Last night, Santa stopped by and left us a few things to help us get ready for Christmas.  He left us some creepy elves, a countdown placemat, an advent calendar, stickers for good behavior, 25 wrapped books and north pole doughnuts for breakfast!

I can forgive the B&E because he brought us doughnuts.  And because those elves are staring at me – I don’t want to make them angry!

Scarlett really enjoys doughnuts.  She managed to get a white powder doughnut beard, which was pretty cute.

Jackson is also pretty happy with Santa’s offerings.  He particularly enjoyed the Lego Star Wars advent calendar that Santa brought him.

I think we are going to be ready for Santa!  We have 3 things to countdown with, so we’ll know when he’s supposed to arrive.    We’re going to unwrap one Christmas book to read each day, make some Lego Star Wars things, and change our placemat daily, so hopefully he won’t catch us unprepared!  Plus, we’ll have our creepy elves staring at us all day, every day, so it’d be hard to forget that Santa is coming to visit soon…

Thanksgiving 2011 – beach, baby!

As you can imagine, there are a lot more to see!  Hopefully I can stay motivated about blogging them. 

And I have to say, it’s the best job I’ve ever had.  [no job jokes, Jeff]

I’m pretty sure I have Jackson to thank for that.  He’s somehow made every transition we’ve gone through as easy as can be.  I worried about having a baby, and how we would handle it.  I worried about him having a sibling – he’s the best big brother I’ve seen.  I worried about school; he rocks it.  I could go on and on.

You’ve come along way, baby. 

So happy birthday to the sweetest FIVE year old I know!  We are so proud of you, and are so thankful we have you in our lives.

Hopefully you’ve learned to enjoy birthdays a little more…

…because we’ve got quite the celebration planned!

Happy 1st birthday, Scarlett Maeve!

This past year has gone by so fast, and it has been a joy to watch you grow and change.  It’s hard to believe you’re already one, and we are so lucky to have you as our daughter – even if you are pretty rotten.    Let’s just say you live up to your namesake.

Your first encounter with Mommy’s camera:

In your green crib, painted for you by Daddy, at the expense of some brain cells…

1 month old, and you’d already stolen all of our hearts.  You are Jackson’s sweetie pie, and he is the most wonderful big brother to you already.

Look at those tiny little feet!

Your first run in with Mommy’s holiday shirt obsession…boo!

your second run in was no less scary… why do I do these things to you?  You were the perfect Max, though.

I really do enjoy torturing you, it seems.  And holiday apparel.

Second only to my love of holiday apparel: Strasburg baptismal gowns.  It’s probably 99% of the reason you were baptized.  [just kidding!]

Starting your love of the best store on earth [Nordstrom] early!  Interestingly, the Nashville Nordstrom has it’s grand opening today.  Coincidence?  I think not!

I have no doubt that you would rock the presidency.  You wouldn’t be a bad princess, either – everyone around here jumps to do your bidding!

A sports fan already!

More importantly, you’re a Boilermaker already.  And you’ve learned the most important lesson any sister can learn – brothers are so WEIRD.  Now you know your job – to boss your brother around.  You’ll learn from the best, of course!  [Me]

See?  You caught on early – Jackson’s pushing you while you enjoy a good swing.

SIX MONTHS OLD??  It can’t be.

Yes, I made you wear a giant sequin flower on your head.  And trust me, I’ll do it again.

7 months old and you’ve already perfected this face?  You are so advanced.  I’m SO proud!

There really are no words for how beautiful you are.

Growing up a little too fast – playing with other kids at the Children’s museum?  Weren’t you just born?

If it’s up to these three guys, you’ll never go on a date.

You may not need Jackson, or Daddy, or even Bumblebee to protect you… I think you might be able to handle that all.by.yourself.

11 months old, and it’s starting to become real that you aren’t going to be a baby much longer.  But you’ll always be MY baby.

