Fun with Friends!

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends! Our friends the Riera's came up to spend the day with us and see our new house! They are such special people as we met Marc & Stacey when their son Drew was in the NICU and our Jonathan was there too. It was a crazy and stressful time and out of that came two wonderful boys and a super special friendship. Drew & Jonathan are two weeks apart (Drew is older), our second set of boys are 6 months apart (Aaron is older than Tyler) and our 3rd set of boys will be 16 months apart depending on when Chewy makes his arrival, but Joshua will be older. Holy moly that's a lot of boys! We sure do have fun when we all get together though!

Storytime with Kris

All our boys- Drew, Jonathan, Joshua, Tyler & Aaron

Getting goofy!

Sweet laughter!

  We also had another overnight visit from the Ragan family. Gracie, Josiah, Jonathan & Aaron get along really well. And I really enjoy soaking up Gracie and all her girliness!! She and I talked about dresses and toe nail polish- she like that mine was so sparkly! Gracie proved she wasn't too girly for mud though. All the kiddos had a blast making a big mud pit and making mud pies too. Josiah was the first to abandon ship and come in for a bath, but we had to nearly drag in the other 3 so that they could get a decent night's sleep for church the next day!

muddy hands!

Josiah all clean!

Gracie tossing water for Avalon who loves to jump and catch it!

Jonathan the scary (and muddy) scarecrow!

I love this face- winding up to throw more water for Avalon!!

Summer Fun!

Ok so summer is here!!! and it is HOT!!! So we've been getting creative in finding ways to stay cool. One of our favorite things to do is turn on the sprinkler and get wet!! I've also filled up the two kitchen sinks with water and let the boys play with toys... it's amazing how simple things can keep them occupied for hours!!

Just the other day I filled up the bathtub with cool water and let the boys play in the indoor "pool". They were more than happy with that but then I remembered seeing something on Pinterest about bathtub paint, so I found the recipe- shaving cream and food coloring... put it in a cupcake pan, gave them paintbrushes and let my little artists paint away!

This is great!

See I painted a truck!

Aaron paints the wall

Look at all the colors!

We also spent one morning at the park in Copper. It's a member's only park, which we aren't, but a couple weekends ago they had a flea market so we browsed the flea market and then spent time playing before having a picnic and then going home before it got too hot.

Jonathan loves to swing!

Aaron ready to slide!

I see you Mommy!

Oooo this is a bit tricky!

Aaron likes to swing too!

My beautiful boys!

We also spend a lot of time in the evenings just playing and goofing around. Kris keeps the boys laughing hysterically with his funny faces. So he decided to try and teach Jonathan how to cross his eyes... the process of which nearly had me rolling on the floor laughing. He tries so hard to track his own finger to his nose but most times he ends up looking off to the side! He's managed to cross his eyes once or twice. Here are just a few pics we took of his "practicing" the other day:

Trying so hard!

OOPS!! Not quite!

YES!! Got it!!!

Father's Day 2012

We spent Father's Day with Kris family and had a fun afternoon at his brother Danny & wife Crystal's house. Jonathan and Aaron were excited to see everyone and especially to play with their cousin Cameron who is 2 1/2. Crystal is also expecting a baby, a girl, Natalie and is due on August 8th. It's been fun being pregnant together!

After dinner Kris snagged some great family pictures:

The Fam

The Daddies

The big boys and the little boys

Silly Faces

Two big bellies- Crystal 8 mos, Sarah 5 months

Natalie & Corban

20 Weeks!! Halfway There!!

Well on Saturday we hit the 20 week mid pregnancy marker!!! We had our ultrasound the Wed. before and learned that we will be welcoming another little boy into our family in November. The ultrasound went really well Chewy was measuring right on for his due date. He has all the right parts in all the right places and we got some pictures to share. They aren't great, but ultrasound pics are just like that I guess. Jonathan and Aaron got to go with us and they thought it was really coo to see their brother on the screen. The ultrasound technician was wonderful and really took a lot of time to show them the different parts of the baby. Although Jonathan had said that he wanted a baby sister since he already had a brother, they were both excited to know they were getting another brother. Kris is 3 for 3 at calling the sex of the baby before the Dr. He just has really great eyesight! Fairly early on during the ultrasound Kris called out, "it's a boy!" .. although the tech wasn't looking for the sex yet, she backed up and confirmed that he was right. So Corban Michael it is!! Jonathan & Aaron loved getting to hear the baby's heartbeat. Dr. Brunel was so awesome with them. He even found Chewy's heartbeat in one place where it sounded like a choo-choo train and then found the heartbeat near the heart valves where it sounded more like a helicopter or a galloping horse! Dr. said I was doing well too, put on 4 pounds since my appt. 5 weeks ago bringing my total weight gain to about 6 pounds thus far. I've been able to feel Corban kicking for the last week or so and that is so thrilling!!! One thing we found out in the ultrasound is that he is currently breech, or bottom down.. but he has plenty of time and will most likely move into the proper head down position before delivery comes. Some really great news- my placenta is no longer blocking my cervix and is moving up the side of the uterus as it should, and according to the tech it will only move further up the side as the pregnancy progresses!! YIPPEE!!!

