Monday, November 16, 2015

February 23, 2014



 Christa is baptized at West Rome Baptist Church!



 Christa chose Ben Culbertson, aka Mr. Funny, the Children's Minister to baptize her.  She was nervous about going completely under the water, but was so brave!


 After the church service, the kids performed in the school talent show!  The cousins did an adorable UGA cheer together and had a blast!



 Christa wanted to do a ballet routine.  When I asked her why she chose ballet, she said, "because I am good at it!"  So true!  I hope to instill more of that confidence in her.  She took the group routine from Footsteps in Faith and re-choreographed it into a solo routine all on her own!  I was so proud of her for standing up on stage and performing the whole thing by herself.  She danced to the song, "Let There Be Light."




February 2014



 Sup?  Sup dude?  Gangsta Thomas is in da house!

 UGA Basketball isn't complete without a trip to The Varsity!


 School Valentine's Day party

 Daddy/Daughter Dance




Thomas is 5 months!

Saturday, November 7, 2015

February 2014


Trying to create order in the house...


... we turned the bonus room into a great play room!  Little did we know that this would last about a year, before we would find out we were pregnant again, finish the basement, and scrap this plan and turn this into another bedroom.  The Jacksons are learning to roll with life!


Rocking with Mrs. Wendy!  Elizabeth's favorite thing to do!



Dressing up and putting on shows!  The girls love this activity!


Celebrating Mimi's birthday


Do you wanna build a snowman??  It was a snowy winter, and Mrs. Anna (a favorite babysitter) came over to play!






M&M snow cream!


Reality

Alrighty then...  so, obviously this blog has been relegated to a long list of things to do that haven't gotten done lately.  Not sure whether to even attempt to catch up or just start fresh now with pictures and happenings.  I may try to bring this blog back to life since my wonderful husband just got me an ipad with a keyboard - which means that there may or may not be opportunities in my near future to update this thing while we're on the go!
At the moment, I'm riding in the car with Cline driving, and I don't have access to pictures.  So, I'll re-enter this blog with words, thoughts, and explanations.  And maybe I'll admit a hard truth.

Four kids is really hard.

It's been over a year, and Thomas sleeps well and is an awesome baby!  All four of my kids are awesome and amazing, and I would never ever in a million years want to give any one of my children back.  But our life never slowed down or got back on any sort of routine after T was born.  One year later, I am still in surival mode with fewer brain cells than I had before.  The influx of papers and stuff into my house is constant and impossible to keep up with.  Sleep ain't happening as much as it should, and yet there is more to be done every day when I go to bed.  I  have rearranged, reorganized, decluttered, and basically reinvented my home trying to find some sort of brilliant system that keeps things neat, orderly, and most importantly, possible to find things I need when I need them.  Nothing has really solved the issues.

Some of the kids are getting older and more helpful.  But something that nobody tells you when you have a baby is that school adds a whole new dimension of stress and stuff to your life.  I can take care of 4 kids.  No problem!  I'm having trouble taking care of 4 kids AND educating one (soon to be 2) of them....

.... I started writing this over a year ago.  I found it, as I was trying to finally attempt to catch up on this blog enough to print it out, as I have all the other years.  As I sit here today, in November of 2015, we have added a FIFTH child to our family!  Sometime over the last year, things got easier, apparently.  Maybe not so much with school - I'm learning to accept that school is a reality in our family that is here to stay, and as long as the benefits outweigh the hassle, we will keep trudging along with it.  But our transition to 5 kids was much easier than our transition to 4, so much so, that baby Charlotte is only 6 weeks old, and I am finding time to blog again!  I've always done well with the odd numbered kids :)

I'm off to attempt to catch up on 2014.  My OCD is very bothered that so many posts are out of order, and that might make things confusing to read later on.  But Christa recently ran across some blog books I've already printed out, and is having a blast reading through them.  Even if it's mostly pictures, I want to attempt to have some record of the last 2 years for our family.  The out-of-order posts will just have to serve as a reminder that sometimes life gets hard and busy, and things that I would really, really, really love to do (like have an up-to-date, in order blog and a neat and orderly house) have to go by the wayside for a while.  And that's OK!

Footsteps in Faith 2014













Wednesday, July 30, 2014

More Crazy, Random Fun

In addition to the normal care and maintenance of 4 young children, we had special days at school that I had to prepare for, as well.  I managed to throw these outfits together late the night before I remembered it was 50's Day, and Bring a Buddy Day (a day when the little ones can visit) at Christa's school.

Fortunately, our family loves the 50s and between costumes that Cline had ordered for a 50s themed birthday party for me a few years ago, and an assortment of dance costumes, we were set!


 Fun with friends at Christa's school!

 Elizabeth is quite the ham, and has a special passion and talent for dancing.  She put together this little diddy, pairing angel wings with a sun hat and a ballerina swimsuit and moved and danced like crazy!

 She knows she's cute...

 Don't judge me.  This is the only way he would sleep!  I don't know if they buried him under pillows and blankets in the NICU or what, but if I wasn't holding him, this was the only alternative.

 Thomas is 4 months!!  I think he was trying to smile for this picture...

Cuddle time with sisters!  This is Thomas's serious face, which I saw a lot every time I tried to pull out the camera.  It inspired a little song/chant in our house, that all of the girls, especially Abby Kate, love to sing to him:

I had a baby boy
He was so serious
Every time I tried
To get a picture of
Him, he would not smile
He would only frown
And then sometimes
He would just look down

And I said
Smile Thomas, smile
Smile Thomas, smile
Smile Thomas, smile Thomas, smile Thomas, smile

Crazy, Random Fun

Still trying to get this blog caught up.... some days I think that will never happen again, but I'm not ready to give up the dream just yet!  Some post-Christmas/early January fun!

 Sometime when this picture was taken, I captured Thomas smiling in this handsome car sweater!

 Girls are loving their American Girl dolls, and ballet is one of their favorite things!  Put them together, and you get amazing wonderful-ness!

 For Thomas's 3 month pictures, we went to the same studio in a neighboring town we've been using since Elizabeth was born.  Thomas wouldn't wake up at all!  I tried everything, but he was out!

So we left with this....

 The fruits of our efforts....  at least I'm making an attempt to get good baby pictures of him??

 I've been very fearful of cutting Elizabeth's hair, because I have had a blast with her gorgeous ringlets. But, after nearly 3 years, it was time for a small clean up.  Elizabeth loved every moment of the experience, and Mrs. Keri did a great job preserving her curls!

 About to begin.

 All done and quite proud!

 We couldn't leave Abby Kate out of the hair-cutting process, so Mrs. Keri fluffed and styled her hair!

 Beautiful girl!

Thomas and I spent a lot of time like this his first few months.  He is about as good of a sleeper as Abby Kate was (my worst sleeper), so cuddling was the only way either of us could get some rest.  (Unless, of course, I was trying to, say, maybe, get a picture of him with his eyes open??)  At any rate, my extensive cuddle time with both Abby Kate and Thomas is something I look back now and cherish from those early days!