The first picture of the second year of your life…

As you sit next to me, trying to eat my iPhone, I realize that it won’t be too long before you have your own cool gadget (maybe the iPhone 20? ha!), and I look forward to the rest of your life.   I can’t wait to spend the next 60 years getting to know you and seeing the amazing woman you’ll become.  I have no doubt that will happen.

Happy birthday, Scarlett!  I’m sure one day this might embarrass you, but what else are mothers for? 

I love you very much,

Mommy

July passed without much in the way of blog posts, but I have quite a few pictures from the end of July that I finally got around to uploading.

In July, Scarlett turned 10 months old!  It’s hard to believe that she is almost 11 months old now, and that she will be a year before I know it.  She’s a lot of fun right now – she’s into clapping, waving, saying mama and dada, as well as getting into everything.  She also loves to swim, refuses to even attempt to walk, and eats more than Jackson on a regular basis.  Oh and she’s still as suspicious as ever.

Towards the end of July, we traveled to Indiana to visit Jeff’s family, and then we stopped in on our way home to visit my parents.  When we were in Indianapolis, we HAD to fit in a trip to the Children’s Museum because of their newest guest… BUMBLEBEE!

Jackson was a little intimidated by his favorite Transformer and insisted Jeff hold him for the picture, too.  Despite his fear, he was pretty excited to see Bumblebee, and I have to admit, it was pretty cool.  This Bumblebee is an actual prop from the movies, and it was huge!  It’s actually in the entrance of the Children’s Museum, so you could go check it out even if you weren’t interested in going into (and paying) the actual museum.  Jackson also spent a lot of time at the dinosaur exhibit.  We’ve been to the museum a few times in the past year, but this was the first time we checked out that particular exhibit — I’m surprised we hadn’t spent more time there before.

Scarlett didn’t think the dinosaur exhibit was all that exciting, so I took her to the new Dora exhibit.  I thought there might be an area that was more appropriate for her age, and I was right!  There was a little garden that she could play in, and she really had so much fun exploring and playing with some of the other littles!

Scarlett and I met back up with the boys and we decided to take a family carousel ride.  Scarlett, however, was having none of it.

So, we all road on the bench together, which made Jackson very happy.

Before we could leave the museum, Scarlett had to pretend to be Bumblebee!

Finally, we made a pit stop in Kentuckiana, and we got to see some friends!  It was definitely time to update our group photo, because not only do we have two new additions (Scarlett and baby Lara), but the other kiddos have grown quite a bit since the last one!

from L-R: baby Lara, Gill, Kramer, Rece, Jackson and Scarlett

It’s kind of hard to believe that I met all these kids’ mommys when I wasn’t much older than Jackson! 

Oh and here are Jackson and Rece – I am not quite sure what they are doing, but I am pretty sure that they are being a little mischievous, if you can believe that!  They might have been playing Jackson’s favorite game (being Jackdog – i.e., pretending to be puppies) or perhaps they were trying to get away from their baby sisters…

In case you can’t tell by the photos, we had a pretty good July!  Here’s to hoping there are more blog updates in August!

On Friday night, we ate on the river at Calhoun’s before heading to the Tennessee Smokies minor league baseball game.  The restaurant was a little more crowded than we expected since we had gotten there pretty early, but we soon figured out that Taylor Swift was in town and a lot of people were eating there before going to her concert.  After we ate, we went to the game, which was a lot of fun.  Even though it was late, both kids did really well and enjoyed themselves.  After the game, they did fireworks which were pretty awesome.  Both of the kids liked that too.  We thought Scarlett might get scared, but she was mesmerized.

Other than that, we spent time at the pool and around our house.  Jenny and Jason left this morning after a yummy breakfast at Mimi’s Cafe (our favorite!).  I didn’t take many pictures this weekend, but I did get a few of the kids today in their festive holiday wear.

