Evans blessing

Evans blessing was so beautiful! Spencer did an amazing job and we were so lucky to have the Jacksons down to spend time with us and be a part of his big day. Thank you to everyone who came and here are some pictures of our familys from before the blessing.

Evan's Baby Blessing

Just wanted to let everyone know about evans baby blessing.

Sunday March 27th at 11:00 AM

La Loma Ward building

301 W. Wigwam Blvd.

Litchfield Park, AZ, 85340

We will also be having a luncheon at my mom and dad's house after sacrement meeting. If you need directions or the address leave a comment with your contact info and i will get it to you. The Jacksons are also coming down for that weekend so we are so excited. Hope to see you all there!

Home Daycare

hey guys i am trying to get started doing day care so if you know anyone who is interested leave a comment and I'll give you my information. I am looking for about 3 kids to tend and i am going to charge $115 for a week or $25 per day for part time. I would like to get started as soon as possible so please let me know. Thanks everyone!

My beautiful children!

Now that evan lost his newborn look and is starting to look like a little boy i wanted to get a few pictures of them both together. I obviously dont have a studio but my bed works just fine. :-) Here are a couple that i took.
Here is one i thought was just precious because you can tell he knows who she is and he loves the sound of lexi's voice. She talked to him a lot when i was pregnant and you can tell he already loves her so much. She is a great big sister and a wonderful daughter, i couldnt ask for 2 better children!

Here is a picture of his adorable smile. He has been smiling for a couple weeks now and is so happy and playful but it took until now to get a little one on camera.

I am so grateful for the oportunity to be a mother of these 2 beautiful children and love every minute i have with them.

It took almost 2 years but the dreaded day happened....

Spencer got assaulted by an inmate on Wednesday afternoon. He called me around 5 or 6 and let me know he was involved with a fight at work and was punched int he face. From my understanding a Mexican-American inmate was refusing to lock down and so when the officer tried to cuff him he started fighting and then the rest of the Mexican-Americans in there joined in the fight. If i remember right Spencer said there were about 8 inmates and 6 officers involved. His captain was punched in the jaw and a couple of the other officers got body shots but Spencer got the worst of it. As he was trying to get the inmate off his captain he swung back around and clocked Spencer right in the face. He was also covered in pepper spray since he was spraying everyone in sight to try and stop the fight. There were a bunch of other inmates out of their cells so if the other race groups wanted to get involved in sure that one of the officers probably would have been seriously hurt which is scary to think about. I was able to get a few pictures of his face so here they are.

Wednesday night at the hospital

His face was really swollen and Spencer said it was hard to see out of his left eye. He had a couple other big bumps on his head and had a really had headache but besides that he said he felt fine. They sent him to the hospital just to make sure everything was ok since he was hit in the face pretty hard. The doctor said he didn't have a concussion and there were no scratches or anything on his eye. They sent him home with some pain pills and told him they recommended he not go back to work for a few days since he would be on pain pills and was having a hard time seeing.

Friday Morning

He is feeling much better but he says its still a little tender. This picture doesn't do it justice thought, most of that side of his face is pretty green and his eyelid is really dark.

It could have been much worse so I'm so grateful he just got punched in the face, as horrible as that sounds. He could have been seriously hurt or even killed so I'm grateful him and the guys he works with were able to get it under control before it went too far. I love Spencer and I'm glad hes ok but his face will just be a little colorful for the next few weeks. :-)

