woke up with a really bad stomach bug. After Aaron passing out and me freaking out, it was to the ER for Aaron & I  by recommendation of Kaiser while my parents watched Jack. He desperately needed fluids because he could not keep even water down. Two trips to the ER in 4 weeks is quite enough for me thank you very much. Thankfully, he's all better now and it was a quick bug. Sad news, it is highly contagious and Jack & I are still susceptible to it until around Tuesday. Thankfully, neither of us are sick...yet....

We put up a small amount of Christmas decorations today, despite the fact that we will be gone for 3 weeks starting mid-December. It just wouldn't feel like the holidays if we didn't. We ended the very crazy, stressful weekend with a calming day at home. 

Home-made. 

Helping us put on the lights.

Finished product.

It's Monday tomorrow. Boo. I feel like we need a weekend from our weekend! I'm very anxious for my first work trip away from Jackson. Friday through Monday. With just finding out I'm pregnant, I now really do not want to go. I'm praying for wisdom and strength from God for it to go quickly. 

10 month old turkey

Okay, I'm talking about Jackson.

I had to get that corny joke out of the way. Our little man turned 10 months old on Thanksgiving day!

We can now...

--Point to lots of things
--Stand up and walk around the coffee table....or the mantle...all the time...
--Look at mom and say "mamama" more intentionally
--Look at dad and say "dadada" more intentionally
--Has stood up by himself not holding anything for a second or two
--Walks behind his walker all over the house
--We say, "How big is Jackson?" he holds up his hands high as we say, "So big!"
--Claps a lot
--Learning the word, "gentle" when petting the cats. We think he may think the word for cat is "gentle," we say it so many times!
--He has 5 upper teeth and 2 lower. He refuses to let me even come close to taking a picture of them.
--He plays "roll the soccer ball" when we sit in a circle together

Sorry I don't have more pictures. It's been a crazy month.

Jackson is extremely independent at this age. When he is in an environment he's comfortable with, the world is his oyster. He loves calming walks in his stroller, facing only out at the world. In new environments he does get very clingy onto Aaron or I. He also is clingy with things he's unsure of in the house, like when we turn on the fire place.

We read him Charlie Brown Christmas every night, and it has buttons with certain tunes or sayings from the story. He loves to talk at the book when pushing the buttons, and we think it's the most adorable thing ever.

He sweetly talks to himself and buries his head in his stuffed animals while playing. He is becoming more of a picky eater, but we are noticing he will eat more non-baby food if we are all eating at the table together.

He loves to walk and climb as much as possible. Our bet is that he will be walking by Christmas time.

We love you, our sweet little penguin.

It's been awhile...

And for good reason!

In the last two weeks we have dealt with...

An ER visit on Halloween for Jackson
Five teeth coming in
Daylight saving switch
A concert with cousins
Planning our extended stay in Colorado (3 weeks!)
Very, very stressful & long work days
Hosting 11 family members for a pre-thanksgiving
A severe cold for me that has taken over a week to overcome
MOPS!

I'm going to be cliche and say, "I can't BELIEVE Thanksgiving is less than a week away!" Okay, I got it out of the way.

But all of this has not stopped us from taking pictures and enjoying the sweet little milestones of our man. I'll save the list of awesome accomplishments for his 10 month post next week.

We celebrated my dad's 55th birthday with a nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory & the tree lighting at Fashion Island, which included a visit from Mickey Mouse from Disneyland. Of course, I was all on board for this. Here are a few photos of our time.

I also have to log the photos of our first trip to the ER. Jackson came down with a serious case of the croup at 11:30 pm Halloween eve. Being first time parents and not knowing what croup was, we rushed to the ER due to Jackson having labored breathing and a 103 degree temperature. After some very difficult days and teething at the same time, we are now (almost) completely healthy. Thank you Lord for my husband & my parents during this time as I almost fell apart working and taking care of him.

At the ER.

Halloween Day. No dressing up. 

My Sweet, Sick boy. 

I'll finish this with a couple of pictures from the Halloween event at church right before Jackson got sick. 

One with Carson, a friend from MOPS, and one of Jack and I. It was so hot that day! Almost 100 degrees. So we improvised his costume a bit. Yay SoCal.

My sweet little Jack-O-Latern