Scarlett was quite a bit more cooperative than Jackson.  He was all about jumping around and making funny faces.  Shockingly, Scarlett didn’t even try to get away from me or try to steal my camera.

Without further ado, our little patriots!

Scarlett’s typical suspicious expression did make an appearance, though.

She did manage to smile for me after a little bit.

Hopefully everyone else enjoyed their long holiday weekend, too!  I know we did.

These pictures are pretty terrible, but they are funny.

Scarlett is shocked that she is nine months old!  Shocked, I tell you.

So…three months until this little hellion is 1.  I don’t know where the time has gone.  She’s eating like a little piglet, crawling everywhere, saying “bababababa,” “dadadadada,” and “mamamama,” all the time, and is into everything!  We’ve had a few near misses with Legos.  I’m waiting for the day where she climbs on top of something! 

The helmet of awesomeness used to belong to Jeff, when he had a motorcycle.  He doesn’t have one anymore, but he still has the cool helmet, leather jacket, and zOMG, leather pants.

Anyway, Jackson wore it around the ‘hood tonight and all the kids wanted to try it on.  I think we definitely did our part in encouraging the kids to wear helmets. 

Scarlett looked on disapprovingly.  It was either because that is her natural state or because some kids weren’t wearing helmets.  I can’t be sure.

So yeah, that’s how we spent our father’s day.  Pretty exciting, huh?

OH!  I almost forgot: Scarlett got her first tooth!  It broke through yesterday.  That actually was exciting for me.  Wow, my life is pretty fabulous.

I thought instead of taking pictures of her in her room this time, I’d take her outside to her swing since she loves it so much.

However, while swinging is enjoyable, sunglasses make swinging MISERABLE!

GET THESE THINGS OFF ME!

Proof that she was fine once the sunglasses were off…

She’s an opinionated little girl!

In Jackson news, he graduated from preschool today!  He was so cute, and so were all of his classmates.  It’s kind of funny that he had graduation because he’s basically graduating from PreK – 1 to PreK – 2 due to where his birthday falls.  He won’t go to Kindergarten until 2012, so he has another year of PreK left.  Regardless, we were very proud of him and all he has learned this year, and the whole family went to his graduation.  Scarlett celebrated by barfing all over me right before the graduation started; it was awesome.

Jackson, singing with his classmates – I included a handy dandy arrow for you so you could pick him out due to the poor photography (Jeff was in charge of the camera).

Getting his diploma from Ms. Nancy.

After graduation, we went for some post-graduation ice cream at Jackson’s favorite ice cream (well, frozen yogurt) place, Menchies!

I’ve already decided that in 2029, we’ll do a post-Purdue graduation beer at Harry’s! 

There’s not a lot more going on around here right now – Jackson is looking forward to the summer off, and lots of time playing with his neighborhood buddies.  Hopefully we’ll get to spend a lot of time at the pool, too!

But I have pictures of a few things I wanted to share, so instead of doing three separate posts about how I suck at updating this blog, I thought I’d just do one. 

Back in January, we had Scarlett baptized at St. Mary’s.  She was exactly 4 months old, so it was the 16th.  It was a nice day, and we had lunch after the baptism at Wick’s, which was probably my favorite part of the day.  That or Scarlett’s Strasburg baptismal gown.  I have a weird obsession with those; I think I’d like to collect them.  They’re just so pretty!

Scarlett and her godmother, Steph.

Me, holding Scarlett, talking to my grandma.

Up next on my catch up – Scarlett turned 7 months old!

…on April 16th.

AND!  She started crawling a week or two before that, so she spent most of the time trying to crawl away from me.

Great.  Now both of my favorite subjects can get away from me and my camera!

Finally, I have some pictures of me torturing Scarlett with a ridiculously cute bunny costume.  She was less than amused when I plopped her in her big Easter basket.

I’m pretty sure this is her “you have GOT to be effing kidding me,” face.

She does that pretty well,  I think.

I let her out of the basket, and she ran away from me.