Labor and Delivery

I know its been almost 2 weeks since hes been born but I've been busy with a new baby and Spencer's family has been in town so I've been a little pre-occupied! :-) On Saturday the 13th, later in the evening, i was having some sharp pain so i called the OB on call and she told me to come in and get checked out. Since i was so close to my induction date they wanted to make sure everything was ok and see if i was in labor or not. i was dilated to a 4 so they had me walk and within an hour i dilated to a 5. They decided to admit me since i was strep positive they wanted me on anti-biotics before he was born. I was able to get to a 6 on my own but after that my labor just stopped, contractions and everything. I waited all night for the morning shift to start so they could call the doctor and not bother him since it was on a Sunday. They came in at about 7AM and gave me some pitocin which started up the contractions again. I had gotten an epidural at about 10:30PM the night before so by that time i wasn't feeling any pain so life was great. A couple hours into the pitocin they checked me again and i wasn't dilating very much so i told the nurse that my contractions with Lexi didn't get hard until my water broke. They were finally able to get a hold of Dr. Erickson and he came down about 10 and broke my water. The nurse then did something i have never seen or heard of before but i am now a big believer in the "magic peanut". She put this thing that basically looks like a peanut shaped exercise ball in between my legs and had me lay on my side. As soon as she got it in position i started to feel pressure and in a few minutes later i kept feeling the urge to push. She checked me again and withing 10 minutes i went from a 7 to a 10 and we were ready to push. She had me do a couple practice pushes and then Dr. Erickson came in. Once everything was ready i gave 3 big pushes and he was out. It was so different with his delivery because with Lexi i couldn't feel anything from the waist down but with him the epidural took away all the pain but i could feel where i was pushing and pressure. I cant even begin to explain to you how happy i was to see his beautiful face after 9 months of imagining what it looked like. He was just as beautiful as i had hoped and i was totally balling because i was so happy that it was all over and he was finally here. I didn't tear as bad with him as i did with Lexi so my recovery was much faster. The other thing that was really cool was the fact that my mom and Natalie were able to be in the room with us for his delivery. My sister finally got to see what childbirth is like from a different perspective. I love my mom and my sister and was so happy they were able to be there with me and Spencer to see the birth of our beautiful son. Evan has been such a good baby and Lexi loves him so much already. I was a little worried how she would react after being an only child for 4 years but you can tell she is so happy he is here and she is going to be a great big sister. The only "problem" if you can even call it that right now is she wants to help a little too much. :-) she is really gentile with him and loves to give him hugs and kisses. We are all so happy he is here and healthy and cant wait to spend every second with him. Its amazing... how you can have so much love for 2 different kids. I didn't know it could be possible to love anyone as much as i love Lexi but i love Evan just the same. I love my husband and my kids and am so grateful for the opportunity to be a mother and raise 2 beautiful children with an amazing man.

EVAN IS HERE!

getting ready to go to the hospital!!

THERE HE IS!!! Evan Spencer Jackson was born on November 14 at 10:25am. He is 7 lbs, 3 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long. He is absolutely adorable and we already love him to death!

Lexi already loves him so much! She was so excited to meet baby Evan!

What a cute family!

1 week and counting...

I had my weekly checkup today and i am now dilated to a 3 and 90% effaced. The doctor could feel his head so hes already very low and in position so his guess would be before this Thursday, but if not i will be induced on Monday morning. I have been having contractions and a lot of lower back pain yesterday, all last night and today and there is a lot of pressure in and around my hips so i think he will be here in the next few days. I am so excited to see his handsome little face and i will have my sister or my mom post pictures of him once hes here. Wish me luck!

Dr. Update

I went to the doctor this morning and i am dilated to a 2 and he said i was pretty thin already. I am scheduled to be induced on the 15th but he said he doesn't think i will even make it that far. Hopefully he will wait at least till next week so Spencer will be able to have thanksgiving off. We are so excited to be here and i cant wait to see his handsome little face! :-)

Best target trip EVER!!!

OK so for one of my shower gifts i got a target gift card so today me and my mom went up to the target on happy valley and as we are finishing our taco bell in my moms car i see this....

ITS WALDO!! We started laughing but this picture was a little far away so we finished our lunch as fast as we could and almost ran into target to try and get a better picture. Never in my life did i think that i would be playing wheres waldo in real life at target. We were giggling through most of the store till we found him!

He took off his beanie but we were laughing so hard the entire time so it made everything worth it. I took this with my phone and i felt so silly because it makes noise when it takes a picture so i had to take it then run away. My mom kept joking we should have asked him to put the beanie back on and peak around the corner of one of the aisles so we can take a picture of him. Needless to say this was probably the best target trip EVER!!!

