Port Aransas 2011!!

16 of the 17 people in our family who went! Yummy seafood!

Mom, Jon and Lissa takin' the boat out to ride the waves in...


The "grandkids" in our family

Haha--Haley's fiance Kris catchin' some zzz's on the way to Port A- using Jakey's blankey to hide the sunshine!

The sweetest and best little traveler-- 3hrs both ways with no restroom breaks.

Jakey loves Kris! And jumping off of the float, too.

Happy Boy!

Beach baby!

Some of the family relaxing on the beach

Me and my honey

He is totally a nut! He'd run to the other end of the pool with no one near and jump in. Once or twice he did it with no floaties and actually popped back up to the surface. I was hoping it'd scare him to deter him, but no.

Sweet face...

My family

This boy is 2.5 years now! Crazy!!

Playin b-ball w/Uncle Jon and Mitch

A sweaty 6.5 month pregnant mama and her baby boy!

The ferry ride! No dolphin sighting this time but Jakey loved it.

Last weekend we headed to Port Aransas for our annual family beach trip. This year there were 17 of us! We had booked our stay later than usual and had no options but two older condos with 3 bedrooms each. We were certainly not up to par with the 3 story beach houses we've had the past few years with 3 balconies, outdoor kitchens, granite countertops, etc, etc. However, we had an absolute ball! This place was older but clean and had lots of amenities. We played sand volleyball several times and tennis a lot, too. Since we had a super close walk to the beach, some of the guys would go down and fish at night. We played tons and tons of games and ate tons and tons of yummy food. I am so thankful for my big family that gets along so well and shares so much love for eachother. It seems like there's never enough time when we're together and we miss eachother when we're apart. We missed Daddy Joe again, and can't believe it's been almost 3 years since he's been gone. Looking forward to all being together eternally one day!

Bill's 60th Birthday!

Oh, the faces of Jake when he's drunk off cupcake sugar! =)

this crazy kid will do anything to get a couple of laughs!

Clapping after singing Happy Birthday!

A giant card of past pictures made by their good friends

Jakey thought it was a blast feeding Aunt Starr his fries!

Last weekend Velta threw a surprise party for Bill's 60th. We had a great time, the food was delicious, as always! Yummy guacamole, creamy jalepeno dip, queso, and dinner. There were a little less than 20 people who ended up coming. We sat on the patio and ate until we couldn't eat anymore! ;)

Noah's 4th Bday Party

We went to Noah's (Noah's mama is my old roomie from College Station) birthday party on Saturday. It was such a cute theme-choo choo trains! They had a little train giving rides around their neighborhood and a cute cookie cake with a choo choo on it. Jake got a little engineer hat, red bandana and cute wood whistle that he's been carrying around everywhere blowing since Saturday. :) They have a great backyard with a playset and bounce house--Jake was in heaven. Jakey had a blast playing with the "gasshopper" aka weedeater, and eating pizza and cookie cake.

He had a blast and I thought these pics of him and the birthday boy were too cute not to share and look back on later!

Spring Happenings!!

Eating at BJ's Brewhouse w/the girls in Tyler (soo yummy!)

In the hot tub @ Jess' in-laws!

about to shop the day away in Canton!

Mr. Serious mean face eating ravioli (ravo-eeee!) and tres leches!

The delicious cake and cute birthday sign that Kerry made! Like his party hat?!? :)

Our little angel, and the love of his life, "monkey".

The big brother seeing his baby brother or sister on the monitor for the first time!!

The main two spring happenings I want recorded for our family here are Jake's first time at our ultrasound and my girls surprise trip to Canton for my birthday.

A couple of weeks ago Jeremy, Jake and I went to my 11 week dr appointment. We heard the heartbeat which was 182bpm. I thought that was crazy, because looking back at Jake's ultrasound around this time his was 128bpm. His never went above 140-150 so 182 seemed really high! The weirdest part of all was that the baby was so still and looked asleep. Jeremy got to hear the heartbeat for the first time and so it was a memorable ultrasound. We are now around 13 weeks and pray that all goes well from here on out!

The second spring happening I want recorded is my surprise birthday from my friends. We'd already celebrated with a birthday dinner earlier in the week so I never expected this! Thursday afternoon after a playdate Jake and I had come home to shower and go about our day. A few hours later I had my three friends Jess, Rachel, and Laurie knocking at my door. My dad was already here, I had thought he just stopped by to give me my birthday money, which he had, but later found out he was waiting on them to get here so he could take Jake home with him. =) I had on a tshirt, my house was a wreck, I hadn't done my hair and my laundry was not done, either. They said, "Why aren't you dressed? Get ready and pack, we're going to Canton!" I was just in shock and just stared at them. :) After all, my mom was out of the state and my dad would have Jake all the way out in Magnolia alone. I had plans on Friday with my friend Danette and her kiddos and also had two important birthday parties on Saturday. I was thinking, "WHAT?!?" =) I cannot pack light or quick, so I was just dumbfounded. Once I was in the car I was thrilled, though! I had birthday cash, thanks to my parents, and Jeremy had warned the people who he could get a hold of who I had plans with that weekend. It ended up being a great girls trip with lots of eating, shopping, hot-tubbing, laughing, talking, etc. I am blessed beyond what I ever imagined with great friends who have been there for us through it all! Thank you girls!!

