Playing catch up....

Holy Smokes!!!!!!!!

It has been since July 2012 that we have given our blog any love!!  This is crazy and ridiculous and also a testament to how quickly life happens!!

I was going to try to fill in the blanks of the last year and a half, but since I am having a really hard time remembering that long ago, I'll try to fill everyone in on the more recent events!

After discussing it for several years, Andy and I finally made the incredibly difficult, scary, yet exciting decision for me to take a 'hiatus' from my job as the athletic trainer at a local high school to stay home with the kids.  Andy's job has become more demanding and I worked every evening, so with Julia starting Kindergarten this year, we thought it might be nice for at least one of her parents to see her at some point during the day!!  Even though it seems counter-intuitive to stop working as my child starts school, it has been great and I love being able to be home when she gets home from school.  I have also enjoyed spending LOTS of time with Jackson and seeing him learn and grow and become the laid back, train loving, sweetheart that he is.

Julia has flourished in school and we have gotten rave reviews from her teacher.  She is an eager learner and has learned a ton in the short time she has been there.  We have learned that we are no longer safe to spell things that we don't want her or Jack to know about because she can more than likely figure out what we are spelling!!  Being in school has also allowed her to experience a few not so great things she wouldn't otherwise see or hear!  But I guess that comes with the territory!

She loves drawing, singing and dancing.  We keep trying to interest her in sports and she keeps telling us that she is going to be an "artiste"!!  Lately she has been going to watch Andy play volleyball on Sundays, so that has helped to get her more interested.  She also loves to play softball in the back yard, but gives us a strong "no" whenever we ask her if we should sign her up!  She also is really good at hitting the softball, so we hope she pursues it (I know she didn't get this skill from her mother!!).

Jackson on the other hand is all boy!!  He can't eat anything without getting it all over himself, if there is a puddle nearby, he WILL step in it and he loves tackling his daddy!!  He is all about trains right now.  He could play trains all day long!  He is also really into Jake and the Neverland Pirates at the moment.  For Christmas he got 2 pirate ships, some Jake figurines and a Captain Hook hook.  He loves playing with those and has played with them everyday since he got them.  I know I have spent too much time with him when I can clearly understand what he says and I have to translate for Andy!  Julia is also a pretty good translator, too!  But I love nothing more than when Jackson comes up to me and says "Mommy, I wuv you!"

Speaking of Christmas, this year was a whirlwind, but probably the best yet!  Julia came into our room that morning, like normal, and asked to put a show on.  We asked if she wanted to see if Santa came and she wasn't really interested!!  But then once we got downstairs, they had a great time.  We then went to my parents house to celebrate and then left their house to go to Connecticut.  Julia got a HUGE dollhouse and Jackson got a cozy coupe truck and gas pump, that he can't wait to play with outside!!  (They got other things too, but those were the biggies!!)

We did do our annual trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina again this year with our group of friends who have essentially become like family.  As always, we had a great time and never want to leave!!  This is always our favorite week of the year.  Unfortunately, we won't be going this summer, but we are definitely looking forward to making it happen again in the future.

Here are two videos of the kids.  This shows their personalities better than anything I could ever type!  The one is of Julia doing her impression of Andy(She is quite good at impressions!!) and the other is Jackson being a pirate.

 

 

 

So I know that this isn't everything that has happened, but I'm going to make it my mission to have more blog posts before another year and a half passes!!

~Courtney