Ice & Snow Days

Three days of ice + one day of snow on top of that ice =

(1) Daddy being home from work four days in a row during the week!

(2) NEVER getting out of our PJs!

(3) A fire roaring in our fireplace nearly all day on both Tuesday and Wednesday. We had it on some the next couple days, but were fearful of our gas bill should we continue to run it constantly!

(4) Extra videos, especially on the first 2 days. Some snuggle time while watching videos:

But by the end of Wednesday, we finally got up the energy to move beyond the usual toys and videos and we put on our creative hats. We had an Easter egg hunt in different rooms of our house, but it was evening and we had the lights off so Julia had to find the eggs using her flashlight. She loved it!

Then we set up an obstacle course (kinda) for her:

Thursday, we started off the day with a pedicure party. Daddy was the nail tech who painted Julia's toes and both mommy & Julia's hands. Then he even let Julia paint HIS toes, though he opted not to have that photographed:

Then we taped together several sheets of large paper and traced Julia's body on to it. She colored her fingernails purple to match the manicure daddy had given her, her eyes blue, and she put Dora stickers on to match the Doras on her pajamas:

Daddy got Julia bundled up to go outside and experience the ice. I didn't get it on video, but it was hilarious to watch Julia try to walk on the ice. Despite her daddy's warnings not to go on the sidewalk by herself, she tried twice and of course fell both times. Even when she let him hold her up by the arms, her feet were all over the place. It was a riot! Then they got out a diaper box, for what I've called "iceboxing":

In the last few days, Jackson has gotten good at holding on to things for a while. So all 3 of us took turns giving him different rattles to hold:

While the 3 of us were playing with Jackson, Julia took Daddy and Mommy's photo:

Daddy holding his two babies while letting Julia play games on his laptop:

Making pasta and cereal necklaces:





We got to play in the beautiful blanket of snow. This lasted until Julia started complaining, "My legs are sore." Her jacket, mittens, hat were all great protectors against the wet and cold, but her pants not so much. It was fun while it lasted:




After warming up, we decided to experiment with Julia's hair. She waited 2 years and 8 months for these pigtails, so it got a lot of documentation!:

January

Here is our January in photos, in sequential order:

At Lake Highlands High School stadium, the day before the Cotton Bowl. We went to see the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band practice their half time show. The picture of me (shown first) was actually taken by Julia. Not half bad!

As I've pulled out various toys and equipment for Jackson, Julia LOVES to pretend that she's the baby and will try all of them out. I'm amazed that she still can squeeze herself in to all this baby gear. Here she is in the Baby Bjorn:


Here she is trying out the Bumbo:


Here she is pretending to be "wrapped up like a little baby", as she loves to do after every bath:

She also pretends to get her diaper changed (she lays on the floor and sticks her legs up in the air), to get a bottle (she sits in our lap, lays back, and pretends to drink from a bottle), and to get burped (she sits up in our lap and has us hold her under the chin while we pat her back.)


Julia's morning bed head (thanks to Andrea for posting Paige's, thus reminding us to get this beauty documented):

After several days of reading the 3 Little Pigs, Daddy built Julia a "house" and pretended to be the bad wolf trying to blow her house down:

Yummy smiles!:

All geared up for snow day:

Two of Jackson's faces I tried to capture while holding him - (1) the furrowed eyebrow look that everyone seems to comment on, and (2) his precious smile:

He loves that light-up star, just like his sister did:

How to blow $700 in the most boring way possible...even the garage door repair guy, who I'm sure has seen every imaginable problem with garage doors, said, "Wow. That's really bad.":

Kendall's birthday dinner at Olive Garden, followed by cake and presents at her house. We cannot believe she is now 10 years old! She is such a wonderful niece to Jarret and me, and she is an outstanding cousin, friend, and helper to Julia and Jackson. Notice a trend how in each picture here and in multiple other posts she is always holding Jackson? She loves that little boy!

Jackson's first time to get carried in the Baby Bjorn:

The four of us headed to WillowBend mall on MLK Day since Jarret had the day off. We just happened to run in to our neighbor Jessica and her daughter Audrey, who is in Julia's class at Mother's Day Out.

Jackson hung out on the bench. He already loves chewing his hand, and both of these shots show more of how he keeps his eyebrows all pinched together. So serious!



Family outing to the park:










Jarret's pre-birthday dinner with me at Del Friscos. Many thanks to our Foundations Group couples for such a generous gift that allowed us to celebrate there (we'd been holding on to that gift card since the Group ended last June!).

The evening of Jarret's actual birthday, we celebrated with his family at his parents house. I provided one of Jarret's favorite appetizers, and his parents made some of his favorite home-cooked dishes.

Somehow my camera got on the "compact video" setting, so this is a little blurry. But regardless you can see Julia's full out throw-caution-to-the-wind sprint to jump in the ball pit (thanks Pierson for sharing your toy with her!!):

My parents recently got a new dog named Ruthie. Dad and Ruthie decided to join us at the park one day (Mom was sick). While I was feeding Jackson, the 3 of them went off to explore. Julia has really taken to Ruthie, and even wanted to walk her all by herself:





On the last day of January, I put my to-do list down and simply held my son in my arms against my chest - for three hours!