Playing catch up...

Ok so I'm a bad blogger... a lot has happened in the past few weeks and i haven't blogged any of it yet... :-P. So my shower was a couple weeks ago and it was so much fun! A lot of people were out of town but we had a good turn out and i got a lot of cute stuff. 1st off i would like to thank my mom and sisters for being awesome and throwing me the shower. Natalie and Kim made me the cutest cake EVER for the shower and it even had his name on it. I LOVED IT!!

Here is a picture of a couple stuft animals Kim crocheted for Evan. They are so soft and cuddly cute i loved the how cute they turned out!

Here is a picture of my and my moms craftiness! :-) We sewed this "car seat canopy" without a pattern and it turned out really cute for neither of us knowing what we were doing. lol My mom is good with the sewing machine and i knew what i wanted so between the 2 of us i think we did pretty awesome.

On Tuesday my mom and dad came over to our house to bring the crib. i was able to get Lexi's room a little re-organized before hand so things would fit a little better but i was still worried it would be too crowded with 2 dressers 2 beds and a toy box but everything fits perfect. These pictures were taken from the doorway of the kids room so you have some perspective on how perfect everything fits. this is Lexi's bed and the polka dots are her closet. the brown dresser is going to be Evans (you can see the bottom of his car seat on top) and that is half of the toy box.

Here is the other half of the toy box and the white dresser is Lexi's dresser and of coarse there's the crib for Evan. Its a tight squeeze but everything fits and it doesn't feel too crowded and that's all that matters.

Here is a close-up of Evans sheets and bumper. i love the pattern of the sheets because the animals are so bright and happy looking and the colors match really well with the other colors in Lexi's room so it worked out perfectly.

As for me I'm about ready to be done being pregnant. It doesn't help that I now have everything ready for him to be here and i still have about 4 weeks till hes going to be here. i talked to my doctor and i should find out this week or next when I'm going to be induced. he said they are going to induce me on the 15th and they are going to call me once they get everything scheduled. I'm so excited for him to be here and its starting to feel more real since we have all our baby stuff back in our house. I have Lexi's party, another baby shower that my visiting teacher is throwing me on the 28th then Halloween and a couple doctors appointments (my OB, Lexi's yearly and my cardiologist) and after that all I'll have to do is wait for Evan. I'm excited that I'll be at least a little bit busy for the next couple weeks to help time go by a little faster.

3D Ultrasound

I went to the doctor on Monday for my check up and my 3D ultrasound and i have to say... hes going to be cute! :-) We got a couple good pictures and a video that i posted below. He's already measuring almost 4 pounds so i imagine hes going to be big :-/. You can see in a couple of the ultrasound pictures that he has chubby cheeks and being able to see his face make me even more excited for him to be here! During the ultrasound Lexi kept asking why he was yellow. The woman doing my ultrasound explained to her that's just the color they chose the picture to be, he is colored just like her. She was really funny during the whole thing she just kept asking questions. Evan wasn't being so cooperative, he had the cord right in front of his face and kept wiggling so it took a little while to get these pictures and you can see the cord in a couple of the pictures.

You can see his face in the top left corner.

You can see in this one he has the same nose as Lexi... cute as a button! :-)

This is a cheek shot and you can kind of see his lips and you can see the cord in front of his face.

This one looks a little creepy because of the stuff in front of his face but i like it because you can see him smiling.

Here is the link to the video of the ultrasound (my blog wouldn't let me upload it so i had to put it on YouTube.) If you watch it you will get to see him swallowing and he takes a big yawn about half way through. Its so fun to see him acting like a baby because the past ultrasounds hes been pretty calm. He was very active during this one! We are so excited for him to be here and with the baby shower around the corner its starting to seem more real that we will be here soon. I am now going every 2 weeks to my doctor and from what we were talking about and with how big he is probably going to be i will more than likely induced the week of November 15th. We are happy for that because now i know Spencer will be able to be there for the birth and he will be able to take time off for the baby and be able to spend time with his family when they come down for thanksgiving too! I will be 38 weeks on the 15th of November so i don't think he will come before that but I'm hoping he doesn't decide to come even earlier... but then again i have no control of when hes ready to come! :-) Lets just hope he can wait till then.