To top all of that off, I got home late Saturday afternoon, exhausted to a clean house, mopped and vaccuumed floors and a homemade Tres Leches cake. Jeremy had worked so hard while I was gone and I really felt so special that he had done all of that for me. I have a sweet husband who is my very best friend and a son that I missed so much and was so cuddly when I got home. He cried when I walked out of the room to take a shower a few minutes after I returned home. He thought I was going to leave him again. He had no notice the first time! =) I got on my knees to give him a hug before I went to shower and he kept saying, "Mommy's wight here, Mommy's wight here." It was so cute! Oh, how I missed my boys and so it was perfect to end the weekend with them. Also, my brother Matt and sister Haley were home for the weekend so I got to spend a little bit of time with them, too.

Jake's 2nd Bday Party!

The invite - custom made by my good friend Rachel over at www.sweetteapics.com

Sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies and goldfish





favors in the basket, drinks and the cake. Also a couple of pics of Jake from this past year.

Cars ball pit

Colors and transportation coloring pages

A glimpse of the room, with the race track in the back ground

The cake! Half white, half chocolate! Oh, and not ready on time, by the way. 2nd year in a row at two different bakeries for that to happen!

The "race track" that Lissa and Jen worked so hard on. It was totally all over the place a few minutes into the party, the kids pretty much went off-roading I guess you could say. A few families brought some ride-ons to add to the mix after I took this pic, which helped a lot!

Food tables and "jakey is two" banner I made out of cars/travel/transportation scrapbook paper and cardstock

driving play mat!

picture banner, in order of youngest pic to oldest pic

"road" table w/M&M's and gumball centerpieces

Some of his presents just before the party got started

Jake giving sweet baby Tate some love

Tate's big bro Noah...love him!

Matt, Jen, Lissa, Mom, Haley--don't know what we would've done without their help and hard work, along with Gran and Dad!

This lil driver was in heaven!!

Ha! The cones were everywhere!

Friends and Family! The best part of the party!

Cute pic of the ball pit. Hayes, Emily, Ayla and Yuri having a "ball"! Hehehe I'm such a nerd!

Jax, Clint, Lily and Kinley

Family!

blowing out his "2" candle

Papaw and Jake

Our family, including a very messy bday boy!

opening his new toys, which he soon lost interest in after he kept saying, "Open, peasse! Out, peasse!" and getting no response.

This past Saturday we celebrated Jakey's birthday with a few of our closest friends and family. Over 50 people showed up and really helped to make it such a special day for us and for Jake. He had a blast and didn't even want to stop driving around with all of his friends! We held it at the YMCA, and it turned out to be the perfect location! The kids could run around and play but couldn't hurt anything and their parents could keep an eye on them pretty easily. We might have to do another party again there in the future, especially having a winter birthday where you can't plan for the weather at all!

Because his absolute favorite thing to do is drive, and he's obsessed with everything that has wheels and some sort of steering, we decided to do a driving party. This party was such a blast to plan and we came up with some really fun stuff, the kids seemed to really enjoy it and were not happy to leave. =)

A few of our fun and simple ideas included black table cloths with masking tape down the middle to create a "road" look. We came up with a color scheme of stoplight colors of red, green and yellow with a little black, blue and orange thrown in. We used accents of scrapbook paper and made centerpieces and banners of Jake's pictures over the past two years and some words that go along with the theme such as "honk" and "jakey is two". Those were truly fun to make--I will probably be making lots more in the future! I also jumped online and found some plane, truck, car and train coloring templates and printed them out for the kids to color. Super easy and ended up being fun for the kids, too. We also used a huge "car" rug and brought some of Jake's larger toy trains, cars, buses, etc and let some of the littler kids play with those while sitting on the floor.

His cake was simply a round race track with a motorcycle and car hotwheels placed on top. The other food was kept simple with some Paula Deen sugar cookies shaped into stoplights (with red, yellow and green m&m's) and cars, trains and planes, chex mix, different flavored m&m's, goldfish and peanut butter cookies with reese's cups on top. We almost ran out of food this year! We will have more next year, promise! =) I was upset about the food running out, but Jeremy assured me that all of our friends have the means to eat dinner or pick something up on the way home, and that they weren't going to starve that night because we didn't include enough pre-dinner snacks. =) I felt a little bit better after that, but still bummed we didn't do more food. There's always next year! =)

We are so thankful for our family and friends and their willingness to support and love our Jakey. We had a great time celebrating the past two years and are so happy to have these pictures of our fun memories! Thank you to everyone who made his day so special!