Christmas Eve

Jackson opening his one present from Mom and Dad on Christmas Eve. (a tradition Carli and I always had)

Playing with his Wonderpets Flyboat.

I think Jackson is speinding a little too much time with Mommy. While I was finishing getting ready, he got into some of my jewelry. He came out and said "Mommy, dont I look beautiful?" I said of course you do :)

Playing with Diana Lynn at Mimi and Papu's house. She is so wonderful him-I can't wait until she is old enough to baby sit.

Handsome little man.

Playing with his new dragon puppets-roaring of course!!

Having a blast with his remote contol car from Uncle Pud and Lee. He laughed so hard while he played with it.

In his Christmas jammies getting ready to go home.

Baking cookies for Santa

We decided to bake some cookies so that we would have some to leave out for Santa. Jackson has a HUGE sweet tooth!! He steals so much cookie dough while we are baking. It did not matter how many times we told him not to, or even if he got a timeout-he kept eating the dough-it was almost as if he could not help himself!

Cutting out shapes; Santa, trees, stars, bells, gingerbread boys, and of course, dinosaurs :)

Then we had a great time decorating the cookies. Jackson really enjoyed piling on the toppings. He had to add sprinkles to everyone's cookies.

Some of our masterpieces. Santa seemed to really enjoy them!

Snow, Snow, Snow

Here are some pictures from our first snow of the year. Jackson had so much fun making and throwing snowballs at Mommy.

Talking with Santa

We took a trip to Children's Wonderland to enjoy the scenes, as well as to see Santa. This clown cracked Jackson up, it did last year too. He stood there for at least 5 minutes and laughed every time the clown flipped over.


Getting a boost from Keycoo.

Aunt Carli giving him a pep talk before going up to see Santa.

Cheesin with Dad and Mom.

Finally our turn to see Santa. Jackson, of course, greeted Santa with a roar, as he does everyone now. Santa roared back at him-Jackson thought it was hysterical. He did not want to sit on Santa's lap. He gave him "ten" and talked with him for a few minutes with Daddy. He told Santa that he would like a BIG dinosaur for Christmas.

This is the best picture that we could get this year. :)

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!!

Santa's Little Helper

Jackson is definitely in the Christmas spirit this year. He is so excited about all of the decorations and everyone talking about Christmas. This year is going to be very fun in our house!! Jackson is extremely interested in Santa and wants to talk to him, but does not want to sit on his lap. He said to me "Santa will not hold me". So I am guessing that we will probably not get our Santa picture this year, maybe standing next to him-we will see.

We made these cute reindeer antlers at Bass Pro Shop-they have a lot of fun things set up for kids to do.

Jackson loves the Christmas tree-he told Amy that "we decorated our Christmas tree for Halloween". I think his holidays are running together a little bit :)

Jackson helped me put up our village scene-he loved unpacking each piece and looking at all of the houses and people.

Admiring his work.

Hoping that everyone is enjoying this holiday season!

Holiday Parade

Jackson, Daddy, Keycoo,and I headed downtown on Saturday to check out the holiday parade.

Jackson all bundled up ready to watch the parade. (unfortunately the parade did not come past us until almost an hour later). This picture cracks me up.

Daddy and Jackson hanging out and trying to stay warm.

Keycoo and Jackson took a walk to pass some time before the parade started.

Jackson loved the big nutcracker balloon. He is still talking about it. He says "Mommy-we saw a BIG nutcracker!"

He thought it was SO funny when they had to lay it down to get it under the wires.

Watching the parade.

The St. Johns band got stopped right in front of us for a few minutes. Jackson loved the drummers.

Muddy and Muddona

TPD

We had a great time. The parade was pretty impressive, we will definitely go again next year.

Thanksgiving

This year I hosted my first Thanksgiving dinner at my house. I was a little nervous, but it turned out great!! Joe planned a delicious menu and cooked half of it (as well as the turkey!) so that helped me out a lot. My mom, Carli, and Joe were there. So were Matt's parents-Grammy and Grandpa, Joe's parents-Bob and Bev, and his brothers-Jeff and Jason.
Jackson enjoying a little pre-dinner snack.

The lovely tables with all the yummy food.

Jackson admiring Joes beautiful turkey-it was so good!!

Dinner time!!

Mimi and Papu stopped over for desert. My mom did a great job on the pies.

Jackson had a very busy day. We had gone over to Aunt Ginger's to visit for a while. He fell asleep for a few minutes on the way back. As soon as he saw all of the company in our house, he did not want to go back to sleep-so he had no nap. He did very well, but was ready for bed pretty early.

Grammy gave him a bath and got him ready for bed.

Jackson never likes for things to come to an end. He was asleep within minutes though :)

We have so much to be thankful for, and were glad to be able to celebrate with so many wonderful people.