Jenna

I can't believe my baby girl is going to be 5 months old this weekend. Where does the time go?? Here is an updated pic of lil miss Jenna.

She is such an easy baby!! She is always happy and most of the time just entertains herself. She loves her big brother and laughs at everything he does. I think they are going to be great friends. Jenna is such a blessing to our family. I just Love Her!!

She is also a daddy's girl already. She already has him wrapped around her little finger. I've already heard him promise her a pony several times! Guess we're gonna need a bigger yard!

4th of July

So much fun!! BBQ, Fireworks, and two kids that slept in the next day! :)

Baby Jenna

Jenna Shirley Wilson has arrived!! She was born 4-12-2010 at 5:52pm. Weighed 6lbs 7oz, and was 19 inches long. She is a perfect, healthy little girl and we love having her as the newest addition to our family. Jackson is adjusting well and loves to give his baby sister hugs and kisses. More pictures to come later...

Prego Update

First of all, I must be feeling VERY brave in order to actually put this picture on the Internet, but here I am prego, and waiting for our little girl. After almost 10 weeks of "bed rest" (the quotes are because Joel and I have very different ideas of what one should be allowed to do while on "bed rest") because of my dangerous blood pressure, we have made it to the safe time. The doctors say if she were born now, even though still a little but early, she would be fine. I am not a very good patient. I love being pregnant, but I hate being told I can't do things. Joel takes good care of me and helps with Jackson as much as possible, and scolds me almost daily for something I did around the house or a trip to Target that he didn't think was necessary. But HELLO...we have a baby to get ready for and I am nesting!!!

The only reason we took this picture is because we never took one when I was pregnant with Jackson, and because after she is born we are doing our own at-home version of "Biggest Loser" and competing to get back into shape. Consider this my before picture...



This is one of the many reasons I love my hubby so much-- After I saw the pic he took of me I almost had a panic attack, crying because I can't believe how big I am. You know how the picture in your head is never really what other people think? Yeah...I did not picture myself like this! I was feeling down about myself and Joel's encouragement and soothing words were not helping, so because he is the best guy in the world he told me to take a picture of him and his "pregnant belly". After his picture I was laughing so hard I almost forgot how huge I am.



Man I love that guy!!!

I go to the doctor every Monday and Thursday for them to check my blood pressure and the baby. Last two visits were very good, and my blood pressure seems to be under control. Now we are just waiting for them to tell me when we actually get to meet our little girl. Usually a repeat c-section is scheduled and the parents know exactly when the baby will be born, but we do not get that. From here on out any doctor trip could mean they say "Today's the day!!". I have had my bag packed and in the car for about a month now, so we are ready! We just look forward to meeting her and continue to pray that everything will go well.

Easter

We had a pretty low-key but nice Easter. First Jackson woke up to find what the Easter Bunny had left him.
(Sorry about the sideways pics)



Then we ate breakfast...



Then we dyed eggs since we hadn't done it before...
We were gonna "hide" them and let Jackson find them but he wasn't really interested and I really wanted some egg salad, so we basically dyed them just so we could say that we did.



Then we enjoyed conference, naps, and had Easter dinner with Joel's family.

Like I said, low key, but nice. I always love spending time with my family.

Playin in the leaves

These pictures are a couple of months old but I just love them. When we were driving home from my grandma's house after Thanksgiving we stopped every couple of hours to let Jackson get out and stretch his legs. At one random place we found a little field that had tons of leaf piles. Jackson had so much fun playing in them and collecting leaves. It made me a little sad that we don't have real "seasons" in Southern Cali. But hey we do have Disneyland!

Baby Girl!!!!

Well after TWO ultrasounds (wanted to make sure this time) we are confident that we are having a little girl! (But we are still keeping the recipts just in case). We are so excited for her to be here soon. Her closet is already filling up and we were able to find a bedding set that matches the yellow room, that I used to use as my sewing room, so that we don't have to paint. All of my junk has now been added to Joel's junk in the office and we reorganized the garage to make room. It amzes me how much room we have in this litle house if we just stay organized.
Still haven't decided on a name. Our list has gone from about 14 options down to 7 though so we're on our way!

Shy Baby

Still don't know what we're having. Uncooperative baby. :( Luckily I found out about a place where students training to be ultrasound technicians will do an ultrasound for free. You can bet I am making an appointment first thing Monday morning. I am too much of a planner to wait until the birthday!!

Jackson and Great-Grandma

My grandma is 92 years old. With both mom and dad gone I look forward to seeing her every Thanksgiving. Nothing has changed at her house since I was a little girl and it feels like home. Last year we were not able to go up since it was right after Jackson was born but I was so excited to take him up this year and for him to meet his great-grandma and have some authentic Italian cooking. (Yep, she still cooks) Grandma is really amazing. She is in excellent health for her age. She still gets out and works in her yard, goes to the store, and takes care of her house. She finally gave up her driving license at 90 because "90 is too old to be driving, and the gas is too expensive." I laughed so hard when she told me that. I never knew there was such a big difference from when you are 89 to the day you turn 90.
I tell her all the time that she is my hero and that if I live to be that old that I can only hope I get around as good as her.