Little Tiny Feet!

His Spine- "It looks like railroad tracks Mommy!" says Jonathan

Sweet Little Face

Arrow showing his "parts", lol

   And we took a couple belly pics... the boys even wanted to be in them too.

Corban Michael- 20 weeks!

All 3 of my boys!!

  Thanks to our wonderful friends Marc & Stacey, Corban has a crib and all kinds of other goodies for his room!! I spent one afternoon putting the crib together and even put sheets on. I located all our newborn boy clothes and put them in the dresser too, even though it will all have to be taken out and washed as we get closer to delivery. Kris found a chair that will work wonderfully for those mid-night feedings and I removed the closet door and found curtains that my mom had made to hang in the door opening and the window. It's exciting to see it all come together. I know we've still got 5 months to go, but I like to have things organized and be ahead of the game!

Crib, chair, and closet

 

Changing table, dresser, and window

What's in a name?

Tomorrow is the big day!! We have our big ultrasound and hope that Baby Chewy cooperates to show us just who is living in there... a baby girl or a baby boy!!! We've been discussing names for weeks and it hasn't been easy. Kris noticed that the letters of our first names spell out JACKS, except we're missing the "C"... Jonathan, Aaron, "C", Kris, and Sarah... so wouldn't it be cool if we could name this baby to fill in the "C" slot? Since we didn't plan to create this acronym we thought it might be neat to finish it up. But goodness I think it made things a bit more difficult for sure!

When we chose the boys' names we chose directly out of the Bible for both their first and middle names... and we wanted them to have great meanings. Jonathan Isaac means God has given laughter and Aaron Lucas means strength & light. So we started our "C" search by looking at names in the Bible. The first "C" name we came across was Cain which means possession or a spear... and he also murdered his brother- not exactly what we were looking for. Most of the other "C" names were just too weird- Caesar, Chelub, Claudius, and Coz just to name a few! There were a couple that sounded decent- Caleb, Christian, and Corban... but Caleb is pretty common in this area and it means "dog"; having a Christian in the same family as a Kristopher just seemed too much alike. Corban means gift or offering and we liked that, but weren't super crazy about it. When we found Jonathan and Aaron's names we loved them instantly and there was no looking back, the search was over, end of story. As for a middle name we liked Michael which means "Like God" and is also Kris' middle name. We also spent time looking at non Biblical "C" names and didn't come up with anything we liked there. Finally I abandoned the "C" idea entirely and just searched through all names... some of the other ones I like are: Ethan (means firm, enduring), Isaiah (salvation of God), Jeremiah (raised up, appointed by God), and Noah (rest).

As for girl names.. I've actually had a couple favorites for years (since we didn't end up using them for the first 2 pregnancies obviously) and ironically they are both "C" names. My two favorite names are: Callie (means beautiful, lovely) and Chloe (greenery or blossom). The middle name we like is Anne which means gracious and is my middle name too. I also really like Abigail (source of joy) and Hannah (favored, grace).

So I am super excited about our ultrasound tomorrow... I can't wait to see the baby again! At least finding out boy or girl will help us eliminate one grouping of names and hopefully will help us settle on a name for our new baby. We asked the boys tonight what we should name the baby.. Jonathan said he likes Corban Michael for a boy and Callie for a girl. Aaron said he thought the baby should be named Chewy (he stuck to his guns even after we explained that Chewy was just a temporary name, lol).

Can't wait to update you all after we get home tomorrow!!

Aaron grows up!

We had a big achievement in the Jack household this last week! Aaron started riding Jonathan's big boy bicycle (training wheels still attached). He'll be 4 near the end of August and this is a HUGE thing because he has NEVER ever pedaled on any type of vehicle before. He has a tricycle and a big wheel  and has always absolutely refused to pedal; instead pushing himself along with his feet- Flintstone style... also causing him to wear out the toes in multiple pairs of shoes. Aaron had been asking to ride Jonathan's big red bicycle for a while but he was just too short to climb on, plus I told him that he would have to pedal as his feet would not reach the ground. Then one day last week he climbed on! Guess he had a growth spurt too! I helped him ride around in a circle giving him small pushes as he got the hang of using his feet on the pedals. He took to it quickly and was so thrilled! Kris spent some more time with him the next day teaching him how to use the pedal brakes  and how to get himself going again once he'd stopped. He quickly moved on from riding in circles to down our sidewalk where he dismounts at the end, turns the bike around and then rides back toward the house. Look our world! Here he comes!!

Around and around he goes!

This is his happy face!