Our Project

So with me now being a stay at home mom i have gotten so much done in my house. Honestly i have cleaned my entire house top to bottom including organizing the kids room, pantry and my closet. With all that being done i was having a hard time finding things to do around my house. We had found a side table next to the dumpster in front of our apartment about a year ago and haven't really done anything with it. It was ugly and a little scratched but the table itself has a nice style and didn't have anything majorly wrong with it. i have been trying to figure out what to do with it but never found an idea i loved. Now that I'm home most of the day i got tired of looking at the ugly table so i was thinking of ideas of what to do with it. So i found a picture online of a branch with cherry blossoms (our front rooms is kind of a "around the world" theme so it matched with some of our more Asian decor) that i loved so i brought it home to Spencer and told him that's what i wanted on the table. I sanded down the entire table and painted the legs and top the solid colors i wanted and Spencer painted the design on the top. It turned out so good and our grand total on the table was only about $20 including supplies and the paints so i think it was a great find and I'm so happy with how it turned out. Here are some pictures of the before and after.

Here is the table before. I started sanding the top and one of the legs before i realized i needed a before picture so it did look a little better than this originally

Here is the top after a little bit of sanding.
Here is the table before the design. It took quite a few coats to get the coverage we wanted from the red and tan and it looks a little more orange in this picture. Its like a lipstick red.

Here is a picture of Spencer starting the design. The only caption that fits the look on his face is "you're dumb" :-) he thought i was being silly and didn't need to take a picture of him painting it but oh well... i did it anyway! :-)

Here is the finished product! It turned out awesome and the gloss coat we used on top of that made it super easy to wipe off and its has a nice glossy finish.

i am so happy with how it turned out and i also love that Spencer got to use his talents on something in our house. He is a very talented artist and i wish i can do more to get him back into it so i may find another few "projects" he can help with! :-)

And the name is...

We have officially decided this new little baby boy's name will be Evan Spencer Jackson! We are so excited for him to come in November and its now seeming more real now that he has a name. I also had some awesome coupons for Joann's so I went out and bought some letters to put up in the kids room. I did the same thing for Lexi so now the new baby has some too! You cant really tell in the picture but the sides of the letters are a bright green and I love those colors because 1) I love bright colors and 2) Lexi and Evan will be sharing a room so these colors go with the bedding I want for his crib and the colors in Lexi's room. I'm so excited!

SPLASH PARK

So yesterday all of us (Kim, Nat, Rachel and My Mom) and all the kids went to the Goodyear splash park. Everyone had so much fun! My shoulders, chest and a little of my back got totally fried because i was so worried about Lexi getting burnt i forgot to put on sun screen for myself. oops... Also i was putting all of our stuff down after putting sunscreen on the kids and all of a sudden the strap of my swim suit completely snapped off the back! So with a little help and creativity from my mom we converted my strappy swim suit into a halter top at the splash park! :-) Here are some pictures from our day of fun...
Kolsen wanted me to help him get under the dump buckets. This also counts as my 20 week belly shot :-)

I was surprised how well Lexi did. She hates getting water in her face in the tub but she loved every minute of it.

She was a little nervous to get dumped but mommy got dumped too which made it so much more fun!

Stomping on the water shooting out of the ground... such fun!