Jackson was excited to show her his toy bag.



"Look at this one Grandma... it plays music!"



Grandma love :)


Jackson got the "Grandma approval" She said he was a good boy.

Catch Up Blog

OK, OK!! After getting an earful from many of you I decided it was probably time to update my blog. SO here goes.

I got a little ambitious and decided to make Jackson's halloween costume. I thought it might save me some money and I couldn't find anything I liked in the stores. Well, it cost me more than if I would have just bought one and of course I procrastinated and was sewing the night before halloween. I think it may be the first and last costume I ever make.
But he does look pretty cute!!

Here's a couple of pictures of Jackson's actual 1st birthday dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes and carrots. YUM!

A couple of weeks later we had a little party for Jackson. Here he is eating his lunch.

Opening presents...

Can you say SPOILED!! (but worth every penny :)

I know what you're thinking..."Wow, Darci you made a great cake!!" Nope its from Costco.

Who gets cake in their ear?? Really!!

I promise I will do my best to keep this up better. OH, and in case you haven't heard...Joel and I are expecting #2!! I am due at the end of April and I have my ultrasound next Friday to find out the gender. So stay tuned!!!

Time to babyproof!!

You can imagine my surprise when I walked out into the living room and found this!! Now he is pulling himself up on anything and everything that he can get his hands on. (Even unsteady things which has resulted in a few tears and bumps) This kid is a mover! Once he started crawling he started chasing the cat around the house, he is walking along the furniture, and I don't think it will be too much longer before he is walking by himself! As you can see he is pretty proud of himself! Not bad for my little preemie guy!

Summertime=Swimming!!

Even though we don't have a pool we didn't want Jackson to be deprived of his first summer swimming experience. So we got him a little blow up pool. I think he thinks that he is taking a bath outside, but he seems to like it. Plus it gives me an excuse to get outside and try to get a little tan!

Such a good year!

Most people find out I teach 8th grade and have the same sort of reaction. "Oh, you are brave" or "How do you handle those kids?" or something to that effect. Before I started teaching I would have thought that I would have been scared of them myself, but I love my job! This year that just past has been my favorite so far. It went super fast, especially since I was gone for a third of it with Jackson's birth, and I had the greatest kids. I absoluetly LOVED my homeroom class this year. They were such a fun group of young men and young women and I really got to know each and every one of them. They are smart, respectful, (I never had any major discpline problems with them) and they were fun to teach. They even would get excited about the things they were learning. A teacher's dream come true!
The last couple of weeks of the school year were so fun. We have tons of special 8th grade promoting activities and it is fun to watch the kids be kids. Sometimes I have to remind myself that they are really just children in almost grown up bodies but being with them at Disneyland and playing games with them proves just that. I will really miss this group of kids and I hope that my class next year will be just as great.

Aren't they cute! This was right before the promotion ceremony in case you are wondering why they are dressed up.

Besides hoping to get another great class, I am excited about next year for another reason. I will working part time, 3 days a week, so that I can stay home with Jackson a little more. I think it will be a really good balance for me.

by the way- I'm not sure about the legalites of putting minor's pictures on the web. If somebody knows that its a problem please let me know. I don't want to get in trouble I just wanted to show off my awesome class.

Dodger Game

I know it has been a long time since my last post. Life has just gotten very busy.
Last weekend we took Jackson to his first baseball game. I don't know who thought this would be a good idea. It started at 7 and he starts to get ready for bed at 8, applause scares him, and he hates to be confined to sitting in your lap. But we went anyway!!! We only lasted until the 4th inning and even then we were up and down with him the whole time. Despite all of that I was super excited to see him wear his hat and carry his glove. He loves the taste of leather apparently!
We kept trying to get him on the jumbo-tron but were unsuccessful. Maybe next time if we stay for the whole game we'll get him on.

Easter Eggs

I know he's a little young but we didn't want Jackson to miss out on his first Easter dying Easter Eggs. I think he enjoyed himself. He was definitely interested in what he and daddy were doing!

1st Picture Session

We took Jackson to get pictures taken this week. I wasn't quite sure how he would do but he was such a ham! He was giggling and flirting with the girl taking the pictures. It was so much fun, and so hard to decide which ones to buy. Here are just a few of my favorites.

Reading

On Jackson's 5 month birthday (I can't beleive its already been 5 months) he was enjoying his book of colors. (With 2 teachers for parents we want to start reading early!)

Here he is enjoying green.

Jackson: "Wow, this is a great book, green is so interesting!"

"Frogs are green...okay..."

"I wonder what is on the next page!"

"YELLOW!! I DON"T LIKE YELLOW!!"

I guess for now we'll stick to green!

Bath Time!

A couple of months ago Jackson would scream and scream until his bath was over. As you can see he now very much enjoys his bath time. I think he would stay in the water and splash all night long if we let him. I always think he looks so cute in his towel.