Playing in the water tunnel

Running through the water tunnel

Splish Splash

This is my only complaint about kids swimwear.... She had a CONSTANT WEDGIE the entire time and kept having to pull it out. LoL

LEXI POSE! I like this picture because the shadow looks cool plus it just sums up Lexi... :-)

We had so much fun and are already planning on going back with daddy! :-)

Baby Names

Ok so here is my dilemma... as you can see i have posted a poll about baby names (i have also text my friends who don't usually check my blog and asked their opinion and it was a tie). I keep going back and forth between the 2 and Spencer isn't being much help. He just keeps giving me the "we have 4 months to pick a name" bit and he wont give me his opinion other then he has said he likes both of those names. I love them both! So i have looked up the meanings of both the names and here's what they mean:

Evan-God is Good

Brayden-Brave

They both have good meanings so that didn't help much. His middle name will be Spencer but that also sounds good with both names (Evan Spencer Jackson or Brayden Spencer Jackson). I like the name Evan because i think its a very classic name and i have always liked it. I like to name Brayden too because its different and i don't know very many kids named that. Lexi likes both names and it depends on the day which name i think we are going to choose. I have also double checked on both my side and Spencer's side and none of our relatives have those names that i know of, which is a good thing. I am stuck... Spencer does have a point that we have a few months to decide, but its just that with Lexi there was no questions that was her name from the very beginning and with this little boy its been harder. I am just kind of ranting because i am hoping that voicing my opinions will help me to decide which one i like more...... i don't like decisions......

To my wonderful husband...

HAPPY 5TH ANNIVERSARY!

Spencer,

I want to thank you for everything you do and have done for our family. I am grateful for each and every day I get to spend with you and I love you more then I can ever say. I know these last 5 years have not been easy but I wouldn't trade them for the world. I think because of our trials it has made our relationship so much stronger and I appreciate it much more. We have made a beautiful little girl and have a wonderful little boy on the way and I couldn't even begin to imagine having this joy with anyone but you. I love you with all of my heart and I hope to have many more years to show you how much I mean that. I LOVE YOU!

With Love,
Heather

The Big Announcment......

ITS A BOY!

We had our 18 week ultrasound this morning and its definatly a baby boy! I tried to get the bum shot on here but the quailty didnt look good so we will save him some early humiliation. We have no clue on a name yet but i will post it as soon as we figure it out for ourselves. Lexi is so excited to have a baby brother and spencer didnt quite believe me when i told him but he is so stoked to have a son! My appointment was super early this morning so he didnt go but it was fun for me to be able to tell him. We are so excited to welcome this little baby boy into our family and cant wait to see him!

Spencer has one less organ...

OK so the surgery was almost a week ago and Spencer is doing great. The surgery was only about an hour long and it went really smoothly with no complications. He is still a little uncomfortable and one of his incisions is still pretty painful but hes recovering well. Today was his first day back to work so we will see how that goes. He has his 2 week follow up next wednesday so we will hopefully find out everything is ok and the problems hes been having is fixed. thanks for everyone who called to check on him.

Ultrasound and a Surgery...

Baby Jackson at 10 weeks

Here is the 2nd ultrasound Ive gotten on our new bundle of joy. The first one you cant really even see the baby so i didn't post it (Sorry this one is kind of fuzzy too its a cell phone picure of a picture.) The tech was checking on the heartbeat and got a quick picture for me. The baby has a very strong heartbeat and is measuring right along with where it should be. Its so fun because it actually looks like a baby now so Lexi was so excited when Spencer showed her the picture. She told him that when mommy's tummy gets big enough it will turn into a door and the baby will walk out.... she has quite an imagination. Instead of telling her the gory details of what REALLY happens i'll let her think my tummy is a door. :-) She is so fun and you can tell she is really excited about this baby. It is starting to seem real and we are all very excited.

And now about the surgery... Spencer has been struggling with stomach problems for about a year now. I will spare you the details but after lots of testing it looks like he is going to have his Gall Bladder removed next Thursday. Its not a major surgery and it should only take about a week, maybe less, to heal up and the doctor said he should feel better almost immediately. The doctor said they can do it Laparoscopicly (sorry if i spelled that wrong); he said they will make 1 cut above his belly button and 3 just under his rib cage and they wont be very big. The surgery itself should only take about an hour and if everything goes well he should be able to leave the hospital the same day. I am nervous because I'm a worrier but we are both glad there will be an end in sight for his pain. Keep him in your prayers and i will let you know how everything goes.